The Revenge of Athena Science, Exploitation and the Third World The Revenge of Athena
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- Historical Development of British Aid
Where do we go from here? In looking at the issue of plant genetic resources and its connection to the issue of seeds, the first link in the food chain and the interconnections, we have seen layers of negative implications arising out of the use of the science and technology associated with the Green Revolution. How does one cope with the situation? What kind of initiatives can be taken by social scientists, action researchers, social action groups and by all those either directly involved with or concerned as a supportive organization for victims of 'modernization' projects such as the Green Revolution? I think the contributions in the recent ICLD publication on 'The International Context of Rural Poverty in the Third World Issues for Research and Action by Grassroots Organizations and Legal Activists"' (hereafter referred to as the ICLD volume) addresses many of these issues, in particular, the editors' note on action implications of 'failed' rural development projects and the contribution by Clarence Dias and James Paul, 'Developing Legal Strategies to help Combat Rural Impoverishment: Using Human Rights and Legal Resources'. Dias and Paul have a concluding part on 'Developing Law and Legal Resources for Victims Groups', which has many very important recommendations which can be acted upon by organizations concerned or involved with issues around rural poverty. These recommendations, particularly with regard to the use of law and the building of legal resources, must be read in the context of some very valuable insights on law and the uses of law by social action groups made by Upendra Baxi in the same publication on 'Law, Struggle, and Change in India: an Agendum for Activists'.10 I would like to address some approaches to action on the issues of HYVs, plant varieties and chemical intensive agriculture, approaches or actions that could in broad terms be called alternatives. But first, I would like to preface my remarks with what I consider some very important perspectives provided by Reginald Green on alternatives in the ICLD volume. In particular, I share his view and would like to emphasize the dangers of looking in
terms at all these developments in 'modern' science and technology as for example relating to the Green Revolution which we have examined. Referring to some of the alternative approaches in relation to poverty that have emerged in the past and examining some of their limitations, Reginald Green identifies 'the tendency to slide into conspiracy theories and/or counter simplification'. He writes, 'The justified moral outrage of some writers for example Susan George in How the Other Half Dies at the amorality leading to amoral results under the cover of technically determined, value free public image models creates another kind of danger. The danger involves slipping into a perception of reality as a conspiracy rather than as a process of struggle. This is dangerous because it clouds analysis, especially of how holders of power (e.g. TNCs) might actually be constrained to act differently.' Contributions such as that of Susan George may have brought to the attention of a larger audience the issues involved in world hunger and poverty but they have hindered more than they have facilitated. There is a constant danger that in trying to popularize and reach to a popular audience, complex issues can be oversimplified. Reginald Green writes, 'Knowledge can be power and acquiring self knowledge is a process which can benefit, especially in its early stages, from outside questions and comments. But this is true only so long as these questions and comments do not degenerate into overbearing rhetoric unrelated to the immediate context or become a procrustean agenda that reflects the priorities of the outsiders and not the people themselves. 132 Basically, I see three important elements in evolving alternative paradigms. One is a necessary, ongoing conceptual element. Two is the information/ educational mobilizing element; and three is developing and sustaining the relationship to actual community initiatives vis a vis the issues thrown up. The three are interrelated and do not have any hierarchical (conceptually/ theoretically) or chronological order in which they can be placed. From a conceptual point of view, it is very necessary, particularly with regard to projects such as agricultural modernization projects, to show the totally irrelevant and artificial characterizations of knowledge made by modern science and the fake distinctions it creates between science and non science, with regard to different traditions of knowledge. Such characterizations by modern science or knowledge systems should however be also situated within the context of the crisis that modern science or knowledge systems are currently facing. In the face of such a crisis one can then also see its inability, or rather the inability of the high priests of modern science the scientists to come to grips with this crisis. We referred earlier to the response of scientists like Plucknett and Swarninathan to criticisms of the way in which modern science handles issues such as PGRs. These responses are also crisis responses and therefore our contribution must be to accentuate the internal crisis of modern science. Accentuating the crisis of modern science from its broad system level to the level of institutions and that of the individual scientist as an adherent of fragmented knowledge and ways of thinking, is also a way of strengthening different streams and traditions of knowledge which are sometimes broadly characterized as traditional knowledge. Only then can we show the negative implications of the assumptions such as the one that holds that modernization of agriculture is premised on 'scientificity' and therefore constitutes a superior approach to other accumulated knowledge and intellectual/knowledge traditions. This is of course all part of a larger, more difficult conceptual struggle against the monotyping of knowledge and creating the climate and conditions for sustaining and drawing upon alternative stocks of knowledge and achieving a legitimate status for them. The conceptual dimension or project is very important and also difficult because the fight against modernization projects is done not in a sense of a modern versus traditional framework which is a simple dichotomous framework more akin to particular civilizational modes of thinking and to which modern science is linked. It is necessary to view it as a 'corporatization' project aimed at societies, ecology, environment and nature. Modernization seen as corporatization is crucial in recognizing that corporatization is the ultimate totalitarian project; and it is best exemplified by nuclear power. The informational/educational/mobilizing dimension is something that both enriches and creates the possibility, as well as evolving out of the conceptual dimension or project. Clarence Dias and James Paul make some concrete suggestions for what they call strategic action campaigns: One step is to develop, share, and disseminate knowledge of the activity the harms it has inflicted (or threatens) and the social impact and cost of these harms; wrongful practices associated with the activity which causes these harms or which, in other ways, violate the human rights of those threatened by the activity; law relevant to the governance and accountability of those who manage the activity, and legal remedies of people injured or threatened by it; and other measures which can be undertaken to prevent these outcomes (and strategies to secure them). Thus, strategic action campaigns have been directed at generating and sharing knowledge which different kinds of groups and concerned professionals can use to induce more focused, reinforcing action for example, the media; influential persons in differing professional circles; courts, legislative bodies, and other agencies which have powers to impose accountability for wrongdoing; international organizations which can influence the development of law governing the activity." I now come to the third dimension, that of having a mutually creative and interactive relationship to ongoing community initiatives. In Asia, there are a number of initiatives at the level of rural communities, some of which are particularly heartening since they have emerged not only in opposition to modernization projects, but are also trying to develop real alternatives. There have been initiatives to try and develop nationwide mobilization to promote 'sustainable agriculture'. In the case of the Philippines there have been attempts through a series of meetings of small farmers at the local, regional level culminating in a national meeting to identify root causes of the problems of rural poverty and find ways of promoting agriculture that are not overly dependent on HYVs and all the technological and other inputs that it entails.34 In India there have been several initiatives at the local, state and national level. These initiatives counter what the editors of the Indian publication, Lokayan, describe as follows: 'A myth has been afloat that India has freed itself from the threat of famine through the Green Revolution. Yet the invisible, irreversible decay of our living earth through ill conceived, inappropriate technologies is symptomized in the numbers of people leaving the land to scrape out a living in the cities. 131 The same issue of Lokayan reports on three conventions, one on organic farming, one on rice and indigenous rice varieties and one on indigenous breeds of cattle, all very important and significant efforts to, as Lokayan puts it, 'reviving sustainable agriculture'. There are similar efforts beginning in Malaysia, in Thailand and other countries. In many of these countries there are also emerging groups that are concerned about the issue of seeds and the whole question of genetic resources. It is true that some of these activities tend to be narrowly focused on certain issues and have a kind of repetitive campaigning that tends to lull rather than activate. But these fragmented types of activities are also taking place side by side with, and are being influenced by, the activities of ecological and environmental groups who are increasingly trying to develop holistic approaches. We stand at the crossroads of some very exciting possibilities in working against the evils of modernization as corporatization. Activists, action researchers and concerned scholars from law, people's science, ecology, developmental activism, social research have the possibility of moving away from fragmented issue oriented activism to not only developing holistic approaches to the problems of the poor and marginalized but also to generating new knowledge, strengthening useful aspects of traditional knowledge systems and thus contribute to what I would like to call alternative stocks of knowledge alternative to the mono typing of knowledge by reductionist modern science and technology and thus are an important aspect in the preservation of diversity. This must always be at the heart of any efforts taken to deal with modernization processes that seek to wipe out genetic diversity, for as Pat Mooney says, 'The diversity of agriculture and human culture are bound together.' Notes (Much of the information with reference to the background section of the paper is drawn from the Open Letter on Plant Genetic Resources circulated by Clarence Dias and Upendra Baxi and from a popular article that the author of this paper published on PGRs in the Far Eastern Economic Review.)
12 Science and Development Trends and Outcomes of the Transfer of Technology in the 1980s David Burch As with most issues in the social sciences the question of aid and its meaning to the donor and the recipient is characterized by sharply diverging views. At one extreme, there are those observers who argue that aid, whether bilateral or multilateral, involves a transfer of real resources from rich countries to poor, and represents a foregone opportunity for consumption or investment in the developed countries in order to generate development in the Third World. At the other extreme there are those observers who argue that aid programmes largely serve to advance the interests of particular groups within the donor country, and only secondarily selected groups within the recipient country. Seen from this perspective, aid may only serve to further exploit Third World countries by creating indebtedness and a technological dependence, in return for new resources which confer benefits on the few and costs on the many. While some validity may attach to each of these extreme positions, I suggest that it is the latter position which is the most persuasive when it comes to explaining patterns of allocation of aid and the distribution of benefits which flow from such allocations. In order to substantiate this argument, I propose to document the major determinants of British aid policy over time (and that of other countries where relevant), and to undertake a general analysis of the distributional implications that flowed from such policies. In particular, the study will focus upon the impact that recent British aid policy has had on the choice and transfer of technology and the acquisition (or loss) of technological capabilities by the Third World. A full understanding of contemporary issues cannot be achieved without the historical perspective which, by exposing and explaining continuities and/or discontinuities in policy, enables the researcher to establish generalizations about the nature of the social world. Accordingly, the following section considers the historical background to Britain's aid programme. Historical Development of British Aid In considering the historical development of British aid, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of policy, each of which held different implications for the choice and transfer of technology (Burch 1987). The first phase commenced in the early 1920s and lasted up until the beginning of World War 11, during which time aid programmes were initiated as a response to the mass unemployment and depressed economic conditions experienced during the 1920s and 1930s. Under the terms of legislation passed by Britain at this time the Trade Facilities Act of 1921, the East African Guaranteed Loan Act of 1926 and the Colonial Development Act of 1929 finance was made available for the purpose of funding 'development' projects in the colonies which would result in the stimulation of economic activity in key sectors of the UK economy. As a consequence, aid in this period was dominated by a major programme of colonial railway building, mainly in East and Central Africa, which was designed to stimulate the employment of labour and capital in Britain's steel and heavy engineering sector, as well as to bring colonial producers of low cost raw materials in closer contact with their UK markets. The first of these programmes, financed to the tune of f6.6 million under the East African Guaranteed Loan, was openly justified by the fact that, . . . approximately half the capital sum would be spent in Great Britain, on rails, bridging materials, rolling stock, etc, which at this time would provide work for the engineering industries of Great Britain and so lessen unemployment charges (Comd. 2387, 1925: 182). The significance attached to colonial railway building as a means of stimulating economic activity in Britain can be gauged from the fact that some 60 per cent of the total of F I 7.9 million made available under the East African Guaranteed Loan of 1926 and the Colonial Development Act of 1929, was allocated to railway construction. But of course, it was by no means inevitable that aid policies designed to favour British domestic interests would also have beneficial effects in the colonial territories where projects were established. In fact, policy at this time imposed significant costs on the colonial territories, adding a financial burden at a time of serious economic hardship. Railways seldom paid their way and usually involved the colonial territories in substantial interest repayments and operating losses, thereby drawing off resources from other important projects and programmes.' Moreover, the commitment to capital intensive technology implied by the choice of railways rather than roads (Kenya spent only f60,OOO to f80,OOO per annum on roads during the 1930s) meant that development could be concentrated only in a limited number of regions. The areas around the railway could be intensively developed, while those further away were starved of resources because of the drain imposed by the choice of railways over other alternatives. Needless to say, railways as a form of transport were and still are exclusive, in the literal sense of that term. Most roads, built to serve the interests of one particular group, may also be used to advantage by other groups; railways, on the other hand, put a price on access that would exclude the poor in many instances. Finally, there was the creation of a technological dependency in the expansion of the colonial railway system. The technological capability required to manufacture and maintain railways was and still is absent from most of the peripheral countries, a fact which did much to assure future markets for metropolitan producers. All of these consequences the technological dependence, the concentration of resources in areas close to the railway and the relative neglect of those further away, the patterns of regional imbalance that flowed from this and which are today reflected in social inequalities along a number of measures could have been avoided. But, as Brett (1973: 297) has argued: ... capital was only forthcoming on terms determined by metropolitan interests, who benefited from the use of capital intensive technology which provided employment of British workers, rather than the labour intensive technology which might have been used to provide a territory wide programme of rural animation based on local road building, agricultural extension and research. In other words, the choice of technology at this time, dominated by the need to stimulate the employment of men and machines in Britain, led to a capital intensive strategy of colonial 'development' and precluded the adoption of an alternative, labour intensive strategy based on 'development from within', which might have stimulated a greater number of new and different economic activities leading to an increased emphasis on local technological capabilities. The second phase of Britain's aid policy lasted from the end of World War 11 up until the mid 50s, and although British interests were again uppermost in the aid policies formulated over this period, such policies were dominated by quite different considerations from those that had prevailed in the 1920s and 1930s. In the immediate aftermath of the 1939 45 conflict, post war reconstruction of a shattered and deeply indebted economy was the top priority for Britain and indeed, all of Europe. Consequently, aid policy at this time was determined by the need to assist in this reconstruction, by encouraging increased colonial production of low cost (and underpriced) consumption goods and raw materials, which could either be used directly by Britain or which could be sold on the world market in order to earn the scarce US dollars that Britain needed to re equip its domestic industry and repay its war loans. The problem for Britain was that increased colonial production implied increased capital investment, and since capital was the factor of production in short supply in the post war years, Britain was reluctant to make available to the colonies the capital resources required for domestic regeneration. Under these circumstances then, colonial 'development' could only take place on the basis of labour intensive techniques, and in the second phase of British aid there was a tendency to reverse the priorities which had been established in the first phase. For example, under the Colonial Development and Welfare (C1) & W) Acts which gave effect to post war aid programmes, the largest single item of expenditure in the ten years 1946 56 was road construction, which was given clear precedence over capital intensive railway development in the provision of communications and infrastructure facilities. In fact, only 0. 1 per cent of CD & W funding totalling £1,200 million was spent on railways over the period, compared with 16 per cent allocated to roads .2 However, this shift in emphasis was not symptomatic of a general move towards a strategy of colonial development based on labour intensive technologies, but was a temporary expedient adopted by Britain as a way of recruiting the colonial territories into the process of British post war reconstruction, without the necessity of making available large amounts of scarce capital. That this was the case is clearly demonstrated by the policy changes which occurred from the late 1950s, as the problems of post-war reconstruction were overcome and new issues emerged, which were to give rise to the third phase of British aid policy. The problems faced by Britain from the mid 1950s were many and varied; there were the difficulties of adjusting to the resurgence of Japan and West Germany as industrial competitors, especially in areas such as shipbuilding and engineering which had been traditional British strengths; there was the dismantling of the imperial economic system which, as a consequence of longstanding US pressure, resulted in the full convertibility of sterling against the dollar, and allowed countries and territories locked into the restrictive sterling area to establish new trading relationships; there was a growing movement for political independence among the colonial territories, and the chance once again to establish new trading relationships which did not focus on the old imperial relationship; there was the decline in commodity prices over the 1950s, which reduced the purchasing power of the colonial territories and led to fewer imports of manufactured goods from the UK; and there was the continued use of sterling as a major trading currency, which rendered the British financial system (upon which industrial strength depended) prone to sharp fluctuations and uncertainties as confidence in sterling weakened. The result was a growing lack of competitiveness and a substantial reduction in Britain's share of world and sterling area markets. This resulted in increasing levels of surplus capacity and growing unemployment in industrial sectors, especially in the depressed regions in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For although the loss of Britain's market share was reflected in most industrial sectors, a number of industries, often associated with the depressed regions, fared especially badly, i.e. shipbuilding, aircraft and railway locomotives and rolling stock. The railway industry was the most seriously affected, losing nearly half of its total share of world markets between 1954 and 1962 (Beckerman et al. 1965). Once again these issues began to be addressed directly in Britain's aid programme, and increasingly policy was oriented towards the use of aid to absorb unemployed resources of labour and capital. Numerous policy documents and statements alluded to the belief that this was a justifiable use of Britain's aid resources, and the content of British aid began to reflect these concerns. Priority areas for inclusion in the aid programme were shipbuilding (accounting for some 10 per cent of known British capital aid expenditure over the period 1966 72), railway locomotives and vehicles (7.7 per cent of known British capital aid expenditure 1966 72), and textile and leather machinery (5.0 per cent of known British capital aid expenditure). Other sectors, although drawing on a range of 'newer' industries, were also given priority when, at particular points in time, they faced difficult trading conditions and were threatened with declining markets and significant job losses, e.g. steel plant and equipment, electrical power machinery and switchgear, fertilizers, tractors (Burch 1987). Once again then, the composition of British aid came to accommodate the needs of British domestic interests, and in the process resulted in priority being given to the transfer of capital intensive technologies. The example of locomotives and railway construction is particularly interesting since it provides strong evidence of the continuities in British aid and the recurrent values and interests which, even under conditions of change in the composition of aid, shaped policy over time. It should not be assumed that the British experience was in any way unique; it is clear that Britain stands as an exemplar of the patterns and programmes adopted by other industrialized countries. Thus the Depression years of the 1920s and 1930s not only laid the basis for Britain's initial aid programme, but also provided the impetus for the creation in 1934 of the US Export Import Bank, an institution designed to fund US exports and to stimulate activity in depressed sectors of the domestic economy (Feinberg 1982). Furthermore, in the post war period, all of the European powers with colonial territories established 'development' programmes aimed at post war reconstruction in the developed centres. Similarly, Britain was not alone in increasing its aid and redirecting its programmes in the late 1950s as a means of maintaining old markets and penetrating new areas in order to sustain and expand domestic economic activity. With similar goals in mind, Japan and West Germany both introduced new aid and export credit programmes at this time (White 1965; Little and Clifford 1965), while in 1959 the US government introduced stringent new measures to tie its aid to the purchase of US produced goods. The result of this particular move was quite dramatic; the percentage of US aid spent within the US increased from 40 50 per cent in the period before 1959, to some 90 per cent in 1966. Moreover, in the period 1959 65, the US increased its exports to fifty one countries by $2,160 million; of this amount, $1,260 million (60 per cent) was attributable to US aid, while by 1965, nearly 5 per cent of all US exports were funded by the Agency for International Development (AID). In the case of particular commodities, this percentage was even higher; in 1965, some 30 per cent of fertilizer exports, 24 per cent of exports of iron and steel products, and 30 per cent of exports of railway transport equipment were financed by AID funds (Hyson and Strout 1968). It is no coincidence that these sectors were also priority areas for UK aid. In summary, it seems clear that to a large extent the composition of bilateral aid programmes was determined by the need to solve particular problems in the donor country, rather than to generate 'development' in the Third World. In this process, particular preferences came to dominate the choices of technology that were made available at any particular point in time. In most instances, such choices would have coincided with the interests of one or the other of the dominant social groups within a Third World country, which is why these issues have apparently generated little conflict between donor and recipient. But the consequences for the poor of the Third World were often very different, and were frequently devastating. Nowhere perhaps, is this more dramatically revealed than in the case of the Green Revolution, and the growing commitment to agricultural mechanization that accompanied this programme. The widespread introduction of tractors, stimulated by the demands of large farmers in the periphery and the availability of tractors under aid, created widespread unemployment amongst agricultural labours in the Third World, and rendered many small farmers and tenants marginal to the new system of capital intensive agriculture (Burch 1987). It should be clear by now that this historical review of British and other aid is of more than academic interest, but is of critical importance for an understanding of the contemporary developments which culminated in the major global recession now being experienced. This recession has initiated the fourth and latest phase in British aid policy, resulting in a significant shift in the composition of aid as Britain's programme was redefined in order to protect domestic interests in a period of stagnation, uncertainty and weakness. Yüklə 1,92 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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