Limits To Development
The concept of inherent limits to development arose mainly because development in the past was determined largely by the availability of physical resources. Humanity itself relied more on muscle-power than thought-power to accomplish work. That is no longer the case. Today mental resources are the primary determinant of development. Where people drove a simple bullock cart, they now design ships and aircraft that carry huge loads across immense distances. Humanity has tamed rivers, cleared jungles and even turned arid desert lands into cultivable lands through irrigation. By using intelligence society has turned sand into powerful silicon chips that carry huge amounts of information and form the basis of computers. Since there is no inherent limit to the expansion of society's mental resources, the notion of limits to growth cannot be ultimately binding.
Read more about this topic: Social Development Theory
Famous quotes containing the words limits to, limits and/or development:
“... there are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
—H.A.L. (Herbert Albert Laurens)