Message-ID: <Jv6QvCA601gzEwma@entebbe.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 21:38:18 +0100 From: cherbert <mailto:cherbert@ENTEBBE.DEMON.CO.UK> Subject: Re: Boring reply & sustainable IT -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
> The raw material
>producing countries, on the other hands, will be devastated, since their raw
>material exports will drop and they will not have the industrial capabilities to
>produce the more technologically demanding "light" products (substituting, for
>example, graphite bonds for steel and aluminum). Shall we have another
>discussion of entropy?
Or could we diversify the discussion here, and come up with some solutions, and learning for all of us on the way. What the repetitiveness of these arguments always illustrate, is that there isn't one simple theory or solution that can be applied.
So, for instance, you talk of net exporters of raw materials. For some countries, eg Lesotho, the only raw material is human labour, which is exported to South Africa, so that in the 80s there was barely a young able-bodied man living permanently in the country, unless he were a soldier or policeman. So for Lesotho a range of specific solutions needs to be found. Clearly industrialisation is another no go area - apart from transportation costs of raw materials, building industrial plants on the mountains there would require spectacular engineering feats. Now it may be that a macro solution would be moving the boundaries of the country to include something other than humanity that they could develop or export. It's probably too late for that, and so Lesotho's future can't be looked at in isolation but in the context of integration into the economic activity of the whole region.
This would require a principled development ideology, that recognised that this part of the human family does not have the potential to live alone and have its own solutions. But then isn't that what globalisation means for all of us. Is there an alternative to cooperation for success. Can any one part of the body of humanity be healthy either socially, environmentally, physically or economically, if the rest isn't. Either some states, regions and islands become long term and permanent receivers of aid, which does nothing for their dignity as human beings, or they examine their local conditions, and choose a development path in the context of a world economy that aims for the wellbeing of every member of the human family. Alternatively, we can continue as we are, moving production around the world to cheaper labour sources.
Perhaps the economist who wrote earlier could tell us if the theory ever backed up the statistics that every manufacturing job lost in Germany could be directly related to the growth of employment in the so-called Tiger Economies. If it has, then we can either begin the cycle of blame again (nations, mncs, ngos, indigenous peoples, etc) or recognise that we have a global system that just keeps moving the profits around. Unless the economic picture has changed, in this process, overall fewer and fewer of the earth's population end up with a greater and greater share of the earth's wealth.
In that case, it can well be said that at the heart of the environment (etc) we need a change of heart. It surely is not beyond a civilisation that survived and developed this far, to devise a system that can give everyone the dignity of work and the means of livelihood.
This would represent part of an essential macro transformation, which would need to be accompanied by local actions and transformations. It would turn the planet on its head - but is there any alternative - all the other arguments do end up going round and round and getting nowhere, so surely the way out of this cycle has to be the beginning of a new cycle with new visions and goals. What the world proves daily to itself is that the present system isn't working - at least not for the majority of the world's peoples. So we need to explore new possibilities. (if we don't like them, we can always go back to the old ones:-)
Cherbert