| DISVELOPMENT: A NEW DEFINTION R. Gary Dean Creighton University Joel C. Snell Kirkwood College Introduction: The authors would like to introduce a new word. It is disvelopment. It means that a nation or business or organization is in a downward spiral, just the reverse of development. We acknowledge there are other words, but we believe this is the most parsimonious. We will try to apply this term to the United States as a valid actuality. Application: We will use a series of social indicators that would support the disvelopment of the United States.It illustrates and applies the term and uses a real world example. Human Development Index (United Nations, 2006). It is a measure of such phenomena as “life expectancy at birth” “ “adult literacy,” “school enrollment,” “GDP per capita,” and related measures. America has gone from 2nd (1990) to 12th (2005). In the 1970’s (Dean, 2008) refurbishing the infrastructure of the USA encouraged a 20% return in the first year. Today, little has been done and abuse and congestion of infrastructure, increased losses in shipping and transportation, cost 78 billion. Although the United States has the most expensive health care system, it ranks 37th in its ability to deliver medical goods and services. (World Health Organization, 07:2.) Education. We continue to drop in generating the teachers, curriculum, and teaching strategies that appeared to work in the past toward excellence among nations. Forty percent of PhD’s in the hard sciences are foreign born. (National Center on Education and the Economy.) .Debt. According to the GAAP, our national debt has grown from some 32 trillion to 50 trillion in just 3 years (Dean, 2008:3/23) (http://wikipedia.org/wiki/GAPP). Discussion: With a series of measures (there are others that are in concert with the above) that compare past and present along with other countries disvelopment or a downward spiral appears to be emerging. We need to accept or acknowledge the problems and act. This means to bring together both the capitalist and public sector to improve our country and make it competitive. It calls for bottoms up and bi-partisan support. It will probably off- put both Academia and Wall Street, but the tools are there and other countries are using them. It will be a decidedly up-hill battle. Conclusion: This article introduces a new term that is clear, simple, and comprehensive. It is disvelopment and it is briefly the opposite of development and more like a downward spiral. However, the term is meant to be serious and involves the lives of millions if not billions of people. Nor is it a euphemism. Downward trends in the above categories and others have a ripple effect and can impact all of us in varying degrees. References Cited Dean, R. G. (2008:3/23) .‘Disvelopment’ now engulfing the USA’ Valley Morning Star, 22 National Center on Education and the Economy. (2005).www.nce.org/index.jsp;jsessionid=aeZ%%.wRZVL_?setProtocal=true United Nations. (2006). www.infoplease.com/ipa/AD778562. html http:wikipedia.org/wiki/GAAP World Health Organization .(2007:2). www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks/ html |
