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The growth may ultimately depend on the optimum mix of such elements, which is likely to be different at different stages of development.'
In the Asian region the development planners have been presenting the problem of the relationship between economic and social objectives of planning as a question of the relationship between economic growth and social justice. Thus, for instance, the UN Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East for 1970 states that "a major policy issue which confronts the developing ECAFE countries in acute form in the Second Development Decade is how to bring about a better combination of economic growth and social justice. In this context, it is necessary to examine whether there is any inherent incompatibility between a faster rate of economic growth and greater sccial justice, and also the question as to why economic growth in the First Development Decade was not accompanied by a substantial increase in social welfare. There is a school of thought in developing countries which feels that an increase in inequalities before the stage of take-off is inevitable if the aim is to accelerate the rate of economic growth. It also advocates concentration of investment on production sectors and only peripheral attention to social sectors."2
However, in view of the experience of the Asian countries with the first development plans, this doctrine no longer prevails and more subtle ways of defining this relationship are sought, no doubt under the impact of the new policy cf integrated socio-economic planning. This view is best illustrated in an article published in September 1972 in the "Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Far East" under the title "Examination of Policy Measures that Contribute to Equity and Social Justice without Substantial Sacrifice of Economic Growth". The author notes that "there are views, as well as actual policies pursued, based on the proposition that implementation of social goals interferes with the achievement of a high rate of economic growth. This is undoubtedly a crucial issue and the one in which absolute principles valid for every situation and every policy should rather not be formulated. We must reject, therefore, a priori, arguments on an inherent contradictory nature of these goals but also cn their natural, full consistency and conformity. There are strong reasons, however, to assert that the economic objectives can be integrated with the social ones to an important extent, that both of them can be mutually supporting, thus generating a feedback very favourable for the over-all development process" (p. 33). The author further considers that "the patterns of social justice most favourable for economic progress are those which conform to social justice for the broad masses of the society" (p. 36) and expresses his belief that it
is only on that premise that a positive feedback between the social objectives and economic growth can be installed and lead towards accelerated socio-economic progress. We shall note that the three main elements of this concept of social justice are: equality of opportunities, just distribution of incomes and social security.
It need not be stressed that whatever may be said about the relative importance of social and economic aspects of development in an industrialised society will not necessarily be true when applied to a low-income country. We would insist, nevertheless, that while in a developing country the factors affecting economic growth have an incomparably greater importance than in an industrialised country, it would be risky to confuse purposes of different societal institutions and use those which have been devised to deal with social aspects of development for predominantly economic purposes or predominantly economic institutions for social purposes. Social security, hence, should remain an instrument for attaining the
1 This observation is supported by some recent studies of the UN Research Institute for Social Development:
Social and economic factors seem to advance together in a system. If higher social levels appear together with higher economic levels, this can be due to the influence of the social on the economic, ΟΙ of the economic on the social, or of third factors (e.g. political determination to develop) on both, or of various combinations of such influences; furthermore, the influences may be mediated through diverse kinds of causality ranging from the direct effects on economic productivity of better health and education or the direct purchase of better health and education through more income, to the effects of violence and riots in forcing redistribution and readjustments between economic and social factors." (UNRISD: "Contents and Measurement of Socio-Economic Develop- ment", Geneva, 1970, p. 159).
2 See ECAFE: Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East 1970, p. 117. Cf. also Economic Survey of
_of_Asig and the Far East 1971, Chapter 1, entitled "Economic Growth and Social Justice".
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