Cabo Verde is not a rich country. To have an idea, the minimum wage is €130 a month and a meal in a restaurant costs around €10. The IMF classifies Cabo Verde as a developing country.
Development has long ceased to be defined in exclusively economic terms. In 1990, a “human development index” was introduced, and other indicators have followed. Yet, there is one dimension still missing from all international comparisons: the moral development of a society. On this dimension, Cabo Verde seems to be among the most advanced. Here’s why.
First, when you lose money on the street, if there are people who pursue you to return the sum (which is worth, for them, three days’ work paid at the minimum wage) they are admirably honest people. Second, when the price of a good or service (such as transportation) is well known, people who offer it for free to others are rather generous. Third, public transport users and drivers who organize to leave a small package for someone on the other side of the mountain are particularly helpful.
These three social virtues – honesty, generosity and a helping heart – seem to indicate a high level of moral development. I had a similar feeling when I discovered, on arriving in France, that I could trust that I would be given the correct change at every purchase. But after 25 years in a “developed country”, I confess to being now astonished by individual generosity: is this possible between strangers and without recompense? Other Europeans living in Cabo Verde have told me that they were equally surprised at first (and wondered what the return should be). Perhaps, we don’t live in the most morally developed countries.
My proposal is then to integrate moral development amongst development indicators. At a time when populists claim that the people is innocent and the elite corrupt, why not measure which people is the most generous in the world? We could measure the perceived moral development, as is also done for the perceived corruption indicator (albeit by a combined indicator). Using a questionnaire, we could estimate the number and quality of acts of generosity that people have performed in a given country, and the ones they have benefited from, over the same period.
As generosity is contagious, this development would surely be the most “sustainable”.
São Pedro International Airport Cesaria Evora
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Matt 12.30.24 at 11:18 am
It’s an interesting idea. One potential complication is that there are places (maybe many) where people will be very generous and helpful to “friends”, and at best indifferent to, and often predetory towards, “others”. No doubt this is defined in different ways in different places. In my experience, you can become a “friend” quiet quickly – you just need to be taken inside the circle – but those outside the circle can be fair game for all sorts of ill-treatment. And sometimes those in such societies see themselves as generous and helpful, and, perhaps especially important, devoted to the idea of and importance of, friendship. So, it may be hard to get clear pictures of the situation in some places, perhaps especially from first-person reports.
engels 12.30.24 at 11:43 am
It would interesting to try to measure this but calling it “development” seems to imply it’s a progressive phenomenon, which seems… doubtful.
AmberCat 12.30.24 at 2:02 pm
What is the usefulness of a “development” index? Shouldn’t the “Doing Business” scandal at the World Bank give us pause — they seem to be just another vehicle for corruption and manipulation. Seems like angels on the head of pins to me . . .
some lurker 12.30.24 at 3:50 pm
Wasn’t this kind of mutual trust/honesty the heart of the argument made by The Spirit Level, that inequality has a corrosive effect on trust and how people treat each other? What countries that are not classed as “developing” offer the same level trust and cooperation?