‘Poverty and Progress’ Revisited

The title of this essay derives from the fact that it is primarily an exposition of ideas which are either explicit or immanent in R. G. Wilkinson’s Poverty and Progress (1973). The ideas concern an environmental approach to the understanding of the historical experience of economic development in its broad outlines. They do not appear to be widely known among economists, even among those who, as Richard Lecomber did, work on resource and environmental issues.1 I think this is a regrettable situation, and this volume in memory of Richard seems an eminently suitable context in which to attempt to remedy it. While the ‘growth versus the environment’ controversy has abated somewhat in the 1980s, there remain those, including some economists, who argue for a fundamental break with past patterns of economic development. While Richard Lecomber was keenly aware of the environmental and other costs associated with growth, he was not a member of the zero growth persuasion.2 I think that such agnosticism is the appropriate response to our current state of understanding regarding the fluid relationships between economic activity, environmental conditions and human welfare.