Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark: How Development Has Disappeared from Today's 'development' Discourse Forthcoming (2010) In

1. Introduction The definition of 'development' has always been a contentious issue. Income level is of course one of the most widely accepted single measure of development, but most people would agree that development is something more than providing higher material standards of living. The most well known in this respect is the UNDP's human development index (HDI) and its variations, which try to incorporate non-income dimensions of human welfare, such as education, health, and gender equality. HDI and similar measures of development (e.g., the physical quality of life index – a 1970s predecessor of HDI) are saying that our lives are not simply fulfilled by having more material goods but need self-realization and dignity. The 'humanistic' dimension of development emphasized by these indicators is absolutely essential in making us remember that material progress is only the means and not the end of development. However, there is another dimension that used to be central to the definition of development in the early days of development economics but has become increasingly forgotten. It is the 'production' side of development. Before the rise of neo-liberalism since the late 1970s, there was a general consensus that development is largely about the transformation of the productive structure (and the capabilities that support it) and the resulting transformation of social structure – urbanization, 1 I would like to thank Shahrukh Khan for his help in conceptualizing the paper. I would like to thank Solava Ibrahim and Luba Fakhrutdinova for their able research assistants. Milford Bateman and Philipp Lepenies made helpful comments on the first draft of the paper. I also benefited from the participants at the Mount Holyoke conference, Cambridge History of Economic Thought seminar at Clare Hall, and the Monday discussion group of my research students.