The Revenge of Athena Science, Exploitation and the Third World The Revenge of Athena

Appendix

The Penang Declaration
on Science and Technology

Modern science and technology is in a state of acute crisis. This crisis manifests itself in several forms. The most obvious are in the end products which are often directed towards destruction, waste and alienation. From disasters at Chernobyl and Bhopal to the depletion of the ozone layer, pollution and devas­tating environmental degradation, depletion of natural resources, science and technology manifests itself in the lives of the majority of inhabitants of our planet as a poison. From sociobiology to bio engineering, from robotics to fifth generation computers, science and technology are generating unemployment and under employment. There are numerous examples to show that science and technology are not improving the material and spiritual conditions of the peo­ple of the Third World. More sophisticated science entails greater problems and fewer solutions; reliance on capital intensive technologies breeds dependence on non indigenous resources and the gross misuse of available human and material resources.

There is a growing awareness that there is something intrinsically wrong with the very nature of contemporary science and technology. Even in the most fundamental of the scientific enterprises, namely mathematics and physics, there has been a period of epistemological uncertainties for over two decades. In biology, the techniques of recombinant DNA and the possibility of creating and unleashing new and deadly forms of mutant species and even the cloning of human beings, has brought the nightmare of Frankenstein very close to reality.

Reductionism   the dominant method of modern science   is leading, on the one hand, towards meaninglessness in physics, and on the other, towards Social Darwinism and eugenics in biology. There is something in the very metaphysics of modern science and technology, the way of knowing and doing

of this dominant mode of thought and enquiry, that is leading us towards destruction.

The romantic notion of science as the pursuit of pure, unadulterated 'objec­tive' truth, with the scientist working in isolation from mundane social reality   like a hermit, trying against impossible odds to understand some sort of objective reality   has now become dangerously untenable. In fact, after a decade of world wide research, it is now clear that science is mediated through a social process. Indeed, some philosophers and historians of science argue that science is social process. Social forces, operating at the level of global economy and structures, and the national political economy, as well as in the scientific groups themselves, shape the character, content and style of modern science and technology. Scientists are strongly committed to beliefs and certain cultural ethos which compels them to flatten diversity and complexity into a uniformity. In addition to this belief system and cultural ethos   which manifest them­selves in the propositions that scientists embrace   science has its own power structure, reward systems, peer groups, all of which combine to ensure that science is closely correlated with the existing, dominant and unjust, political economic and social order of the world.

Domination and control are inherent and integral parts of the current scien­tific and technological enterprise. These concepts are at the very heart of scien­tific methodology and the present process of creation and generation of science. From the inception of modern science, at the beginning of the European Renaissance, the goals of science were articulated in terms of domination and control. Thephilosophes of the seventeenth century Enlightenment movement, in complete contrast to the intellectual heritage of Islam and other civilizations on which they were constructing a new world, divorced reason from values, and elevated it to an arch value. Reason thus became the dominant mode of know­ing to the exclusion of all other alternatives. The notion of the domination and control of nature gradually changed into the domination and control of non­European people by means of the use of the scientific method and the linear rationality incorporated within it. The present modern scientific and techno­logical enterprise has evolved within the imperial experience of Europe and North America and the colonial experience of the Third World.

The crisis of science manifests itself in the Third World as well. Modern science and technology has dislocated Third World societies, destroyed tradi­tional cultures and played havoc with the environment of Third World nations. It has also replaced a way of knowing, which is multidimensional and based on synthesis, in Third World societies with a linear, clinical, inhuman and rational­ist mode of thought. From the Green Revolution to massive incorporation of modern medicine to the waste of valuable and scarce resources on research into fashionable areas such as cancer research and nuclear power, western science and technology has systematically underdeveloped Third World societies in the name of scientific rationality. No figures or indicators can convey the loss of lives and resources that these social

engineering experiments   induced by

Western 'experts' and 'consultants'   have brought to our countries.

In most developing countries the transplant of science and technology has not taken root. Neither the science nor the scientists have an organic relationship with local problems, resources and the pressing needs of the society. It is often irrelevant, wasteful, unproductive, imitative and bears the hallmark of a second rate and second hand product.

Moreover, the system of modern science and technology in the Third World has grown at the expense of the pre European scientific cultures. Before the domination by the European imperial powers, Third World civilizations and their own elaborate and sophisticated systems of knowledge and craftsmanship flourished.

In North Africa and the Middle East, Islamic science was the main problem­ solving paradigm. Both in terms of quality and quantity the output of Islamic science, from the seventh to fourteenth century, remains unmatched. Muslim scientists laid the foundation of algebra and trigonometry, measured the cir­cumference of the earth, studied the properties of light and motion, examined the human body and discovered the circulation of blood, and obtained results at whose accuracy one can only marvel. Yet they did all this in a framework of thought and enquiry which integrated facts and values in a metaphysical framework. Muslim scientists never accepted the tyranny of method but sought to develop and evolve methods in conformity with the nature of enquiry and within a clearly defined ethical matrix.

In Chinese civilization too, science and technology flourished. Much of our arithmetic originates from the work of Chang Ts'ang (d. 152 BCE); and our geometry from the classical treatise of Wang Hsiato t'ung (d.727 BCE). Chang Ch'iu chien's (d.650 CE) work on medicine is still a source of wonder. Here again a system of science and medicine evolved in a metaphysical framework that emphasizes synthesis and promotion of certain norms and values.

From ancient times the Indian subcontinent has been known for its techno­logies of agriculture, metallurgy, textiles, ship building, architecture and medicine. These technologies were widely practised in the whole of the South and Southeast Asian region till as late as the eighteenth century as documented in the various European accounts of the period. These technologies were char­acterized by their simplicity as well as by their sophistication. Each of them had their own separate shastra which outlined the fundamental scientific principles. These various shastras were themselves founded on the philosophical basis provided by the various darshanas, the schools of philosophy which define the logical, epistemological and methodological structure of Indian thought. The guiding principle of all these sciences and philosophies was that the world in itself was the repository of truth; the purpose of science and technology was merely to enable people to live happily and healthily in this world rather than changing and manipulating the world.

Southeast Asian traditions are also replete with countless examples of systems of indigenous science and technologies which have been destroyed by

western systems. This destruction manifests itself in the negation of the history of science and technologies of traditional civilizations and cultures as well as in the suppression and destruction of indigenous medicine, local architecture and building techniques, and ecologically sound farming and irrigation practices.

Given the destructive nature of contemporary science and technology, and the fact that it is controlled and directed by industrialized states and multi­national corporations, it is essential for Third World countries to create their own indigenous bases for the generation, utilization and diffusion of scientific and technological knowledge. Third World countries should co operate with each other in this endeavour. Moreoever, the whole notion of transfer of tech­nology and importing science should now be abandoned.

Evolving indigenous scientific culture requires Third World scientists, tech­nologists, decision makers and activists to appreciate the true value of tradi­tional science and technologies. Traditional technologies and medical systems should be upgraded, developed and promoted. They should form the basis for the evolution of indigenous, but thoroughly contemporary, systems of alter­native technologies and health care. Similarly, national problems should be solved within the framework of an indigenous mode of thought and enquiry and with locally available resources.

Only when science and technology evolve from the ethos and cultural milieu of Third World societies, will they become meaningful for our needs and requirements, and express our true creativity and genius. Third World science and technology can evolve only through a reliance on indigenous categories, idioms and traditions in all spheres of thought and action,

Science, Technology and Natural Resources

Before the colonial conquests, the natural resources of the Third World were utilized through technologies based on local expertise and knowledge and which were small in the scale of exploitation. With colonization came the immense demand for the natural resources of the colonies, be they forests, minerals or agricultural products, to fuel the increasing requirements of the industrial revo­lution. This was the first stage in the destabilization of functioning local technologies; it undermined their resource base and market. This process of direct transfer of natural resources was not possible in the colonial era. How­ever, as the process of 'development' was entrenched as a national goal, to be achieved with the aid of international finance, the process of resource transfer continued to pay for the imported inputs required for the process of develop­ment. The latter included expertise, technologies, equipment as well as luxury consumer items.

This process of development merely serves the purpose of the easy marketing of obsolete technologies and of extending access to the industrially advanced countries in the North to the remotest natural resources of the countries in the South. In the late sixties, the process of development touched the agriculture of

the Third World by introducing the technologies of the Green Revolution. In the decades that followed, this process manifested itself in more undemocratic control over the land use in the Third World as international technologies and finance entered the management of land and water use in a big way  including the area of forestry. On the other hand, industrial growth in the south concentrated on polluting industries transferred from the north where envi­ronmental consciousness did not allow such industries to function anymore. These included textiles, dyeing, tanning, hazardous chemicals and the nuclear industry.

It was thus possible for the industrially advanced countries to have the first industrial revolution by transferring the natural resources of the colonies, and then, in the 1970s, the second revolution, leading to the clean service society in the North with the transfer of obnoxious industries to the South.

Until about the 1980s the transfer of obsolete technologies was the practice, but thereafter, with the advent of biotechnologies, the latest technologies from the North began to touch the remotest villages of the South in a decentralized manner, proving that the small need not always be beautiful. It is in this era of a rapidly changing relationship between technology and natural resources that we have to locate our role.

We see our intervention as:

1. 
   Creation of a civilizational response from Third World countries for the development of resource prudent technologies and as enhancing the control of local bodies on the decisions related to natural resource use.
   
2. 
   Use of land and water to be guided on a sustainable basis as to satisfy the local needs first, starting from the needs of the neediest.
   
3. 
   Defending our crop and plant genetic resources from destruction.
   
4. 
   Actively opposing the dumping of obsolete or polluting technologies in the name of economic development and actively encouraging options for eco­nomic development with resource prudent, non polluting indigenous technologies.
   
5. 
   To ensure equitable access to resources and information on all technologies to be used in a region, including all possible environmental impacts.
   
6. 
   To increase people's participation in the choice of technologies and manage­ment of natural resources with the objective of choosing ecologically sensi­tive technologies of resource use.
   

Science, Inequality and Inability to Meet Basic Needs

The failure of modern science is manifested by the irony, on one hand, of the development of technological capacity powerful enough to meet the basic needs of every human given an appropriate arrangement of social and production systems; and, on the other hand, of the fact that more than half the world's population (and something like two thirds the Third World's people) live in

conditions where their basic and human needs are not met. This tragedy is rendered even more catastrophic by the evidence that the same technological capacity that has facilitated the irrational composition of products, is also so powerful that it has enabled the destruction or depletion of a very high propor­tion of non renewable resources in the world. Day by day, this gigantic techno­logical capacity uses up more energy, extracts more minerals, chops down more forests, results in more loss of topsoil, and pollutes more water, more land mass, more air and even the stratosphere. At current rates of production, many critical resources will run out within a few decades.

There is a finite stock of world resources available, and in the process of production a portion of that stock is used up every year. The Gross National Product about which all nation states are so obsessed is only an annual flow which is very much dependent on the available stock of natural resources. Most resources are non renewable. The more they are depleted, the less are they available for use in production in future. In other words, the higher the GNP at present, the lower it will be in future, when the effects of resource depletion are felt. GNP is only a flow dependent on availability of stock; when the stock runs out, the flow will dry up. This most simple and elementary of facts is almost completely omitted in economics textbooks. It is barely in the consciousness of the planners and politicians who plan our future and rule our lives, or in the con­sciousness of the scientists and technologists who have made possible the rapid depletion of resources through the development of technological capacity.

Moreover, the rapid extraction and utilization of resources is very unequally carried out in terms of control and benefits; 80 per cent of world resources are used up in the developed world and only 20 per cent in the Third World. This unequal distribution also determines the nature of goods to be produced. To produce for the elite market, high tech technologies are created to produce high tech products, such as video recorders, compact discs, computers, motor­cars, and services like medicine, tourism abroad and even tax evasion legal programmes. A large portion of developed world GNP is spent on such con­sumer goods and on producing capital goods or technologies to make these consumer goods. Since national incomes in the Third World are also unequally distributed, a large portion of these resources are depleted for producing the same high tech consumer products as are enjoyed in the developed world, and in importing capital intensive technologies to make these elite consumer goods. Thus, only a small portion of world resources flows towards the processing of basic goods required by the poor majority in the Third World for their survival, and the making of simple capital goods which are the technologies used by poor farmers and small industrial craftsmen or enterprises.

In this on going process of resources depletion and irrational use of resources, the main impetus and dynamics are located in political economy, the socio economic systems, which give rise to competition for growth between companies and between nations. But the role of science and technology is crucial. If the level of technology is low, then we may still have the same

inequality, but the degree at which resources are depleted would be less. In reality, however, technological levels are increasingly coming under pressure of competition between firms and countries (not only in the economic but also military spheres), and so the depletion of resources also increases rapidly. Moreover the ever increasing technological capacity of the developed world leaves the Third World even further behind, thus in itself widening the inequality gap between nations.

In 1980, nations of the North, with only a quarter of the world population, earned 80 per cent of the Gross Global Product (GGP). In the South, three­ quarters the world population claimed only 20 per cent of the world income. Since 1980 the world has become even more unequal. Due to the colonial experi­ence, the Third World remains dependent on the developed world for trade, loans, investments and technology. In the past few years, increasing amounts of funds have flowed from the South to the North. In 1985 alone, US$74 billion left the Third World on its debt account alone: it obtained only $41 billion in new loans but had to pay $114 billion in debt servicing. If one includes outflow of profits by transnational companies in the Third World, capital flight from the Third World and the capital deficit of Middle East exporters, the 1985 out­flow of capital from the Third World in 1985 alone would be US$230 240 bil­lion. If we also include the US$65 billion lost due to the fall in commodity prices (an Economist estimate), the Third World's loss would be US$300 billion in one year. In 1986 the situation would have been even worse with the collapse of oil prices and the fall in prices of other commodities. Total loss could be US$300 350 billion. Given this gigantic flow from the South to North, it is clearly ludicrous to say that the North is giving aid to the South. Whatever aid is given is a mere drop in the ocean of what flows from South to North, and even this drop is tied to conditions.

The North's grip over modern science and technology has contributed to the exploitation of the Third World's economic weakness. The rich countries use their industrial and agricultural technologies to produce surplus goods which they are unable to use themselves (part of the problem of over development, or ,over accumulation'.). So they dump the surplus cereals or other crops or materials on the world market, causing prices of Third World commodities to collapse, and thus reduce incomes and living standards of the poor. Modern technology and information systems have also enabled transnational banks and companies to expand into developing countries and draw them into the world market further. After being drawn deep into the world market, the Third World finds the rich countries putting up protective tariff barriers to block the entry of their industrial goods. They find that the rich countries have developed new technology for their own advantage. For instance they have reduced their usage of the Third World's raw materials by finding substitutes and by using less materials per unit of product. As a result, export prices and earnings in the Third World have fallen drastically at a time when they have to shell out more funds to service foreign debts.

Within Third World countries, the same structure of inequality exists at national, regional and local level. Thus, the national composition of goods also follows the same pattern; luxuries for the upper group, middle class goods for the middle level and basic goods or less than that for the bottom 70 per cent.

In the commercialized sector, firms compete with one another for higher market shares so that they can maintain or increase profits. Firms with insuffi­cient profits may have to close down or be taken over by a stronger rival. Expansion and growth is thus built into the system of inter firm competition. Modern technology plays a vital role in expansion, both in seeking more 'pro­ductive' ways of producing and in developing new products or new models. Thus, modern science and technology is used in the service of the firms' desper­ate need to expand.

In the socialist countries there is a strong competition to keep up with the rich capitalist countries, both economically and militarily. There is thus also a strong tendency for developing capital intensive technology and aiming for maximum growth. Thus, the ethos of industrialism is built into both capitalism and socialism.

In the Third World, the nature of development follows that of the North, except that ours is a dependent form of development. Growth takes the form of depletion of resources for export to the North, and the use of surplus from exports and from foreign loans to build expensive infrastructure and to invest in capital intensive technology which mainly benefits big firms or big farmers. The commercialized sectors, with superior financial and physical resources and technology, penetrate, invade and take over the traditional, viable sectors, thus dislocating a large portion of people from their livelihood and homes. For instance, small fishermen using ecologically sound production systems are displaced by big commercialized trawler boats which destroy the marine ecology by over fishing and the use of destructive gear. Or else food crop farmers have their lands taken back by landowners or bought by either govern­ments or private companies to be converted into middle class housing estates, or free trade zones for industries, or for highways, etc.

In terms of many criteria, such as provision of employment, community or producer control over technology and production process, equity and ecologi­cal soundness, the indigenous technologies of the Third World are superior to the types of modern technology which have invaded the Third World. Yet these indigenous technologies are being wiped out under the impact of the commer­cialized sectors and under the threat of the consumer culture which entices tastes away from local to western culture, fashion and products. Thus, being sucked in a dependent manner into the modern world system has been disas­trous for Third World nations whose futures in terms of sustainable develop­ment would have demanded the rational use of their resources for the genuine development of their people. It is time therefore for a re orientation of the concepts of science, technology and development.

Proposals

1. There must be a radical reshaping of the international economic and finan­cial order so that economic power, wealth and income is more equitably distrib­uted, so that the developed world will be forced to cut down on its irrationally high consumption levels. If this is done, the level of industrial technology will also be scaled down. There will be no need for the tremendous wastage of energy, raw materials and resources which now go towards production of superfluous goods simply to keep 'effective demand' pumping and the mon­strous economic machine going. If appropriate technology is appropriate for the Third World, it is even more essential as a substitute for the environmentally and socially obsolete high technology in the developed world. But it is almost impossible to hope that the developed world will do this voluntarily. It will have to be forced to do so, either by a new unity of the Third World in the spirit of OPEC in the 1970s and early 1980s, or by an economic or physical collapse of the system.

2. It is in the Third World that the new ecologically sound future of the world can be born. In many parts of the Third World there are still large areas of ecologically sound economic and living systems, which have been lost in the developed world. We need to recognize and identify these areas and rediscover the technological and cultural wisdoms of our indigenous systems of agricul­ture, industry, shelter, water and sanitation, medicine and culture. We do not mean here the unquestioning acceptance of everything traditional in the over ­romantic belief of a past golden age which has to be returned to in all aspects. For instance, exploitative feudal or slave social systems also made life more difficult in the past. But many indigenous technologies, skills and processes which are appropriate for sustainable development and harmonious with nature and the community are still integral to life in the Third World. These indigenous scientific systems have to be accorded their proper recognition, encouraged and upgraded if necessary.

3. Third World governments and peoples have first to reject their obsession with modern technologies which absorb a bigger and bigger share of surplus and investment funds, in projects like giant hydrodams, nuclear plants and heavy industries which serve luxury needs. We must turn away from the obsession with modern gadgets and products which were created from the need of the developed world to mop up their excess capacity and their need to fill up effective demand.

4. We need to devise and fight for the adoption of appropriate, ecologically sound and socially equitable policies for the fulfilment of needs such as water, health, food, education and information. We need appropriate technologies for agriculture and industry, and even more important we need the correct prior­itizing of what types of consumer products to produce. We can't accept appro­priate technology producing inappropriate products. We need technologies and products which are safe to handle and use, durable, fulfil basic and human

needs, and which do not degrade or deplete the natural environment and resources. And perhaps the most difficult aspect of the fight is the need to de brainwash the people in the Third World from the cultural penetration of our societies, so that lifestyles, personal motivations and status structures can be delinked from the system of industrialism, its advertising industry and crea­tion of culture.

5. Finally, whilst a new science for the masses cannot succeed unless there is an accompanying or preceding change in social structures, it is also true that a change in socio economic structure alone is insufficient for developing a new sustainable order. Control and distribution of resources is a crucial determinant of social order but a change in this aspect alone is insufficient and could lead to similar problems without there being an understanding of the limits of resources and the environmental, health, ethical and cultural aspects of science and technology. Therefore there can be no meaningful reform of science with­out a change in society at large. There can also be no meaningful reform in social structures unless there is a change in the understanding of science and its proper application to serve the people and to be in harmony with nature.