There's no doubt that we have a a broader vision of what development is and I think it becomes a more ethical vision as well. uh development means an improvement in the [music] quality of life in human well-being and now we understand that that means not only a rise of the gross domestic product per person but it means better social relations development is also development of the person right it's development of the dignity of the person development of the freedoms the different freedoms of of of the people okay uh freedom to act freedom to be associated with others to be entrepreneur to do a good number of things that uh are important. >> Human development requires more things than just a material prosperity.
It requires education, health and also a harmonic development of all human potentialities. In the beginning of the discussions of of development after World War II, uh the focus was uh mostly on uh development projects. Uh the view was that >> [music] >> uh what separated developing uh from developed countries was a lack of [music] physical resources.
And so there's uh been a quest over the last 80 years to understand better how do you close the gap. So at the beginning it was more centered just on economic growth [music] but over the last decades we have seen like a broadening a widening of the concept and now we integrate into that concept also issues such as education [music] um capabilities of people health >> said in simple ways we have passed from an understanding of development as producing more to an understanding of development as [music] uh living better lives. Now we have [music] reformulated the development agenda as one of [music] a human centric where uh the well-being of individuals that were concerned about it.
Uh but we have to ask [music] about that how do we do that in a sustainable way. So people have come to the realization that you know economic growth is really to [music] be sustainable. Economic growth be sustainable is not merely about economic [music] growth.
It has to be something that is critical something that is integral uh something that is respectful respectful of people and uh the goods of the earth. The idea of sustainable development is not possible without economic growth. So the role of public policy is to promote economic growth and making sure that the gains of economic growth are fairly distributed.
In practical terms, human flourishing means meeting economic, social, and environmental conditions [music] and needs in a context of peace. We need to move to a circular economy so that [music] instead of toxic wastes just spread in the environment, we have industrial ecological processes where industry is taking care to have less waste and to reuse. In other words, we need to re-engineer the economic system in many many crucial sectors.
[music] >> I think uh solidarity should be a key pillar in our economy. the fact that there are other people with less less income, less [music] opportunities. I think public policy plays a big role there.
And then subsidiarity. I think you know persons, companies, [music] families. I think they're very important institutions, you know, in the economies and they create wealth in many ways.
And I think it's very important that the [music] state you know lets them you know provide for all those opportunities. >> If we don't have institutions that begin by protecting and defending the individual whoever they may be wherever they may be um then you begin to find frictions and and and [music] and dislocations in getting sort of the optimal outcome. harmonic view [music] of life.
Time for rest, time for work, time for leisure, especially with others. As a society, and that's also part of human development. As a society, we need to rediscover the balance between meaningful work and meaningful leisure.
And those things are connected. This is a challenge that should engage the whole world for shared benefits and indeed as the United Nations says to [music] bring everyone together and leave no one behind. So this is first a matter of commitment to the common good.
It's a matter of commitment to proper ethics, to proper virtuous behavior. All of those areas when joined together give us this framework for making the system transformations that are going to make our lives better and that are going to create the kind of future that we want for our children and grandchildren. >> Are we building individual societies or are we building a collective and whether we but but the collective only becomes excellent because there is a search for individual excellence within the society.
the individual that is virtuous and then the society is virtuous. If the individual is excellent, the [music] society is excellent and we do need to build those and marry those together in a way that at some point becomes communal excellence [music] and a communal search for for um for the common good. traits like honesty, inquisitiveness, other regarding that you care about others, you respect others and uh those traits are not only of intrinsic value, at least in my judgment, but also [music] interestingly help make for a better functioning society.
Only when you bring people together that you can bring together [music] all the relevant information. >> You need an ethical approach to work. You we have to realize as a society that work is not just a a [music] source of productivity which is of course but also is a source of human dignity.
It's human beings who give dignity to their work. The motivation that is provided by people participating in their decisions changes behavior, [music] gives them a sense of ownership, a sense of commitment that affects how how hard they work. Technology has improved so dramatically.
For example, everyone knows about digital and AI technologies that we have new tools of tremendous uh efficiency if we choose to deploy them in the right areas. We can [music] do better in agriculture, better in healthcare, better in education, even in the poorest [music] places in the world. In my recent work, my recent research has brought me into contact with a lot of um [music] AI engineers who um are essentially some of them completely open about the fact that they are um aiming to disrupt and often automate human work.
And uh while I've been very critical of work as a religion, hearing them has made me start to understand why why and how I think work actually has a place in an ethical life, [music] which is of course what people say. But I was so busy over here criti criticizing the um kind of extremity [music] of work's dominance in American identity that I forgot or I wasn't wasn't paying attention to what happens when work disappears. >> The humans have the intelligence to adapt and I don't think that technological progress is incompatible with human dignity.
>> There are different forms of capital. The most common uh uh popular uh uh form of capital is economic capital [music] you know physical plant capital equipment. So that's the most common uh but there is also human capital as had been uh discussed earlier [music] and then in sociology there's social capital where social capital also takes into account culture knowledge and then I would propose that there's also intellectual capital.
>> [music] >> the human being that you're uh developing has these multiple dimensions and that [music] it won't feel like real development to people if you don't honor the multiple dimensions of our humanity and art is a great example of that. I feel like art happens [music] everywhere is it is the human um kind of mandate [music] to express themselves through art. >> We have to be very hopeful because of course we have now a more holistic and broader idea of development.
However, we are living under changing circumstances and it's urgent. We need to adapt our understanding of development to the realities today which are changing. >> The idea of hope is the determination to help make good things happen.
Uh [music] it's the belief that yes, it's possible to improve human well-being but not that it's some automatic process or roll of the dice. We need that shared ethical [music] commitment. We need the practical planning.
We need the science-based approaches. But if we do our work, then there is good reason to believe that we [music] can make success. That's the basis of hope.
>> Nobody said that hope was easy and nobody said that hope was a straight line. We are in this moment where we need to destroy something. But nobody allows you to just destroy them, right?
They will have [music] to fight. >> In order to work, you need hope. But at the same time [music] if you have hope you can work h for the future.
