‘I’ve never done speed dating before’ says Michael Redclift, Professor of International Environmental Policy at Kings College, ‘but I think I’m getting to like it’, he continues a little unconvincingly. As an academic, he’s probably used to pondering on a subject at rather more length without interruption.

Here at the Institute of Ideas’ Battle for Progress debate, one of six Adventures in Conversation at the 2008 LIFT festival, Redclift looks a little dazed as the discussion flits from one aspect of the topic to another and back and forth between speaker and audience, interrupted every so often by Claire Fox, the chair and director of the Institute of Ideas, who is determined to get as many views expressed as possible in the allotted one and a half hours. What does progress mean in the 21st Century? Should countries like China and India be prevented from developing because of environmental concerns, or is this ‘eco-imperialism’? Is there a danger of romanticising Southern poverty from the comfort of our modern cities? Must development mean Westernisation, or is it possible to overcome poverty while preserving unique cultures?

Professor Redclift had introduced the debate with a series of hesitant questions of his own: ‘Is there any more to progress than ‘what succeeds’? Who decides what’s progress? What counts for progress? Is it GDP? Is it the number of women who work? What about social mobility? Do we need a ladder? Do we really need to take those steps up the rung? Why is the informal economic sector never counted? Shouldn’t we take into account the life of a product and not just the object at the point of sale? What about the value of work?’ Some interesting questions, but as a speed dater, he’s rather like someone who asks a lot questions but tells you nothing about himself – and then feels peeved when he isn’t making friends.

We move onto the next speaker, Lee Jones, a researcher in international relations at Nuffield College, Oxford. One senses that Lee has been speed dating before and knows exactly what he wants out of it. He is an earnest, lean young man with glasses – a little geeky one might say but that look is rather ‘in’ at the moment. ‘Food production and population growth have both been growing for a long time,’ he begins confidently, ‘and in the 1950s, food production outstripped population growth for the first time. We have the wherewithal to feed everyone in the world – it should be just an issue of distribution – but why don’t we believe we can achieve that today?’

He goes on to expand on the negative outlook and low horizons of those who espouse the necessity for sustainable development. ‘Progress,’ he says, ‘is about making people more free. Indicators such as happiness and well-being are problematic. There has to be a material basis for freedom.’ ‘Without planes,’ Lee tells us, ‘we couldn’t fly.’ As a working class boy he would never have been able to go to Japan if we hadn’t developed more and better and cheaper planes. Japan changed his life. Getting into Oxford changed his life. ‘We shouldn’t confuse consumerism with consumption’ he says in response to a charge of materialism. We want things but it’s not a simple question of accumulating things. We need something more, something at a higher level. It’s about being free to do the things we want. Lee sits down rather pleased with his presentation and I’m afraid I haven’t done full justice to it here. We all know what Lee thinks. I liked his definition of progress. I make a note to check up on him later.

Next up is John Hilary, executive director of War on Want. He appears to be a pleasant man; softly spoken with a smile that wants you to like him. ‘I want to challenge the myth that we’re all in it together.’ he begins. ‘The G8 summit that we thought was all about Making Poverty History was really a battle for resources. The WTO (World trade Organization) is about maintaining the colonial status of countries in the South. Trade liberalisation means Europe having access to markets in the South.’ This all sounds very fine and true, but when he starts explaining what progress should be about he sounds like a speed dater who’s still hankering after a lost love from the past.

‘It’s about challenging the power balance between Capital and Labour – it’s not about climate change’ he says. ‘GDP tells you about growth but doesn’t tell you anything about progress. Wealth is not distributed to the poor. We need to link up with the new social movements in the South to redistribute the balance of power.’ New social movements: I try to think who these might be. I suppose it’s a bit like transcendental meditation – if you close your eyes and believe really hard, you will discover the third eye, a higher plane and a new social movement to link up with. I close my eyes and wait for the next speaker.

Ceri Dingle, Director of WORLDwrite is a dab hand at this malarkey. ‘Ferraris for all!’ is the slogan for her campaign – bless her. The lads from Top Gear will definitely want to join this queue. Ceri is the speed dater everyone wants to meet – full of humour and passion that comes from a full and lived experience. She talks about her mates in Ghana - not ‘the people from the South’. When she was hanging out with them recently, she asked them what they thought about the new rope contraption donated by some charity and they laughed. ‘They laughed and laughed she said. They laughed so much, we started laughing with them.’ An image of the 1970s Smash potato mash advert flashed across my mind and I wanted to laugh too. When they were able to speak, they said ‘You have satellites in space, you send people to the moon and you give us this rope thing? We want proper industrial machinery like you have back home.’

Ceri disagrees with Lee about consumerism. ‘Consumerism is good’ she says, ‘we want more things. Having lots of things is progress.’ She challenges the idea that Westernisation could be a problem. ‘When we go round the aisles with our shopping trolleys, we like to have a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of ethnic thrown in. We worry that if developing countries become too Westernised, we won’t have anything ethnic to buy. We’re down on China and India. Why? India has been successful in producing the Tata car to replace the rickshaws that many people have to depend on for transport. The Indian people want cars not rickshaws. Now we’re bringing their rickshaws to central London. What’s that about? We should be happy for the Chinese and the Indians.’ Some of us laugh and some titter nervously. It’s so bloody obvious when the mirror is held up to absurd preconceptions. I consider writing an article entitled ‘Tata to the rickshaw’.

The session ends all too soon. There are still so many questions, so many points of view. This is just a taster. Will I be speed dating again? Definitely!

The next Institute of Ideas event is The Battle for China conference, on Saturday 12 July 2008 at Norton Rose LLP, 3 More London Riverside, London SE1 2AQ.