Introduction

Abstract

The world in which we live can be viewed and judged in different ways, depending on our values and interests. This book is an attempt to view the problem of development from the standpoint and concerns of the poor in the Third World. That approach introduces a methodological question which must be answered: the author’s attitude to his subject. Such themes as poverty and misery and opposition to them can be treated in a neutral, detached manner, but that is not my way. I shall not try to sham objectivity, but shall deliberately present the case of the poor; I shall take sides.