Terminology
Though the use of the term "development" is usually confined to economic progress, in reality the term applies to political, social and technological progress as well. All these various sectors of society are so intertwined that it is difficult to neatly separate them. Development in all these sectors is governed by the same principles and laws and therefore the term can be applied uniformly to all these fields.
Economic development and human development need not mean the same thing. Strategies and policies aimed at greater growth may bring greater income to a country without bringing about an improvement in the living standards of the population. This is what happened in the case of oil-producing Middle Eastern countries where a surge in oil prices boosted the national income of these countries without much benefit to the poorer sections of the people living there. Conversely people-oriented programs and policies can bring about an improvement in their health, education, living standards and other quality-of-life measures without any special emphasis on monetary growth. This has been observed in the 30 years of socialist and communist rule in Kerala in India.
A distinction needs to be made between four closely related terms and phenomena that form successive steps in a graded series: survival, growth, development and evolution. Survival refers to a subsistence way of life without any marked qualitative changes in living standards. Growth refers to horizontal expansion in the existing plane characterized by quantitative expansion such as a farmer increasing the area under cultivation and a retail businessman opening more retail outlets. Development refers to a vertical shift in the level of operations that brings about a qualitative change such as a retailer turning into a manufacturer and an elementary school turning into a high school.lmjinnkn
Read more about this topic: Social Development Theory