Reflecting on the philosophical assumptions that sustain the development debate, Rabbani analyzes how the modern project of development and the antidevelopment discourse reduce the human condition to a struggle for self-preservation and, likewise, social and international cooperation to a strategic and self-defeating process. The book centers on core inconsistencies in the rationale of both discourses as they stand for individual autonomy, collective self-determination and mutual respect. Building these social goals around the requirement of 'non-interference' in individual or collective affairs, neither discourse can practically enhance nor coherently sustain respect to people's freedom and diversity.