Re: India - Wave of the Future?

Subject: Re: India - Wave of the Future?
From: "Andrea Brundt" <andrea_w_brundt -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 19:45:33 +0000

Dick wrote:

Look, people have been preaching Small Planet for close to forty years. In the 1960s Gunnar Myrdal observed that population growth abates with industrialization, because industrialization enables the establishment of a social security system and thereby obviates the need for large numbers of children (I'm omitting a few steps in his argument for brevity). When multinationals build power plants and factories in developing countries, they are advancing the world toward a time of less poverty, pestilence, war, and famine, even if their motivation is nothing more than getting the most production for the least money. And the world will be better for ALL of us when there is less poverty, pestilence, war, and famine, doncha think?

I respectfully disagree agree with the position that building power plants and factories in developing countries moves the world towards less poverty, pestilence, war and famine. In fact, the reverse is sometimes true. Those multinationals get "the most production for the least money" partly because they can skirt those pesky environmental and labour laws back home.

Population growth certainly does abate with industrialization, and other good stuff follows, provided that the presence of industry actually improves the living conditions of its workers (not just its owners) and is managed in an environmentally and socially responsible way. And I don't think that's always the case. I'm not preaching small planet, but I can't see how expanded industry necessarily means a better life for all.

(Back to Tech Writing...Tech Writing and software development provide an interesting contrast to big factories -- with the proper infrastructure inplace and with ethics on the radar, they can be accomplished without displacing workers and without excessive environmental damage. And software shops also tend to pay better than shoe factories.)

Andrea

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