Reinventing development: Utopias devised by committees and seeds of change in the real world

International normative declarations on development combine two types of demands that derive from different views of human societies and their future. One type envisages equality for Third World countries within a reformed world order retaining sources of dynamism not very different from the present. The other type of demand, for another development, envisages equality for hum and beings within a world order governed by radically different social relationships, values and incentives. The mixing of these two types of demands, and the failure to make explicit their different theoretical and evaporative premises, while unavoidable in international forums seeking consensus, weakens the convincingness of the declaration either as packages of demands negotiable between governments or as mobilizing myths seeking to replace the waning myth of economic development.