ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT VERSUS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The paper put in antithesis, theoretically, two models of development and evolution of mankind, namely, economic development based on consumption of the exhaustible resources and pollution and on the other hand the development based on the concepts of sustainable development, involving a new mentality on human life and environment. Economic development includes economic growth, quantified in particular through the GDP, aspect that leads to a reduced analysis taking into account a limited number of variables such as household income, employment labour, consumption of goods and services, etc.. Perpetuation of this model has led, over time, to the company's inability to solve the problems facing mankind today and serious discrepancies regarding current levels of human development. This type of model does not take into account variables such as unemployment, poverty, education, health, environmental pollution, population migration, urban overcrowding, social inclusion etc. At the opposite side of this type of development, which proves to be beyond the crowd problems currently facing humanity, is a new alternative model, that of sustainable development, which provides an integrated view of all these variables and hence the chance of the human society to a new level of evolution. The sustainable development model of mankind put, among others, the zero growth issue or even sustained decrease for some countries. This model requires also reducing resource consumption and increase sustainability of assets created. It also offers practical solutions to many current problems of mankind, among which we can mention providing food for a growing world population and producing clean alternative energy.

economic growth, economic development, sustainable development, zero growth, sustained decrease, vicious circle of underdevelopment