ABSTRACT
Policies intended to accomplish specific goals, or assist particular activities, almost invariably have side-effects on other sectors, many of which can be quite detrimental. The history of rural development is littered with examples of policies originally designed to assist all sections of the rural communities, or even to focus benefits particularly on lower income strata, but which in practice resulted in concentrating income gains toward the rich. Much of the "community development" strategies of the 1950s and early 1960s, for example, were premised on the idea of an economically homogeneous countryside, or in effect a classless peasantry. Bettering the lot of the rural poor was predicated upon providing them with adequate purchasing power, and this meant generating employment. A number of government policies were devised to accomplish this, both short- and long-term. The "Green Revolution" of the late 1960s and early 1970s offers a good illustration. Demand for labor, accordingly, did go up with the Green Revolution.
