The propositions implicit in the Washington Consensus can be stated as follows: development is assimilated to limitless economic growth; the goal of social progress is reduced to a mere “trickle-down” effect; the widest possible engagement in international trade is seen as the fundamental prerequisite for development; the role of the state is subordinate to that of the market; in short, there exists, or so it is maintained, one single model of rational development. This paper is devoted to a preliminary discussion of the first of the above principles. It seeks first to show the extent to which growth is indeed the centre-piece of development strategies, setting out the arguments traditionally advanced in favour of its preeminence, with its concomitant requirement for limitless expansion of commodity output. However, growth on this scale clearly seems not to be sustainable in the longer term-hence the need to rethink where economic growth fits into long-term development aims and strategies and to take fuller account of the arguments, of an economic, social, and ecological nature, being put forward against this view of growth as limitless.
