“a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While the first three points dealing with domestic policy were quickly forgotten, Point Four caught the interest of many Americans as had the earlier Marshall Plan for Europe.\u00a0 For some Americans, Point Four as the idea was called had an anti-Russian coloring.\u00a0 U.S. technology to raise the standard of living of poor countries would prevent them “from going communist”.\u00a0 For others, such as Stringfellow Barr, the effort of raising the standard of living of the poor was a good thing in itself, and it should not be the task of the U.S.A. alone.<\/p>\n
Barr\u00a0 wrote,<\/p>\n
\u00a0“The people of the world are alone able to take on what is the main economic problem of every single national group – the problem of rebuilding their common world economy.\u00a0 They can hope to do it only by the massive use of public funds.\u00a0 America cannot do it for them… The nearest thing to a suitable agency that already exists is the United Nations.\u00a0 And the United Nations is the nearest thing that exists only because the people of the world lack a common government.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Barr called for the United Nations to create a World Development Authority<\/p>\n
“calling in all neighbors from the Mighty Neighborhood.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He developed the idea in a full-length book in 1952 Citizens of the World <\/em>(2)\u00a0 He places the emphasis on hunger which at the time was the public face of underdevelopment.<\/p>\n
Robert Brittain’s Let There Be Bread <\/em>and Josu\u00e9 de Castro’s The Geography of Hunger were among the most widely-read books by people interested in development at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n
Today we have a broader view of what development requires, however food and rural development remain critical issues.\u00a0 The efforts of the United Nations system for development are not integrated into a World Development Authority.\u00a0 There are repeated calls for greater coordination and planning within the U.N. system. The 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals are an effort to provide an over-all vision, but common action remains difficult.<\/p>\n
As Barr pointed out at the time, most of the proposals to improve the U.N. have focused their attention on the elimination of war, obviously important in the 1950s when war between the USSR and the USA was a real possibility, highlighted by the 1950-1953 Korean War.\u00a0 However, world citizens have tried to look at the total picture of the social, political and economic life of all the people of the world.\u00a0 Today the focus of citizens of the world is more on the need for world-focused attitudes and policies rather than on new political structures.\u00a0 Yet the vision of Stringfellow Barr remains important as we highlight his birth anniversary.<\/p>\n
NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n
1) Stringfellow Barr.Let’s Join the Human Race<\/em> (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950, 36pp.)<\/p>\n
2) Stringfellow Barr. Citizens of the World <\/em>(New York: Doubleday and Company, 1952, 285pp)<\/p>\n
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