Hu Jianmiao   Liu Dongliang
China

I. Scientific Outlook on Development: Shifting the Focus of Development Back to "Human Beings"
Development is the eternal focus for human society and the theme universally concerned by the contemporary world. Social development of any kind should be dominated by some certain outlooks on development. An outlook on development is the general view and fundamental opinion of the substance, goal, connotation and requirement of development, as well as the reflection and indication of the demands of economic and social development on the ideological layer. Just like the fact that the revolutionary practices need guidance from the revolutionary theories, the outlooks on development also play the role of guidance, leading for social development. Only with the correct development ideologies and development strategies can the society develop rapidly and healthily. In this sense, what kind of outlook on development should be established is of great importance to any societies.

Viewing from the development course of human society, we can basically divide the ideologies on development into two major types and phases: traditional outlooks on development and contemporary outlook on development.

Before the 20th century, though many people constantly publish their sporadic opinions and views on development, their views are far from being systematic and comprehensive. It is commonly believed that the systematic and theoretical outlooks on development could date back to 1940s. After the World War II, development became the common tasks for nearly all the countries, especially the vast majority of developing countries. The systematic and theoretical views and opinions on development also emerged, giving birth to clear outlook on development, namely, the traditional development outlook in early stage. According to traditional development outlook, development means industrialization, economic growth and the increase of gross national product (GNP). It makes GNP and its per-capita amount the important, and even the sole standard to evaluate the economic and social development of a country or a region. We should admit that the traditional development outlook has indeed greatly pushed forward the material wealth accumulation of human society and has brought a large number of western countries into the row of developed countries. However, many social and political difficulties such as the increasingly larger rich-poor gap, deterioration of economic structure, exhaustion of natural resources and serious damages to the ecological environment also emerged together with economic growth. All these difficulties reflect the serious limitation of the traditional development mode. In 1972, the renowned futurist organization, Club of Rome issued its research report the Limits of Growth, ringing the alert bell for the traditional development outlook of the human society. The report points out that owing to the limitation of the earth, there are limits to growth, and if we do not change our traditional development outlook, namely the concept of "human conquering the nature" initiated by the economic growth mode after the industrial revolution, the consequence may put human beings and the nature into sharp contradictions and human beings may be constantly retaliated against by the nature. Actually, the traditional industrialization mode has led to population explosion, resource shortage, environment pollution and damages to ecology, putting human society in a greatly difficult position.