Perceptions and analyses of world problems: Major...

Published in 1986 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris, France

Printed in the Workshops of Unesco

0 Unesco 1986 Printed in France

FOREWORD

Under its second Medium-Term Plan (1984-1989), Unesco has since 1984 been engaged in a programme of study entftled 'Reflection on world problems and future-oriented studies', one of the main functions of which is to follow developments in world problems and how they are perceived by various schools of thought. This involves collecting, analysing and disseminating the results of the work done on this subject within the intellectual community and, at the same time, researching more deeply into particular aspects of world problems that have as yet been little studied or that have been studied only in some regions of the world. Theories and methods pertaining to the analysis of world problems, for instance, generally pay insufficient attention to the social and cultural aspects of those problems or to the role that factors bound up with education. science, culture and communication can play in their development and in their solution. The aim, then, is to collect and compare ideas about both the present and the emerging world situation, taking account of the diversity of intellectual trends, responses specific to different cultures and approaches varying in every possible way and, in so doing, to set Unesco's fields of competence more clearly against the general background of world problems. This work, which necessarily has a €orward-looking dimension, should also contribute to the preparation of the Organization's third Medium-Term Plan, covering the period extending towards the year 2000.

This 'pooling of ideas' about world problems, representing a new activity for Unesco and R new departure within the United Nations system, even though it involves close co-operation with the other organizations concerned, could not but be n gradual process. The first stage had necessarily to be one of exploratory work. A survey had to be made of existing research and sources of information available worldwide (institutions, researchers, bibliographies, etc.) had to be identified.

It was necessary next to draw up a state-of-the-art report on research on world problems. In the particularly fertile field of international relations, such a report could not but be partial, exploratory and thus necessarily incomplete. The objective was not so much to make a comprehensive survey of approaches to world problems as to take stock of the most significant trends in contemporary research, or in other words those that are most widely known and thus exert some influence on the ways in which world problems are perceived in various regions and in different cultures. Such is the purpose of this synoptic document, which presents some of the work carried out along these lines during the 1984- 1985 biennium.

This work, which illustrates the various ways of perceiving and approaching the analysis of world problems, can in no way be regarded as representing Unesco's point of view; responsibility for it rests with the authors alone. Furthermore, this document, it must be repeated, represents no more than a preliminary stage, an as yet incomplete 'state- of-the-art' report based on the main currents of theory that endeavour to analyse world problems. As such, however, they already point up

I

certain gaps or 'twilight zones' in contemporary research, especially in regard to the perception and understanding of the interrelations between world problems and factors within Unesco's fields of competence.

It will be on these lesser known aspects that the work to be carried out in 1986-1987 will focus, so that it may directly contribute, in accordance with the wish expressed by the General Conference of Unesco at its twenty-third session (Sofia, 1985). to the prepamtion of the Organiz- ation's third Medium-Term Plan. Three main lines of approach have thus been decided upon:

- firstly, continuation of the synoptic work initiated in 1984-1985, broadened to include other currents of theory together with methodological studies (such as the analysis of extant world models and any gaps they present in respect of Unesco's fields of competence);

- secondly, preparation of regional studies with the object of taking stock of prospects and challenges in each of the regions up to the year 2000 in Unesco's fields of competence;

- thirdly, a set of activities aimed at identifying and analysing possible developments and changes in the fields of education, science, culture and communication between now and the end of the twentieth century.

All this work will lead to the publication, at the end of the 1986- 1987 biennium, of a further two-yearly synoptic report. In addition, some of this work that seems to have produced particularly significant findings will be published in a series entitled 'Notebooks on world problems'. The first publication in the series is to be issued in or around October 1986 under the title 'New technologies and development'.

Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow Director-General

II

TABLE O F CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

Part One :

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part Two:

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part Three :

Perceptions and analyses of world problems

The perception of world problems (IIASA: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg)

Global problems and their interactions (VNIISI : All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research, Moscow)

Theories of development (Third World Forum, Dakar Office)

The world-system theory and the search for alternatives

The problems of dependence and delinking (Third World Forum, Dakar Office)

Seeking alternatives to the homogenization of the world (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi)

Modelling

Chapter 6 Modelling: an overview (WZB : Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin)

General bibliography'

INTRODUCTION

1. The studies selected for this synoptic report have been conducted in the context of efforts to encourage the expression of different ways of perceiving world problems. In so extensive an area, the process of inquiry initiated in 1984-1985 could not but be incomplete and exploratory and, more often than not, limited to general considerations; it was not possible, within the framework of the first series of studies produced in 1984-1985, to give a methodological and theoretical survey of the extremely vast field represented by world problems. It should therefore be borne in mind that this first synoptic report represents only the first stage in an ongoing process aimed at taking account of the most varied methods of analysis and refiecting the most widely differing out- looks from a pluralistic and interdisciplinary standpoint.

2. Thus, during the 1984-1985 budgetary period. several research institutes contributed to Major Programme I. The contributions selected for this document are from the following institutions:

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS, Delhi);

Third World Forum (Dakar) : All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research (VNIISI) , (Moscow) : International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria) ;

Wissenschaftszentrum Derlin (International Institute for Comparative Social Research, Berlin).

3. The contributions received were too long to be published in full in this report. It was therefore decided to include only significant excerpts from those studies. Each excerpt is preceded by a summary of the contribution as a whole, thus pinpointing more clearly the theoretical viewpoint and conclusions of the study. A general bibliography concludes the report, selectively drawing on the bibliographies that accompany the different studies.

4. This introduction is designed essentially to serve as a reader's guide whose primary purpose is to place the different contributions selected for the report in their theoretical and methodological context. The idea was not at all to undertake a critical review of the studies received but rather to provide background information so as to make it easier to assess the contribution made by those studies to the process of reflection on world problems in which the international intellectual community is engaged. Needless to say, the views expressed in the studies are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Organization.

- 1 -

5. The studies presented here are not all of the same kind. Some constitute an original theoretical contribution while others, especially those from the IIASA and the Wissenschaftszentrum, have more in common with a 'research report' on the concept of world problems or on modelling. This difference in kind has led to emphasis being placed in this introduction on approaches of the first type, the object being to place them in their theoretical context.

6. The contributions chosen for this report are set out under three headings:

Perceptions and analyses of world problems;

The world-system theory and the search for alternatives;

Modelling.

7. Perceptions and analyses of world problems. This first part of the report brings together three studies that différ very much from one another in kind, -methodological approach and theoretical premises: 'The perception of world problems' (IIASA) , 'Global problems and their interactions' (VNIISI) and 'Theories of development' (Faycal Yachir, Third World Forum). However, the extracts chosen complement one another. The IIASA study, prepared under the responsibility of I. Kiss and W. Mayon-White, centres on the difficulties, particularly methodological ones, involved in analysing views of world problems. The contribution from the All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research (VNIISI) provides a practical illustration of an approach to world problems based on 'systems analysis'. Lastly, the study from the Third World Forum, prepared by Fayçal Yachir, takes a critical look at development theories, which attest to the emergence of radically new concepts since the 1950s. as applied to the situation resulting from the wave of decolonization and the presence of the Third World on the international scene. It should again be stressed that these contributions, far from exhausting the specific fields of study dealt with, open up a debate that will be reflected in the synoptic reports on subsequent work conducted under Major Programme I.

8. The 'world system' theory. The 'world system' or 'world economy' paradigm used by Rajni Kothad, who was responsible for the study en- trusted to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and also prominent in the work of Samir Amin, acquired its theoretical standing in the 1970s. After a period in which economics gave considerable attention to econometric modelling, the 'world system' conccpt denoted in that discipline, as indeed in the rest of the human sciences, the 'resurgence' of history, thereby linking up with a tradition in which Marx and Keynes in particular figured prominently.

9. It was the historian Immanuel Wallerstein who developed the paradigm of the 'world system'. In his work 'The Modern World System' (Vol- umes l and 2, 1974 and 1980), he argues that, after the crisis in Euro- pean feudalism (1300-1450). the rise of capitalism was reflected in the gradual emergence of a 'world economy' which, so he maintains, has since then passed through four major phases:

- 2 -

(a) the crystallization and emergence of the 'world system' in Western Europe (1450-1640) ;

(b) consolidation of the 'world system' (1640-1815);

(c) expansion of the 'world economy' into a global undertaking through the modern industrial and technological revolution

(d) strengthening of the 'world system' (since 1917).

10. Wallerstein's theory was taken one step further by the French historian Fernand Braudel. In his work 'Civilisation matérielle, economie et capitalisme' Braudel asserts that since the thirteenth century the economic organization of the world has been governed by several cities in turn, from each of which everything has derived (in particular, power, finance and technology). Such cities from the 'core' or 'centre' of the economy and dominate the 'periphery' around them. From the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries he thus lists five 'world economies', centred respectively on Bruges (1200-1390). Venice (1390-1490), Antwerp (1490- 1550), Genoa (1550-1620) and Amsterdam (1620-1780). Other authors have tried to extend this analysis to the modern and contemporary period.

11. The 'world system' paradigm has now come to represent a theoretical benchmark for researchers in a variety of fields, including economics, history, political science and sociology. The methodological approach and the field of research vary from one author to another, as does the period under investigation, some researchers seeking to identify the dynamics of the 'world system' since the beginnings of capitalism while others direct their attention to the contemporary period. However, over and above this multiplicity of approaches and viewpoints, the following two basic hypotheses underlie all these analyses:

(a) the world can be viewed as a system independently of the elements - national societies - that make it up. This 'world system' possesses its own structural dynamics;

(1815-1917);

(b) the economy of this system determines the development of all the national societies and their position in the hierarchy created by the international division of labour.

12. Samir Amin, who conducts his research in the African Regional Office (Dakar) of the Third World Forum, is one of the main theoreticians of the 'world system'. In the work 'Dynamics of Global Crisis' (United Kingdom, Macmillan, 1982), he sets out, with C. Arrighi. A.G. Frank and 1. Wallerstein, the premises shared by all the researchers who have adopted this theoretical perspective:

'We believe that there is a social whole that may be called a capitalist world-economy. We believe that this capitalist world- economy came into existence a long time ago, probably in the sixteenth century, and that it had expanded historically from its Euro- pean origins to cover the globe by the late nineteenth century. We

- 3 -

believe it can be described as capitalist in that endless accumulation is its motor force. We believe that the appropriation by the world bourgeoisie of the surplus value created by the world's direct pro- ducers has involved not merely direct Appropriation nt the market- place, but also unequal exchange, transferring surplus from peripheral to core zones. We believe that we cannot make an intelli- gent analysis of the various states taken separately without placing their so-called internal life in the context of the world division of labour, located in the world-economy. Nor can we make a coherent analysis that segregates "economic", "political" and "social" variables'.

13. This approach based on the concept of a 'world system' is rooted in an inquiry into the concepts of development and underdevelopment which itself springs from a critical analysis of theories of modernization and of which an illustration is afforded by Faycal Yachir's study (cf. Part One of the report).

14. Theories of modernization are based on the conviction that the West will succeed in disseminating its economic system, its technology and its values worldwide. They treat the development of capitalism at the national level as a quantitative, linear process. This is the conceptual framework in which the 'modernization' of the developing countries is envisaged; those countries are expected to turn into modern capitalist States, this economic change going hand-in-hand with basic social, ideological and political changes. O n this last point. the theoreticians of 'modernization' have generally linked capitalist development with the adoption of the Western democratic model. The foundations of the theories of modernization were laid by Arthur Lewis, who analyses development essentially as a quantitative process based on growth ('The Theory of Economic Growth', London, 19551, but the paradigm was formulated by Walt Rostow in his work 'The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto' (Cambridge, 1960). The American economist's evolutive model proposes a dynamic theory of production that treats development as a process of growth marked by certain stages, inevitable transition points, with economic 'take-off' occurring at the point where underdevelopment turns into development. Rostow stresses the need for some measure of economic interventionism on the part of the State in order to 'stimulate' development.

15. At the international level, this liberal view of development is given fuller expression in the idea, put forward by Schumpeter in particular (cf. 'Imperialism, Social Classes', New York, 1955) that the advance and universalization of capitalism, combined with the easing of international tension, will lead to the decline and disappearance of modern imperialism, which was given a further lease of life at the end of the nineteenth century and was the subject of theorization by Hobson, Hilferding, Rosa Luxembourg and Lenin, among others.

16. The strategy of development derived from the theories of modernization was already being challenged and called into question in the 1960s. Despite the corrections and adjustments made by some of the most prominent theoreticians, like François Perroux for instance. three criticisms have been levelled rt the liberal approach to development:

- 4 -

(a) it is said to treat development as a purely economic process, whereas many authors lay emphasis on the political, social and, above all. cultural aspects of development;

(b) it is said to entail a copying of the Western model;

(c) it is said to be based on a twofold misapprehension: (i) the conviction that the Third World countries could one by one mechanically reproduce the various stages of development of the economic and political model of the developed countries; (ii) the focusing of the analysis on the internal workings of society without really taking the international environment into account.

17. Theoreticians in the Marxist tradition base much of their criticism of liberal thinking on the fact that, according to them, it assigns minor importance to the world economic structure (cf. in particular the work of Baran, Mandel and Sweezy) . 18. To these various contributions to development theory was added in 1971 the work of Johan Galtung (cf. 'A Structural Theory of Imperialism' published in the 'Journal of Peace Research'). However, this effort by social scientists in the industrialized countries during the 1960s to arrive at an overall picture of the international situation tied in with the approach of various researchers in the Third World, especially Latin America, who established a link between the two concepts of dependence and development.

19. Theories of dependence look at underdevelopment in the context of the overall structure of the international system. The phenomenon is seen as the result of asymmetric relations adumbrating a relationship of 'dependence' by an underdeveloped 'periphery' on a developed 'core'.

20. The dynamics of the core-periphery relationship reveals that underdevelopment does not constitute a stage in a linear process leading to development. For some authors, dependence represents, on the contrary, a vicious circle that reveals itself through the 'development of underdevelopment' (André Gunder Frank) and the accentuation of 'unequal exchange' (Arghiri Emmanuel) between the core and the periphery.

21. The theory of dependence came into prominence in reaction to 'developmentalist' ideas, but some of its constituent parts had been worked out long before the writings of Lewis and Rostow. Emphasis should be laid in this connection on the decisive role played by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), under the impetus of Rau1 Prebisch in particular. The core-periphery system went on to attract the special attention of various Latin American researchers before influencing theoreticians of development from other regions.

22. The structural approach based on the core-periphery system has thus given rise to several conceptual and theoretical variations. The debate among theoreticians of development centres around two sets of alternatives: should a reformist or a revolutionary strategy be adopted,

- 5 -

and should one continue to follow the path of capitalist development or opt for socialism?

23. Wallerstein, Frank ('World Accumulation 1492-1789'. 1980) and Amin continue to pursue a line of inquiry following on from the theory of dependence, but adopting a new perspective, that of the 'world system', the two structural features of which are the division of labour and the unequal exchange of goods between core and periphery. One of the strong points of the world-system paradigm is that it brings out the fact that the 'world economy' is characterized by competition among several 'core' States.

24. While drawing some of its conceptual inspiration from the work of the theoreticians of the 'world system', with which it also shares a desire to break with a quantitative and purely 'economist' approach to development. Rajni Kothari's study centres on the search for dterna- tives. It is consequently concerned not so much with the origins of the present international system as with the means either of remedying its defects or shortcomings or of 'remodelling' it in the light of a normative, qualitative view of international society.

25. The contribution of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies more specifically reflects an outlook of which the intellectual sources are to be found in a series of documents such as the Arusha and Coyococ Declarations (1967 and 1974 respectively), the various contributions of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (Uppsala) to the definition of an 'alternative development', the Algiers symposium on the new international economic order and the RIO project initiated by Tinbergen. These documents are evidence of a desire to define a 'style of development' consonant with local specificities. as part and parcel of a total process extending beyond the sphere of essential material needs and incorporating cultural, political, social and ecological parameters. The theoretical debate turns upon three concerns: the satisfaction of basic needs, self-reliance and respect for cultural identity.

26. However, within this approach, reflection on a type of development in line with local socio-cultural conditions goes hand in hand with research aiming for a general recasting of the international system. The United Nations system, along with other international bodies, has thus become since its inception a forum for debating a 'new international order', considered from the cultural, economic, political and social points of view. At the non-institutional level, there is in several intellectual circles a concern to draw up guidelines for a better balanced world (cf. for instance the Worldwatch Institute's annual reports on the state of the world). Such is also the objective pursued by the World Order Models Project, involving the Institute for World Order (New York) and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, directed by Rajni Kothan.

27. The World Order Models Project (WOMP) thus brings together researchers of various nationalities from different geographical regions. Launched in the United States in 1966, initially for the purpose of working in the cause of peace. particularly in education. W O M P soon assigned itself further objectives: the promotion of economic welfare and the fight

- 6 -

against poverty, the advancement of social justice, the maintenance of ecological balance, the preservation of the identity of individuals and peoples and, lastly, participation by the people in all decision-making processes. The promoters of the project, organized since the Delhi meeting (February 1968) in research groups based in various regions of the world, are convinced that any preventive action for peace necessarily entails the solving of certain crucial problems. WOMP lays emphasis on the improvement of living conditions and the achievement of social justice in the Third World countries and on the maintenance of peace and the protection of the environment in the industrialized countries. In 1972, W O M P published its first contribution to reflection on world problems ('Economics and World Order: from the 1970s to the 1990s'). Since then it has published a large number of working documents and, monographs on specific topics. Furthermore, a. quarterly entitled 'Alternatives: A Journal of World Policy' is published under the responsibility of R. Kothari and S.H. Mendlovitz.

28. In WOMP's views, mankind is faced with five major problems: war, poverty, social injustice, ecological imbalances and alienation. For solutions to be found to these problems, such 'positive values' as peace, economic welfare, social justice, ecological stability and respect for the identity of individuals and of peoples need to be promoted and rooted in international society. W O M P seeks in its work to draw up a diagnosis in regard to the present-day world system and a prognosis in respect of the prospects for change up to the year 2000. It then aims to define an alternative world order and a strategy for achieving the necessary transition. Another of the central concerns in WOMP's thinking is the nation-State. The W O M P approach, based on respect for the cultural diversity of national societies and turned towards the future, rejects 'quantitative' modelling in favour of 'soft modelling', giving precedence to the intellectual capacities - and imagination - of the researcher, who is, however, asked not to overstep the limits of a 'relevant Utopia' (cf. S.H. Mendlovitz: 'On the creation of a just world order: an agenda for a program of inquiry and praxis', Alternatives. 1981).

29. Modellin . The approach to world problems based on modelling is optic report. Heinrich Siegmann provides an overview of the first 15 years of 'global modelling'.

30. Modelling lies at the confluence of three disciplines: political science, systems dynamics and econometrics. The contribution of political science is characterized by the work of Harold Guetzkow and his team at Northwestern University (United States of America) in the field of international relations, and more particularly of East-West relations. Guetzkow has, for instance, built 'Inter-Nation Simulation and Interaction Process Simulation' models. The contribution of systems dynamics to modelling is illustrated by the pioneering work of Jay Forrester on the 'World 3' model at the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT). This model was built for the Club of Rome, which. incidentally, played a major role in the development of modelling by setting up the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); the latter has become a leading centre for model-builders and a forum for debating approaches to world problems (cf. the contribution of I. Kiss and W. Mayon-White).

illustrated --i? y the contribution that constitutes the third part of the syn-

- 7 -

31. Originally viewed with some mistrust by economists, modelling is now more in favour with them. Such economic models as the United Nations world model, FUGI, or the IIASA models were thus the focus of the discussions of the Conference on Global Models held by IIASA in 1980. Econometrics is now widely used in short- and medium-term economic forecasting and in scenario-building. The most significant applications include such models as LINK or DYNAMICO. The latter model provides a means of testing at regional level the effectiveness of various development programmes.

32. The boom in modelling followed on from the interest aroused by the report 'The limits to growth' which, published in 1972, gave an account of the results of the first world model, 'World 3', developed by Jay Forrester for the Club of Rome and put into effect by D.H. Meadows, D.L. hleadows. Jorgen Randers and William W. Behrens of the Massa- chucsets Institute of Technology. Since then, some 30 projects have been designed and implemented in a variety of fields. Four areas of investigation have been given special attention by model-builders: basic needs; North-South relations; science, education and technology; and political and military questions. The extract from the study by the Wissenschafts- Zentrum Berlin provides an overview of research in these areas.

* * *

33. The various contributions selected for this report demonstrate that the scientific community is increasingly interested in taking stock of world problems. Over and above the various concepts and tools of analysis used (e.g. core-periphery , Third World and capitalism, 'delinking', system, local or global problem, etc.), these studies have three features in common: they present a global analysis of the international situation and they have a forward-looking character and a normative tendency.

34. A global analysis of the international situation: the world is the primary frame of reference of all the studies presented in this report. They start out from the fact that there exists a world system whose functioning and evolution should be analysed. The report by the All- Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research (VNIISI) stresses that the history of mankind in the twentieth century cannot be viewed as a mere set of local processes occurring in various countries and regions but as the history of a '.global systems complex' wherein the globalization of the processes occurring in the different regions of the world takes place. Samir Amin (Third World Forum) describes his contribution as being centred on the analysis of 'radical changes' in each of the societies making up the world system and in its overall structure. For Rajni Kothari, world problems have a specific 'structure' calling for concerted action by all the 'world community'.

35. A forward-looking character: the studies do not simply analyse the world as it is, they also seek to discern the underlying pattern of change. The past (for those studies that refer to it) and the present serve as a mirror in which research attempts to read the future. This characteristic is inherent in work based on model- and scenario-building,

- 8 -

but it also marks the search for alternatives conducted by Rajni Kothari and the efforts of 'world-system' theoreticians.

36. A normative tendency: all the studies presented here are implicitly or explicitly normative. Rajni Kothari's contribution seeks to define alternatives whereby the 'probable' might be avoided and the 'desirable' achieved. Modelling has influenced several reports, the forward-looking and normative dimension of which has been viewed with wide favour. in particular 'Interfutures' (OECD, 19791, 'North-South: a programme for survival' (Brandt Commission, 1980) and 'Global 2000' ('The Global 2000 Report to the President: entering the twenty-first century', U S Govern- ment Printing Office, 1980). However, in the face of certain trends that now seem to be emerging in modelling (increasing mathematical complexity, short-term view, fragmentation of research, relative academicism), several model-builders, like the 'world-system' theoreticians in this respect, feel that parameters of a more qualitative kind should be introduced into modelling work.

37. The studies in this first synoptic report are thus based on the idea of a global system having an autonomous existence and whose evolution is governed by laws that they attempt to identify. It will be seen. however, that they give only limited attention to the fields of education, science, culture and communication. Yet, as has been stressed by the Director-General of Unesco, it is clear 'not only that world problems fall squarely into Unesco's fields of competence, but also that those fields of competence constitute areas of human activity where changes that are no doubt of the most decisive importance for man's future are under way. For it is here that some of the most serious problems facing mankind arise; here, new challenges are emerging that should prove crucial in coming decades; and here, very probably, lie some of the solutions of the dilemmas confronting the modern world'. :i) In fact, the studies selected for this report already make it possible to understand more clearly the links between the Organization's fields of competence and world problems, to assess the gaps in our knowledge in this regard, and to identify certain lines of research that may be a source of guidance for future work under Major Programme I.

(1) Introduction to the general policy debate. fourth extraordinary session of the General Conference, 1982.

- 9 -

PART ONE: Perceptions and analyses of world problems

- 11 -

CHAPTER 1: The perception of world problems

(IIASA: International Institute €or Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg)

This 11ASA study is based mainly on the papers presented at the Unesco/ IIASA Task Force meeting on 'World problems and their perceptions' (Budapest, 25 February-1 March 1985).(1)

It falls into two main parts: a reflection on the concept of perception of world problems and a round-up of various approaches used in examining them.

Attention in the first part is centred on the definition of a number of concepts which present theoretical difficulties, in particular the definition of world problems, the compatibility between perception of world problems and scientific objectivity and the linkage between development objectives and values. lhe errphasis placed on the necessity of 'managing problems from the bottom and not from the top, and for a man-oriented strategy for development (MAND), rather than a means-oriented strategy (MEAND)' echoes the approach based on the search for alternatives.

The second part of the study is devoted to an analysis of three categories of studies of world problems: modelling, the systems approach with an economic dominant, and scenarios giving prominence to socio-cultural aspects (such as Interfutures, the work of the Brandt Commission, Europe 2000, etc.). In conclusion, the authors emphasize the need t o think out an 'action-oriented' approach to world problems.

(1) Title of the study, directed by lstvan Kiss and William Mayon-White: 'World problems and their perceptions, a report on the state of the art'.

- 13 -

1. This project can be viewed from two perspectives. The first concerns a narrow view of this study which may be called'its organizational context, and the second is a wider view in which both the organizational context and the epistemology of the project may be set. This latter perspective may be loosely called its historical context. The organizational context provides background information on the evolution of this study whilst the historical context provides insight into some developments which are reflected in this study.

2. This study has emerged as a result of co-operation between a United Nations organization and an international non-governmental organization. The Constitution of Unesco and the Charter of IIASA both declare the importance of addressing world problems and require the organizations to facilitate the development of improved methods for the understanding of and for intervention in these issues. In the early 1970s IIASA organized a series of conferences devoted to global modelling and at the end of the first decade of this activity published the lessons learned from global modelling under the title of 'Groping in the Dark'.(l)

3. The lessons and the experiences gained have been one component in a process which has led some researchers and other members of the systems community to rethink the process of systems analysis and re- examine fundamental methodological assumptions. This has involved the questioning of a range of tacit assumptions upon which current methodologies are based.(2) At the same time the need for some appropriate methodologies and strategies for intervention in complex problems has emerged on other fronts and is well illustrated by the second Medium- Term Plan and Major Programme I of Unesco. Because of these shared interests and common problems members of the international systems community and representatives of IIASA have looked for co-operation in this field with Unesco.

4. A proposal by members of the Fuschi Group(3) was subsequently put forward by IIASA to Unesco, and resulted in the Task Force meeting in Budapest which enabled individuals from different disciplines and cultures to contribute to this report.

5. There are two main themes which provide the basis of the historical context of this study. The first concerns events over the last 25 years which are reflected in the studies carried out by agencies, governments

(1) MEADOWS , D. et al., 'Groping in the Dark, the First Decade of Global Modelling', Wiley, Chichester, 1982.

(2) See for example: TOMLINSON, R.L. and KISS, I. (ed.): 'Rethink- ing the Process of Operational Research and Systems Analysis', Pergamon, Oxford, 1984. The Fuschi Group refers to a series of occasional meetings between members of the systems community at Fuschi in Austria to explore developments in systems thinking and to review possible action- oriented programmes. The Fuschi Group has a special interest in systems education. A project involving Unesco-IIASA and ' the systems community was first raised at a meeting of the Fuschi Group in London.

(3)

- 15 -

and individuals in their efforts to understand and ameliorate world problems. The second concerns the emergence and transformation of the school of thought which is here termed systems thinking. In an epistemological sense both of these themes are interpretations of events, but for the authors of this report the second theme is potentially of greater relevance because it challenges and calls into question the assumptions which underpin the deployment of science and technology in the tradition of Descartes as rational and consequently necessary and desirable activities. It is argued that this tradition which is embodied by positivism has governed most of the actions which have been directed at global problems. In this report it is argued that qualitatively different strategies are necessary if the complex nature of these problems is to be understood and the problems themselves tackled effectively. (1) This relationship between science, technology and development is of direct concern to Unesco.

6. The events of the last 25 years provide an easier web to unfold initially. This scenario opens in the 1960s with Western and Eastern Europe, North America and the Soviet Union developing within frameworks dominated by ideas of rational choice. Their ability to resolve the problems of growth, resources and of economic and social development through the application of science and technology was largely unques- tioned at the time. It can be argued that both the capitalist and socialist economies mirrored one another in the deployment of technology to achieve economic growth.

7. The reader will recall that in other parts of the globe this was a period of post-colonization and saw the emergence of many newly independent nations in the African continent and elsewhere. Japan was becoming a major industrial power in the Far East but China was still closed to the West (and to a lesser degree to the socialist world). Econ- omic growth and a 'follow-the-leader' pattern to technological change was widely accepted. In this scenario the EastlWest divide was tacitly accepted and. instead of the NorthlSouth divide which characterizes views in the 1980s, at that time the adjectives 'undeveloped'. 'less- developed' and 'emerging', were widely applied to the countries of the Southern hemisphere. Inequalities and ideological divisions were accepted, and racism was widely practised.

8. One of the major shocks which can be seen as triggering a series of adaptations to this image of (Western) man as a rational actor was the oil crisis of 1973, but prior to that Rachel Carson's seminal book 'Silent Spring'(2) was one of the first challenges to the supremacy of technology, drawing attention to an emergent property of a complex system: the accumulation of pesticide residues in animal populations.

9. There were several responses in the early 1970s which are presented here as modifications of this image of man as a rational actor.

(1) See for example BLUNDEN, M.: 'Technology and Values: Problems

(2) CARSON, R. 'Silent Spring', Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1962. and Options', Futures, Vol 16 (1984), No. 4.

- 16 -

The use of computers to describe world problems in the report to the Club of Rome published as 'Limits to Growth'(1) offered decision-makers a rational tool for examining complexity. In development thinking 'follow- the-leader' was replaced by the basic-needs school which argued for attention to fundamental or basic needs. The 'green revolution' represented yet another potential success story for the export of science and technology to the countries of the South.

10. Criticisms of global modelling and the green revolution alike prompted adaptive changes. Better and more elaborate models were constructed, better and more elaborate technologies for food production were devised, but little attention was paid to the politics of power, and the role of education went largely unrecognized. The mechanisms of resource distribution were not well understood and the essential human character of many problems ignored. The problems continue to accumulate.

11. Despite inflation and financial crises in ,the West, and despite problems of maintaining agricultural and economic development in the socialist economies, expenditure on defence and the military by both the West and the East continued to rise throughout this period. Some changes can be seen by looking back, certainly in the West a trend to smaller auto- mobiles emerged from the energy crisis, but the demand for energy has continued and the energy gap between North and South remains. China is now open to the West. Japan is a major industrial power, and in the North the information revolution is under way. Yet, despite these changes, uncertainty and doubts about the wisdom and utility of the continuing application of science by 'rational man' have continued to grow. The alternative technology and ecology movements are evidence of this trend. In the South the search for integrated development suggests the choice of a new direction.

12. Whether this hesitation is dismissed, or whether it is seen as a dis- continuity. a crisis, or a paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense, does not of itself matter. Instead it can be viewed as an opportunity for international agencies to shift the emphasis of their activities. This opportunity is captured in some senses by the image of 'beyond rational man', and by the image of certain avenues for change and development being recognized as undesirable, inadvisable and unproductive, closed-off and not explored further. Instead, new pathways in which cultural pluralism and diversity is valued for itself, are opened up. These new directions would mean that the goal of economic growth is rejected as inadequate by itself, and its place taken by more complete models of change and adaptation.

13. The epistemological arguments follow a similar pattern over the same 25-year span, but they are even more obscure and less easy to present. One comparison is between 300 years of the science of reductionism weighed against 30 years for the younger science of holism which is here referred to under the term systems thinking. Reductionism appears to be one of the strongest features of modern science, and is of crucial

(1) MEADOWS. D.H. et al. 'The Limits to Growth', Universe Cooks,

/

New York, 1972.

- 17 -

importancc, for it is this same science to which we turn first when seeking tools with which to tackle the complex interrelationships which give rise to world problems and other problems of a lesser magnitude but a similar perversity. The attractions and charms of reductionism can be considered in the following manner: 'there are three senses in which science is %eductionist". Firstly the real world is so rich in variety ... that ... it is necessary to simplify it ... Secondly ... there is ... much to be gained in logical coherence by being reductionist in explanation, accepting the minimum explanation required by the facts to be explained. Thirdly . . . the scientific outlook has absorbed deeply Descartes' advice . . . to analyse piecemeal . . . "Scientific thinking" is almost synonymous with "analytical thinking" in this sense'. (1)

14. These questions over the usefulness of science as a tool for tack- ling the kind of complexity embodied iri world problems are not a rejection of science as such, for clearly it has an important and continuing role in many arenas;(t) rather, it is a questioning of positivism and a call to look 'beyond positivism' to borrow a term.(3) Other and different approaches which capture rather than limit the richness of human behaviour are available and it can be argued that systems thinking is one of the promising avenues to explore. As one might expect, this field was exposed to criticiams in its earlier years. These focused on analytic applications of the concepts.(4) Perhaps its most promising feature is the availability of a range of methodological frameworks which have been designed for the management of problems with similar characteristics to world problems even if they represent a different order of magnitude. These brief descriptions of change over the last 25 years provide a background against which the more detailed arguments of this report may be presented.

15. The reports to the Club of Rome. Any review of the state of the art on world problems must include some discussion of the work of the Club of Rome, as it forms part of the history of this topic. The Club is an organization of some 100 individuais, academics, and policy-makers which started as an informal group under the leadership of Aurelio Peccei in the late 1960s.

(1) c HECKLAND. P. 'Systems Thinking, Systems Practice', Wiley, - Chichester, 1981. For example the role of science in the eradication of smallpox was important both in the development of the vaccine and in monitoring the disease. The eradication of smallpox is one of the few. world problems which has been identified by the authors as having been 'solved'. in a conventional sense of the word. Tuberculosis is another disease which has also been tackled successfully by the direct application of scientific knowledge. CALDWELL, B. J. 'Beyond Positivism : Economic Methdodology in the Twentieth Century'. George Allen and Unwin, Boston, 1983. See, for example: HOOS, I. 'Systems Analysis in Public Policy: A Critique', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972 ; LILIENFELD, R. 'The Rise of Systems Theory, an Ideological Analysis', Wiley, New York, 1978.

- 18 -

The first and most influential work commissioned by the Club of Rome appeared under the title 'The Limits to Growth' (1972). This report described a relatively simple computer-based simulation model of trends in world population, industrialization. and resource use, and led to predictions of 8 sudden, uncontrollable decline in economic and social activity. The main value of this study was its stimulation of a debate and the subsequent initiation of a range of studies. Some of these are discussed later in this report, but in the present context it is worth mentioning two other Club of Rome studies. A complex model was built to examine world problems from a Third World perspective. The 'Bariloche' model(1) and later a disaggregated model (the 'Mesarovic and Pestel' model) was published under the title 'Mankind at the Turning Point' (1974). This latter study examined the interactions between regions, and its most important conclusion was that the current crises were a product of economic development. Criticisms of this and earlier models tend to focus on the model structure and its use of data, and it is significant that many of the more recent studies for the Club of Rome have not been computer-based. The major contribution of the Club of Rome has been to initiate a lively and well-informed debate on world problems, rather than to propose and implement changes. However, some of the changes in methodology in the work of the Club over the last 15 years are of immediate relevance to Unesco, and reflect a need to find qualitative approaches to complement the earlier quantitative studies. The mdhodology used in the more recent study 'Goals for Mankind' is of importance because it attempted to examine value systems and their impact on the perception of world problems.

16. A number of different terms are found in the literature associated with world problems, development, modelling and forecasting. For example, the three terms, world problems, global problems and universal problems, are used interchangeably by many authors. O n other occasions a distinction is drawn between global and world problems. Global problems are then defined as those which (may) have global effects, but world problems are dependent on a (subjective) definition, like: problems which are acknowledged or present in at least three countries or which could be recognized in the formulation of a sensitive social policy.(2)

17. Various attempts have been made to classify world problems according to their type, timescale, and the kind of solution strategy deemed appropriate by particular experts.(3) The authors and members of the Task Force considered these arguments and concluded that these classifications were not helpful for the conduct of work under Major Pro- gramme I. Therefore the term world problem will be used throughout this report to encompass both those problems addressed by Unesco under this

(1) HERRERA, A.D. and SCOLNIK, H.D. et al: 'Catastrophe or New Society?: A Latin American World Model'. IDRC, Ottawa, Canada, 1976.

(2) See International Associations: World Problems, Human Development, Integrative Disciplines, Newsletters 1 to 4, Union of International Associations, Brussels, 1973.

(3) International Associations, op cit.: GVISHIANI, J.M., (ed.), 'Science, Technology and Global Problems', Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1979.

- 19 -

heading and those referred to by other authors in this field as global problems and universal problems.

18. The reader may detect that, as with many lists of this kind, there appears to be a technocratic bias in the organization of the issues. Thus, frequently, many of the topics which Unesco includes in its own classifications are omitted by other authors (for example see IJnesco second Medium-Term Plan (1984-19891, which includes human rights, education, illiteracy and communication amongst others). However, the use of the term 'bias' in this context also reflects the particular perception-or 'filter' used by the authors of this report. This short example provides an introduction to the arguments surrounding the single most important theme in this report; the concept of perception.

19. It may be argued that any classification of itself reflects a particular perception of world problems, and that communities with different ideologies and beliefs inevitably develop their own views of world problems. This argument does not deny the almost universal recognition that certain human dilemmas are shared by all mankind nor does it deny that most classifications will have a great deal in common. Instead it intro- duces a central paradox in the debate over world problems. Simply stated, this suggests that the existence of different value systems and beliefs generates different perceptions. These perceptions result in the choice of different goals and strategies by societies and it can be argued that it is the interaction of these strategies which produces the phenomena which are almost universally regarded as world problems. In systems thinking, this kind of behaviour is frequently called 'emergent' or 'counter-intuitive'. Underpinning this argument is the assumption that no single society or community wishes or intends to act perversely or to the general disadvantage of mankind.

20. The concept of perception here illustrates its key role in any discussion of world problems, and it will emerge repeatedly in the remaining sections of this report. Perception has a specific and altogether fundamental meaning in connection with world problems. The term is used to refer to the underlying image of reality which the researcher uses to pose the problem and examine it. The German term 'Weltanschauung' and its English approximation 'world view' capture most aspects of the meaning of perception. Of particular importance is the nuance of the German term which includes the idea of action being affected by perception. The use of the term here is intended to convey a similar meaning to the sequence: perception, interpretation , action.

21. In this section, further arguments which explore the reasons for a change in the perception of world problems in the 1980s can be introduced. Earlier perceptions of world problems in the late 1960s and particularly at the time of the oil crisis in 1973 were largely based on mechanistic , dehumanized views of social and economic behaviour. The 'correctness' or. 'value' of these views was not widely questioned at the time and it is only now, a decade later, that the full limitations of these assumptions have emerged. In the present discussion one study which was specifically designed to explore different perceptions of world problems is relevant. This study was carried out by the Battelle Institute at Geneva in the early 1970s by means of questionnaires sent to a relatively

- 20 -

small sample of decision-makers in government. The low 'response significantly reduces the value of the study but one common perception is worth reporting. This was that most respondents perceived world problems as qualitatively divided into those which required co-ordinated uni- versai action for their amelioration and those which were susceptible to local initiatives. I.. . in the world problematique are somehow interrelated two different kinds of problems: "global problems" which require solutions at world level, by international agreements . . . , and "generalized problems". common to many areas of the world but requiring essentially locally or regionally adjusted solutions'. (1)

22. This conclusion is supported by another study which examined the application of systems thinking to world problems(2) and has important implications for the manner in which Unesco and other bodies can initiate and co-ordinate effective action in this area, and has special practical implications for the interpreation of the concept of development.

23. The meaning of the word problem differs language by language. Many of the problems listed by authors dealing with world problems are considered as contradictions in the development process by Marxist phil- osophers. The solution of a problem in this respect can be replaced by the resolution of a contradiction. In both approaches there are common elements which have to be analysed to understand the nature and origin of situations in which changes seem to be necessary. But what are the characteristics of development processes, situations in which contradictions or problems can be formulated, and what are the initiating factors in recognition leading to formulation? Any .attempt to list some of these basic concepts which figure in this complex process WiU give a better background for understanding the differences in the perception of phenomena as problems which need to be solved or as contradictions which need to be resolved. The description of the term roblem provides

examination of perception.

24. 'A problem is defined here as an unsatisfied need to change a perceived present situation to a perceived desired situation(3) (our under- -). George Polya uses the term of 'unsatisfied need'. In these two definitions the key words are: needs and perceptions. Implicit is the existence of some kind of image of the future which is frequently presented in terms of goals. The reader. will readily appreciate that the structure of the arguments here reflects the paradox raised earlier, for the discussion both starts and ends with perception. A note of caution is appropriate, for the term perception is also found in the literature of psychology and physiology. It is therefore desirable to clarify further

a starting point for exploring related ideas and then wil 5-- permit further

(1) GABUS, A. 'World Problems and their Perceptions: A Ten-Year Old Survey Revisited', Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest. 1985.

(2) D'ARCY, B.G. 'An Approach to Global Issues. A Systems Alterna- tive'. Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest, 1985.

(3) BARTEE, E.M. 'A Holistic View of Problem Solving', Management Science, Vol. 20 (1973). No. 4, p. 439.

- 21 -

the use of the term in this report. The term is used here in conjunction with 'world problems' and only indirectly in the context of cognition. This is not to deny the importance of psychology and physiology in perception,(l) but for the obvious reasons of length and clarity it is necessary to restrict the scope of the debbte in this report.

25. The sequence perception. interpretation, action introduced earlier provides a link to the different models of development which are here presented as interpretations of particular perceptions of world problems, leading to actions which are designed to meet 'unsatisfied needs' in the manner suggested, by the definition given above. Implicit in the widespread use of the term development are the concepts of seeking behaviour, which themselves reflect rational models o human behaviour. At one level these are represented in terms of the basic-needs argument, which has been dealt with by the Soviet author Alyoshina. She argues that whilst the basic-needs approach has widespread support, it has not yet been properly understood in terms of practical applications. (2)

26. There is an apparently logical view of development which emerges from Soviet. Western European and North American authors. In a sense it is not an ideologically-bound interpretation; rather it reflects much of the thinking behind the NorthlSouth debate. Certainly it is the thinking which has guided many of the United Nations organizations and various national aid agencies in the post-colonial era. It may also be argued that this interpretation of development reflects the application of rational scientific endeavour in technologies which have emerged in the Northern hemisphere over the last 200 years. The suitability of these technologies to the needs of the South is a major question facing the development agencies. and for Unesco 'development? itself is a world problem. O n the other hand, any proposal to deny resources and technology to the South could be seen as a form of isolationism, as could the rejection of those same technologies by countries of the South. Equally their adoption can be seen as a cause of inequalities. a dualism which many regard as a world problem in its own right.(3)

27. Dualism is an interpretation of development which arises from a different set of perceptions to those encountered in the Northern hemisphere. For example, it emerges in arguments over the choice of strategies and goals for development in the Indian subcontinent and leads directly back to the question of goal and goal choice. The problem of goal-setting is usually treated in terns of theories of planning and development, which cire sometimes synonymous. In both approaches we

"' and -

(1) For example see TRIMARCAI, M. ?Psychology of Perception. Reasons of Different Perceptions', Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest, 1985.

(2) ALYOSHINA, I. 'The Contribution of the United Nations System to Formulating Development Concepts' in Unesco 'Different Theories and Practices of Development', Unesco, Paris, 1982.

(3) R A H M A N , A. 'Technology Development and Social Change?, Contri- bution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest, 1985.

- 22 -

are witnessing a rapid shift of emphasis from the economic to the socio- cultural(1) and this presents a challenge to develop a new development theory or model which is based on international co-operation and recog- nizes that 'standard' solutions are unlikely to be helpful. (2)

28. The early studies of world problems (e.g. 'Limits to Growth') clearly reflected the perceptions of their authors and subsequently attention was directed to the question of goals in a later study for the Club of Rome.(3) Here again the circular nature of the argument surrounding perception is encountered. Problems have been characterized in terms of unsatisfied needs. Thus in simple terms contentment may be equated with the absence of unsatisfied needs, hence the absence of problems, and the absence of any desire to direct or design changes to meet goals. However in the context of world problems goals and choices which follow from particular interpretations must re-enter the debate. 'In our world of interdependence, the goals on which nations and peoples act assume crucial importance. If these are unrealistic, narrow, and shortsighted, world problems will lead to catastrophes, and amid mounting tensions the arms of ultimate destruction could finaily come into use. If, on the other hand, governments, peoples, corporations and organizations adopt realistic and farsighted goals, new . horizons of need fulfillment and peace can open for the world community as nations extricate themselves from the precarious . ties of interdependence and co-operatively strive for collective self-reliance.'(4)

29. Any interpretation of the term development carries with it a number of assumptions which need to be explored. The most obvious concerns the goals of development, and this raises two simple questions:

which goals? and

who chooses the goals?

30. Most of the development literature in the 1960s tacitly accepted that the goals for development were simply those of economic development, and that the industrial economies of the so-called 'first' and 'second' worlds of the Northern hemisphere were models against which progress in development by other nations end cultures could be measured. These goals differ according to the end result chosen by a society's decision- makers. These may be means-centred as in most economies or, alternatively, man-centred.

31. There is a definite but not yet precisely described relationship between gods, goal-choice, and values, and it is suggested that cultures and belief-systems in the action-oriented sense of perception determine

(1) MAYOR, F. (ed.) 'Scientific Research and Social Goals', Pergamon, Oxford, 1982.

(2) GVISHIANI, J.M. Global Problems in the Light of Sociological Theory in 'Social Theories and Social Practice', USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1982, p. 21.

(3) LASZLO, E. et al. 'Goals for Mankind', E.P. Dutton, New 'York, 1977.

(4) LASZLO, E. et al., op. cit.

- 23 -

goals. In this context we have to consider a particular shift in our orientation in goal-setting. Some observations of Gregory Bateson show the benefit of the remark: 'There is man's hebit (of) changing his environment rather than changing himself . . . the organism . . . may adapt to the environment or adapt the environment to itself. In evolutionary history the great majority of ßteps have been changes within the organism itself , . .'.(l) Such phenomena have also been perceived by others and in other cultures, although the actual descriptions have dif- fered. The basic experiences are common to all, and forced further consideration of Bateson's perception., It is argued that some cultures put little effort into changing their environment; instead they change themselves and members and their communities. In other cultures, the environment is changed in preference to the people. The industrially well developed countries belong to the latter group; countries of the Far East, perhaps to the former. Several other implications may be drawn from the observations of Bateson.

32. It is suggested that cultures contain characteristics that indicate whether they shape the environment or are self-shaping. In self-shaping cultures peoplo are more self-aware, their self-knowledge is richer, and their ability for self-shaping is more refined, but they often only have impressions, emotions and beliefs concerning their non-human environment, and not clear, scientifically derived rational models. In environment-shaping cultures, however, the opposite occurs. With their knowledge and ability such cultures can create and produce original works, but they have almost no interest with self-awareness, There is also evidence that' in some cultures the ratio of the two different approaches, environment-shaping and self-shaping, inverts over a period of time; during the transition, questions seem to multiply, and uncertainty about the merits of what was previously clear and of prime importance increases.

33. Such transitions occurred in Europe between the Middle Ages and Renaissance and during the last 200 years as craft cultures were replaced by mechanized industry. The signs of such a transition are apparent today. They indicate that more attention is now paid to self- shaping and self-awareness. More concisely, the two approaches can be categorized as a means-dominant end-result and a man-dominant end result cultures. Thinking and judgement within these two culture types are governed by ordering forces of a metaphysical nature. They influence the predisposition and the nature of values used in human self- discovery as well as in the transformation of knowledge into productive forces and products. Consequently, the awareness of perception of those who follow one or the other of the two approaches is quite different. Representative of this twofold problem perception are the problem formulations of analystc of the world situation in the 1970s and early 1980s.

34. There are investigators who consciously contrast the problems on the basis of the two different approaches. Among them are, for example, Schumacher in his essay 'Buddhist Economics' and in his book 'Small is

(1) BATESON, G. 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind', Ballantine Books, New York, 1979.

- 24 -

Beautiful', (1) or Cdtung and his co-workers in their essay 'Development centred on the human . being: some West European perspectives'. (2) There nre also researchers who think and quantify according to the metaphysics of 'means end-renuit' (e. g. the world modelling researchers at the beginning of the 1970s).

35. It is characteristic that the reports of investigations within Unesco, both completed and recently initiated, contain, behind the explicit questions, some problems which have been outlined intuitively, a difficulty of which the present authors are aware. This realization initiated the train of thoughts discussed here. The basic questions raised in these documents are of the type: What do different researchers perceive as being world problems? What does it mean that among cultures and within cultures there is a difference in what is perceived as a problem?

36. Summarizing, in international documents opinions and evaluations are emerging that seek to clarify the source of difficulties encountered in using today's priority of means end-results and suggest as a solution to these difficulties that priority be given to man end-results. Besides this, a strong doubt about our abilities to perceive and judge problems has also been formulated, raising at the same time a clear need for new strategies and abilities in the management of problems. Even now, problems that might best be defined within a man end-result framework are approached with the perceptual inertia. with the thinking and evaluation - i.e. with the mctaphysics - of means end-result. However, it must be emphasized that means- and man end-results are merely intellectual devices which ordertheheoretical approach to the perception of, and the assessment of problems. (The realization of means- and man end-results - separately or together - is independent of these approaches because in their realization the nature of the means or the nature of man is determinative.) Once again the argument circles back to perception. The study by the Battelle Institute was based entirely on perception, and focused on the psychological world, reflecting the respondents' 'collective perception' of world problems. (3)

37. A considerable amount of space in this part of the report has been devoted to these arguments. They are essentially intellectual and theoretical in nature but their importance must not be underestimated. In later sections several pf the global studies are discussed and the reader is invited to consider these in the light of this concept of perception.

38. World problem is a term used to describe phenomena which can be characterized as follows:

(a)

(b) long-term;

the characteristics of the phenomena are poorly understood;

(1) SCHUMACHER, E.F. 'Small is Beautiful', Abacus, New York, 1973. (2) In Unesco, 'Different Theories and Practices of Development',

Unesco, Paris, 1982. (3) See MASON,. R.O. 'The Search for a World Model' in CHURCHMAN,

C.W. and MASON, R.O. (ed.), 'World Modelling: A Dialogue'. North Holland, Amsterdam, 1976.

- 25 -

persistent ;

affecting many people;

the 'ownership' of named problems is difficult to establish;

unique ;

the characteristics of any 'solution' unknown;

pervasive;

any proposed solutions are likely to be expensive in resource terms;

any proposed solutions are likely to require new styles of co- operation between people for their impiementation;

any proposed solutions are likely to require new sets of values and expectations as a precursor to their implementation.

39. These characteristics are not, however, confined to problems of this magnitude. Indeed in many organizational and commercial settings it has been found to be more valuable to distinguish between 'difficulties' and, 'messy problems' than to attempt any formal classification. In the systems literature, situations with the characteristics listed above are commonly described as 'rnessy'(1) and 'soft'(2) and have been successfully tackled by social systems science and soft-systems methodologies employed in the tradition of action-research. However, most of the practical experience with such applications is at the level of individual institutions and organizations. Their translation and application to transnational issues of the kind being considered here have not yet been undertaken on any scale but the diversity of approaches which exists gives grounds for limited optimism.

40. The problem of perception discussed earlier raises further doubts over the nature of any consensus on the conventional interpretations of 'world' and 'problem'. The term 'world' carries with it special difficulties associated with ownership. World problems can be seen to exist, simultaneously, at individual. societal and global levels. In the first two levels, ownership can be assigned to the individual and to governmental agencies respectively, but at the global level ownership can only be nssigned to the world community and to a lesser extent to international Rgencies such as those of the United Nations system. There stiii =emains a difficulty. for there is no manner in which the world community can be said to act in concert even if the term 'world community' is accepted as having any useful meaning. Much more work remains to be done on these questions, for even if the difficulties of perception, ownership and

(1) ACKOFF, R.L. 'The Future of Operations Research is Past', Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 30 (1979). No. 2, p. 93.

(2) CHECKLAND, P. 'Systems Thinking, Systems Practice', Wiley, Chichester, 1981.

- 26 -

responsibility can be resolved, there still remains a set of difficulties associated with the selection of an appropriate level of response. This is perhaps most easily understood as the contrast between 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches, which might be bridged by finding equivalents at a local and transnational level.

41. There is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that transnational companies have successfully overcome these difficulties and that certain ideas might enhance the understanding of world problems. For example, part of the 'ownership' question might bo resolved by intro- ducing the notion of 'shareholders' in particular world problems. (This example is not intended to suggest that there is any virtue in extending the exercise. )

42. There remains one further aspect of world problems which needs to be introduced to the debate at this stage. This is the question concerning the identification of world issues as a social phenomenon, as a product of scientific appreciative systems in the manner suggested in the previous section. Limited studies exist in this area but at present they tend to focus on aspects of the sociology of global modelling and the role of economic forecasters as the 'soothsayers1 of a modern industrialized society and encapsulate many intuitive feelings about the state of the modern world in the language of science.(l)

43. Our description of the nature and origin of problems is biased in at least two ways: first, research and analysis in these fields is carried out by individuals or groups biased by the professional background and cultural (ideological) identity; second, those selecting and commenting on Tidings are also biased, so the selection of quotations and the way they are grouped will inevitably reflect the way in which the authors perceive these issues. To deal with these biases, several different perspectives have been combined in this study. Views from the North, South and East and West are included. For different reasons - the views from the South are underrepresented, but recognition of this may permit better repre- sentation in future co-operative work in this field. These divergent views are best represented in the papers presented at the Budapest Task Force Meeting (1985).

44. Some of the characteristics of these problems have already been mentioned, but more detail is appropriate. One dimension in use involves the classification of problem types by taking the extremes of a spectrum which extends from 'hard' to 'soft'. This kind of classification has been successfully applied to organizational problems in North America and Europe.(2) However, in the present context this spectrum implies that all world problems should be regarded as 'soft' or 'messy' as suggested earlier. Given these characteristics the terminology of problem and

(1) BLOOMFIELD, B. 'Modelling the World, the Social Constructions of Systems Analysts', Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, The Open Univer- sity, Milton Keynes, 1984.

(2) See for example ACKOFF, R.L. 'The Future of Operations Research is Past'; CHECKLAND, P. 'Systems Thinking, Systems Practice'; WILSON, B. 'Systems: Concepts, Methodologies and Applications', Wiley, Chichester, 1984.

- 27 -

solution itself becomes a constraint on the perception of the underlying issues, and once again the perception paradox emerges. Thus, despite the painful and uncomfortable fact that it is of no help to a hungry child in Africa or Asia to say that his or her discomfort and imminent death is merely an intellectual construct, this paradox of perception tells us simply that to label a phenomenon as a 'problem' involves a perception which directs our own societies in a search for a matching key bearing the label 'solution'.

45. To take this argument further requires the introduction of the idea of a 'problem managing process'. In the sequence perception, interpretation, action which has been used earlier, this implies that any action on world problems must be directed not only at the problem itself but must also involve the design and development of processes which involve both the 'problem owners' and those affected by and bound up in any individual world problem. A n important aspect of a problem is its relationship to a person and hislher role, or its relationship to the particular organization concerned. This aspect, referred to earlier as the ownership of a problem, is difficult to establish in the case of world problems.

46. At this point it is necessary to return to the question 'What constitutes a world problem?', or rather, 'Who perceives certain phenomena as requiring this particular label?' For example, in the 'Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential' (1976). an exhaustive list of some 1,200 problems is found together with a detailed and elaborate classification. (1) For this report, a list from Unesco itself is used, oriented towards Unesco's fields of competence (education, science, culture and communication). It has already been argued that Unesco approximates to the notion of problem-owner in this setting. and its own list is included in order to provide some form to the discussion. It has the advantage that each topic is recognized as an area of activities with a set of implicit interrelationships and overlaps:

asymmetries and inequalities : the international economic system;

peace and the arms race;

human rights;

the environment and natural resources:

communication and the media;

science, technology and society:

economic growth;

cultural identity;

(1) Union of International Associations and Mankind 2000, Brussels.

- 28 -

(j) education and illiteracy;

(k) renewal of values.

47. The interrelationship between the different world problems provides an opportunity to transform these from their 'world' or 'problem' context into the setting of a community, society, or organization. If this is done, two things seem to happen. The first is that the impact of the problem is diluted in the sense that it immediately becomes difficult to distinguish between the chronic condition and the everyday tasks of managing human affairs. Thus, for a hungry African child every day involves a search for food and water, for a nation's government every day involves actions affecting (for example) issues of war and peace in that it is the sum of such actions over time (and the meaning which others attribute to such actions) which leads to an increased or decreased risk of war. If this argument is extended, then it appears that only when a condition becomes extreme will resources be allocated to relieve the symptoms. In the context of world problems some observers regard such a view as highly dangerous and a r p e that at that point in time (i.e. when the crisis is recognized) resources may no longer be available. The existence of famines reinforces the position and directs attention to the need for more distant planning horizions and better 'early warning' of the transition from world problem to crisis.

48. The transformation from global to local has another effect. It focuses attention on the possibility of managing problems from the bottom and not from the top, and for a man-oriented strategy for development (MANDI, rather than a means-oriented strategy (MEAND). (1) O n the basis of these considerations, it has been proposed that it would be of more practical value to study recognized world problems within a framework which deals mainly with problems in combinations as they are found, e.g. in a country or group of countries. More insight may then be obtained by mapping this problem-pattern into another picture ordered according to stages of an integrated development process.

49. Though not fully incorporated in this interpretation, similar thoughts have been formulated by other authors, who have also dealt with world problems. One of the most incisive is Sam Nilsson, who, in connection with the world problems, stated that it is possible and necessary: '... to think globally, but in practice. each social group must solve its problems locally ... We must begin to work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goals'.($) Similar conclusions are given by Augusto Forti, et al.: 'Devel- opment goals which take the social and cultural dimensions into account ... are urgently needed. We need a holistic approach to establishing society's goals, which will enable us to understand the problems, and . . . to solve local problems in a global perspective'. (3) (1) HAJNAL, A; KISS, I. 'Altering Approaches to World Problems:

Emphasis and Trends', Contribution to the UnescoIIIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest, 1985.

(2) NILSSON, S. 'Research and Human Needs; A n Attack on Global Problems' in MAYOR, F. (ed.) 'Scientific Research and Social Goals', Pergamon, Oxford, 1982, p. 147.

(3) FORTI, A. Introduction in MAYOR, F. op. cit.

- 29 -

50. There have been attempts to produce taxonomic structures, one example being the classification made in the 'Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential' (1976) mentioned earlier. This deals with world problems according to a series of levels in terms of a scale extending from physical resources to problems arising at a conceptual and cultural level. However one criticism of such a classification is that at all levels any question of opportunity cost is ignored, and thus an important link between the levels of problems is ignored.

51. The relationships between problem areas, and in particular those concerning population, resources and environment have also figured prominently in the different computer models designed to examine world probems. For instance the Latin American World Model, the Population Doubling Project, and the Social and Technological Alternatives for the Future Project, are presented as goal-seeking types of model involving the optimization of a function representing a particular desired future with respect to certain constraints which are resource-based. (1)

52. Most of the studies dealing with world problems, especially those developed in the 1970s. reflect only the perceived part of the whole problematique and concentrates on the same social. technical and natural systems (population, natural resources, pollution, agriculture and industry). The problem areas which are seen to constitute the relevant system have always been influenced by perception. Perception and the choices which follow are inherently subjective and claims to objectivity must be treated with scepticism.

53. In 1935 Ortega y Gasset, in his early systems-oriented study, criti- cized the 'scientific objectivity' and its relevance as an influence in our everyday lives. He argued that all of our actions as an individual or as a society are based on our belief systems.(2) In 1985 it seems appropriate to ask if our views have changed over the 50-year period. Churchman draws attention to the limiting nature of perception, and the way in which some systems studies have been conducted. He suggests that 'belief systems' emerge in several ways and are used to justify action. Churchman draws attention to the reflexive nature of the processes which are most likely to yield useful insights on world problems and their management. Two points attract special attention: the first concerns the need to develop and adopt perceptions which lead to action and secondly to develop an awareness of self (whether an individual or

, 'societal' self) and to pay close attention to process, because the posi- tivist logic which has been used in the past is unreliable in these difficult domains. (3)

(1) COLE, S. World Models, Their Progress and Applicability', Futures, Vol. 6 (1974), No. 3.

(2) O R T E G A Y GASSET, 'History as a System' in KLIRANSKY. R. (ed. ) 'Philosophy and Ilistory'. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1935.

(3) CHURCIlMAlï , C. W. 'On the Philosophical Grounds of Global Problem on Intelligence, on the Complexity of Global Problem', Contribution to the Unesco/IIASA Task Force Meeting in Budapest, 1985.

- 30 -

54. This need for greater sensitivity is also demonstrated by a Soviet study on world problems, in which It is pointed out that whereas in the past local actions had only local consequences, today that is not so and the option for correcting ill-conceived actions rarely exists. (1)

55. it is argued that world problems affect all humankind, a growing internationalization which has itself resulted in the recognition of the global nature of many long-standing problems. One of the perceived common features of all these problems is that they threaten the future of humankind. One of the few grounds for optimism is the growing agreement that these problems require an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural response of a qualitatively different nature to earlier attempts.

(1) ZAGLADIN, V.V.; FROLOV, I.T. 'Global Problems as Areas of International Co-operation'. International Social Science Journal, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1.

- 31 -

C H A P T E R 2 : Global problems and their interactions

(VNIISI: All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research, Moscow)

The Soviet Systems Research institute in its study(1) takes 'global problems' as meaning those which concern the whole of humanity and whose solution requires concerted action by the international comnunity. By this criterion, such problems can be divided into three groups according t o whether they concern the evolution of international relations, the future of the individual or the relationship between man and nature.

Two fundamental problems can be distinguished in international relations: the dangers of a nuclear war and of the arms race and the establishment of a new International order.

The future of the Individual in his economic, social and cultural environment hinges on the responses made to various problems such as the quest for a balanced model of economic, scientific and technological growth, the building of rational consumption models ,and the optimization of social structures.

The relationship between man and nature is at present expressed in dangerous imbalances causing problems for which solutions are needed: world population growth, secure food supplies, health care, environmental protection, and so on.

The report emphasizes that mankind is 'not simply a collection of separate peoples ... but a global ... community' resulting from a specific historical process. The excerpt published here examines the components of this world system, together with the stages of its development and its internal dynamics.

The Soviet. researchers, after examining the perception, nature and origin of global problems, point out that the emergence of a global problematique and the information received about it influence the socio- cultural world outlook in a given region.

(1) Title of the study: 'Systems analysis of global problems'.

- 33 -

1. Humanity today is not simply a collection of separate peoples simultaneously inhabiting Planet Earth but a global, historic community which develops as all peoples of the world establish relations and which passes through certain stages of historic evolution. Moreover, mankind exerts an ever more intensive impact on nature and is, in turn, subject to an increasing reverse influence, sometimes posing a serious threat.

2. The complete set of patterns and processes of man nature interaction is treated as a global system by Soviet researchers. One of the important manifestations of the functioning of this system are global problems, whose existence points to the reality of the global system itself and whose character indicates its state at a given stage of evolution. Any concrete analysis of global problems should start, therefore, with a concept making it possible to identify the specific state of the global system in the present period.

3. Three basic types of systems may be distinguished, whose succession forms a logical and genetic series wherein each stage is more complex and developed than the preceding one. They are, firstly, the summational system, whose components stand in the simplest relationship to each other, that of additivity; secondly, the systems complex or polysystem formation. whose components are in a relationship that may be termed interaction; and thirdly, the integral system characterized by the exi,stence of new, integrative properties not inherent in its component parts and emerging as a result of their organically integrated character.

4. This is not simply a logical but a genetic series of systems, that is to say that one type of system can be transformed into another, more complex and developed one in a continuous process. In the case of organic systems, this transformation occurs as self-development : 'An organic system as an integral whole has its own premisses and its development towards wholeness consists exactly in that it wants to dominate all elements of society or to create of it the bodies it still lacks. Thus, in the course of evolutionary development a system turns into wholeness'. (1)

5. Applying these general considerations to the characteristics of the global system, it would seem reasonable to state that it is now something more than a summational system, inasmuch as the relationships between its components can by no means be reduced to mere additivity. At the same time, the global system is still far from being integral: it is characterized by the existence of opposing social systems (socialism and capitalism) and by polarization around the 'centres of force' which affect global processes. It may thus be defined 88.8 systems complex consisting of several relatively independent but necessarily interrelated systems. Interaction is a specific quality of this polysystem formation.

6. The global systems complex is a product of mankind'ß history and of a certain stage in that history. Viewed from the historical perspective, the systems complex is seen as a form taken by the global system in the process of transformation from a summational to an integral

(1) MARX, K. and ENGELS. F. Collected Works, Vol. 46, part I, p. 229 (Russian edition).

- 35 -

system. This is an objective process, characterized by natural historical necessity and implying radical changes in the fundamental structures of the system.

7. The material basis for this process is provided by scientific and technological progress and the development of humanity's productive forces. The scientific and technological revolution taking place in the second half of the twentieth century has had a particular impact on the global system. Like many other processes, it unfolds unevenly in space (by regions) and in time ('long waves' of radical technological innovations). Starting with automation and the applications of chemistry in production processes, it has moved on to microelectronics and biotech- nology, and these are by no means the last frontiers: one of its urgent future appointments is with the industrial applications of thermonuclear syñt hesis.

8. In the first place, the technological revolution enormously increases the energy resources of mankind, making them comparable with the power of natural forces, a power which is dangerous for the very existence of nature and humanity and hence demands fundamentally different relations between nature and society. Secondly, the technological revolution qualitatively improves the general level of productive forces and accelerates their internationalization. Thirdly, it requires equally radical changes in social relations.

9. The transformation of a global system into an integral system is a historically protracted process. This process implies that the basic components of the system interact so closely and intensely that a new 'systems' quality emerges and begins transforming its parts. This quality consists of an increasing interdependence of nature and society and of the countries and regions of the world, tending towards the internationalization of many patterns and processes - technical, economic, social, cultural, ecological, etc.

10. This certainly does not, however, mean that the global system is, already becoming homogeneous or that the conflicts and antagonisms inherent in it are vanishing. O n the contrary, the existence and clash of opposing social relations are a specific feature of the present stage in the transformation of the global system into an integral system, and account for the contradictory character of the content of such systems properties as the growing interdependence of its components. What social, concretely historical form does, for example, the interdependence of different countries take? Is it emerging as the forcible subordination of some countries and peoples to others, or as the voluntary and mutually beneficial co-operation of equal partners? T o pose the question in these terms brings one to an understanding of the dual nature of interdependence as an integral property of the global systems complex.

11. O n the other hand, the interdependence of components is a universal property of any system moving towards integrality. On the other hand, the socio-political content of this property can be highly variable. Thus, at present, there are two conflicting types of relations of interdependence in the global system: socialist relations of co-operation and mutual assistance and capitalist relations of domination. This constitutes

- 36 -

the basic contradiction in the transformation of the global system into an integral system, one which determines many other contradictions made manifest in a wide range of problems.

12. The concept of the transformation of the global system into an integral system makes it possible to view the history of mankind in the twentieth century not simply as a set of local processes occurring in different regions and countries. but as the history of the global systems complex wherein a synchronization and globalization of processes taking place in different regions of the world is occurring. This makes it possible to identify certain stages in the evolution of the global systems complex, despite the fact that the social nature of the stages differs widely between different countries and regions.

13. The first (1917-1945) marked the beginning of a radical change in the development of humanity: the emergence of real socialism and the laying of its foundations in one country (the USSR): the beginning of the generai crisis of capitalism and 'destruction of the world colonial system; the defeat of Fascism by the anti-Hitler coalition, a decisive contribution being made by the USSR. This stage demonstrates in a nut- shell the major types of changes - socio-political. socio-economic and international political changes - which make up the content of the subsequent stages in the development of the global systems complex.

14. The second stage (1946-1975) was marked by the transformation of the socio-political structure of the whole of humanity: the emergence and extension of the world socialist system and the construction of developed socialism in the USSR; the elimination of the world colonial system and the accession to national independence by almost all the peoples of the world; and a new phase in the development of military-political relations between the socialist and capitalist countries, from the anti-Hitler CO- aiition through 'cold' war to a détente which has not, however, resulted in an end to the arms race.

15. The third and present stage (1976-approximately 2000) is marked by structural changes in the economy of the majority of countries, the transition of the industrialized capitalist and socialist countries to intensive development, the extension of technological progress to the economies of the majority of developing nations and the beginning of their transition to intensive development; a new phase. in the military-political relations between the socialist and capitalist countries, starting with the renunci- ation of détente by the leading N A T O countries (primarily the United States), and a sharp aggravation of confrontation and intensification of the arms race.

16. This is. however, just the beginning of a new phase in international relations which. judging from past experience, may also have other, more favourable points.

- 37 -

17. During the fourth, forthcoming stage (approximately 2001-20201, (1) the structural economic changes that took place at the preceding stage, will provide the basis for deep and radical socio-political transformations in many countries. primarily in the developing ones but also in a number of industrialized capitalist countries, while the devclopment of the socio- political structure of the socialist countries will also speed up; the economies of the majority of countries, including the developing ones, will go on becoming more intensive, and many of the latter will become relatively developed: the character of military-political relations between countries with different social systems will, to a considerable extent, depend on how those relations have turned out at the preceding stage; one may expect to see the emergence and generalizetion among wide sections of the population of a qualitatively new pattern of value systems, including the work ethic and ideological and ecological values.

18. Such are the general hypothetical characteristics of the foreseeable stages in the evolution of the global systems complex. The four stages cover a period of over a hundred years, but they by no means exhaust the content of the process. As that process develops, there will be a closer relationship between different countries and a greater harmoniz- ation of the processes occurring in them, but the struggle between the two types of interdependence (co-operation and domination) will still be going on by the year 2020. Thus, new stages of the process will inevitably evolve; it would have been premature, however, to speculate about their nature.

19. What is much more important is to try and work out more concrete hypotheses about the possible options for development of the process within the framework of the present (third) and the forthcoming (fourth) stages in the development of the global systems complex. This requires an analysis of the structure and dynamics of modern problems of world development in general and global problems in particular.

20. The contradictory nature of the global systems complex is the objective cause of the multiple problems of its functioning and evolution. The list of such problems goes on growing, which makes the task of establishing a typology of problems an urgent one.

21. A distinction should, in our view, be drawn between general typology and special typology. A general typology presupposes a breakdown of the problems of the global system in accordance with the established ground rules applied in the social sciences. The most significant breakdown of problems is a breakdown into ecological, economic, social and political. The purpose of a special typology is to show the specific characteristics of the global system as a subject of reseerch.

(1) It should be noted thRt. in research concerning the future one cannot indicate any exact dates. It is impossible to know the dates of futurc events and only the trends occurring within approximate periods can be discussed.

- 38 -

22. In establishing a special typology, one should distinguish between development problems and options. A problem is a contradiction for which there is one resolution in view, and differences concern only the ways or means thereto (e.g. problems of environmental conservation, elimination of dangerous diseases, etc.). A n option, on the other hand, assumes the existence of two or more resolutions to the contradiction, i.e. the choice is not between ways of resolving it but between the different sides of the contrhdiction (e.g. wide or narrow differences in income: social equality or inequality as goals of development, etc.). Strictly speaking, an option is a specific kind of problem, but for the sake of convenience we shall distinguish between them in accordance with the above principles.

23. Another specific distinction will be made among problems and options according to their scale, i.e. their impact on the entire global system or its individual subsystems and components. B y this criterion, the problematique can be represented as a three-level structure:

Figure 1. Structure of the problematique of the global system

Generalized

Universal problems and options

problems

24. The first and highest level is made up of generalized options for development of the global system as a whole, i.e. as the totality of its major components. The second level consists of global and universal problems, both of which are vitally important for all or most peoples but differ in origin and means of solution: global problems directly express the properties of the global system as a whole at its present stage of development and require the concerted efforts of all humanity for their solution, whereas universal problems arise in separate regions and sectors of activity and their solution is primarily the responsibility of the respective peoples and social groups and sometimes presupposes not concerted efforts but rather a fierce struggle. The third and lowest level represents more specific problems: sectoral, corresponding to the major areas of humanity's vital activities (industry, agriculture. etc. ) and regional, reflecting the specific features of different regions.

25. The existence of forward and backward linkages between different elements of this structure means that the entire problematique forms a closely knit system. The interrelated nature of the problems is a feature of the current stage in the development of the global systems complex. This necessitates special study of the pattern of relations between the problems and options of global evolution.

- 39 -

26. It is possible, for instance, to identify over 20 problems and options and to order them in accordance with the general and specific classification criteria (see table in Figure 2). but the most interesting exercise is to break down the entire set of problems and options into three major complexes, on the basis of expert evaluations (see Figure 3).

27. Complex 1 (C-1) includes two generalized options and four global problems, representing almost the entire range of problems by their general classification - economic, social and political. Nearly all of the six problems and options are connected with each of the others by relations of mutual dependence; especially close interdependence exists between the following three problems and one option : 'Preservation of peace and halting of the arms race' (No. i), 'Elimination of regional dis- panties in levels of economic development' (No. 4). 'Restructuring of international economic relations' (No. 6) and 'Concerting or dispersal of mankind's efforts to solve global problems' (No. 21). The content and a high internal integration of complex C-1 allow one to refer to it as a system-wide complex.

28. Complex 2 (C-2) consists almost entirely (4 out of 5) of global and universal problems and options which are primarily (also 4 out of 5) economic, which makes it possible to refer to it as the economic complex. The key positions in it are occupied by the problem 'Balancing of population growth rates and per capita G N P growth rates' (No. 15) and the option 'Aiming for the most rapid possible or for a socially balanced economic growth' (No. 19). Each depends on the other.

29. Complex 3 (C-3) is composed almost entirely (9 out of il) of universal problems and options. of which the majority are social. Central to the interrelations within this complex is the universal option 'Social equality or inequality' (Mo. 17). Hence we can refer to complex C-3 as the social complex.

30. These three problem complexes are linked together in a system with a hierarchical structure. The system-wide complex C-1 is dominant: it exerts 22 determining influences on C-2 and 19 on C-3. The economic complex C-2 is in between: being under the determining influence of C-1 it at the same time exerts a certain influence back on that complex and a direct influence on several problems of the social complex C-3. The latter is almost completely determined by the other two complexes. The dependent position of C-3 is also reflected in the internal structure of the complex, which is alßo hierarchical in nature. The determinine influence of this complex, and through it of the entire system of problems and options of world development, exerts itself in the following four problems and options: 'Elimination of dangerous and widespread diseases, preservation of humanity's gene pool' (No. 5). 'Safeguards of human rights' (No. lo), 'Reduction of crime, alcoholism and drug addiction' (No. 13), 'The whole man: scientifically validated goal or natural result of historical development' (No. 22).

- 40 -

Figure 2

Special classification

~

General classification

1 2 3 4 5 6 Pol. Soc. Eco. Ecol.

Global problems

1 Preservation of peace and halting of the arms race

+

2 Protection and restoration of the + environment

3 Replacement of productive + resources (sources of energy, minerals. water, etc.) undergoing depletion

4 Elimination of regional disparities + in levels of economic development

5 Elimination of dangerous and widespread diseases, preservation of humanity's gene pool

+

6 Restructuring of international +

7 Raising of the role of the +

economic relations

organizations of the international community (United Nations, Unesco, etc.)

~

Universal problems

8 Provision of food for all + ~

9 Availability of medical care + for all

10 Safeguards of human rights + ~~ ~~~ ~

11 Access to education and cultural +

12 Provision of housing for all + values by all

13 Reduction of crime, alcoholism and + drug addiction

- 41 -

~ - ~

Special classification General classification

1 2 3 4 5 6 Pol. Soc. Eco. Ecol.

14 Doing away with heavy and unhealthy kinds of work

+

15 Balancing of population growth rates and per capita GNP growth rates

+

Universal options

16 Wide or narrow differences in income between different social groups (within one country)

+

17 Social equality or inequality +

18 High or low level of social consumption funds

+

~ ~~

19 Aiming for the most rapid possible + or for a socially balanced economic growth

Generalized options

20 Capitalism or socialism, or a pluralist society

+

21 Concerting or dispersal of mankind's +

22 The whole man: scientifically +

efforts to solve global problems

validated goal or natural result of historical development

- 42 -

c-I

c-III

Figure 3. The three complexes of world development problems and options

- 43 -

31. It would be wrong, however, to regard the dependent position of these resultant elements of the system of world development problems as absolute. The fact is that each one of them can be viewed from two angles, as is the case with option No. 22: either as a natural result of historical development or as a scientifically validated goal. Only in accordance with the first of these views would it be justifiable to regard the aforementioned elements of the problematique as occupying an inferior position in the hierarchy. According to the second view, they should be considered final criteria and the elements determining them should be seen as a means for optimizing those criteria.

32. Of course, one should not exaggerate the accuracy of the interrelations between the problems identified in our analysis.(l) Many of these linkages are, however, quite consistent with the data published in different countries.

33. The most striking illustration of these interrelations is provided by the dependence of practically all the global problems on solution of global problem number one, the prevention of nuclear war. But this is not the only point. Even today the preparations for a nuclear-missile war are causing serious harm to mankind, hindering or considerably slowing down the solution of ail global problems.

34. The arms race devours inconceivable financial resources which are thus diverted from their peaceful uses. and this hampers necessary research and efforts for the solution of other global problems. In the United States where the environmental problem is especially acute, the tidy sum of about $600 billion is needed to clean up industry by the construction of waste treatment facilities and improvement of manufactur- ing processes - a sum which amounts to a mere 40 per cent of the country's military expenditure for 1981-1985.

35. There is another relationship between the problem of war prevention and other global problems: by some estimates, military activities are the cause of approximately 40 per cent of pollution and other forms of environmental damage, whilst from 5 to 10 per cent of the most important and rare raw materials are used for the manufacture of weapons.

36. There is also a close relationship between other global problems - environment, energy, raw materials, food, etc. - and this relationship is getting closer and closer. Thus, solution of the energy problem, posit- ing, in particular, an intensive development of nuclear power, poses additional problem8 with respect to the environment. Solution of the raw materials problem may also result in further serious disturbance of the ecological balance. The same is true of increased food production: the so-called first 'green revolution' has indeed led to marked increases in

(1) The accuracy of these relationships is primarily affected by the fact that the experts whose evaluations were used in this study were not very representative. An international research project conducted under the suspices of Unesco would have provided more representative data and made clearer the pattern of relationships between the problems of global development.

- 44 -

crop yields, but the agrochemical technology employed has, however, had serious effects on the environment and on fauna.

37. There are many other such examples, but what has already been said is probably basis enough for the conclusion that the ever closer relationship between the different global problems creates additional difficulties both in the analysis of the problems and, naturally, in their solution.

38. It may be assumed that the interrelations and interdependence of the different global problems will continue to increase. If, in the first place, the arms race is not halted, it will undoubtedly further aggravate other problems. Even irrespective of this, however, it is clear that in the foreseeable future the negative mutual influence of the problems will not grow less, since any unresolved global problem aggravates the entire system of problems, and humanity has not as yet got any nearer to their solution on a worldwide scale.

39. Global problems have received very wide coverage in recent years. Thus, for example, many of the major issues connected with them, and what is most important, the essence of those problems, their essentially social character, their relationship with the basic contradictions of the modern epoch and ways to their solution, have been analysed in Soviet literature. Of course, further research can and must be carried on each of the issues, especially as the problems themselves are continuously evolving and acquiring new features that obviously require intensive analysis.

40. There are, however, a number of questions that have not yet received adequate attention or which, in any case, need more thorough consideration. One of these is the dynamics of global problems.

41. The facts of the matter show that the dynamics of global problems could hitherto be described as incremental, in some cases acquiring an exponential character.

42. This tendency manifested itself primarily in the continuous increase in the number of global problems or, to be more precise, in the number of problems acquiring, because they were unsolved and insoluble, a global character.(l) While laying no claim to giving a complete account, we would like to make the following points.

43. In the ninteenth century, the attention of leading scientists, mainly natural scientists, had already been drawn to ecological problems: this was, incidentally, when the term 'ecology' was coined. What concerned them was the damage inflicted on the environment by the uncontrolled development of industry. Marxism, proceeding from a descriptive account

(1) As has rightly been noted in Soviet literature, there is a tendency to increase arbitrarily the number of global problems by including issues reflecting the interests of individual countries or groups of countries but not the interests of humanity as a whole. This can only complicate the scientific investigation of global problems and the search for their solution.

- 45 -

of this damage to its deep social analysis, concluded that: 'Capitalistic production . . . developes machinery and a combination of social production only in such a way that it simultaneously damages the sources of any wealth: land and worker'.(l)

44. The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the emergence of yet another global problem of the greatest significance for humanity, the problem of world wars. Wars, which had always been a source of trials and tribulations, then became a danger threatening, as Lenin pointed out, to undermine the foundations of humankind's very existence.

45. Later, in the interwar period and especially in the post-war years, public opinion turned serious attention to the worsening population problem and the related problem of providing succeeding generations with food. At present, in the closing years of the twentieth century, hun- dreds of millions of people are undernourished, while .tens of miliions (by some estimates as many as 30-40 million) are dying from starvation every year.

46. In the 1960s and 1970s of this century, another problem assuming a global character was widely debated, that of overcoming the backwardness of the former colonial countries. The debate centred not only on the legitimate demands of the peoples of those countries but on the need to prevent the very serious and potentially catastrophic consequences of the widening gap in levels of development between the newly independent countries and the industrialized countries of the West, which were continuing, in new forms, the intensive exploitation of the former colonies.

47. During the same period, the additional problem of ensuring the supply of natural resources needed for human activity emerged as the relatively limited nature of those resources became apparent in the context of increased consumption. The oil crisis in the mid-1970s especially gave rise to anxieties and conflicting judgements on this score.

48. Problems such as space exploration, the peaceful use of the resources of the ocean, etc. nlso took on a global character during the last decade.

49. Of course, this list is far from exhaustive, but it does show how the number of problems taking on a global character increases with time.

50. How wiii this process develop in the future? We are safe in assuming that human activities, increasing in scale and affecting mor3 and more areas and levels of the earth and of near space, wiii inevitably engender further conflicts between man and nature. Some of them are already becoming apparent: for example, the problem of pollution of space which may be very dangerous in the future, is gradually taking on a certain degree of seriousness. Others we simply cannot foresee at present, but the development of technology and industry and new forms of consumption of natural resources may in the future call into being

(1) MARX, K. and ENGELS, F. Collected Works, Vol, 23, p. 515 (Russian edition).

- 46 -

phenomena which have not yet made themselves felt. O n the one hand, the emergence of new problems must be anticipated and, on the other, thought must be given in advance to possible ways of solving them.

51. In conclusion. we should mention one other scientific and methodological aspect of the matter under consideration.

52. Each of the global problems passes through certain stages or phases of development. At each stage, the problem undergoes qualitative changes resulting from an accumulation of quantitative changes: this applies both to the varying impact of certain problems on nature and society and to the changing body of knowledge and of technical and material resources required for their solution, i.e. the complete or even partial prevention of their most dangerous consequences. It is imDortant to study these stages. these points Öf qualitative-change in glob2 problems, as one may call them.

53. This is obviously a difficult undertaking, particularly since all the global problems are linked in a single system and, as was mentioned above, influence one another. but it is also undoubtedly an urgent one: Indeed, without a study of the qualitative leaps in the development of global problems it is impossible to determine the ways and means of solving them. What is more, such a study will make it possible to determine with a sufficient degree of accuracy the tine when a dven global

problem.

54. This needs to be mentioned at the present time. particularly as global problems are approaching such critical points, both on a global and on a regional scale, from many directions.

55. The question of the dynamics of global problems thus, as we have seen, merits the most serious attention, scientific in the first place but also practical. It takes on special significance at a time when society stands in need of an increasingly sure basis for forecasting future development. The nature of scientific and technological change, the ever more rapid accumulation and application of knowledge and the rapidly advancing internationalization of economic activity and of social life as a whole all taken together make the question of the dynamics of global problems extremely acute, both from the standpoint of long-range planning and practical decision-making and from that of the development of international co-operation in this field.

- 47 -

CHAPTER 3 : Theories of development

(Third World Forum, Dakar Office)

The study carried out by Fayçal Yachir for the Third World Forum(1) is based on the premise that 'whatever their philosophical and political bases may be, development theories hold to a single, inescapable principle, which is that in the modern world the term "developed" refers to the advanced capitalist countries'. The author takes the view that this line of approach leads into a theoretical impasse: the use of the advanced capitalist countries as a yardstick both for identifying underdevelopment and for mapping out possible roads to development presupposes that the Third World will reproduce the model of the advanced capitalist countries. Eut this linear pattern will never take shape in reality. Neo-classical or neo- Keynesian theoreticians continue to present the Western economic model as a necessary stage in the itinerary of the Third World countries.

According to Faygal Yachir, this imitation of the advanced capitalist 'model ' mi 1 i tates against the crystal 1 ization of an al ternative view of the evolution of human societies in which the notion of social development would no longer be based exclusively on the criteria of level of consumption and technical efficiency, but also on those of power and income distribution, ecological equilibrium and cultural identity.

Fayçal Yachir makes a critical survey of 'development theories' in which he distinguishes between three schools of thought: the 'conventional ', the 'Marxist' and the theory of 'dependence'. Still, these theories, which focus on the particular forms taken by the development of capitalism outside the advanced capitalist countries, have two traits in common: they are 'positive', in that they provide an explanation for underdevelopment, and 'normative', because they outline the possible, roads to development. In . practice, however, m i n g to the increasing heterogeneity of the Third World, their effectiveness is limited. In conclusion, the author stresses that priority needs to be given, in the revitalization of development theories, to reflection on the role of the State.

(1) Title of the study: *Oü en est 1s th&orie du développement?'.

- 49 -

1. What is termed 'development theory' in fact covers a much narrower field corresponding to the particular forms of capitalist development outside the centres of the world system. To tell the truth, there are not one but several 'development' theories, or at least theories that claim to be such. Those based on conventional theories offer a contrast with those that find inspiration in the Marxist method, but some approaches are highly eclectic. Each of these theories is at one and the same time 'positive', in that it tries to explain the particular forms of the economy and of society observed in the countries of the Third World. and 'normative', in that it suggests paths to social change capable of bringing these countries more closely into line with the economic model prevailing in the advanced capitalist countries. even though any such reference is often no more than implicit.

2. It can be said, at the risk of oversimplifying, that conventional development theories are more concerned with finding a field of action than with defining a specific subject of analysis. Marxist-derived theories, whose line of approach and method are infinitely more fruitful and enable the relationship between development and underdevelopment to be seen in its proper perspective are more concerned with the functioning of the world capitalist system as a whole than with the internal dynamics of the Third World countries.

3. Conventional 'development theory', as it came to prominence during the years 1950 to 1970 as a department of economics. is a theory without a specific field of application. In a recent article, 'The Rise and Decline of Development Economics', Albert O. Hirschman characterizes development theory by its rejection of the principle of 'mono-economism'. that is, by its recognition of the specificity of the Third World countries, which makes it impossible to use available economic tools. To reject mono-economism is then to contend that the underdeveloped countries share a number of economic characteristics which very clearly distinguish them from the advanced industrial countries, and that the study of underdeveloped economies cannot be undertaken without radically changing, in a number of important respects, the postulates of traditional economic analysis, geared to the industrial countries. One cannot but agree with Hirschman's conclusion. but it must he recognized that the analyses nade from the late 1940s and early 1950s, which, taken together, gradually came to form 'development economics', do not dwell, to say the least, on the nature and significance of these distinctive characteristics to which Hirschman refers. Moreover, the difficulty may be said to have begun with the naming of these newly discovered realities, and the terms employed to describe the countries concerned are not exactly models of precision. 'Agrarian', 'poor' , 'backward', 'late- comers' were the terms most frequently used at the time, and they are still used today.

4. It is true that economists who concern themselves with the national economies of the Third World start from the observation of specific phenomena, which are indeed absent from the familiar economic landscape of the West. When Arthur Lewis(1) singles out rural underemployment

(1) LEWIS, A. 'Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour', 1954, and The Theory of Economic Growth, Allen and Unwin. 1955.

- 51 -

and thc resultant structurnl surplus of labour as essential characteristics of underdevelopment, he is putting his finger on something that can be observed virtually everywhere in the Third World, regardless of the prevailing land-ownership structures, systems of production and social relations in rural areas. When Ragnar Nurkse(1) emphsizes the 'vicious circle of poverty', which maintains income, savings and investment at a low level in the Third World, he is also drawing attention to an obvious aspect of the low economic dynamism of many countries, although at the present time things are not as clear-cut. When authors like François Perroux(2) or Hirschman himself(3) refer to the disintegration of the 'underdeveloped' economy as the principal source of its difficulties, they too are making a significant point, although the recent experience of certain 'new industrial countries' tends to show that the disintegration of productive structures is no longer A universal characteristic in the Third World. In the same way, the broader concept of belated industrialization introduced by Gerschenkron and Leibenstein(4), refers to a series of typical processes, although this concept is not necessarily original, con- sidering that Germany, the United States. Japan and many other advanced capitalist countries were at one time in the position of 'late- comers'. Admittedly, all these authors do identify distinctivc features that are shared by the Third World economies. but they do no more than note them, since neither the origins nor the significance of the phenomena in question are examined. The selection of one particular phenomenon among others to determine the specific nature of the situation prevailing in the Third World countries thus assumes a totally arbitrary character. To single out without real justification one aspect of a complex reality which one does not understand in its entirety is not the same as defining a specific subject of study. Ultimately, what the development economists are seeking to develop is not a new field of study but a particular application of Conventional analysis.

5. The reason why some observers came to believe that a new branch of official economics was coming into being was that the phenomena observed in the Third World served as a pretext for a controversy between neo-Ricardians and neo-Keynesians on the one hand, and neo- classical economists on the other. In its early versions, development economics was indeed heralded as a new critique of neo-classical orthodoxy. The fresh problems raised by the analysis of Third World economies were seen by development economists as further evidence of the inadequacy of neo-classical theoretical tools for understanding the modern world. Hirschman noted that by breaking the ice of mono- economism, Keynes was to enable the idea of the existence of a third type of economics to be credited immediately. While it is certain that the blows that Keynesian theory dealt neo-classical orthodoxy shook ft to its foundations, had a disturbing effect upon academic and governmental circles and facilitated the emergence of a new approach to the facts both

(1) NURSKE. R. 'Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped

(2) PERROUX, F. 'L'économie des jeunes nations'. (3) HIRSCHMAN, A. 'The Strategy of Economic Development', Yale Uni-

(4) GERSCIIENKRON, A. 'Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspec-

Countries'. Basil Blackwell, 1953.

versity Press, 1958.

tive', Harvard University Press, 1962.

- 52 -

in the Third World and in advanced capitalist countries, it is, however, difficult to go along with Hirschman when he treats development economics as a third type of economics. After all, even the idea that Keynesian theory truly represents a second type of economics can be contested in so far as the break with neo-classical orthodoxy in regard to approach, method and tools does not go so far as to call into question the institutions of capitalism. Development economics can lay even less claim to the status of a new economics, given that its novelty lies simply in its replacing some hypotheses that are judged inadequate by others, without making any change in the set of concepts used.

6. In fact, development economists are much less innovative than is generally claimed. The theory of disguised unemployment based on the use of workers for tasks with low or zero productivity forms the basis of the analysis of rural underemployment and of the structural manpower surplus. It also underlies the idea of a possible mobilization of rural labour without consequences for agricultural production. This theory of .

disguised unemployment was developed by Joan Robinson in the 1930s, in her analysis of imperfect competition. When Lewis characterizes underdevelopment by the existence of unlimited labour supply at subsistence wage level, he opens the way to the famous theory of dualist development, but at bottom the latter is a scarcely revised version of the Ricardian theory of the accumulation of capital. In the dualist theory, as in the Ricardian, growth stems from the automatic reinvestment of profits in the context of an unchanged technology until the structural surplus of labour is exhausted. The resulting curbing of wages then makes it necessary to undertake intensive growth, based on the introduction of technological improvements which increase labour productivity. Lewis and the theoreticians of dualism do not of course support the Malthusian idea of population control, history having amply proven that the average standard of living and population growth are in inverse proportion to each other, nor do they adopt the theory of diminishing returns in agriculture and the prospect of a steady-state economy. But for these theoreticians, as for Ricardo. the capitalist industrial sector is expected gradually, by a kind of natural law, to take over the entire field of economic activity.

7. In the same way, the authors who see in belated industrialization the explanation for underdevelopment are largely inspired by both the 'infant industry' arbment of classical theoreticians and the national economy theory of the German economist, Frederic List. Further examples could be put forward to show that the development economists are not developing a genuinely new approach, but are content in most cases to brrow from the arsenal of official economics the tools they consider best adapted to the new reality they are bringing to light. In early versions of development economics, however, this selective borrowing involves the substitution of classical and Keynesian instruments for those of neo-classical orthodoxy.

8. In fact, it is not surprising that development economics has not been able to identify a specific subject-matter for itself, and thus to acquire legitimacy as a discipline, since it was constituted on the basis of classical and Keynesian concepts. It is true that the analytical categories defined by Ricardo, Keynes and their disciples are not so

- 53 -

ideologically loaded as the neo-classical concepts, but they are none the less incapable of accounting for the dcvelopment of capitalism as a social system. The only type of development to which they point is a linear, quantitative type of development, involving no more than quantitative changes in constant phenomena - the market, capital, tools, labour, savings, investments, and consumption. Economists were therefore faced with the dilemma of either affirming the universal validity of classical and Keynesian concepts, even if this meant adjusting their modus operandi, or quite simply abandoning the attempt to address the economic problems of the Third World. This is the reason for the failure of the timid attempts to find an alternative approach, such as that made by Boeke(l), for whom Third World societies or, to be more precise, their largely predominant 'traditional' sector, could not be analysed using available economic concepts. Nor has anything come of the attempt made by the substantivists, for whom the significance of economic categories is peculiar to given social systems, or of the revival of non-populist Russian theories of the peasant economy; Chnyanov's theory(%) of the distribution of peasant labour on small family holdings is nevertheless unquestionably relevant to an analysis of the processes affecting the Third World's rural areas.

9. Not only has development economics not succeeded in forming a new branch of economics, but it has also failed to secure a place for itself as L new orthodoxy for dealing with the Third World's problems. From the 1950s onwards, neo-classical theoreticians began, in their turn, to be interested in analysing underdevelopment, initially through the theory of international trade. After dl, the Heckscher and Ohlin theory of comparative advantage was then still fairly new and it was. in the years following the Second World War that it was in the ascendant. According to this theory. the structure of international trade, and hence the nature of the products exchanged, tend to be determined by relative availability; or, in other words, by the relative prices of the factors of production, land, labour and capital. In so far as international trade is not hampered by any administrative obstacle, each country is supposed to specialize in the production of the commodity requiring relatively more of the factor in relative abundance, this specialization itself being relative. In the 1950s and 19608, a new doctrine of comparative advantage thus gained currency, no longer based, as in Ricardo's theory, on differences in labour productivity, but on the relative availability of factors of production. Although this doctrine serves primarily to account for the increasing openness of the advanced capitalist economies in relation to the world market, representing a complete break with pre-war protectionism, the relative prices of the 'factors of production', especially labour and capital, are considered to hold the key to the forms of specialization engaged in by the Third World countries. Moreover, the neo-classical theory of comparative advantage not only provides an

(1) BOECKE, I.H. 'Economies and Economic Policy in Dual Societies', New York, 1953.

(2) CIIAYANOV. A. The Theory of Peasant Economy, Irwin, 1966, translation of a work published in Russian in Moscow in 1925; cf. also HARRISON, M., Chayanov and the Economics of the Russian Peasantry, in The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4. July 1975.

- 54 -

explanation for the international division of labour, it also proclaims its rationality in SO far as the primary specialization of the Third World countries is considered to be a means of ensuring the international re- distribution of income. The development of fairly labour-intensive productive activities in the Third World is indeed supposed to lead to the international equalization of the 'relative prices of the factors' (wage levels and interest rates), or even to an equalization in absolute terms, as in Samuelson's version of the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem,

10. Neo-classical theoreticians often point out of course that the findings of their analyses are subject to the fulfilment of the very restric- tive conditions that they presuppose: perfect mobility of the factors of production in the country in question and immobility between countries, flexibility of prices and wages, identical functions of production at the international level, constant returns to scale and, above all, free trade. B y means of such precautions, the cleverest of these theoreticians are able to devise a subtle defense against the attacks of their adversaries, whether of Keynesian or other persuasions. When the latter blame market mechanisms for the dysfunctions observed in the Third World, some neo- classical economists take the opposing view and complain of the absence or inadequate fulfilment of the conditions required for the regular functioning of the markets (transport, communications, information). They then concede the necessity of State intervention, but only with a view to ensuring the 'normal' functioning of the market, and not in order to supplant it. In spite of these precautions, however, the neo-classical theory of international trade is constantly used as an argument for free trade and the integration of the Third World countries into the international division of labour. The most eminent of the orthodox theoreticians - Jacob Viner. Gottfried Haberler, Harry G. Johnson, Charles Kindleberger, to mention but a few - are in no way averse to engaging in public debate, sometimes in the Third World countries themselves, often forgetting at such times that the hypotheses on which their models and recommendations are based are extremely unrealistic.

11. It was also around this time that attempts were made to inject dynamism into the neo-classical theory of international trade by examining the effects of capital accumulation and technological change on terms of trade and on comparative costs. Ilere the concern of the theoreticians was to show that the introduction of growth and innovation into the Heckscher-Ohlin model was not incompatible with traditional findings arrived at in a static context, i.e. one in which there is no change in the availability of factors of production. However, some studies were to show that if capital accumulation or innovation was introduced into the neo-classical model this led, in some cases, to results which were the exact opposite of traditional findings. In particular. it was realized that if account was taken of innovation or capital accumulation in the theory of international trade, this could lead, on the basis of neo-classical hypotheses, to a change in the initial specialization of the trading countries. In other words. in a Third World country, economic growth. be it based on an accumulation of factors of production or on technological change, leads to a configuration of comparative costs different from that which would derive from the relative availability of capital or labour. Such a result, arrived at through the use of neo-classical concepts, is obviously at variance with the traditional findings of the

- 55 -

Ileckscher-Ohlin theory nnd the recommendations of orthodox thcor- eticians that the Third World specialize in primary products or in lnbour- intensive industrial products. fiere again, however, ideological passion prevailed over the scientific spirit, and the neo-classical economists pre- ferred not to take these disturbing situations into account.

12. Moreover, these attempts to boost the theory of international trade were based on an altogether new neo-classical theory of growth which was developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in reaction to the formulation of a Keynesian theory of long-term economic expansion. Where authors like Harrod, Robinson and Kaldor were trying to determine the conditions for achieving a dynamic balance in the commodities market and in the labour market, while at the same time emphasizing the random and exceptional character of the spontaneous fulfilment of these conditions, neo-classical theoreticians, such as Meade, Solow and Samuelson, were endeavouring to build a perfectly engineered system such that balance would be constantly ensured by the flexibility of the quantitative relationship between capital and labour.

13. The concept of the flexibility of the possible combinations of the factors of production gave neo-classical theory a direct purchase on the problems of underdevelopment and gave rise to a further school of thought within the mainstream of development economics, which soon became the dominant one. Here, underdevelopment is seen as the result of an imbalance in the labour market, in the sense that 8ction supposedly outside the strictly economic sector - trade union action or policy measures by the State - leads to inflexibility in the proportions of factors and prevents the labour surplus from being absorbed. Some of the ideas introduced by development economists of a classical or Keynesian tendency were reinterpreted or taken over by the neo- classical theoreticians. This was true of dualism in particular (Eckaus, Fei and Ranis, Jorgenson)(l).

14. Despite, or rather because of, its shortcomings, neo-classical theory tended to impose itself as the dominant economic theory during the 1960s, and not only as applied to the problems of the Third World. This approach, more directly even than that of the Keynesians, was a mere application of economic theory, underdevelopment being regarded as but one particular form of growth-related problem. It was left to authors like Rostow(2), outside the mainstream of academic research, to demonstrate and proclaim the unity of the orthodox approach by defining the stages of a universal process of growth (or of development, the two terms becoming synonymous), serving to chart the positions of the Third World countries and the industrialized countries. Development economics, in its neo-classical version as well as in its classical and Keynesian formulations, is thus seen as a particular application of a science

(1) ECKAUS. R. S. 'The Factor Proportion Problems in Underdeveloped . . Areas', American Economic Review, September 1955. FEI, J.C.H. and RANIS, G. 'A Model of Growth and Employment in the Open Dualistic Economy', in Steward ed., Employment, Income Distribution- and Development, F. Cass, 1975.

(2) ROSTOW, W.W. The Stages of Economic Growth, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1950.

- 56 -

considered to be universal, and not. as an alternative approach to an irreducible phenomenon. It is merely evidence of a new way of dividing up the field of investigation of officinl economics. Developmcnt economics becomes, so to speak, a further branch of conventional theory, added to the older theoretical concerns represented by money, prices, international trade, production. consumption and so on. Moreover, this division of the field of analysis goes hand in hand with the compartment- alization of knowledge in several disciplines which often progress along forking paths. What is true of official economics is also true of official political science and sociology: each of these disciplines tends to take in the problems of the Third World, but immediately thereafter to close the specific nature of these problems within the cramped confines of its ideological concepts. Curiously enough, these disciplines, which have followed different paths, have arrived at the same point: where official economics sees a delay in the accumulation of factors of production. conventional sociology discovers a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, and political science, the inadequate development of the middle classes.

15. Development sociology, and, generally speaking, the theories of 'modernization' that were very influential in the social sciences in the West during the 19fiOs do not constitute truly alternative approaches, any more than does development economics. Their originality is confined to the empirical charting of compartmentalized fields of investigation. However, the areas of study this identified are but parts of a whole, namely the world capitalist system in the process of its development. Given that this greater whole is ignored as a matter of principle, since underdevelopment is never explained in e substantive way, partial aspects of reality, economic, sociological and political aspects, cannot be validly treated as significant subjects of study, any more than the corresponding disciplines can attain the status of individual social sciences. Consequently, if development economics (or sociology) does not constitute a field of study in its own right. its scientific validity must necessarily be assessed in terms of the general theory of which it is one branch among others. Attention must be concentrated, not on the degree of empirical fit between development economics and the problems it is supposed to study - although such an approach is not wholly without value - but rather on the scientific validity of the conceptual tools it uses. Moreover, the approach to underdevelopment based on official economic or sociological theory is often revealing, as it brings to light ideological positions that are usually masked by the more complex constructs of general theory.

16. It cannot'be said too often that official economic theory, in whatever version, is powerless to give a satisfactory explanation qf how capitalism works, at either the national or the international level. Neither the worldwide context of its development through history, nor its close relationship with class struggles can be considered on the basis of classical, neo-classical or Keynesian concepts. However, these concepts are no better fitted to deal with the most immediate problems besetting capitalism in the advanced countries. The conventional theory of technological change is distressingly inadequate, and as a result innovation is not generally considered within the context of economic phenomena. The theory of growth, whether neo-classical or Keynesian in inspiration, is

- 57 -

more a brilliant abstraction from real processes and, a fortiori, foreseeable trends. The theory of general equilibrium is perfect as cybernetics but, once the dogma of pure competition is abandoned, the fine self- confidence of the theoreticians gives way to confusion before the real structures of production and of the market. Inflation, which has been a major problem in the capitalist economies of the West and the Third World since the late 1960s. is a permanent challenge to official economics. The differences in rates of inflation between countries can be accounted for neither by the monetarist explanation that the money supply determines price levels, nor by explanations in terms of demand or costs. The traditional analysis of the labour market comes up against the phenomena of segmentation and differentiation and overlooks the development of work in the 'informal' sector or 'moonlighting', whilst simultaneous existence of unemployment and inflation sows doubt in the minds of the Keynesians who had indeed claimed that the superiority of their approach lay in its being able to explain underemployment. As for the theory of international trade, it would be very difficult for it to come up with even the beginnings of an explanation for the present-day evolution of the international division of labour, and although it continues to exercise the minds of an impressive number of academics, it lives a reclusive life while on the sidelines empirical theories are being developed concerning the migrations of workers, forms of investment and multinational firms. Consequently, while development economics fails to grasp the true nature of the Third World's economic problems, the general theory from which it purports to derive, whether neo-classical or Keynesian, is scarcely more successful in coping with the problems besetting the advanced capitalist countries or the world capitalist system as a whole.

17. In fact, development economics has been trying to find not so much a field of study as a field of action. Although most of the authors pick out a particular aspect of economic underdevelopment and define its essential features, their analyses are more concerned with paths to possible development than with explaining the state of underdevelopment. Their works are more normative than 'positive', if for no other reason than that most of these authors see underdevelopment more or less explicitly as an 'initial' sitution which will disappear nnce the backwardness and shortcomings witnessed in various places begin to be reduced by growth. But there is a more political reason why development economics is normative in character. In the article quoted above, Hirschman expresses the view that development economics could not have been so successful in the industrialized countries of the West if Western economists had not been convinced both'of the need for a new approach and of the possibility of regulating international economic relations in such a way that the advanced countries could contribute to the progress of the Third World. These Western economists, as he points out, had to have reasons to think or at least to hope that their own countries could play a positive role in the development process, possibly after the introduction into international economic relations of certain practicable reforms. It would be cynical not to acknowledge the spirit of generosity which inspired many Western academics and researchers to study the problems of the Third World. A certain ratonalist optimism characteristic of the 1950s and 1960s, despite the memory of Iiiroshima and the cold war, the presentiment of changes to come, or quite simply intellectual curiosity were probably conducive to this mobilization of development

- 58 -

activists to which Hirschman refers; but although personal commitment was undoubtedly determined in many cases by individual motivations, the dissemination of ideas and the formation of theories is conditioned by social demand alone.

18. From the early 1950s onwards, a few theoreticians who were to varying degrees outside the mainstream of development economics or at least of its most current versions emphasized the imbalances inherent in international economic relations. Raul Prebisch and Hans Singer(1) thus started the debate on the long-term deterioration of the terms of trade of the Third World countries, suggesting at the same time an explanation of this in terms of differemes in market structures and trade union power. Prebisch was also the central figure in the establishment of the ECLA school, which vigorously criticizes development economics in the light of the experience of the major Latin American countries. From the structuralist theory of inflation to the study of the blocking of industrialization caused by the substitution of imports, this school has per- formed a large number of original and critical analyses which have gradually come to constitute a 'theory of dependence'. In its initial versions, this theory of dependence(2) found it difficult, however, to disengage itself from the viewpoint of development economics. Unlike the latter, it takes account of the imbalances in international economic relations, but it does not challenge the capitalist system as a framework for development. Its attention is focused on the limited nature of markets, resulting from inorne concentration. on the conditions and effects of technology imports, on the configuration of demand and the consumer model, and on dependence on external trade and finance. Its purely economic approach causes it to overlook the social relations and the alliances of local and international classes which condition economic growth.

19. For these reasons, the initial version of the theory of dependence might have seemed to be a kind of poor people's Keynesianism, the ideology of the local bourgeoisies, aimed at improving the functioning of capitalism in the Third World while resisting, if need be, the pressures of foreign capitalism. However, other authors, mainly Latin American, were to carry this theory of dependence further within a Marxist

(1) PREBISCH. Raul and SINGER, Hans, 'The distribution of gains between investing and borrowing countries'. 1954.

(2) cf. SUNKEL, O. 'Integration capitaliste transnationale et déinté- gration . nationale en Amerique latine', in Politique étrangère, No. 16, 1970. PREBISCH, R. Towards a New Tre.de Policy for Development, United Nations, 1964. SINGER, H. 'The Mechanics of Economic Development', in Indian Economic Review, 'Vol. 1, August 1969. FURTADO, C. Development and Underdevelopment, California Press, 1964 and Subdesenvolvimiento e estagnaçao na America latina, Rio de Janeiro. 1966, ed. Civillzaçao brasileira. MARIA D A CONCEIÇAO TAVARES, Da substituicao de importaçao ao capitalismo financeiro, Rio, Zahar. 1973.

- 59 -

approach(1) , putting greater emphasis on internal social relations and the international class alliances which determine the development of capitalism in the Third World. In its radical version. the Latin America theory of dependence was thus to make an important contribution to Marxist analysis of the societies of the Third World.

20. There is no Msrxist theory of development as such, since Marxist social science proceeds from the principle that the laws which govern the evolution of societies are universal, and historical materialism in fact presents itself as a method for analysing the history of the various social formations on the basis of the general concepts of mode of production, infrastructure and superstructure, relations of production and productive forces. Historical materialism was. however, no more able to free itself of a particular view of history based on ignorance of non-European societies than were other nineteenth-century European theories. For a long time the dominant conception in historical materialism was that of a mechanical succession of modes of production based on oversimplified dia- lectic of the relations between infrastructure and superstructure, between productive forces and relations of production, which received its most exaggerated expression in Stalin's famous theory of the five stages. It was only in the 1950s that some theoreticians discovered the relevance to Asian and African societies of the concepts introduced by Marx of 'German and Asian modes of production', and acknowledged the possibility of a less linear historical evolution, one which, at any rate, would be different from the experience of Western Europe. The distinctive nature of the societies of the Third World was thus recognized once they ceased to be considered as being of a feudal type and situated at an earlier stage in terms of European history. To describe these societies as feudal societies was, in effect, to situate them, as did Rostow. at a certain point in time in a linear evolution and to adopt a simple problematique of backwardness. If, on the contrary, they are defined as social structures distinct from the models of European history, it is then pass- ible to account for their being contemporaneous with capitalism. In fact. the breakdown of Stalinist orthodoxy opened the way for much research into the nature of the pre-capitalist modes of production in Asia and Africa. The French neo-Marxist trend has been particularly productive in this respect, especially in its analyses of the former French

(1) cf. QUIJANO. A. Redefinition de la dependencia y procesi de marginalizacion en America latina, miméo, Santiago, Chile, 1970. D O S SANTOS, T. 'La crise de la théorie du développement et les relations de dependance en Amérique latine', in L'Homme et la Sociëté, April 1969. MARINI, R.M. 'La dialectique de la dépendance'. in Critiques de l'économie politique, Maspéro, No. 13-14, 1973. CARDOSO, F. H. and FALLETO, E. Dependencia e desenvolvimiento na America latina, Rio. Zahar, 1970. SINGER, P.A. Crise do 'milagre'. Rio, Paz e terra, 1977. FRANCISCO DE OLIVEIRA, A. Economia de dependencia imperfeita, Rio, do Graal, 1977. FRANK, A. G. Le développement du sous-développement, Paris, Maspéro, 1972.

- 60 -

colonies,(l) although these were inclined to give greater attention to elements of stability in social systems than to the evolution in the context of the development of capitalism.

21. Once it is acknowledged that Third World societies cannot be explained by a theory of the feudal mode of production, it becomes justified to look for new models of analysis within the framework of a Marxist method shorn of dogmatism. Moreover, the reduction of universal history to a simplistic linear pattern is not the only reason why Marxism has proved incapable of explaining the Third World. The error of Marx's stance concerning the possibility that colonization (English in India and French in Algeria) could spontaneously bring about the spread of capitalist relations of production in the colonies was one of the reasons why little attention was paid to concrete analysis of the particular effects of imperialist expansion on Third World societies. Even in his 'Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism', Lenin was only mildly interested in those countries to which bank capital and industrial capital were being exported, although Cardoso regards him as a precursor of the theory of dependence, inasmuch as he analyses the development of capitalism in Russia in terms of the linkage between several modes of production.

22. It was only in the 1950s that Marxist social science really came to grips with the problem of the specific forms of capitalist development in the Third World. Its ambition at that point was to provide keys to an understanding of contemporary Asian, African and Latin America societies, while renewing the theory of imperialism. The latter had pre- vlously been studied solely from the point of view of the advanced capitalist countries, adopting an approach which placed primary emphasis either on the search for external markets or on the quest for new profit-making opportunities, and it thus ended up being considered as merely an external protection of a logic which was purely national; but questions asked about the Third World were to lead certain Marxist theoreticians completely to change their approach and to see imperialism no longer as a kind of outgrowth of capitalism but also as a phenomenon inherent in the development of this system. Returning to the tradition of Rosa Luxembourg(2) , according to whom capitalism could only reproduce itself by constantly expanding its sphere at the expense of surrounding

(1) cf. CERM, Sur le mode de production asiatique. Paris. 1969. COQUERY-VIDROVITCH , C. 'Anthropologie politique et historie de l'Afrique noire'. in Annales, 24. 1. DHOQUOIS, G. Pour l'histoire, Paris. Anthropos, 1972. GODELIER, M. Rationalité et irrationalité en économie politique, Paris, Maspéro. MEILLASSOUX, C. The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa, London, 1971, OUP; L'esclavage dans l'Afrique pré-coloniale, Paris, Maspéro, 1974; Femmes, greniers et capitaux, Paris, Maspéro. REY, P. P. Colonialisme, néo-colonialisme et transition au capitalisme, Paris, Maspéro, 1971. TERRAY, E. Le marxisme et les sociétés primitives.

(2) LUXEMBOURG, R. L'accumulation de capital.

- 61 -

societies, and linking up with the conclusions of Fernand Braudel(l), these theoreticians tried to develop an approach to capitalism as a world system whose functioning in the advanced countries is inseparable from its functioning in the Third World. Seen in this light, the societies of the Third World undoubtedly seem to constitute a specific subject of study, but within a wider context, the economic and social system of capitalism on a world scale.

23. The specific nature of the Third World is defined by the diversity of the modes of production. within the framework of a society under the domination of a capitalist mode of production. and by the subordinate character of the local capitalist relations of production. It requires the study of distinctive social processes and novel economic situations, and consequently calls for a new approach to the forms of development of capitalism. But this new approach to the forms of development of capitalism io also a new approach to capitalism itself, and is thus not an alternative social science. It is Paul Baran, with his 'Economics of Growth', published in New York in 1957. who must take the credit for having tried to formulate an analysis of 'underdevelopment' in keeping with the viewpoint and approach of Marxism. It is true that Baran replaces the concept of surplus value with that of surplus, which he considers better conveys the phenomena of exploitation of labour and wastage of productive forces in the countries of the Third World, but this enables him to show how the external dependence and internal class alliances kept alive by the imperialist system in the Third World express themselves in new forms of the functioning of capitalism, and how they block or distort the productive forces of society.

24. In actual fact there is. present in certain of the analyses of the Third International, the idea that imperialism not only destroys the social balance of the countries under domination. but also blocks any possibility of replacing it with a new equilibrium based on capitalism. Despite the majority attitudes in the Marxism of the time, these analyses concluded that the development of capitalism would be blocked in the countries under imperialist domination because the Western bourgeoisie tended to form alliances with the dominant pre-capitalist classes of major land-owners, money-lenders and traders. The same argument is to be found in the works of Mao Zedong, whose analysis of the Chinese situation in the 1930s throws light on the contradictory impact of imperialism which, on the one hand, leads to the growth of capitalist relations of production and, on the other, prevents their development. Moreover, a large number of themes dear to the theoreticians of peripheral capitalism were first put forward by Mao. The definition of the comprador bourgeoisie, the nature of the international class alliance, the division of labour and primary specialization feature prominently in the writings of the leader of the Chinese revolution, as well as the idea that the development of national capitalism is impossible within the framework of the imperialist system. . This shows the often underestimated importance of the Chinese revolution and of Maoism for the development of the con- temporsry theory of imperialism and underdevelopment. In short, what

(1) BRAUDEL, F. Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV-XVIIIe siecles, Paris, Armand Colin. La dynamique du capitalisme, Paris, Arthaud, 1985.

- 62 -

modern theoreticians have done has been to generalize from Mao's analysis, showing that situations similar to that of pre-revolutionary China could be shown to exist in other parts of the Third World, in India (Baran), in Africa (Amin) and in Latin America (Frank).

25. In general, these modern theoreticians have sought to show the structural factors determining underdevelopment, as regards both its origins and its reproduction by the imperialist system: Raran and Frank focus their analysis on the mechanisms whereby the surplus is appropri- ated and the conditions of economic reproduction are ndversely modi- fied;(l) Arrighi is more interested in the internal linkage of relations of production within the framework of exploitation by foreign capital; (2) Amin and Wallerstein put greater emphasis on the lack of autonomy of the local capitalist relations of production;(3) but all of them alike place the appropriation by outsiders of the products of labour and of nature and external control of the economy at the centre of their analysis of underdevelopment and imperialism.

(1) FRANK, A.G. 'Capitalisme et sousidéveloppement en Amérique

(2) ARHIGBI, G. The Political Economy of Rhodesia. The Hague, 1967

(3) WALLERSTEIN. I. The Modern World System, New York, Academic

latine'. Paris, 1968. World Accumulation', 1492-1789, London, 1978.

and The Geometry of Imperialism. London, 1978.

Press, 1974. AMIN, S. L'Afrique de l'ouest bloquée: 1971; L'accumulation à l'échelle mondiale : Impërialisme et sous-développement en Afrique, Paris.

- 63 -

PART TWO: T h e world-system theory and the search for alternatives

- 65 -

CHAPTER 4: The problems of dependence and delinking

(Third World Forum, Dakar Cffice)

Samir Amin's study(1) sumarizes the key ideas of his 'L'accumulation à l'échelle mondiale' and 'Développement inégal'.

The author bases his argument on two factors: (a) the existence of a worldwide market which provides the framework for a capitalist 'world economy' embracing all countries, whatever their level of development and Ideological tendencies; (b) the division of the world capitalist system Into 'cores and peripheries that are in opposition to, or which complement, one another in an asymmetric relationship which is inherent in capitalist expansion'.

It is the criterion of control of the accumulation process which makes it possible t o distinguish between 'cores' (or 'centres') and 'peripheries', although Samir Amin does recognize the emergence at the present time of 'semi-peripheries', which are new cores In the making.

The distinction between cores and peripheries is the outcome of a c m - plex historical process, extending over several centuries, which was reflected in certain parts of the world (the 'cores') in the emergence of States that gained control of the 'accumulation process', in contrast with the 'peripheries', where 'the fact that a State exists in the formal sense does not mean that it Is a national capitalist State ... unless the local bourgeoisie controls the accumulation process'.

This non-autonomy of production relations on a local level, which is central to Samir Amín's analysis, produces the typical characteristics of underdevelopment and manifests itself by the integration of the peripheries In the world system.

ln order t o break out of the vicious circle of dependence and 'adjustment t o the requirements of the world system', Samir Amin suggests an alternative, i.e. the delinking strategy, which makes it possible to 'Initiate the process of accumulation on a local level'.

(1) Title of the study: 'Ouestions posées à l'analyse de l'expansion mondíale du capitalisme'.

- 67 -

1. It may be helpful to begin by looking closely into the concepts of 'cores' and 'peripheries'. The 'cores' are the product of history, which enabled national (we shall specify the meaning of this term) bourgeois hegemony and what we shall also refer to as a national capitalist State to come into being in some regions of the capitalist system. In this context, bourgeoisie and bourgeois State are inseparable; only the 'liberal' ideology can fly in the face of reality and speak of a capitalist economy without taking the State into account. The bourgeois State may be described as national when it controls the nccumulation process, admittedly within the limits of external constraints, but when those constraints are minimized by the State's ability to react to their influence and even take a hand in shaping them. The 'peripheries'. on the other hand, are defined simply by what they are not: regions that have not become 'cores' in the world capitalist system. They are the countries and regions where the accumulation process is not under local control and is consequently mainly determined by external constraints. This does not mean that the peripheries are 'stagnant', although their development differs from that of the cores at the successive stages of the global expansion of capitalism. The bourgeoisie and local capital are not necessarily absent from the local social and political scene, nor are peripheries synonymous with 'pre-capitalist societies'. They may not be States in a formal sense (the colonial situation). although nearly ail the Third World countries have now become independent States. However. .. the fact that a State exists in the formal sense does not mean that it is a national capitalist State, even if the local bourgeoisie is largely in control, unless it controls the accumulation process.

2. The coexistence within the world capitalist system of 'cores and peripheries', as defined above, at every stage of global development is not open to doubt and indeed is patently obvious. The question is not a question of acknowledging this fact. The real - and less obvious - question is whether the peripheries are 'in the process of becoming new cores', or more precisely whether the forces at work in the system as a whole further this trend or on the contrary run counter to it, regardless of the changes undergone by those forces between one stage in the development of the global system and the next.

3. It may be useful here, as we have done elsewhere, to define the. meaning of the expression 'control of accumulation' in greater detail. It signifies the control of the local bourgeoisie and the State over five essential conditions governing the accumulation process : (i) local control of the reproduction of labour power (which presupposes initially that State policy ensures a level of agricultural development capable of producing foodstuff, surpluses in sufficient quantities and at prices which satisfy the need for a return on capital, and subsequently that the mass production of wage goods will keep up both with capital growth and with the growth of the wage bill: (ii) local control over the centralization of the surplus (which presupposes not only the formal existence of national financial institutions , but also their relative autonomy with respect to flows of transnational capital), guaranteeing the national ability to influence the way it is invested; (iii) local control of the market (which in reality deals mainly in nationally produced goods, even in the absence of strict protective measures, including tariff barriers), and its complement - competitivity on the world market, at

- 69 -

least in selected areas: (iv) local control of natural resources (which presupposes, above and beyond ownership as such, the national State's capacity to exploit them or hold them in reserve; control in this sense is not held by the oil-producing countries, which are not in fact free to 'turn off the tap', even if they prefer to keep their oil underground rather than own financial assets that could be expropriated at any time; (v) finally, local control of technologies in the sense that, in the case both of local inventions and of imported technologies, they may be rapidly reproduced without it being necessary to import the essenthl inputs (equipment, know-how, etc.) indefinitely.

4. Only if the State and the bourgeoisie are in control of these five factors of social reproduction do they deserve to be designated a national State and bourgeoisie. It should be pointed out that this. reference to the concept of the 'nation' is somewhat ambiguous. There are of course social realities other than classes, including the nation, but the latter is not the only one - the family. tribe, ethnic group, religious community, etc. are other examples - nor does it necessarily exist everywhere. Its historical form - a linguistic and cultural community on which the modern capitalist State is based - is closely linked to the circumstances of European higtory. We have touched on the issues relating to this historical form elsewhere. Did it pre-exist the State or is it itself a product of the State? Does it function as a historical protagonist. and under what conditions? Has it become a historical 'necessity' destined to be reproduced, particularly in the present-day Third World? The fact remains that for want of another expression and because the ideology of the nation has become widespread in today's world, we are compelled to use the term, even when it does not correspond to the social reality underlying the State.

5. Historically then. the constitution of the national bourgeois State has not been the rule but the exception in the world capitalist system so far. It is synonymous with the establishment of a 'self-directed national economy'. to use the expression we have suggested. As may be seen, self-directed economic construction is far from being synonymous with autarky, although too many commentators still appear to believe that it is. It only means that external relations are subject to the logic of internal accumulation and not the reverse. Furthermore, in the cases in point, self-directed construction is by no means 'anti-capitalist' or even 'socialist' but on the contrary constitutes a basic factor in the formation of the capitalist system.

6. A political conclusion may be drawn from the argument to the effect that the corelperiphery dichotomy is inherent in the capitalist system. If the establishment of a national bourgeois State and the construction of a self-directed capitalist economy are impossible on the periphery, a different mode of development is required. The nature of this process - the issues of delinking and socialism - will be discussed at a later stage. 7. Self-directed training and development have brought about the gradual homogenization of society in the capitalist cores. In other words, the sectoral distribution of the work-force and that of surplus value tend to converge. We demonstrated the differcnce between cores and peripheries in this respect by showing that, in the former, the extreme

- 70 -

ratios of these two distributions are situated in a range greater than 1 to 20.(1) Furthermore, all the historical evidence suggests that the range has gradually narrowed in the cases of Europe. the United States and Japan, whereas it has widened in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Another aspect of this qualitative divergence in the structure and in the way in which it develops concerns income distribution. Not only are there much greater disparities therein throughout the Third World than in the cores, but it would also appear that the dominant long-term trend on the periphery is for these disparities to worsen, which is not the case in the cores.

8. If these facts are correct and meaningful - and in our view they are - it remains to explain why. Contrary to what has been too lightly said by critics, the theory of the corelperiphery antagonism by no means disregards social classes and class struggles; on the contrary, it is precisely by the operation of such struggles that it explains these facts. Homogenization in the cores comes about, in our view, by the development of internal class alliances that are not solely the result of the internal social dynamics, but are also made possible by the position of the cores in the world system.

9. Two historical factors contributed in succession to this development. During a first stage, the ways in which the new hegemonic bourgeois power came into being. with or without a bourgeois 'revolution', implied the establishment of broad alliances between this new dominant class and other classes: peasants working their plot of land in some cases or landowners in others, and petty-bourgeois tradesmen in almost all cases. These alliances were necessary in order to face up to the threat to the social order represented by the nascent working class during this period of revolution, as illustrated in nineteenth-century European history from Chartism in England in the 1840s to the Paris Commune in 1871. O n the other hand, these forms of bourgeois hegemony led to social and economic policies that initiated the homogenization of society by protecting the income of rural populations and of the intermediate urban strata. During the following phase, which began towards the end of the last century and still characterizes capitalism in the cores today, bourgeois hegemony spread to the stabilized working classes. The way in which the social consensus became widespread was by the combination of Fordism, as the predominant method of organizing the mechanized labour process (ensuring mass production) with the socio-democratic (or Kenesian) wage policy (providing an expanding outlet for mass production). This consensus does not exclude class struggle, but the latter tends to be confined to the area of the distribution of profits, and to back away from challenging the general organization of society. Not only is this the reason for the consensus, but the consensus even constitutes the foundation that makes it possible for electoral democracy as we know it to function.

(1) AMIN, S. Income Distribution in the Capitalist System, Review, New York, Summer 1984. MCNZEL, Ulrich; and SENGfIAAS, Dieter, NICs defined. Seoul National University, 1985.

- 71 -

10. The thesis of the corelperiphery antagonism in fact claims that the subordinate positions occupied by the peripheries in the world system make it improbable that overall social integration will progressively expand in this fashion. The bourgeoisies that appeared belatedly and in particular those appearing after their countries had been integrated in the world system, come up against major difficulties when they attempt to widen their internal class alliances. Initially, the corelperiphery dichotomy is based on an alliance between the dominant capital at the cores and the dominant rural classes of the old type in the peripheries (the 'feudal' classes or owners of great landed estates, etc.). The history of Latin America, which won independence early on (at the beglnning of the nineteenth century) through these same large land- owners, is still paying the price of the alliance between dominant British capital (succeeded by that of the United States) and the land-owning oligarchies, i.e. the legacy of international specialization associated with that alliance, a legacy characterized by the stifling of political democracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie. In Asia and Africa, the colonial forms worked even more brutally in this same direction, accentuating the backwardness of these two continents in relation to Latin America. Subse- quently, in modern times, when bourgeois' States emerged out of the national liberation struggles andlor when the power of the local large land-owners was overthrown, industrialization began in the context of a world system that was unfavourable to the enlargement of its local social basis. In this case, Fordism was not accompanied by working-class social democracy. The new industrial output focused more on supplying the demand of the expanding middle classes than working-class consumption. Competitivity imposes a need for modern technology, which in turn requires large-scale imports of plant, know-how and capital that have to be paid for by agreeing to remunerate .industrial labour at considerably lower rates in order to be able to export. Unequal exchange giving expression to these class relationships. appears logical in this context. The agrarian crisis inherited from the preceding stage of development frequently aggravates these constraints.

11. It will be said that this corelperiphery dichotomy and its effects (the divergence of income distribution. etc.) are merely transitory, and that nothing prevents the bourgeoisie in power from overcoming their consequences. We consider such a view to be completely lacking in historical foundation. The fact is that the bourgeoisies in the Third World have not overcome them to this day. If not the bourgeoisie, could other (working-class) social alliances do so? We argue that they could. The forms required in order for them to do so entail what we call 'delinking' and fit into a problematique that is no longer one of capitalist expansion alone, but on the contrary concerns a possible - although contradictory - transition towards another (socialist?) society. 12. In the foregoing, the peripheries were outlined in general terms and it was asserted that the same major trends were to be found in all of them, above and beyond their obvious diversity. Is this generalization justified? To answer this question, we need to give close consideration to 'intermediate' situations, i.e. those of countries that have rapidly climbed the rungs of the world hierarchy either in the past or in our own times. Intermediate situations do of course exist in society as in nature. We know how to distinguish between male and female, a healthy

- 72 -

person and one who is ill, etc., and these distinctions really are significant ones. Nevertheless, an examination of intermediate and ambiguous cases often helps to make the classification process clearer and more precise. Consideration of 'semi-peripheral' situations, as we shall call them for present purposes, will make it possible to show how and under what conditions a new bourgeoisie has been or would be able to impose itself by establishing a local social hegemony and a national bourgeois State functioning as a partner in the world system, gain control over the accumulation process and further the development of society in a direction that brings it closer to the advanced capitalist societies.

13. This being so, the history of the establishment of the capitalist cores presents us with a varied range of forms, from all points of view: political forms (revolutionary or reformist), class alliances and conflicts, adaptation or non-adaptation to 'national realities', the presence or absence of colonies under direct rule, types of industry and economic activities exerting a driving force, strategic position in the global system (hegemonic or otherwise), etc. We must thus be careful not to gloss over all these specific traits, for instance by turning the Western European model (English and French in particular) into a sort of Weberian ideal. The fact remains that the European model, which also takes in the United States, has its roots in a history whose cultural dimension cannot be underestimated. These shared elements and the European-North American dominance are such that it is difficult to conceive of 'capitalism' in the abstract, i.e. independently of the historical 'European' form. In particular, the style of the bourgeois class, its break-up into 'families' and the competition governing its behaviour, the relationship between the economy and bourgeois civil society on the one hand, and the State on the other, and the forms taken by the latter are what make up historical capitalism.

14. A s soon as one leaves the European region behind in order to look at the only advanced non-European capitalist country in our modern world, Japan, the economic and social system may perhaps be seen to function in distinctive ways. In Western capitalism as we know it, the unit of accumulation appears to be well demarcated with respect to its competitors. In the nineteenth century, it was the family concern, and is now the oligopoly and perhaps the financial group or conglomerate. The State appears to regulate the competition between these units, and is placed above them; they none the less retain a considerable amount of autonomy, relatively speaking, with respect to one another and to the State. Does this apply to Japanese capitalism, where the families making up the ruling .class, the industrial and financial oligopolies (the zaibatsu) and the modernized State appear to form a whole and to be less autonomous vis-à-vis one another? Under these circumstances I is the unit of accumulation the firm and/or the group of firms, as in the West, or else the system as a whole, that is to say the State? W e are merely asking, not necessarily giving an answer.

15. Can we go further and say that all the social formations in the nodern world are equally capitalist and differ only in the forms taken by the historical forms of this mode of production? According to this view, the distinction between cores and peripheries is bereft of any real

- 73 -

significance in qualitative terms. This brings us back to the quantitative continuum and the traits specific to each formation. Some authors, such as Bettelheim, even deny that the societies born of the modcrn communist revolutions (the USSR and China) are anything other than specific forms of capitalism. We believe that such an abstract generalization goes much too far and loses sight of the essential differences governing the reality of social and political struggles and of their foreseeable prospects in each of the three groups of social formations in the world: advanced capitalism in the cores, peripheral capitalism, and what is known as the socialist world.

16. Another subject for consideration is the relationship between the autonomy of the core formations and the transnationalization characterizing the system as a whole. Is it not the case that intensified transnationalization calls the independence of the national formations, even those of the cores, into question? Does not the present crisis, by demonstrating the powerlessness both of left-wing (Keynesian) and of the right-wing (monetarist) policies, show that the constraint of universalization has now reached a qualitatively higher level than hitherto? Can history therefore be excluded from the reckoning? Are the peripheral formations and those that have in the course of history become cores already 'similar' by virtue of this new development? We do not think so.

17. The confusion arising in debate on this subject may no doubt be attributed in part to the fact that the bourgeoisie lias become the local hegemonic class throughout the present-day Third World. Once in power, that bourgeoisie effectively attempts to further its plan to build a national bourgeois State that will be a partner in the world capitalist system, or in other words to control the accumulation process.

18. If self-directed development capable of satisfying the material needs of all the social classes of the nation, even in a capitalist framework, pruves impossible on the periphery of the system, it then becomes necessary to consider the 'alternative development' option, conceived without reference to the global constraints. This is what is meant by 'delinking'. However, this concept deserves to be defined and clarified once again, having been misused to such an extent that its meaning has been watered down.

19. Let us begin by pointing out that 'self-directed development' has a specific meaning, viz. national control of accumulation, as defined above. This point needs to be made because writers on the subject - and particularly the numerous critics of the core/periphery theory - often and with disconcerting ease confuse this concept with pseudo-concepts used to describe the policies of what is known as development economics that are in fact implemented in various places. For instance, self-directed development is confused with a strategy for industrializing by means of the substitution of imports, on the pretext that that strategy - as against the export-oriented strategy which treats growth as being export-led - leads to expansion by enlarging the internal market. Nobody asks whether this strategy of substitution of imports is part of an attempt to control accumulation or whether it implies acceptance of a certain amount of financial, technological or other 'dependence' (or even

- 74 -

outright ownership by foreign capital) such that the dynamics of accumulation are taken out of the hands of the local State, nor are any questions asked about the internal class alliances on which such industrialization is based, and consequently as to whether the expanding internal market is made up of the working class or of the middle strata.

20. The 'self-directed' strategy is certainly not 'anti-capitalist', as, we have already pointed out, because it even determines the content of capitalist development at the cores. A fortiori, a strategy for the development of productive forces furthering working-class interests, whether in a socialist society or implemented as part of an experiment in delinking, with a national and working-class social content, cannot but be self-directed.

21. Delinking is not synonymous with self-directed development. It designates an entirely different phenomenon, a requirement imposed by the system. It is the pre-condition for self-directed development based on the legacy of peripheral capitalism. Here again. it should be recalled that this expression has been so debased as to become synonymous with many things that have nothing to do with the concept in question, such as autarky or cultural retreat into Utopias that hark back to the past.

22. We have discussed elsewhere the precise content of this concept, and ask the reader to refer to what was said there. In a word, it involves a principle: that of delinking the criteria for judging the rationality of choices between domestic economic options from the criteria governing the world system. These criteria are merely the expression of the form taken by the law of value governing a socio-economic system. We claimed that the world capitalist system as a whole - cores and peripheries alike is governed by the same 'world capitalist' law of value as we term it. This reality is commonly expressed in terms of 'comparative advantages' (local production or exports and imports) or 'profit- ability' (calculated on the basis of 'world prices'). W e claimed that the adoption of these criteria of economic rationality leads by the force of circumstances to the reproduction of disparities in development (in this case as between core and periphery), with all their attendant political and social consequences. We thus suggested that the criteria of economic rationality be defined on the basis of the nation's own internal constraints and social relationships. We consider, incidentally, that there is nothing Utopian about this proposal, for no other reason than that it rationalizes actual practice in socialist (or allegedly socialist) societies that have indeed 'delinked', and about which it can at least be said that they set out from a plan for a new, 'socialist' society, integrating the working masses, even if in reality their development has strayed away from that path.

- 75 -

CHAPTER 5: Seeking alternatives to the homogenization of the world

(Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi)

In the words of the author of this study,(l) Rajni Kotharf, 'a "world problem" is not called so because of its sfze and scale but rather because of its quality and depth'. its solution calls for action by the international comnunity as a whole. It must, in transcendfng a 'unfdfmensional' approach to world problems, base itself on an examination of the 'dynamic Interplay of problems and efforts t o resolve them, in whfch plurality and universality are seen as two facets of the same phenomenon'.

This approach is, according t o the author, the only one capable of providing answers to the present general problem of development. After examining how development theories have evolved since the end of the Second World War, particularly those placing special emphasis on structural analysis (theories of dependence and of the capitalfst 'world system'), Rajnf Kothari highlights the repercussions of the nen technologies In the developing countries. The search for an alternative technology mist be conducted in the light of two requirements: compatibility wfth ecologfcal conditions and respect for the balance and harmony between man and nature. Movfng on t o the problems of freedom and democracy, Rajni Kotharf notes the secondary place accorded t o cultural and polftical parameters in modern development theory. In this respect, the author states that democracy, far from being unsuited to the developing countrfes, is the prerequisite condition for economic and socfal justice whereon the fight against poverty might be based.

Rajni Kothari also stresses the widening gap between the extraordinary development of knowledge in the world today and an increasingly marked inabflity t o deal with the world's real problems. He concludes that the developing countries must set themselves the targets of peace; development and the transformation of the world on the basis of various alternatfve proposals concefved in a 'truly holistic framework' of world problems.

(1) Title of the studyi mConceptuslizing "world problas"'.

- 77 -

1. Crucial to understanding this class configuration and its globalization is a basic point: the enormous pull of the centre-culture and its artifacts in integrating the whole world in the image of its own particular regional model. The contemporary manifestation of this thrust in the face of new assertions from the peripheries is to be found in the model of 'interdependence'. Couched in a mutualist jargon, the new formulation provides a more persuasive basis for progressive homogenization of the world. But common to them both is forced integration of the various regions and cultures into one common whole. Colonialism and the economic expansion of the West, backed by superior military technology, represented the first major attempt in this direction. Where colonialism left off, development took over, in ways that proved even more pervasive and potent. It has been a mighty juggernaut that has been at work, shaping and reshaping so much of the global landscape and the diverse cultural streams thereof. Where old or newer forms of diversity stili persist - and they do - there is an attempt to suppress them, tire them out into surrender or co-optation, or assign them subsidiary and peripheral roles. Even the phenomena of multipolarity at the international level and political competition in local contexts are sought to be turned into instruments of integration and homogenization.

2. The large and powerful currents unleashed by technology, militar- ism, consumerism, the world market and the mass media spawned by the increasingly transnational model of capitalism, the 'universalist' ideology of development, as also the vision of 'catching up' that seems to haunt most of the Third World regimes - all these are gravitating to more and more points of convergence and co-optation into one global whole. These ' currents, of course, involve fierce competition and conflict around new issues and forces generated by the logic of forced integration into a world market - in respect of access to the control of natural resources, the enormous growth of the 'unorganized' sector of each economy and the new international division of labour entailing permanent marginalization of whole social strata: women, immigrant populations. millions of children in large parts of the world, the rural and the urban poor. Underlying them all are vast and irreversible ecological consequences as an integral aspect of the economistic logic and the techno-economic imperatives inherent in it, colonizing not just the diverse cultural and national entities but colonizing nature too and, as that involves irreversible decisions in the present, colonizing the future as well. The technological putsch, the global communications blitz and the great draw of con- sumerist culture spanning the whole globe lie behind this fierce competition among vastly different societies to converge towards one common desire - a life-style fashioned after the capitalist West. 3. It is this competition among culturally such diverse societies for a common life-style that provides perhaps the most potent source of conflict in today's world, the most important basis of stratification in the world, both internationally and domestically. It makes for the greatest of all the global confrontations, with the rich countries wanting to maintain - and. indeed, raise further - the standard of living attained by them, and the poor countries seeking to achieve minimum standards

- 79 -

for their people, with the élites of the poor countries wanthg to emulate life-styles available in the rich countries. (1)

4. There are three aspects to this scenario of growing conflict. The first is the global structuring of the relationship between resources and human beings, in which a minority of nations has, in pursuit of parasitic and wasteful style of life, stored up a large part of world resources. The second is the spread of the same style of iife among the dominant strata of the Third World, producing deep divisions both between and within these societies. The third aspect arises out of the first two; it includes the growing conflict over the access to, and control and distribution of, world resources for ensuring ever-escalathg thresholds of consumption.

5. This model of high-consumption life-style has undermined both the liberal dream of expanding welfare for all and the Marxist dream of the solidarity of the world proletariat ushering in an egalitarian, classless society. For inherent in the effort to maintain this kind of life-style is a drive to gain access to, and hence control over, .energy and industrial raw materials. This necessarily involves growing inequality - between rich and poor countries, between the tiny middle class and the large unorganized masses in the poor countries, and between the proletarfat of the rich countries and the proletariat of the poor countries.

6. Inherent, too, in such a model of development are many other dis- tortions of our time: the conception of the global economic process as a homogeneous whole ; the consequent need to turn formally independent countries into economic colonies; the strident safeguarding of differential advantages of the industrialized countries through all kinds of trade barriers, and simultaneous pressure on the Third World for assurhg at once the supply of primary commodities and captive markets for sophisticated consumer goods and gadgetry. All this makes it necessary to spread the culture of consumerism globally and, at the same time, contain and confine the capacities of newly industrializing countries within narrow technological limits. Hence the crucial role the multi- nationals have been invested with.

I. ception of world problems based on a prescription of 'interdependence' tends only to buttress patterns of domination, co-optation and forced integration. A s we have seen, it has only; produced an unrestrained competition for scarce resources, a growing depletion of the natural environment and the protective cover of the biosphere in the craze for technological power, often wholly unrelated to real needs of the people, and, consequent upon ail this, a desperate struggle for human survival and the sanctity of life and its values at all levels of the globe- Unless major infusions of both knowledge and statesmanship intervene in the

W e have covered enough ground to indicate that the prevailing con- '

(1) s ee ILLICH, Ivan, 'Outwitting the l'Developed'' Countries', New York Review of Books, 6 November 1969.

- 80 -

process, we are likely to witness a series of localized and not so localized wars and unexpected mutations in power relations among major States for' which we may be wholly unprepared. Large and uncontrolled movements of millions of people across State boundaries, a process that has already begun, is likely further to sharpen domestic strife and economic collapse, challenging the stability of regimes and producing a breakdown of civil society. Failure to manage these accumulating sources of tension and intervene in them through necessary structural and institutional changes may well lead us without much forewarning to a psychic condition which may produce the ultimate nemesis of a nuclear war.

8. Now such a prognosis of possibilities of fragmentation. chaos and probable catastrophe is not a result of evil forces working themselves out according to some inexorable logic of unfoldment or of the doings of some mad and stupid men in power. O n the contrary, the reasons for such a state of affairs are to be found in some very positive and historically inevitable forces of change - the stirring of consciousness among millions of hitherto submerged people everywhere, the rise of Third World societies in the global framework of power and position, the radical shifts in the global structure of economic and political power and in the demand for world resources, the resurgence and revitalization of ancient civilizations and world religions and their assertion of alternative perspectives on fundamental issues facing humanity. Critical rethinking on values. perceptions and cosmologies are in the offing in the wake of new forms of consciousness, new explorations of the human mind and new awareness that the old ways will not do and that there is need to rind new answers, produce new skills and generate new forms of knowledge to deal with a new human problematique - in a way to restore vision and perspective but to do so by taking cognizance of the new secular and spiritual forces at work. The long period of decline of institutions and capabilities has also been one of new expressions of the human spirit.

9. It is the huge and widening gap between these new mutations and the old and obsolete institutional mechanisms of deliberation and decision-making that continue to persist at both national and international levels that accounts for the present crisis. It is this birth of the new in the confines of the old that lies behind the conflicts and confrontations we are witnessing; many though not all of them are inherent in a process of rebirth and rejuvenation. The prevailing systems of management are inevitably unable to fathom the forces that are at work and provide the necessary restructuring of institutional, technological and power relationships. Governments and political party machines are unable any longer to aggregate interests, hold allegiances and mediate between contending forces. The incipient intrusion of the mass media and the virtual transfer of major political functions to bureaucracies and 'experts' everywhere have transformed the nature of the State, in both liberal and socialist countries and in the as yet nascent politics of the Third World.

10. There is, then, a growing alienation between the awakened masses at the bottom and the modes of conflict resolution that are still highly centralized and technocratic. Similarly, the relationship between choices of technology and processes of social and political transformation are

- 81 -

increasingly at odds, producing further alienation. Dut above all the universities, scientific bodies and expert meetings (which have multiplied at a phenomenal rate in recent decades) are all lagging far behind in coming to grips with the new realities. Their place seems to be taken by the purveyors of capsuled knowledge - the media, the smart salesmen of corporate interests, the consultants and 'advisors' from foreign aid agencies as well as the new brand of ad men and communication wizards - who are of course unable to provide new answers but who have a mesmeric effect in a world of rapid change and increasing insecurities. The same is the case with planning bodies and financial institutions, the economic pundits, the management specialists and the disseminators of so-called innovations and inventions. The growing gulf between the rulers and the ruled that has produced a non-functioning structure of governance and decision-making everywhere is above all to be traced to this deep schism between the world of knowledge and the world of reality; the former is becoming less and less relevant to the latter. This is the biggest. and sharpest alienation of all and one that lies behind the sense of insecurity all around.

11. It is precisely from this search for a new framework for both thought and action that a whole series of new problem clusters has of late emerged. These range all the way from local challenges at the grassroots of diverse societies to wider concerns and movements that are increasingly becoming global in both scope and definition. They represent an effort to redefine both the range of politics and thinking about politics and social change. It is an effort to open up new spaces in both the arena of the State - and the States system - and in several other spheres of civil society outside this arena.

12. For the purposes of this report, it is necessary to record that this is in many ways a new kind of effort, one that is based on new spurts in consciousness - beyond economism, beyond confined definitions of the political process, beyond the facile (and false) dichotomy of State versus Market, discovering new indigenous roots as well as other authentic sources of sustenance and strength, based not so much on either the fractured Old or a mediocre and insipid New as on genuine possibilities of alternatives that can in fact work.

13. It is for such a convergence of alternative politics and alternative thinking that new definitions of the scope and range of new inter- ventions are surfacing. Around these redefinitions new social movements are emerging.(l) The environment, the rights and the role of women, health, food and nutrition, education, shelter and housing, dispensation

(1) For a comprehensive state of knowledge on alternative conceptions of development, see m y two-part 'Towards a Conceptual Framework for Alternative. Development Stratepies', presentation at the 21st Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs (Development, Resources and World Security). in Madras, India, 13-19 January 1976. For the way new social movements have emerged around these issues, see m y 'Party and the State in Our Times: The Rise of Non-party Political Formations', Alternatives, Vol. 9, No. 4, December 1983.

- 82 -

of justice, communications and dissemination of information, culture and iife-styles. the achievement of peace and non-violence - none of these was considered subject-matter for politics, at any rate not for domestic politics, not for mass politics in which ordinary people were involved. This has now changed. Ecology is something that cannot any longer be left to experts in ecology or in economic development, not even to departments of the environment, though the establishment of such departments is itself a new development, a concession to popular political pressure. Nor can ecological considerations be left to be sorted out in the future on the presumption that if development and technology erode the environment in the short run this can be remedied in the long run. It is something to be preserved here and now; it cannot be left to the good intentions and pious declarations of governments but must become part of peoples' own concern, an organized concern at that, including agitations and movements to restrain the State and corporate interests from running amuck and ruining the life chances of both present and even more of future generations, and indeed of non-human species and plants as well. Concern for nature and reversing 'the rapacious approach to it that is inherent in modern technology is becoming part of a political movement, both worldwide and within individual societies. (1)

14. The same is the case with health and with food and nutrition. These are matters that were hitherto left to specialists and experts and to ministries manned by them. Not any longer. It is increasingly being realized that the new hazards to health, the new epidemics that are breaking out, the horrors created by modern drugs are in good part a product precisely of the experts, the doctors, the medical profession and multi-billion-dollar global drug industry with millions being spent on research and development, the much boasted-of RhD. They are also a product of the kind of development that has been let loose on trusting people, of technology and the environmental hazards created by it. In the meanwhile, modern civilization has created a whole new spectrum of diseases known as civilizational diseases, which in turn has produced a whole industry of specialists who are nowhere near curing either cancer or mental disorders, nor will they ever be able to. All this is being confronted by various strands of the alternatives movement.

15. The same is the case with availability of, and access and entitlement to, food, to minimum nutrition, to shelter and housing. These are among the most serious problems in distributive politics and the clearest re- futation of the logic of development based on accumulation and production, with distribution to be taken .care of at a later stage. Implied in this logic was also a view that treated people as beneficiaries of the process of development, not direct participants in it, thus without any real control over how things would go. And things have indeed gone awry. This is now being realized. The faith in green and white revolutions , in the revolution in materials technology and in so-called 'cheap housing' has been shattered with the realization of growing

(1) For a state of knowledge on this whole subject prepared for a UNEP-ESCAP Task Force, see m y 'Environment and Alternative De- velopment', UNEP, 1979, published in Alternatives, Vol. 5, No. 4. January 1980.

- 83 -

hunger and malnutrition and millions living in slums and on pavements, to be driven out and bulldozed from there too. It is realized that these are matters of empowerment and rights for which people will themselves have to fight, and that too not just at the level of securing more of the same goods but of devising alternative ways of attending to these needs, more often than not by the people themselves. A wholly new conception of human rights has been emerging.

16. The same is the case with education, so clearly related to being underprivileged. Something that was supposed to be an instrument of liberation has turned to be one of subjugation. Education just cannot be left to the mercy of the so-called educationists. This whole perspective, applicable to so many areas, about de-expertizing and de-bureaucratizing the provision of basic needs is seeping into the grass-roots political process and generating a new agenda of concerns for it.

17. Even such presumably learned and technical matters as dispensation of justice on the one hand and communicating information on the other are being subjected not just to greater public gaze but to a large degree of direct involvement. Both the rise of public-interest litigation and the growth of investigative journalism, in both of which human rights activists are getting deeply involved and which are together generating a substantial movement of civil liberties and democratic rights, provide ample testimony to our point about politicization of issue areas that were hitherto considered beyond the pale of politics, especially of mass

18. Nowhere is the enlargement and redefinition of the scope of politics brought out so vividly and dramatically as in what is called the women's movement, which too has moved beyond the traditional struggle for equal rights to providing a wholly new, feminist output into our whole thinking on politics. Two interrelated aspects rdeserve particular attention from the point of view of this report. First, the scope of politics has been enlarged by bringing into its ambit what was till recently considered a personal and private world. From a position that personal and political are polar opposites to the one that personal is political to the even more basic one than that political is personal is a massive shift not just in the position of women in politics but in our whole understanding of politics. itself. And second, in the process of bringing about this shift, new approaches and methods to deal with basic problems like the environment, health, drunkenness and sanitation and choice of technology are gradually getting evolved - not just on the part of women, but of men too, for there is no necessary exclusive overlap between feminism and being a woman. Above all, there is emerging an unprecedented convergence between the environment and feminist movements, between these two and the human rights movement (the latter getting wholly redefined) and between them all and the peace movement.

politics.(l)

(1) The journal Alternatives has been, since March 1975, publishing material on various strands of the alternatives movement. See in particular its two special issues on alternatives movements, Vol. IX, No. 4 and Vol. XI, No. 2.

- 84 -

19. This is crucial for our purpose. In the process of redefining the range of problems that constitutes the public sphere, there is taking place an affirmation of the interrelationship of dimensions and movements, of a holistic approach to life, which goes against the grain of specialization and fragmentation of knowledge and activity that had until recently held sway(1) - a holistic approach, moreover, that is also pluralistic and based on complementanties. A major impetus for all this is coming from the non-Western, non-muscular, non-centralizing traditions and civilizations, a fact that has not yet been fully taken note of, including in non-Western societies.

20. It has become clear that the prevailing conception of integration which looks at human problems in global terms has serious shortcomings and dangers. The basic axiom of the modern approach on development is that societies are constructs, and that, being the products of human will, they can accordingly be structured as desired - and the idea is to structure each society along a 'rational' path. To begin with, the basic principle of such structuring was essentially seen as being economic. In the 1950s a new society meant, as noted above, capital formation, rising GNP, infrastructure and industry. In the 19608, when the impact of these endeavours began to be felt in terms of new social relations, the formation of new pressure groups and new distribution of power within communities, developmentalists turned their attention to political science and sociology. The 1970s saw the emergence of environment and pollution as major concerns and ecology stepped in. But each of these were stiii perceived as dimensions, issues to be incorporated, new specializations to be pursued fir achieving the original aim better.

21. However, the dislocations of development, the perception that the various hard and soft inputs were not working with the expected linear predictability, led to the growing conviction that society was not a mere aggregate of outputs and that social elements, intrinsically, had autonomous significance. This gained anthropology an increasing importance, not as an exotic ethnology but as a study of the structural constants of various societies and their implications for modern society. Hence the importance of social anthropology. In such a perspective, society is seen not as a mechanical fabrication by inputs but rather as a relational system whose logic is primary in determining the way in which the inputs are used. Social phenomena are no longer epiphenomena of the sub-stratum of material conditions. Rather, the ordering of social elements is seen as a function of the valuational significance of these elements themselves. In brief, it calls for holistic analysis. Holism and values now come to the fore in the unfolding dynamic of development. Holism thus understood would seem to be opposed to the homogenization forced by the concepts and methods of modern knowledge, and would instead seek to represent organic, integrated and yet particularistic entities. It would as much emphasize the diversity in which a given

(1) On the notion of interrelationship between dimensions as a way of comprehending world problems, see, Towards a Liberating Peace, the United Nations University, Delhi and Tokyo, 1986.

- 85 -

unity is located as the global and planetary relationships through which the diversities would realize their discrete identities. It is in and through these interrelationships - of dimensions as well as levels - that a 'problem' acquires its 'world' character.

22. Let us look more closely - and concretely - at this question of interrelationship. As we move into an age when the superpowers will be unable to control the conflict between themselves or among their allies, and the United Nations itself may be paralysed by the growhg conflict between the North and the South, the East and the West and within each of these world segments, the States system as it is presently constructed will be unable to provide peace and security and all progress on disarmament and human rights may well come to a standstill. Similarly, as the international system becomes even more precarious and further strains national and local resources and institutions, and as old engines of growth and dynamism begln to lose steam, there will be need to pay special attention to restructuring the world economy and to conceive new strategies of growth for the new industrfalizing countries by drawing upon the numerous resources of their vast populations and their rich and ancient civilizations and scientific traditions. The problems are fundamentally international and global in both respects.

23. W e do not subscribe to any universal theory of human behaviour or to globalism based on such a universalist view. It is rather the structure of interrelationships and linkages that have permeated the individual and social condition that interests us and needs to be taken cognizance of in our thinking about the human predicament and ways of dealing with it. It is this that we have tried to map and conceptualize in this study. We are convinced that it is from such a perspective that the close inter- twining of the prospects for peace, development and global transformation will emerge,

24. In fact it is the only perspective that leads to a proper understanding of the global structuring of the human predicament. It shows clearly that it will not do any more to think in local, regional or even North-South terms. Though we strongly believe in the primacy of the Third World in any conception of world transformation - both in respect of historical analysis and in respect of a strategy of action - we are convinced that it is not any longer possible to think of either development or peace in a narrow Third World sense, and also that the developed world itself faces serious problems of maldevelopment, exploitative structures, militarization of science and technology and cultural erosion.

25. Equally, it is no use thinking in single dimensions. Thus while it is important to deal with hunger, it is idle to do so without at the same t h e ensuring the physical survival of the poor and the hungry. More- over, unless one deals with and eliminates the sources of war, the resources and political will needed to deal with hunger and poverty will just not be there. The contrary is also true: unless we develop the human capacity to frontally attack and eliminate the worst forms of misery and despair and the conflicts and tensions inherent in such a human condition, we will never succeed in removing the sources of violence and war. The way to this dual challenge facing us - of war and

- 88 -

poverty - lies not in some blind faith ln technology and its continuous expansion but rather in envisioning the developmental process itself as a search for creating a peaceful and harmonious world. (1)

26. It is in this dynamic interplay of problems and efforts to resolve them, in which plurality and universality are seen as two facets of the same phenomenon, that we will be able to relate the plethora of 'world problems' in a truly holistic framework. A 'world problem' is not called so because of its size and scale but rather because of its quality and depth. It is not a function of aggregation or integration of units but a reflection of the quaiity of interactions that constitute the emergent whole. This, at any rate, is the conclusion that emerges from our explorations in preparing this study for Unesco.

(1) I have tried to capture this full set of interrelationships in the specific context of peace in the United Nations document for the Year of Peace commissioned by the Secretary-General called 'Peace, Development and Life', the United Nations, New York, 1984.

- a7 -

PART THREE: Modelling

- 89 -

CHAPTER 6: Modelling: an overview

(WZB : Wissenschaftszentrum Beriin)

The purpose of this study, which was carried out by Heinrich Siegmann under the guidance of Professor Karl W. Deutsch and with the participation of Wolf-Dieter Eberwein,(l) was to draw up a detailed survey of the most relevant world models. Any critical investigation of modelling was precluded from the outset; such scientific evaluation will be effected only at a later stage of the activities conducted in the context of the co-operation established between Unesco and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin.

Heinrich Siegmann has divided his contribution into two parts. In the first, he describes the method of investigation adopted, provides a general state-of-the-art picture of modelling and sets forth the criteria behind the choice of the 27 global models selected in the study.

7he author stresses that modelling, lying as it does at the confluence of three fields of social science (econometrics, systems dynamics and political science), is passing through a difficult phase after a period of remarkable upsurge. Heinrich Siegmann considers that three problems lie ahead for modelling:

(a) persistent differences of opinion between researchers over the scope and methodology of modelling;

(b) the difficulties encountered by model-builders in obtaining an autonomous status for their discipline within the social sciencesi

(c) the fact that-there is no centre or focal point for reflection to co-ordinate and stimulate research, model-builders having no real f o r m for scientific exchanges and concerted action; in this regard, it is suggested that Unesco should agree to support the establishment of a network for research on modelling. .

After also recalling the main objectives of model-builders (including the provision of fonrard-looking material for ldecision-makersl), the author gives a detailed account of the method used to select the global models adopted and describes the general trends and the identifiable results of the development of modelling. The second part of this study takes the form of a series of data sheets concerning the 27 models.

(1) Title of the study: 'Recent developments in world modelling'.

u

- 91 -

1. We have selected those models living up to the following criteria:

(a) the model deals with a 'worldwide problematique' or seems particularly relevant to global modelling;

(b) the model is empirical, data-based, and simulated on a

(c)

computer;

the the-horizon is at least several years into the future; and

(d) the model focuses on social aspects.

2. These criteria warrant some elaboration. Regarding the first criterion, we also include those models that focus on one single sector (e.g. food and agriculture) or are geared towards a single nation or region if the model gives significant attention to global aspects. For example, a model geared towards determining possible options for, and effects of, developing the natural resources of a given country or region will be included if worldwide demand and supply patterns play a central role. We have incorporated the notion of 'particular relevance' into this criterion in order to include a model like the India Basic Needs model that by itself is clearly not a global model but has been initiated by ILO's BACHUE project(1) may be included in global modelling efforts such as Project LINK or IIASA's Food and Agricultural model, and has an important modelling promulgation function in the south Asian area.

3. The second criterion seeks to prevent purely theoretical, heuristic or Delphi-techniques-based models from being considered global models. Moreover, it puts the aforementioned ' 'soft approaches' aside that, in part, have relied on computer models but have not chosen the construction, adaptation or extension of a global model to be their central analytical technique.

4. The third criterion regarding the time-horizon is highly subjective. Only a few years ago, a global model was expected to cover several decades. Subsequently, this period became shorter and shorter. We like to include a model like OECD's INTERLINK that now can look 3-4 years ahead but like to exclude models of a horizon of only two years or less.

5. The fourth criterion alludes to 'social' in a broad meaning of the term but seeks td exclude models. such as on the global CO, problem (that clearly poses a world problem but by itself is generally not understood to be a subject area of global modellers).

6. A central concern of global modelling is to be clear about one's premises. The basic premise in applying these criteria is that global modelling is evolutionary, incremental and modular. This leads us to give

71) RODGERS, G.; HOPKINS, M.; WERY, R. 'Population, Employment and Inequality', B A C H U E - Phiiippines, Farnborough, United Kingdom, Saxon House, 1978.

- 93 -

4the benefit of the doubt to a model since the model (despite reservations about labelling it a global model) might soon be expanded or merged into a truly global model.

7. Table 1 lists those models that we have included in the survey given the criteria outlined above, Not all of them are global models by the standards of the original 'world problematique'. In Table 1, the models surveyed are distinguished by four types. Type I modelling lives up to the original 'world problematique' in terms of having cross-sectorai feedbacks and being multinational but might have a time-horizon shorter than several decades. In addition, model structure and findings have been published. Type II modelling encompasses possible Type I models but insufficient information on these models is available. Type III models are not global models in the sense of Type I but they appear relevant for future global modelling efforts. Type 1V models are not global models and seem not directly relevant for global modelling. Some modelling efforts are covered in less details since they have already been extensively reviewed. (1) I Not included have been widely publicized efforts such as Global 2000 (Barney, 1980) or OECD's Interfutures study (19'79) that have relied on (global) models but have not built any model of their own.

8. This chapter seeks to delineate trends in the ways the models have been structured, and in terms of the central areas of concern addressed by the models. These trends appear to be:

(a) the time-horizons have become shorter (cf. Figure 1);

(b) the models have become geographically more disaggregated and have gradually moved to single countries as the unit of analysis:

(cl the concerns of the models have shifted from fundamental to specific: at the same time, international econometric models have emerged:

(d) several new models have explicitly included political variables: .

(e) many modellers have made deliberate efforts towards user- friendliness and, in part, allow interactive usage.

(1) See, for example: MEADOWS, D.; RICHARDSON, J.: BRUCKMANN, G. 'Gropping in the Dark, the First Decade 3f Global Modelling', New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1982: O T A (Office of Technology Assessment) , Congress of the United States : 'Global Models, World Futures and Public Policy. A Critique', US. GPO, Washington, 1982; LUTZ, C. W a s sagen uns die Weltmodell und Szenarien der letzen 15 Jahre? Suche nach Handlungsspielraumen, in einer interdependenten Welt' , Gottiieb Duttweiler Institut für wirtschaftliche und soziale Studien, Schrift No. 24, 1983, CH-8803, Rueschlikon .

- 94 -

m U li

d

al Q

li

3

Q

d

A s" t-4 2

H

u-

O h

d

m

a

a a

al

4

'-u u

; 5 P c Q

O

.cl a al U

a x

U d

m al 3 1 al U

Ir

I

H

U U

N

IC

d

m o d

m

O

OD OI d

\

N h

ul d

U O

- 95 - I

..I

5 I

b

08 cl4 O

M

o

u0

7c

oom

mou

OO

O

UY

wg2

Om

6

m uw

od

Omo

YI U

d

wu0

wm

u

uao

U

Y

d

w o 2 5 w O U

U u.

05 Ga”

U

rr) f-

d

m I h d

33 E;” 25 m

u

hm

VIO

-m

$2

fnm

YI O

d O -0

4 Ei? u0

do

mo

eo

dQ

Md

OU

u

0

u3

2

Y

as

wu

hA

uu

dd

uu

B

O

**

dd

mm

gs

sm

U

d

OO

*Q

8: zœ

I4

rr) h

d

m m .s dd

UP)

ma

20

QC

ua

Ud

du

PE

H

U Y

U

U

U

12

d

cn Lo

h

d

m

.Y YU

HU

U 1-

Oh

Pcn

m-l

U

h

o,

c1

I

- 91 -

W

dc

ao

rlrl

UY

om

a or

rl u

u

U

om

d

PI*

u *a

u*

I4 a

u

c;

s22

5 g: 5: ME:

GO

rld m

Mm

u rnrl

18

wo

ou

co

a

zu

VQ?

H

U U

Y.

Y

A

U

rl m o 3 s

o

rl d

6

U

F4 rl

-5 ri O

i+

H H

H

Y Y

OD h

d

Ca I- Q, d

m

-U

O

w Q u fa w O A

U 4

m I4

5; PE;

Y H

-

H

z

m 90

Uh

dd

am

H.

Q, m

h

Q, .Q,

d

d

d

a rl

d

U

Q "

$

Uh

d

Cm

Y

o

-u

M

mu

U

B z Re

- 98 -

I - 99 -

U 2 m U 4

U d

dX

OM

rlm

mu

CU

om

d

Uh

idu

cd

Ud

a2

ES 39

m d

al a 3 5 d m d

U

0 al4 3;

%:

u.

u3

ou

uc

P4H

*

U

m w z Frl

4

VI U

U

c1 e

o) æ o O

rl 4

L a m e

*

U

z

e:

e m c: U a

O r

eu

r e: 3

e

c

< I I

I I

I I

I I P F 8 Ñ

- 100 -

9. Figure 1 shows that the modelling time-horizon has been shorter for the more recent models than for the older ones. The time of model com- pletion or the year when the principal publication appeared were chosen as the reference year. Four model clusters are apparent. The three oldest models (World 3, Bariloche, Mesarovic-Pestel) had the longest time-horizons of 50 years and beyond. The models which were completed in the late 1970s and early 1980s tended to range into the first decades of the next century. Most models that are about to be completed or are still ongoing seem to be slated to run to the year 2000. The WMP and FORECASTS can be neglected, since they are based on the older SARUM and WIM models. ZENCAP-D as a one-nation, single-issue model does not claim to be a global model at present. The fourth cluster comprises models looking ahead only until around the year 1990. All of them are econometric models. INTERLINK and the World Bank model are regularly used for short- to medium-term forecasts of their sponsoring institutions.

10. A second trend seems to be that the models have become geographically more disaggregated. In World 3, the whole world was the unit of analysis, the Bariloche model distinguished originally four regions, the Llesarovic-Peste1 model ten regions, SARUM and the UN-World Model 15 regions. A notable exception from the earlier models was MOIRA, incorporating 106 countries, but one must keep in mind that it was a single-issue model. Some of the later models also differentiate among only a few regions or countries but most of the models still being constructed or extended look at many more individual countries or regions: GLOBUS, which is conceptually perhaps the most in the tradition of the Club of Rome, includes 25 selected countries; INTERLINK covers 32 countries or regions; the World Bank has 38 countries and 19 regional models; whether FORECASTS goes beyond the 10 regions of the WIM model from which it was derived is unclear, but its data base covers 132 countries and four regions; the macro-economic module of FUGI in its present version contains 62 areas and is intended to include about 200 national models (personal communicntions, June 1985) ; and Project LINK, finally, encompasses 72 countries at present and soon will have 80. Of course, the increasing geographical disaggregation, the shorter time-horizon, and the less 'globalistic' perspective of the models have almost inevitably made single countries the units of analysis.

11. Richardson expressed the fear that global modelling might become a subdiscipihe of economics. (1) Indeed, the emergence of various international econometric models(%) shows that these models have taken up parts of the agenda of the earlier global models while neglecting others. The economic models tended to focus on short- to medium-term prospects of economic growth, world trade and capital flows, and increasingly turned to issues such as exchange rates or foreign debts. This move

(1) RICHARDSON, J.M. 'Global Modelling in the 1980s' in RICHARDSON, J. (ed.) 'Models of Reality. Shaping Thoughts and Action', Lomond Books in co-operation with Unesco, 1984, p. 125.

(2) HICKMAN, B.G. 'Global International Economic Models'. Selected papers from an IIASA Conference, North Holland, Amsterdam, New York, Oxford, 1983.

- 101 -

towards more immediate and policy-relevant issue areas can partly be attributed to the basing of the models in policy-oriented institutions such as ILO, OECD, the EEC, the World Bank or United Nations suborgan- izations. Other contributing factors have been the availability of more comprehensive data bases, of more rigorous econometric approaches, of sophisticated input-output techniques, of individual econometric national models, and the improvements in computer hardware and software allowing for easier usage and linkage of all these improved capabilities. A further factor might have been growing salience of economic issues in the 1980s 8s compared with a decade earlier.

12. Yet the 'economization' of global modelling is not the only trend in terms of substantive developments. Richardson considers the (re)emergence of political global models 'exciting and hopeful' since, unlike the economic models, they might reintroduce comprehensiveness and eclecticism. The two most notable models with political components are GLOBUS and SIMPEST, but also the addition to S A R U U of a military sector and decision-making by AREAM, W M P and G-MAPP fall under that category. The FUGI group is designing a 'super global model' that is envisaged to include issues such as human rights, peace and security (personal communications, June 1985). Even in China, the construction of a global model that includes a political sector is reportedly contemplated. (1)

:3. The Guetzkow-school models of the 1960s were not fully automated. Rather, they used human decision-makers at critical (political) junctures. While this was done out of necessity, several of the more recent models provide somewhat similar features within an interactive computer environment. Models such as WIM, SIMPEST, Regional World IV, INTERLINK, IFS or FORECASTS have built-in features allowing for more or less human inputs during the course of a simulation run. While most of the human impact probably affects the setting of parameters in order to explore certain scenarios, it is conceivable that users will soon be able to interactively alter structural relationships. The use of specialized software in which the models are embedded, and the implementation of models on microcomputers will further 'foster such developments.

14. Both the emergence of political modules and the growing human role thus might mean a vindication of the Guetzkow simulations that had been somewhat forgotten. Our polling of modelling groups indicates that easier accessibility and more versatile usability of their models is a main area of improvements under way. Our poll also reveals that modelling politics and related areas such as value change should be emphasized in existing or future modelling projects.

15. Global modellers are often reluctant to report the 'results' of their models. The model findings depend crucially on the purposes for which the models were primarily constructed, the initial assumptions and the particular scenario under scrutiny. In popular discussions, the findings

(1) POLDY, P. 'Report on Global Modelling consultations in Groningen, Canterbury, London, Honolulu and Beijing', 1985 (February), mimeo.

- 102 -

are often mistaken as predictions, particularly if the underlying assumptions are not made explicit. Moreover, the outcome of a model will tend to be less favourable, the more strongly linked the various model components are. Comparisons of model results are therefore very sensitive not only with respect to model structures and the underlying 'what if' constructs, but also to model complexity.

Despite these difficulties, we shall try to summarize the 'results' broken down according to the following general issue areas:

(1) basic needs;

(2) fNorth-Southf relations (i.e., relations between developed and developing countries';

(3) science,

(4) military,

16. Basic needs: that, in principle,

education and technology;

politics.

There is wide agreement across a variety of models basic needs could be met within a few decades if the

proper changes to economic, social and institutional policies were administered. However, most models doubt that these changes will be made. As MOIRA put it, the real issue will not be food but hunger. The situation will be most critical in Asia. According to MOIRA, the earth could, in practice, produce many times the present amount of food: practically, a programme by the rich nations of the world could alleviate world hunger if market stabilization. and an aid programme were combined.

17. The IL0 models, similarly, find that most developing countries could meet the basic needs of the poorest by 2000 but that existing rates of economic. growth are insufficient. Deviating from other models and somewhat counter-intuitively , they establish that migration policies encouraging rural-to-urban movements can affect poverty significantly while population growth limitations will have little effect. For many countries, the goals of meeting basic needs and self-reliance tend to be in conflict.

18. In contrast, ,WIM (Mesarovic-Pestel) found that a continuation of current trends would make food increasingly expensive, causing starvation on a massive scale in South Asia. Instead, the endangered regions ought to strive for national or regional food sufficiency. This would require first of all the development of an industrial base and more stringent family planning. (One must hasten to add, however, that the problems for Asia are heavily concentrated in India (see below). Africa was modelled at a high level of aggregation - which may be one reason why the starvation so prevalent in Africa today did not become apparent in the model findings.)

19. The outcomes of the Bariloche model confirm WIM in so far as the most serious problems are expected for Asia. Even under the normative, action-forcing' assumptions of this model, basic needs in Asia will not be satisfied to the desired levels, particularly with respect to food. O n the

- 103 -

other hand, Latin America could adequately satisfy the basic needs of the whole population within one generation, Africa somewhat later. The developing countries can reach and maintain high levels of well-being even if they reduce their economic growth rate drastically.

20. Both S A R UM and the U N World Model (UNWM) confirm that physical barriers to global development do not exist. UNWM's time-horizon extends to 2000. SARUM's even to the next 100 years. But both models stress that non-physical limits will be manifest.

21. The India Basic Needs model underlines the anything-but-bright future for (parts of) Asia. Basic needs satisfaction will be far from achieved by the end of the century: more than half of the population will still be illiterate; only one out of three will be enrolled in secondary schools; the per capita calorie consumption will be insufficient; fully one-third of the buildings will be unserviceable; only one-third of the total energy requirements of the households will be met by commerdal energy; and most forest areas will have disappeared.

22. North-South relations: The model runs pertaining to North-South relations have dealt with issues such as:

the impacts of various economic growth rates in the North on development in the South;

trade liberalization versus increased protectionism;

North-to-South aid and capital investment flows;

export strategies of countries in the 'South'; or

the effects of alternative fiscal and monetary policy stances in the North on the South, in particular those regarding the debt problem.

23. North-South relations are a broader area than basic-needs satisfaction and more policy-oriented. Both of these features contribute to the fact that the model findings are considerably more diverse. There- fore, the following findings will be presented in a rather disjointed way.

24. WIM advocates a worldwide policy of ;organic growth' that would encourage growth where needed and discourage it where not. Industry should be diversified throughout the world. The economic base and especially the export capacities of the poorest countries should receive aid and investments, but investments only in terms of 'approFriate' or 'intermediate' technology. The international system should be reorganized.

25. MOIRA advocates redistributive international food policies whereby the rich countries would stabilize world food prices at high levels by appropriate buffering and import-export policies. Food purchases by the poor would have to be highly subsidized. If these measures were taken, hunger would be eliminated. In contrast, liberalized food trade would increase hunger.

- 104 -

26. The effects of trade barriers or liberalizations are possibly the most interesting findings of SARUM. There is no simple answer on whether free (or freer) trade is beneficial. If all trade were liberalized, world GNP would rise but some regions would lose out. Free trade between regions improves living standards if the regions have complementary economies and resource bases. If not, one region will be worse off. It is dubious whether free trade helps the poor significantly. The regions or countries most highly ' specialized would suffer most from sudden disruptions of trade. (1)

27. According to the U N World Model, it is unlikely that the targets set by the United Nations Second International Development Strategy for GNP growth will suffice for reducing the income gap between North and South. Higher growth rates in the South coupled with slower rates in the North (compared to long-term trends) would cut the gap in half by the year 2000. Accelerated development in the South would require that 30-40 per cent of GNP be used for capital investment. Investments from abroad would be important but still secondary to internal sources. However, accelerated development in the South means the danger of large trade and balance-of-payment deficits in most of the developing regions. There are two ways to counter that: either the rate of development is reduced according to baiance-of-payment considerations, or a new international economic order is implemented by stabilizing commodity markets, stimulating the exports of manufactured goods from the South, increasing financial transfers, etc.

28. FUGI'S projections are based on two scenarios: Scenario A assumes oil and primary commodity price indexation to the North's export prices, while Scenario B assumes a concerted policy mix for decreasing the North-South income gap. Under Scenario A, the North-South income gap in the next decade will remain about the same. It will widen among developing nations. Under Scenario B, the North-South gap will be slightly reduced. Under both scenarios, the U N Lima target for the * industrialization of developing countries proves to be highly ambitious. A n agro-oriented development strategy may be particularly useful in the short term and for increased labour force efficiency. In the long term, a slow but steady transfer from the agro- to the heavy industry-oriented strategy should take place. The latter strategy is almost indispensable for resource-poor countries such as in South-East Asia.

29. Chichilnisky's model of technology, domestic distribution and North-South relations suggests the highly contested conclusion that under certain conditions of economic dualism and abundant labour in the South, an increase of Southern exports will result in worsened terms of trade with the North. In addition, thelpurchasing power of wages will decline. If these conditions do not hold. these negative effects will be reversed in favour of the South.

30. Project LINK conjectures that a co-ordinated reduction of interest rates by the North in 1981-1982 would have improved world GNP and

(1) See IIAGA 'Global Modelling at the Service of the Decision-Maker: Background Material', September, 1981. '

- 105 -

world trade without inducing inflation. Under various policy assumptions, a world recovery would also mean a L D C recovery. The most suitable set of policies would include demand management policies and industrial policies in the seven O E C D summit nations, tariff reductions, increased official development aid transfers and correspondingly decreased military expenditures in the donor countries. Measures of trade liberalization would benefit the present world economy but would still be insufficient to ameliorate pressing international economic problems.

31. The GLOBUS model has been used to study three scenarios of no, moderate and considerable increases of protectionism by the OECD countries. They showed in the short to medium term discernible gains and losses for different actors. The West experienced increased economic activity despite abruptly curtailed trade while the South suffered a longer decline. Within the West, only the United States gained while the rest lost. Deterioration of Western trade, adjustment by the South and increasingly strained relations among the Western nations eventually brought about equalization.

32. Several models have analysed the effects of oil-price changes. Aside from the detailed and highly contested findings of the IIASA Energy model, oil-price (shock) scenarios were explored by Project LINK, WIM and INTERLINK. WIM foresees a severe economic decline in the developed world once the oil supplies are exhausted as a result of low fixed oil- price policies. It advocates 'optimal' price increases that would permit gradual adaptation and substitution. Increases above the optimal levels would leave everybody worse off. LINK argues that oil-price shocks in the 1980s would fuel inflation, reduce real growth somewhat and contribute to trade deficits, especially of developed market economies and non-oil-exporting developing countries. Oil-exporting developing countries would dramatically improve their trade balances.

33. Education, science and technology have not been major areas as far as the substance matter of the models is concerned, but given Unesco's stake in science and education, this section will explicitly amplify the (few) pertinent model features and results.

34. In the Bariloche model, education is treated as one of five separate productive economic sectors. In terms of school enrolment, basic educational needs can be satisfied - given the model's normative framework - for Latin America at around 1990, for Africa and Asia about 20 years later. For Asia, education is the only basic need that is totally satisfied by the year 2040. (1)

35. A s already mentioned, the India Basic Needs model projects unsatis- factory educational levels for the year 2001. Secondary school enrolment will only be 33 per cent and 52 per cent of the population will still be illiterate. The model distinguishes between primary, middle-level and secondary school enrolment rates. Further age-wise, sex-wise and

.-.

71) HERRERA, A.D.: SCOLNIK, H.D.; et al. 'Catastrophe or New Society? A Latin American World Model', International Development Research Center (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, 1976, p. 93.

- 106 -

location-wise disaggregation is in progress in order to allow for more detailed policy analysis regarding school enrolment and literacy.

36. Various models have incorporated education but have given it little attention as an output variable. WIM disaggregated labour supply by education; GLOBUS, FORECASTS, IL0 and IFS incorporate governmental expenditures for education. None of the models, to our knowledge, treats science as a distinct entity.

37. Technology is implicitly incorporated in various models in terms of assumptions about economic growth rates, productivity levels, elasticity and substitution rates, production function coefficients or general technological progress.

38. One of the main scenarios of Bariloche is a 'technological stagnation' run, assuming no further growth of economic production due to technical progress after 2000. The outcome is disastrous for the developing regions. Latin America needs longer to meet basic needs, particularly food and housing, than in the standard run: in Africa and Asia, the system collapses between 1990 and 2020 as population steadily exceeds production.

39. The U N W M takes pollution control cost into considerations which depend, in part, on pollution abatement technologies. It concludes that, even with currently commercially available technology, pollution is a manageable problem even in developing countries.

40. In Chichihisky's model on technology, domestic distribution and North-South relations, technology is at the core of both the domestic and international supply-demand and investment patterns, but - nomen non est omen - it is not explicitly modelled as a policy variable. Rather, the state of technology is implicit by the choice of the production function coefficients.

41. The India Basic Needs model suggests that higher labour productivity due to, among other things, I capital-intensive technology contributes to higher unemployment rates. It is not clear whether 'technology' is presently an explicit variable or subsumed in productivity rates. One of the purposes for which the modellers would like to apply a simulation model such as theirs would be the selection of the best mix of technology to develop remote parts of India without destroying the living base of the inhabitants.

42. Political findings: Most models have refrained from modelling - in a narrow sense - 'political' phenomena. While these are crucial for many issues, the conceptual difficulties have been great and the data base very deficient. In recent years, a few attempts at political global- modelling have been made. Two models, GLOBUS and SIMPEST, have explicitly incorporated politics : the SARUM-based projects currently under way (WMP, AREAM, G-MAPP) are collaborating in adding a military- political dimension to SARUM: IFS is to receive a full governmental submodel dealing with, among other things, foreign policy and military expenditures.

- 107 -

43. However, the only models that have so far produced 'political outcomes' are SIMPEST and GLOBUS, SIMPEST has focused on international (superpower) politics which were explored in five scenarios. They suggest that East-West relations in the 1980s will be overshadowed by an accelerating arms race which can be expected to slow down in the 1990s. The arms race will mostly be driven by its own dynamics but can affect the military balance only marginally. Eastern security generally will remah lower than Western security. Political détente will be insufficient to lead to disarmament but will tend to be favourable for arms control, Unilateral disarmament by either superpower will not be reciprocated but will slow down the rate of arms procurement growth of the other superpower. A United States policy of 'negotiating from strength' will affect the USSR severely only if it can be pursued for some time.

44. The East-West climate has different impacts on internal politics. Unilateral disarmament in both superpowers would entail internal political and economic costs. A revival of the Cold War will put strains particularly on the Soviet system because the lesser economic, population and productivity growth, and increasing political dissatisfaction will lead to a vicious circle. On the other hand, an arms build-up in the United States will even stimulate the economy to some extent.

45. While 'politics' enter into each of the five main sectors of the GLOBUS model, political relations are explicitly incorporated into the three modules pertaining to the governmental political and budgetary decisions, domestic politics and International politics of its 25 nations. Preliminary 'results' for: (i) different levels of Western military spending: and (ii) the effects to a prolonged and, alternatively, temporary hardening of United States foreign policy positions towards the Soviet Union have been reported.

46. Unilateral real annual N A T O military spending increases of 6 per cent mean a global arms race; increases by 3 per cent mean slightly higher global armament levels; zero increases entail moderate disarmament. The higher Western military spending, the greater the levels of global militarization and long-term hostility. and the more concentrated the capabilities and threat throughout the system. Moreover, there is a trade-off between NATO's military capabilities and the East-West climate. Finally, the higher military spending levels, the more likely will there be distributional conflicts between military and civilian objectives.

47. If a Reagan-type hardening of the United States foreign policy position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and high military spending are of a limited (i.e. eight years) duration, their effects on superpower and East-West relations and security positions will also not be long lasting. However, if these policy changes stay in place, the international climate will become progressively more hostile, and military expenditures will spiral upward and become increasingly greater burdens on the two national economies.

- 108 -

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADDO, H. (ed.) Development as Social Transformation, United Nations University, Tokyo, 1984.

- Transforming the World Economy?, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1984.

ALTERNATIVES: A Journal of World Policy, (editors R. Kothari et S.H. Mendlovitz), quarterly, New York and Delhi.

ALYOSHINA, I. 'The Third World Backwardness'. Contribution to the Unescol

IIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, February 1985.

AMIN, S. L'accumulation A l'échelle mondiale - Critique de la théorie du sous développement, Paris, Anthropos , 1970.

L'Afrique de l'ouest bloquée, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1971.

L'échange inégal et la loi de la valeur, Paris, Anthropos, 1973.

Le développement inégal. Essai sur les formations sociales du capitalisme périphérique, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1973.

La crise de l'impérialisme, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1975.

La nation arabe - nationalisme et lutte de classes, Pans, Editions de Minuit, 1976.

Classe et nation dans l'histoire et la crise contemporaine, Pans, Editions de Minuit, 1979.

L'avenir du maoïsme, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1981.

La déconnexion, pour sortir du système mondial, Paris, La bécouverte, 1986.

AMIN, S.; ARRIGHI, G.; FRANK, A.G.; WALLERSTEIN, I. La crise, quelle crise?, Paris, Maspéro. 1982.

ANGELL, R.C. The Quest for World Order, Ann Arbor, Mi., University of

ARRIGHI, G. The geometry of imperialism, London and New York, New Left

Michigan Press, 1979.

Books, 1978.

ASBOTH, T. "World Problems and their Perceptions. A detailed outline of the state of the art". Prepared for submission to Unesco by IIASA. Laxenburg, Austria, 1984.

BAGU, S. Economia de la sociedad colonial: ensayo de historia comparada de America Latina. Buenos Aires, Libreria "el Ateneo", 1949.

- Problemas del subdesarrollo latinoamericano, Mexico, Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1975.

- 109 -

BAMBIRRA, V. El capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores, 1974.

, Mexico, Ediciones ERA,

BARAN, P. The polltical economy of growth, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1957.

BARAN, P.; SWEEZY, P. Monopoly capitalism. New York, Monthly Review Press, 1966.

BARNEY, G.O. The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the Twenty-first Century, GPO, Washington D.C., 1980.

BATESON, G. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Ballantine Books, New York, 1979.

BATTELLE DEMATEL Report, Results of a Pilot Survey, Battelle, Carouge, Geneva, 1975.

BERES, L.R.; TARG. H.R. Constructing Alternative World Futures: Reordering the Planet, Cambridge, Ma., Schenkman, 1977.

- Planning Alternative World Futures: Values, Methods and Models, New York, Praeger, 1975.

BERGESEN, A. (ed.). Studies of the modern world system, New York, Academic Press, 1980.

BEZROUKOV. D.I.; BRITKOV, V.B.; OUSSOV, S.A. Bank dannykh sistemy modellrovania protsessov globalnogo razvitiya (Data bank of the system lor the modelling of the global development process). Prepublication, Moscow, All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research, 1983.

BLAUBERG, I.V.; SADOVSKY, V.'N.; YUDIN. E.G. Systems Theory - Philosophical and Methodological Problems, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977.

The Systemic Approach: Prerequisites I Problems and Difficulties, General Systems, XXV, pp. 1-31, 1980.

- BLOOMFIELD, B. Modelling the World, "The Social Constructions of Systems

Analysts". Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 1984.

BOEKE, 1.11. Economies and economic policy in dual societies, New York, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1953.

BOGORODITSKY, V.K.; PIROGOV, G.G. Novy mezhdourarodn ekonomichesky poryadok i modelirovanie globalnogo razviti y: (The new international economic order and the modelling of world development). Prepubiication, Moscow, All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research, 1982.

- 110 -

BOLLINO, C.A.; KLEIN, L.R. "World Recovery Strategies in the 1980s: Is World Recovery Synonymous to LDC Recovery?" In: Journal of Policy Modeling, 1984. 6. (2). pp. 175-207.

BONILLA, F.; GIRLING, R. (ed.). Structures of Dependence, Stanford, California, 1973

BOOKCHIN, M. The Ecology of Freedom, Palo Alto, Cheshire Books, 1982.

BOTKIN, J.W.; ELMANDJRA. M.; MALITZA, M. No Limits to Learning: Bridging the Human Gap, New York, Pergamon Press, 1979.

BOTTOMLEY, A. et al. "A 51-Sector World Input-Output Model". In: Bruckman, G. (ed.). Input-Output Approaches in Global Modeling Proceedings of the Fifth IIASA Symposium on Global Modeling. Pergamon Press, 1980.

BOULDING, K. The Meaning of the Twentieth Century, New York, Harper Colophon Books, 1964.

- Stable Peace, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1978.

BRANDT Report, North-South: A Programme for Survival, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1980.

- Common' Crisis: Co-operation for World Recovery. Pan Books, London, 1983.

BRAUDEL, F. Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV-XVIII siècles. Paris, Armand Colin, 3 vols, 1979.

- La dynamique du capitalisme, Pans, Arthaud, 1985.

BREMER, S.A. Simulated Worlds: A Computer Model of National Devision Making, Princeton University Press, Princeton. N.J., 1977.

- The GLOBUS Model: History, Structure and Illustrative Results, bissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, 1984.

BREWER, A. Theories of Imperialism, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.

BROWN, L.R. Building a Sustainable Society. New York, W.W. Norton and Co., 1981.

BRUCKMANN, G. (ed.). MOIRA: Food and Agriculture Model, Proc. 3rd IIASA Symposium Global Modeling, Vienna, Austria, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, 1977.

- Input-Output Approaches in Global Modeling, Pergamon Press, 1980.

CAMILLERI, J.A. Civilization in Crisis: Human Prospects in a Changing World, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1976.

CARDOSO, F.E. La Sociologie du -développement en Amérique latine, Pans, Anthropos, 1969.

- 111 -

- Politique et développement dans les sociétés dépendantes, Paris, hnthropos. 1971.

- Autoritarismo e Democratizacao, Rio, Paz e Tena, 1975

- Les idées à leur place, le concept de développement en Amérique latine, Paris, Editions A.M. Métaillié, 1985.

CARDOSO, F. H. ; FALLETO, E. Dependencia e desenvolvimento na America latina, Rio de Janeiro, Zahar, 1970.

CEPAL Review, Santiago, Chile (issued every three months).

CARNOY, M. Education as Cultural Imperialism, New York, David McKay, 1974.

- The State and Political Theory, Princeton, Princeton University Press,

CARSON, R. Silent Spring. Boston, Houghton Mifflki, 1962.

CERM (Centre d'Etudes et de recherches marxistes) : Sur les sociétés précapitalistes, textes choisis de Marx, Engels, Lénine. préface de Maurice Godelier, Paris, Editions Sociales, 1973.

1984.

CHAGULA. W.F.; FELD, B.T.; PARTHSARATI, A. Pugwash on Self Reliance, New Delhi, 1977.

CHAYANOV. A. The theory of peasant economy, London, Irwin, 1966.

CHICHILNISKY, G. Basic Needs and the North-South Debate, New York, World Policy Institute, 1982.

CHILCOTE, R. H. Theories of development and under-development, Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1984.

CHILCOTE, R.H.; JOHNSON, D.L. (ed.). Theories of development : mode of production or dependency?, Beverley Hilis, London, New Delhi, Sage Publications. 1983.

CHURCHMAN, C.W. "On the Philosophical Grounds of Global Problems; On Intelligence; On the Complexity of Global Problems". Contributions to the UnescolIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985.

Holland, Amsterdam, 1976. CHURCHMAN, C.W.; MASON, R.O. (eds.). World Modeling: A Dialogue, North

CLARK, J.; COLE, S.; CURNOW, R.; HOPKINS, M. Global Simulation Models: A Comparative Study, Wiley, New York, 1975.

COLE, Global Models and the International Economic Order, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1977.

COLLIER, D. The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1979.

- 112 -

CORNISH, E. The Study of the Future, Washington, The World Future Society, 1971.

COSTA, A.M.; WALKER. D.O. U N DIESA Policy Modeling Prospects: A n Annotated Inventory, New York, 1980.

DADAYAN, V. S. Globalnye ekonomicheskie modeli (Global economic models), . . Moscow, Nauka, 1981. ..

DANSKIN, H. "SARU'S energy-demand Model", Futures, 1979, Vol. 11, No 6.

D'ARCY, B.G. "An Approach to Global Issues - A Systems Alternative", Contribution to the UnescoIIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985.

DEUTSCH, K.W.; FRITSCH, B.; JAGUARIBE, H.; MARKOVITS, A. (eds.). Problems of World Modeling: Political and Social Implications, Cambridge, Mass., Ballinger.. 1977.

DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE : "What now: Another Development", special issue, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, 1975. . . .

DOBB. M. Studies in the development of capitalism. London, Routledge and Kegan, i946.

- Capitalism, yesterday and today, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1958.

D O S SANTOS, T. Dependencia y cambio social, Santiago, Centro de Estudios Socio-economicos (CESO), 1970.

- Imperialismo y dependencia, Mexico, Ediciones ERA, 1978.

DUNN, P.P. Appropriate Technology: Technology with a Human Face, Macmillan Press. London and Basingstoke, 1978.

EBERWEIN, W .D. "Organizing Complexity. Comparative Politics and Global Modeling", Prepared for the Volume on the Conference on Comparative Research on National Political Systems, Berlin, July 1985.

EMMANUEL, A. L'échange inégal, Maspero, Pans, 1969.

EVANS, P. Dependent development: the alliance of, multinational, state and . local capital in Brazil, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1970 . ' .

FALK, R. This Endangered Planet, New York, Vantage Books, 1972.

- A Study of Future Worlds, New York, Free Press, 1975.

- Human Rights and State Sovereignty, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1981.

- "The Global Setting and Transition to Democracy", Alternatives VIII. No 2. Fall 1982. p. 193-208.

"Normative Initiatives and Demilitarization: A Third System Approach", New York, World Policy Institute, 1982.

- - The End of World Order, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1983.

- 113 -

FALK, R.; KIM, S.S.; MENDLOVITZ. S. (eds.)., Towards a Just World Order, Boulder, Co., Westview Press, 1982.

FALK, R.; MENDLOVITZ, S. (eds.)., "The Strategy of World Order", Vols.

1, 2, 3, 4. New York, World Policy Institute, 1966.

Project LINK System, 1978-1985. In: Hickman, B.G. (ed.) Global International Economic Models. Selected Papers from an IIASA Conference. North-Holland, Amsterdam-New York-Oxford, 1983.

FODOR, E.; SZALAY, P. "On World Problems. Facts and Implications. A Hungarian View". Collaborative Paper, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, 1985.

FILATOV, V.; IIICKMAN. B.G.; KLEIN, L.R. "Long-term Simulations with the

FORRESTER, J.W. World Dynamics, Cambridge, Mass., Wright-Allen, 1971.

- "Global Modeling Revisited", In: Futures, April 1982.

FORTI, A. (ed.) Scientific Forecasting and Human Needs - Trends. Methods and Message, Unesco, Paris and Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1984.

Forum du Tiers Monde, Bulletin du Bureau Africain (Dakar).

FRANK, A.C. Capitalisme et sous développement en Amérique latine, Maspéro, Paris, 1968.

- Le développement du sous développement, Maspéro, Paris. 1970

- Dependent accumulation and underdevelopment, London, Mc Millan, 1979.

- - Crisis in the World Economy, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1980.

- Crisis in the Third World, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1981.

- Critiques et contre-critiques, Paris, Anthropos. 1985.

World accumulation 1492-1789, New York, Monthly Review, 1980.

FREIRE, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York, Continuum Publishing Corporation, 1981.

FRONDIZI. S. .La integracion mundial, ultima etapa del capitalismo, Buenos Aires. Praxis, 1954.

- La realidad argentina, ensayo de interpretacion sociologica, Buenos Aires, Praxis, 1957.

FURTADO, C. La formation économique du Brésil de l'époque coloniale aux temps modernes, Paris, Mouton, 1972.

- Développement et sous développement, Paris, PUF, 1966

- Théories du développement économique, Paria, PUF, 1970.

- Les Etats-Unis et le sous-développement en Amérique latine, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1970.

- 114 -

- Créativité et dépendance, Paris, PUF, 1982.

FUTURES, Vol. 14, No 2, Avril 1982 : Global Modelling reappraised.

CABUS, A. "World Problems and their Perceptions: A Ten-Year Old Survey Revisited", Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985.

GALTUNG, J. A structural theory of imperialism, Journal of Peace Research, 1971, no 2, p. 81-117.

GALTUNG. J. The True Worlds, A Transitional Perspective, New York, The Free Press, 1980.

- "The North-South Debate: Technology. Basic Human Needs and the New International Economic Order", World Order Models Project, Working Paper No 12. New York, 1980.

.

- Environment, Development and Military Activity: Towards Alternative Security Doctrines, New York, Columbia University Press, 1984.

- Poor Countries va. Rich; Poor People va. Rich - Whom will the NIE0 Benefit, Mimeo, Oslo, n.d.

GALTUNG, J.; O'BRIEN. P.; PREISWERK, R. Self-Reliance: A Strategy for Development, London, Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, 1980.

GELOVANI, V.A. "An interactive modeling system as a tool for analyzing complex socio-economic problems", In: Impact of Science on Society, Vol. 31, No 4, 1981.

GONCHARENKO, A. N. Globalnce modelirovanie: problemy i perspektivy razviti a (Global modelling: problems and prospects of development)'. d c a t i o n , Kiev, 1981.

GONZALEZ CASANOVA, P. La démocratie au Mexique, Paris, Anthropos, 1969.

- Imperialismo y iiberacion en America latina : una introduccion a la historia contemporanea, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores, 1978.

- (ed.). America Latina : historia de medio siglo. Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores. 1977.

GRANBERG, A. G. Razrabotka i ispolzovanie rnezhregionalnykh mezhotraslevykh modelei mirovol ekonomiki (Development and application of interregional, intersectoral models of the world economy). Novosibirsk, 1982.

GUETZKOW, H.; VALADEZ, J.J. (eds.) Simulated International Processes: Theories and Research in Global Modehing, Beverly m s and London, Sage, 1981.

GVISHIANI, J.M. (ed.) Science, Technology and Global Problems, (Proc. U N Conference in Tallinn. USSR) , Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1979.

- 115 -

- "Global problems in the light of sociologkal theory". In: Social Theories and Soda1 Practice, USSR Academy of Sciences.=ow. p. 21, 1982.

"Materialist Dialectics as a Philosophical Basis for Systems Research. In Gvishiani, J.M., Systems Research - Methodological Problems, Pergamon Press, Oxford. 1984.

Trends". Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985.

IIEALEY , P. Basic Human Needs: Methodology and Mobilization. UNU, Project on the goals, processes and indicators of development (GPID) , 1979.

-

IïAJNAL, A.; KISS, I. "Altering Approaches to World Problems: Emphases and

HERRERA, A.D.; SCOLNIK, H.D. et al. Catastrophe or New Society 1 A Latin American World Model. International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada, 1976.

HETTNE, B. "Self-Reliance versus Modernization: The Dialectics of Indian- Chinese Development Strategies" in E. Baark. J. Siguardsson. (ed.) India-China: Comparative Research, Technology and Science for Development, Curzon Press, London, 1981.

HETTNE, B. ; TAMM, G. "The Development Strategy of Ghandian Economics", Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society. Vol. 6, 1971.

HETTNE. B. : WALLERSTEIN, I. (eds.) Emerging Trends in Development Theory, Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries, Stockholm, 1978.

HICKMAN, B. G. "Global International Economic Models", Selected Papers from an IIASA Confermence, North-Holland, Amsterdam-New York-Oxford, 1983.

HIRSCHMAN, A.O. "Ideologies of economic development in Latin America", in A bias for Hope, Essays on development, Yale University Press, 1971.

HOPKINS, T.K.; WALLERSTEIN. I. Processes of the world system, Beverley Hiils, London, Sage Publications, 1980.

Reserve University, Mimeo. June 1980. HUGHES. B. International Futures (IFS). A User Manual. Case Western

- "World Models: The Bases of Difference", In: International Studies Quarterly, 29, 1985, pp. 77-101.

IIASA, Global Modeling at the Service of the Decision Maker: Background material, September 1981. 14-18.

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION O N DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY ISSUES: Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival, New York, Simon and Schuster, ,l983.

/'

- 116 -

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION O N INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES: (under the chairmanship of Wiily Brandt), Common Crisis North-South: Cooperation for World Recovery, Pan Books, London, 1983.

JAGUARIBE , H. Desenvolvimento economico e desenvolvimento politico, Rio, Paz e Terra, 1962.

- (ed.). La dependencia politico-economica de America Latina, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores, 1970.

KAPLAN, B.H. (ed.). Social Change in the Capitalist World Economy, Beverley Hiiis, Sage Pubiications. 1978.

KAYA, Y.: ONISHI. A.; SUZUKI, Y. "Project FUGI and the Future of ESCAP Developing Countries". In: Hickman. B.G. (ed.) Global International Economic Models. Selected Papers from an 11- Conference. North-Hoiland, Amsterdam-New York-Oxford, 1983.

KEYZER. M.A. "An Outline of IIASA's Food and Agriculture Model". January

KILE, F.; RABEHL, A. "A Value-Driven, Regionalized World Model". prepared

1980. IIASA W P 80-9.

for 5th IIASA Global Modeling Conference, 1977.

"Structure and Use of the Integrated World Model". In: Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 17, 1980, pp. 73-87.

KIM, S.S. The Quest for a Just World Order, Boulder, Westview Press,

KIRKPATRICK. G. "A GLOBUS OECD COMECON Simulation Model". IIVG

-

1983.

pp. 84-101, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. 1984.

KLEIN, L.R. "Empirical Aspects of Protectionism: LINK Results", In:

KLEIN, L.R.; PAULY, P.; VOISIN, P. "The World Economy - A Global Model". Journal of Policy Modeling, 7 (I), 1985, pp. 35-47.

In: Perspectives in Computing, 1982. Vol. 2, ND 2, pp. 4-17.

KOTHARI, R. Footsteps into the Future, Delhi, Orient Longman, 1974 et New York,' The Free Press, 1975.

- "Towards a Just World", Alternatives. Vol. V, ND 1. 1979, pp. 1-42.

- "On Ecoirnperiaiism". Alternatives, Vol. VII, No 3, 1981, pp. 385-94. - "Environment and Alternative Development", Alternatives, Vol. V, ND 4,

1979-80, pp. 427-75.

- "Party and State in Our Times: The Rise of Non-party Political Formations", Alternatives, Vol. IX, Spring 1984. pp. 541-64.

KULIKOWSKI, R. et al. "Long Term Normative Model of Development". MRI, presented at 4th IIASA Conference on Global Modeling, 1975.

I

- 117 -

LAGOS, G.; GODOY, H.H. The Revolution of Being, New York, The Free

LASZLO, E. et al. Goals for Mankind. E.P. Dutton, New York, 1977. - "Global Problems: The Approach and Impact of the Club of Rome",

Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985.

Press, 1977.

LASZLO, E.: KURTZMAN (ed.). The Structure of the World Economy and Prospects for a New International Economic Order, UNITAR-CEESTEM, Pergamon Press, 1980.

LEONTIEF, W.; CARTER, A.; PETRI, P. The Future of the World Economy. A United Nations Study, New York, Oxford University Press, 1977.

LEONTIEF, W.; COO, C.M.; NASAR, S.; SOHN, I. "The Future of Nonfuel Minerals", in The US and World Economy, Lexington Books, Lexington, Ma., 1983.

LEWIS, W.A. The theory of economic growth, London, Allen and Unwin, 1955.

LILIENFIELD. R. The Rise of Systems Theory. An Ideological Analysis, Wiley, New York, 1978.

LINNEMANN. €1.; De HOOGH, J.; KEYZER, M.; van HEEMST, H. MOIRA: - Model of International Relations in Agriculture, North-Holland Publ. Comp., Amsterdam, 1979.

LLEWELLYN, G.E.J.; SAMUELSON, L.W. "The Analytic Foundation of International Economic Modeling at the OECD". In: Journal of Policy Modeling, 4 (2). 1982. pp. 261-73.

LUTERBACHER. U. ; ALLAN. P. "Modeling Politico-Economic Interactions with and between Nations", In: International Political Science Review, 1982, Vol. 3, No 4, pp. 404-33.

LUTERBACHER, U.; CLARKE, T.M.; ALLAN. P. "SIMSWISS. A Simulation Model of Switzerland for Planning Report to the Swiss National Science Foundation. Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva; Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, 1983.

LUCKHAM, R. tfArmament Culture". Alternatives, Vol. X. No 1, Summer 1984.

MACBRIDE, S. Many voices, one world, Pans, Unesco, 1980.

pp. 1-44.

MAGDOFF, H. The Age of Imperialism: the economics of US Foreign Policy, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1969.

MANDEL, E. Late capitalism, London, NLB, 1975.

MARINI, R.M. Subdesarrollo y revolucion, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores, 1969.

- 118 -

- Dialectica de la dependencia. Mexico, Ediciones ERA, 1973.

MARKARYAN, E. S. Globalno-ekonomicheskoe modelirovanie i integratsia nauk (Global economic modelling and integration of the sciences). Prepublication: Pushchino, 1980.

MATTHEIS. W. (ed.). Outer Limits and’Human Needs, Uppsala, The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundntion, 1976.

MAZRUI, A.A. A World Federation of Cultures, New York, The Free Press, 1976.

- The Moving Cultural Frontier of World Order: from Monotheism to North- South Relations, New York, World Policy Institute, 1982.

MEADOWS et al. The Limits to Growth, New York Universe Books, A Potomac Associates Book, 1972.

MEADOWS, D.; RICHARDSON, J.; BRUCKMANN, G. Groping in the Dark. The First Decade of Global Modeling, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1982.

MENDLOVITZ, S.H. (ed.). On the Creation of a Just World Order, New York, The Free Press, 1975.

- On the Creation of a Just World Order: An Agenda for a Program of Inquiry and Praxis, Alternatives, Vol. VII. No 3, Winter 1981-82. pp. 355-73.

MESAROVIC. M.; PESTEL, E. Mankind at the Turning Point. the Second Report to the Club of Rome, The Readers Digest Press, New York. 1974.

MICHALET. C.A. Le capitalisme mondial, Pans, PUF, 1976.

- Le défi du développement indépendant, Rochevigne, Paris, 1983.

MODELSKI. G. (ed.). Multinational Corporations and World Order, Beverley Hills, Sage Publications, 1973.

MOORE, B. Jr., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Boston Beacon Press. 1978.

MUMFORD, L. The Myth of Machine: The PentaEon of Power, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1970.

MYRDAL, G. The Challenge of World Poverty, Pantheon Books, New York, 1970.

NAGAI. M. Development in the non-western world, .Tokyo, UNU, University of Tokyo Press, 1984.

NAUMOVA, N.F. “K Probleme tseley globalnykh sistemnykh modeleT (Concerning the objectives of global systems models). In: Sistemn e issledovania (Systems Research). Yearbook 1978, Moscow, 4 7 8 .

- 119 -

NERFIN. M. (ed.) Another Development: Approaches and Strategies, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, 1977.

NORTH, R. The World that Could Be, New York, W.W. Norton, 1976.

NORTH-SOUTH: A Program for Survival - Report of the International Commission on International Development Issues, Cambridge MIT Press, 1980.

NURKSE, R. Problemas de formacion de capital, Mexico, Fondo da cultura Economica, 1955.

OECD: INTERFUTURES: Facing the Future. Mastering the Probable ana Managing the Unpredictable, 1979.

OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT (OTA), Congress of the United States, Global Models, World Futures and Public Policy. A Critique. US GPO, Washington, D.C., 20402 , OTA-R-165, 1982.

OHLIN, B. Interregional and International Trade, Harvard University

ONISHI, A. "The FUGI Macroeconomic Model and World Trade to 1990". In: Futures. April 1983, pp. 99-110.

- "North-South Relations : Alternative Policy Simulations for the World Economy in the 1980s". In: Journal of Policy Modeling, 5 (1). 1983,

- "Alternative Perspectives of the World Economy: A Scenario-type future study using FUGI Global Macroeconomic Model", Contribution to the UnescolIIASA Task Force meeting in Budapest, 1985,

Press, Cambridge. 1933.

pp. 55-74.

OPEN UNIVERSITY. The Management of Complexity: A Systems Approach. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1983.

PALLOIX , C. L'économie mondiale capitaliste, Paris, Maspero. 1971.

- L'internationalisation du capital, Paris, Maspero, 1975.

PAULY, P. "Unemployment Prospects for the OECD Area: Alternative Scenarios with the LINK System", In: Forecasting Models and the Employment Problem, International Labour Organization, Geneva, 1984.

PERROUX, F. L'économie du XXe siècle, Paris, PUF, 1961.

POULANTZAS , N. L'internationalisation des rapports capitalistes et 1'Etat- nation, Paris, Temps modernes, 1973.

PRADO Junior C. The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1967

PREBISCH. R. El desarrollo economico de la America latina Y aleunos de sus principales problemas, CEPAL, Avril 1950, repris dans BÖletii Economico de America Latina, San-de Chile, February 1962.

- - 120 -

Towards a new trade policy for development, United Nations. 1964.

The dynamics of peripheral capitalism. in Lefeber et North (ed.). Democracy and Development in Latin America, Toronto, 1980.

Capitalismo periferico : crises y transformacion, Fondo da cultura economica, Mexico, 1981.

The global crisis of capitalism and its theoretical background, CEPAL Review, April 1984, no 22, p. 159-78.

, a

PREISWERK, R. Cultural identity, self-reliance and basic needs, UNU. Project on the goals, processes and indicators of development (GPID) , 1979.

QUIJANO, A. Redefinicion de la dependenda y proceso de margkaiizacion, miméo, Santiago de Chili, 1970.

- Nationalism and capitalism in Peru : A study in neo-imperialism, New Pork, Monthly Review Press, 1971.

- Imperialismo y "marginalidad" en America latina, Lima, Mosca Azul Editors. 1977.

Revue Tiers Monde : Tome XXI, no 81, Janvier-mars, 1980. "L'économie mondiale en 1980 : vers l'éclatement du système centre-périphérie".

REY, P .P. Colonialisme, néo-colonialisme et transition au capitalisme, Paris, Maspéro, 1971.

RICHARDSON, J. (ed.) Models of Reality. Shaping Thoughts and Action. Lomond Books in cooperation with Unesco, Mt. Airy, Maryland, 1984.

RICHARDSON, J.M. Jr. "A Decade of Global Modelling". In: Futures, April 1982, pp. 136-45. I

- Global Modelling in the 1980s. In: J. Richardson (ed.) Models of Reality, 1984.

- "The State of Futures Research - Personal Reflections", Futures, 1984. Vol. 16, No 4.

RIFKIN, J.; HOWARD, T. Entropy: A New World View. The Viking Press. New York, 1980.

RIST, G. 'Development Theories in the Soda1 Looking-Glass: Some Reflections from Theories to "Development"', UNU. HSDP-GIPD Series, Tokyo, 1979.

February 1977, pp. 3-16.

"An Amphibian's View of Forecasting and Models", In: Futures, April 1982.

ROBERTS, P, "SARUM 76 - A Global Modelling Project", In: Futures. - ROBINSON, R. Dynamics of World Development, Beverly Ililla, London, Sage

Publications, 1981.

- 121 -

RODGERS, G.; HOPKINS, M.; WERY, R. Population, Employment and Ine ualit BACHUE - Philippines. Farnborough, UK.: Saxon ilouse, +

RODNEY, W. How Europe underdeveloped Africa, London, Dar-es-Salaam,

ROSTOW, W.W. The stages of economic growth, Cambridge University Press,

Tanzania Publishing House, 1972

1960.

- The world economy: history and prospect, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1978.

ROSZAK, T. PersonlPlanet : The Creative Desintegration of Industrial Society, New York, Anchor, 1979.

SAKAMOTO, Y,; FALK, R. (eds.) "A World Demilitarized: A Basic Human

SARU staff. SARUM 76 - global modellhg project. Research Report No 19, Need", Alternatives, Winter 1980-81.

U K Department of Environmental and Transport, London, 1977.

SCHUMACHER, E.F. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, Harper Colophone Books, New York, 1975.

SCHUMPETER, J. Imperialism, Social Classes, New York, Meridian Books,

SHAW, T.M. "The African Crisis: Alternative Development Strategies for

1955.

the Continent", Alternatives. Vol. IX, No 1, Summer 1983, pp. 111-27.

SHAW, T.M.; ALUKO, O. (eds.). Africa Projected: From Dependence to

SMOKER, P. "Global Models: A Review of the Guetzkow Festschrift". In:

SOEDJATMOKO: Political Systems and Development in the Third World: New

Self-Reliance by the Year 2000, London, Macmillan, 1983.

Journal of Peace Research, 1985, Vol. 22. No 4.

Directions for Social Science Research in Asia, Alternatives, Vol. VIII. No 4, Spring 1983, pp. 483-500.

STANFORD, B. (ed.) Peacemaking: A Guide to Conflict Resolution for Individuals, Croups and Nations, New York, Bantam Books, 1976.

Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1971.

Anthropos, 1969.

SUNKEL, O. El subdesarrollo latinoamericano y la teoria del desarrollo,

STAVENHAGEN. R. Les classes sociales dans les sociétés agraires. Pads,

- Sept thèses erronées sur l'Amérique latine, Paris, Anthropos, 1973.

- 122 -

TAYLOR, J.G. From Modernization to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment, New York, Macmillan 1979.

THOMPSON, W .R. (ed.) Contending Approaches to World System Analysis, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1983.

TOFFLER. A. Future Shock. Bantam Books. New York, 1971.

UNESCO: Different Theories and Practices of Development, Paris, 1982.

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Food Systems and Society, UNRISD/78/C.l4/Rev.l, Geneva.

VNIISI (All-Union Scientific Institute for Systems Research) - Modelirovanie protsessov globalnogo razvitiya (Modelling of the processes of global development). Collected research abstracts, Moscow, 1979.

- Neformalizovannye elementy sistemy modelirovania globalnogo i regionalnogo razvitfya (Non-formalized elements of the system of modelling global and regional development). Proceedings of a seminar, Moscow, 1982.

Cheloveko-mashinnaya sistema modelirovania protsessov globalnogo razvitiya (The man-machine system of modelling of global development processes). Research abstracts, Moscow, 1982.

-

- Globaln&e modelirovanie: sotsialnye protsessy (Global modelling: social processes). Proceedings of a seminar. .Moscow, 1984.

- Protsessy globalnogo razvitiya: modelirovanie i analiz (Global development processes: modelling and analysis). Research abstracts. Moscow, 1984.

WALKER. R.B.J. "World Politics and Western Reason: Universalism, Pluralism, H e g e r n 1

- (ed.) Culture, Ideology and World Order, Boulder, Co., Westview Press, 1984.

WALLERSTEIN, I. The modern world system. Tome I : Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world economy in the sixteenth century. 1974, New York, Academic Press. '

- Tome II - Mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world economx, 1980 , New York, Academic Press.

- The capitalist world-economy, Cambridge University Press, London, and hitions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Pans, 1979.

- 123 -

WALLERSTEIN, I; GUTKIND, P.C.W. The political economy of Africa. Beverley Hills, London, Sage Publications, 1976.

WARD. M.D.: GUETZKOW. H. "Towards Integrated Global Models: From ~~

Economic Éngineering to Sodal Science Modeling", Journal of Policy Modeling. 1979, pp. 445-64.

WARD, M.D. Theories, Models and Simulations in International Relations, Boulder, London, Westview, 1985.

WARREN, B. "Imperialism and capitalist industrialization", New Left Review 81. 1973, p. 3-44.

- Imperialism, pioneer of capitalism, NLR and Verso Editions, London, 1980.

WIEN (B.J.) (ed.) Peace and World Order Studies, a curriculum guide, 4 edition, 1985.

WISSENSCHAFTSZENTRUM Berlln: The GLOBUS Model. A ,Computer Simulation Model for Exploring Long-Term, Worldwide Political and Economic Developments, 1985.

ZAGLADIN. V.V.; FROLOV. I.T. "Global Problems as Areas of International Cooperation", International Social Science Journal, 1982, Vol. XXXIV. No 1. p. 113.

ZAKHAROVA, O .V. Stsenarii v sisteme modelirovaniya globalnogo razvitfya (Scenarios in the system of modelling global development). Moscow, All-Union Scientific- Institute for Systems Research; 1980.

- 124 -

Perceptions and analyses of world problems: Major...

Documents

Transcript of Perceptions and analyses of world problems: Major...