‘Only the rich can have a good life’—;this is the daunting message that has been drummed into the ears of all mankind during the last half-century or so. It is the implicit doctrine of ‘development’, wherein the growth of income serves as the very criterion of progress. Everyone, it is held, has not only the right but the duty to become rich, and this applies to societies even more stringently than to individuals. The most succinct and most relevant indicator of a country’s status in the world is thought to be average income per head, while the prime object of admiration is not the level already attained but the current rate of growth.