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In the 1950s, I was trying to understand Soviet communism and
chanced to read Oriental Despotism by Karl Wittfogel [1]. Despite its being one of the most ponderous and dull books I
ever encountered, it had a big impact on my thinking. Wittfogel had been the number two German in the
Comintern, an
organization created by Stalin before the Second World War for
subverting governments around the world. Wittfogel was lucky to survive that experience, as Stalin
murdered most of the comrades, and he then set about explaining how so
smart a man as himself could have been seduced by the Soviet system.
The result was his theory of hydraulic society. Simply put, it holds that when a society is forced by nature to
organize itself to control water, it has the means in place for despotic
rule. Only in a country
like Egypt, where irrigation and flood control were imperative, could
human labor be harnessed to so gigantic and unproductive a task as
building pyramids. Similarly,
the Great Wall of China could be built only because the Chinese had to
be tightly organized to control floods. In Western Europe, by contrast, abundant rainfall allowed
outlying noblemen to break from their monarch and join his rival
whenever the monarch became oppressive. If the monarch could have shut off their rainfall, such an
alternative would have been unavailable.
Whether one buys this theory or not, it provides a nice
historical example of a link between technology and organization. Hydraulic society resulted in the type of control over human
beings that communism sought to achieve through ideology and Leninism. Analogously, the communists controlled their peasantry through
centralized machine-tractor stations. Rebellion could be cut off by denying collective farms the power
they needed to produce crops.
In later years, as I got to know Egypt and Indonesia, another
possible result of hydraulic society suggested itself. Egyptians and Indonesians, especially Javanese, tend to have a
great affinity for hierarchy. The
contrast between Egyptian values and Lebanese, for example, and Javanese
values and Chinese, could not be greater. Titles and status are very important to most Egyptians, while the
Lebanese are much more concerned with acquisition. Similarly, Javanese typically crave a place in the bureaucracy
while a Chinese minority of only 5% control an overwhelming percentage
of commercial activity throughout Indonesia. Although China was cited above as a water-control society, and
the Chinese communist system demonstrates an affinity for hierarchy, the
overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia are mainly from Fukien, where the
status bug apparently bit least.
The second stage in the evolution of my thinking, technology and
development, began in 1977 when Lester Gordon of the Harvard Institute
for International Development (HIID) was selected by the new Carter
administration to head a study of foreign aid, and asked me to join the
team. My subject was to be
technology transfer. I
produced an appendix to the study in which I proposed the separation of
science and technology from the Agency for International Development
(AID) and the creation of an Institute for Scientific and Technological
Cooperation (ISTC). (Brookings)
I had several reasons for recommending this. Developing countries admire most about our country our ability to
generate and use new technologies. What they want from us is know-how, not lessons in democracy or
our experience in creating low-cost health delivery systems. Moreover, when a country reaches the level of per-capita income
where it can adopt and adapt technology most profitably, it is usually
cut off from our development assistance, despite the fact that most
often the scientists and technicians of the country have been trained in
the United States. Their
ties to alma mater are rudely
severed. (Israel is, of
course, an exception to this. Our
level of assistance to Israel is higher than the per-capita income
cut-off point for aid to other countries.)
My thought was that the ISTC could serve as a linking
organization between our science-based departments (agriculture, health
and energy) and developing countries.
The study was never published, but somehow President Carter read
my appendix and decided to go for it. He announced in a speech in Venezuela that the ISTC would be
created, and he asked his science advisor, Dr. Frank Press, to design
the Institute. I joined a
team in the Executive Office for two years, drafting a proposal to the
Congress. One of my tasks
was to attend regional meetings to explain the ISTC concept to
scientists from developing countries. I visited Cali (Colombia), Singapore, and Nairobi and found the
response enthusiastic. Many
of the scientists attending were US graduate school products, and they
recognized the importance of deepening the engagement of their societies
with scientific methods. Often
they spoke of a “culture” of science, which had yet to spread in
their countries. They also
made the important point that fresh US PhDs in most fields had to be
re-educated upon their return home to use their skills to solve local
problems, not the problems most had done their dissertations on. Collaboration with US scientists was strongly desired, but they
were aware that the agenda of such cooperation had to have local
relevance.
Regrettably,
Congress refused to fund the new agency, although it did authorize the
program and gave it to AID to execute!
It was embarrassing to me personally to have stirred up such
hopes among scientists abroad only to have them dashed, and I think the
Congress did us all a disservice by rejecting the institute. It is another example of Congress’ propensity to think locally,
but act globally. AID did
mount some research competitions under the new mandate, from which many
of overseas scientists benefited.
Following this disappointing experience, I was appointed
International Fellow of the Kettering Foundation in Dayton in order to
produce a manuscript on “US Science and the Third World”. (URL
pending)
Backers of the ISTC proposal hoped this exposition of the case for
greater scientific cooperation with developing countries would persuade
the reluctant Congress, but it was not to be. The case was made to my satisfaction at least, but the Congress
had other priorities.
Next I was invited by a group at the Institute of
Medicine/National Academy of Sciences to participate in a study of US
capacity for research on tropical diseases. My task was to write an appendix to the study, published in 1985
(NAS Tropical Diseases), describing the experience of US
institutions cooperating with developing countries. The most instructive example was that of Cmdr. Robert Phillips,
the man most responsible for the discovery of the oral rehydration
treatment of cholera.
Phillips was a Navy pathologist who first encountered cholera
when based in Egypt in 1947. Cholera
was not a research priority for the Navy because it seldom affected US
forces, but Phillips maintained an interest in the disease for years
thereafter. Cholera lasts
only for a day or two in a human being, but in that time it dehydrates
the body to the point of death. The
problem was to find a way to survive the two days. Eventually, Phillips discovered a Gatorade type of mixture that
was absorbed by the body through the walls of the intestines. He was a colorful fellow, and fun to write about, but the point
of the story was that US medical science is seldom devoted to the
diseases of the poor countries. Phillips,
almost in his spare time, found a way to counter one of the worst
scourges of mankind.
The successful smallpox eradication program, carried out under
World Health Organization (WHO) auspices, also benefited greatly from US
involvement. The Centers
for Disease Control in Atlanta loaned D. A. Henderson to WHO to head the
eradication program, and also supplied 50 doctors when needed to work in
the field. When Henderson
wanted technical problems solved, such as the means to keep sera potent
in tropical conditions, CDC tackled the research and development. WHO supplied the umbrella for this historical effort, and took
the credit, but it was really Henderson and the CDC that conquered the
disease.
I encountered some of the institutional problems of engaging US
science with Third World problems in the late 1980s when I became
project manager of the Applied Diarrheal Disease Research (ADDR) project
at HIID. The project was
AID-funded and involved social and medical scientists from Johns Hopkins
University and Tufts as well as Harvard. The purpose was to improve the ability of researchers in six
selected countries to understand and deal with diarrheal disease
problems for which Phillip’s technology, oral rehydration, provided
inexpensive relief. US
medical and social scientists would serve on the review committee for
project applications, and could offer collaboration and technical
assistance as needed.
Problems arose early when the US participants sought to use the
vehicle for their own purposes. Some
of the American research scientists involved, particularly those from
Johns Hopkins, sought to mount Hopkins-led comparative research projects
at foreign sites in order to tackle problems at the frontier of the
field. Foreign researchers
would be little more than research assistants, and the goal of building
of local capacities for problem solving would be subordinated to and
subverted by the interests of the American scientists.
Within AID itself, the Office of Health, which sponsored the
project, was more interested in the publication of articles in respected
journals than in building local abilities. Even in the field, parochial interests tended to
dominate. In Indonesia, the AID health officer wanted to build up a center
in a university in Jakarta. Researchers
from provincial universities wanting to participate in the project had
no desire to have funds siphoned off in Jakarta, nor in receiving
supervision from people in the center who were not more capable than the
provincials themselves.
I
lost my job fighting that one, but vindication, of sorts, came when the
project was evaluated by the former head of the Pan American Health
Organization. He was
surprised and congratulatory over the determination of the project to
build local capacities rather than serve other interests. That was seven years ago, and the project is still running
under the able leadership of my successor, John Simon. The point of this experience is the difficulty one encounters
in seeking to strengthen indigenous research capacities. When research monies are scarce, US institutions may
seek to use the funds to further their own agendas.
With globalization, the spread of modern technologies around the
world has increased sharply, but unevenly. Jeffrey Sachs, a Harvard economist who recently headed HIID,
makes an articulate case for more concentrated attention to the spread
of technology in the June 24, 2000 issue of The Economist. Sachs
maps the areas of technological innovation, technological adoption, and
technological exclusion. Most
of the excluded areas are, not surprisingly, in Africa, most of the
Middle East, Central Asia and tropical areas of the Americas. He calls for a technology-oriented reform of the World Bank
lending program, bilateral assistance programs, and the UN agencies,
especially WHO. He
doesn’t suggest a revival of the ISTC idea, but it would blend well
with his other recommendations.
My own interest in technology has shifted somewhat from forms of
technological cooperation to the impact of technology on human
development. Perhaps technology is as important in what it does to us, as
human beings, as in what it does for us. I took an early interest in the impact of irrigation technology
on the semi-nomads of the Sudan and in Alex Inkeles’s study of shift
in values, attitudes and beliefs that occurs in traditional societies as
the result of formal education, introduction of the transistor radio,
and/or factory employment. [2] Earlier still, I was fascinated by Ramond
Dart’s theories of the impact on early humans of their first use of
tools for hunting and defense. [3].
We know that human development is a product of genetics and
environment. For most of
us, technology has an overwhelming influence on our environment. Often it is our
environment for most of our waking lives. Whether we are software engineers, truck drivers, secretaries,
managers, factory workers or professionals in medical or legal fields,
we are immersed for ten to twelve hours a day in our technology. (Technology is not, of course, simply
machines. It means the entire body of methods and materials used for
achieving objectives, such as the analytical tools of the professions). The mental and physical environment of our work is bound to have
a big impact upon our possibilities for continued growth and
development.
In developing countries, I think activities that stimulate and
facilitate human development should be valued in the same way that
product is valued. Economists
have already devised formulas for measuring costs and benefits of
different technologies that take into account “externalities,” such
as the impact of alternative means of production on employment, or on
the quality of the environment. Similarly,
although measurement would be a problem at this point, value could be
attached to environments conducive to growth.
In a sense, this is exactly what Lee Kuan Yew, father of
Singapore’s independence and early growth, has done. In two short generations, Singapore has advanced from a bustling
third-world port into a modern society whose students rival the
accomplishments of the best of Western societies. Living standards have advanced more rapidly than in any other
country during this period. I
believe this was accomplished by policies favoring education and
training. These
policies included the raising of the minimum wage as soon as the economy
neared full employment. This
forced companies either to mechanize, and upgrade their workforce, or
move out to lower-wage locations. Other
factors were involved in the success of Singapore, not the least its
favorable location, small size, and energetic population.
I sought to study the Singapore case to examine the policy
framework by which success was achieved, and wrote an application to the
MacArthur Foundation (1999
MacArthur) for financing.
The Foundation sponsored a competition that called for innovative
research on such issues as population and the environment. I did not survive the first cut, to my continued dismay.
Technological advances are inevitable, omnipresent and
inescapable. But they are
also our main hope of finding acceptable solutions to the scourges of
overpopulation and environmental degradation that technology itself has
allowed us to inflict upon ourselves. It is a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, and the sword
with which to cut the Gordian knot. It is both sword and plowshare. We need to understand better how technology can be used to
facilitate our human development, at all levels. In particular, we need to find ways to allow increasing numbers
of people to attain level four, formal operations.
The impact of technology on human development is of course of
interest to us who live in modern societies as well. I don’t think we know yet what the effect of our explosive
information technology will have on the individuals immersed in it. We have, however, begun to understand its impact on organization
at the level of the firm, if not at the level of government.
1.
Wittfogel, K. A., Oriental Despotism: A comparative study of total power. 1957, New
Haven: Yale University. 556.
2.
Inkeles, A. and D. Smith, Becoming
Modern: Individual change in six developing countries. 1974,
Cambridge: Harvard. 437.
3.
Dart, R. A., Man's Evolution. 1964, Institute for the Study of Man: Johannesburg.
p. 16.
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