Affiliations: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A.
Abstract: Obstructions to development can be viewed as malfunctioning in anyone of the five dimensions of the social system. Scarcity, maldistribution and insecurity in anyone of the five social functions, that is, scientific, political, economic, ethical, and aesthetic are considered to be primary obstructions. Corruption, alienation, polarization and so on are among the social phenomena that represent secondary obstructions to development. Secondary obstructions are coproduced by the interaction of more than one dimension. Therefore, their resolution requires some kind of structural change. To understand the obstructions to the development of a social system we will deal with the structures and processes which help or limit the creation of collective desire and ability in a social system for the pursuit of its ends.
