Development, sustainability and social metabolism: polysemy, contradictions and alternatives

Abstract

Abstract: The concept of development has had, since the beginning of its promotion, dissemination and implementation, several interpretations and intentions, as it contains one signifier but several meanings. The era of development can begin to be analyzed after the Second World War until our days, and therefore observe that in the drawing of this historical line the term has had different connotations. The concept in the fifties was used in the need to rebuild a world in ruins in which modernization and economic growth were its main objectives. Later, in the sixties and seventies, new critical perspectives appeared, especially in the countries that did not benefit from this type of development. Finally, faced with the depletion of natural assets and the environmental crisis, the concept of sustainable development arises inaugurating the possibility of thinking and resignify alternative modes of development. The objective of this article is to analyze bibliographically and critically the origins of the term, its contradictions and discuss, at the end, the main alternatives that are propose nowadays in order to generate a further contribution to the exploration of this polysemic concept, development.