The Human Development Report (HDR) 1998 is different. It shows how growth has bypassed the bottom deciles of the people in the industrialised countries, led by the United States. If the rich countries now develop public policyto cope with deprivation in their societies, there is a fair chance that developing countries like India will take a second look at public policy, and redefine the goals of growth and development. The shortage of resources is not the problem in India, but the pattern of their deployment is. The 1998 HDR also shows the environmental damage caused by the pursuit of consumerist growth, and calls for a rethink on provisioning of public goods. Environment damage is not just about the discomforts of high growth; more fundamentally, it is about resource depletion -- of air, water, river, forest, land: this hits the poor below the belt, especially in the developing countries. So, if the rich countries take HDR 1998 seriously, their policies -- including publicly funded research in new technologies -- will be mimicked in the developing countries.

In both rich and poor societies, GDP growth is measured, but not the depletion of natural resources and the human suffering caused by income inequality. Net of the latter,GDP growth will be seen to be marginal, but this fact is obfuscated by dazzling consumerist expansion. HDR 1998 points out that the annual cost (production loss) of environmental degradation as a proportion of GDP was at least 3.8 per cent in China and 3.3 per cent in Pakistan. If a like proportion is assumed for India, its annual GDP growth -- net of such cost -- would work out to just 2 per cent. The cost is paid for by the poor, through deprivation, while the those who drive policy expand the American dream. The political economy of growth goes against the poor.