Glenn Lynch
GLS450
Professor Thorburn
April 16, 2007

“Technology Discrimination”

The 19th and 20th centuries can be categorized as the biggest periods of innovation and change for humanity. During these two centuries, humans, aided by technology transformed the way people worked, lived and thought on a global scale. Modern industry, capitalist expansion, global communication, and the westernization of human consciousness would have a profound impact on each and every inhabitant of this planet. For some, these transformations would bring about positive changes in human equality, economic stability, citizenship and access to educational resources. For others, the rapid expansion of technologically aided production would bring turmoil and compete and total degradation of their cultural traditions.

Technology has been closely linked with economic development and long-term growth since the industrial revolution. Unfortunately, the implementation of technology has not always been restrained, often creating economic and social disadvantages for those whose labor and livelihood was replaced by mechanization. Globalization, the likely evolution of a market-based system looking for new areas of expansion, has increased both the need for technology and the underpinnings of society that follow industrialization’s wake. In today’s modern global economy scientific and technological advances have become as differentiated in the lives of the rich and the poor as the distribution of wealth. Money, not need, is frequently the main driver in deciding who will benefit most from technology. Capable of fixing several global issues, the misapplication of technology and the failure to leverage its full global potential has only widened the gap between the rich and the poor nations largely because, like everything else, technology has followed the market place.

Technology has become a paradoxical crisis for the world’s poor, because for them, it is too costly to research and implement, requires a huge investment of scarce local intellectualism, is too geographically specialized and like poverty, is so biased that those who need it most are often the last to gain from its potential. The pattern of technological differentiation is not a modern problem; its tradition is rooted in the history of technological mechanization which began its rapid acceleration just before the dawn of the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial revolution that originated in 18th century England set the stage for large scale cultural and economic changes that would reshape the globe. Driven by technology and the age of discovery, England experienced a shift from an economy based on manual labor into a mechanized society based on trade. Peasant farmers who once worked the land for basic daily needs found themselves quickly rooted out of their livelihoods and forced into selling their labor for a wage. Industrialization brought numerous rural peasants into crowded metropolitan areas in search for work (Robbins). Experts often disagree about population boom and industrialization. Some believe the increases in population were a direct result of the financial pressures families found themselves in after the change from sustenance based farming to a market based economy. Fewer available resources meant families needed to grow in order to put more workers into the workforce (Bonvillain). Periods of increased child labor and family sizes in some recently industrializing nations seem to support this general theory. Others believed the need for industrialization was a result of a population increase in England which occurred after the mid 17th century English civil war (Reilly). Better fortified borders, more internalized policies, lower infant mortality rate, better disease control, were all conditions that came out of post civil war England which forced many Britons to look outside the traditional modes of production for new sources of income (Reilly). Cottage industries, or small scale manufacturing within the home, became a means for some families to augment their incomes. With these light manufacturing products came a need to market the products which some argue spurred the emerging desire for global trade (Reilly). Whatever the cause, there has been a historical correlation between industrialization, trade, urbanization and population growth. England just happened to be in the best position at the right moment in time for industrialization and trade to take off. England’s colonies were also a primary factor in industrialized expansion because they established the need for broader contact with more remote locations and the need to establish shipping routes between the old world and the new.

New world discoveries, particularly in new varieties of crops within the colonies, fostered a demand system in the old world. Sugar, for example, was once a rich commodity and a symbol of status due to its costly production and scarcity in more temperate climates (Robbins). In the tropical areas of the new world, however, sugar was abundant and easily exported although it still required vast amounts of physical labor to produce. An emerging middle class, desiring status objects like sugar, helped drive the demand for products thereby causing some plantation owners to increase productive lands and begin specializing in particular cash crops (Robbins). European societies benefited from crop importation because it allowed them to focus on specialized production, particularly in the textile industry where technology was beginning to revolutionize the manufacturing process (Reilly). Europeans also realized real profit potential had less to do with the extraction of resources than it did with the ability to manufacture these natural resources into finished goods (Reilly). England, in particular, set out to establish colonial trade centers where these resources could be extracted, transported back to England and manufactured into products which could then be sold back to the colonies. Advancements in textile manufacturing began to establish research into other areas and industrialized manufacturing was soon followed by advances in mining, agriculture, transportation, and machine tools (Reilly). The model of industrialization was so perfected and specialized during the 18th century that it became a repeatable process found in the 19th century industrialization and capital expansion efforts of the developing economies of the third-world.

Northern Mexico and Southeast Asia are perhaps the best illustrations of 19th century industrialization and its pitfalls. Western industrialization, which reached its apex with the advent of computerized automation found that simply automating the manufacturing process was not the most efficient and cost effective method for producing goods (Reilly). If the manufacturing process could be moved to where labor was cheaper, where import and export rules were more relaxed and the factories were closer to the natural resources used to create the goods, the cost of assembly would decrease and profit margins would increase (Robbins). The key to off shore manufacturing, however, was to establish a system of trade policies that protected the manufacturing benefits of the multi-national corporations and the nations that supported them (Robbins). Giving manufacturing capability to third-world societies without preserving the first world’s manufacturing advantage could break the cycle of manufacturing established by earlier 18th century England. To preserve this advantage, third-world countries would have to primarily remain centers for resource extraction while manufacturing, the real source of profit, would have to remain in western control (Reilly).

The British colonies in North America during the late 18th century realized the importance of manufacturing in economic development. They saw their potential for growth escape them with every shipment back to England and sought to reverse the trend of buying back the products they could easily manufacture for themselves (Reilly). By the time the United States had gained its independence from England, the American industrialization effort was well underway, especially within the Northern states. After the American civil war, the U.S. was becoming a world economic superpower and a center of manufacturing but was faced with severe labor challenges after the abolishment of slavery. Political and religious pressures, which helped foster earlier colonization efforts, joined with European economic destabilization to create the largest migration of people in history (Reilly). The largest percentage of this movement involved people immigrating to the United States from Western and Eastern European countries and the largest centralization of these immigrants happened in the urban manufacturing centers of the American Northeast and Midwest (Reilly). The face of labor also underwent widespread change as more women and children entered the wage driven workforce. Technology played a part in this transformation. The machines and human processes used in the modern textile machinery were best suited for smaller hands and smaller bodies (Bonvillain). The coal industry, for example, had devised a mechanized process for extracting resources from deep within the earth. The tunnels needed to bring up the coal, however, were so small it made repeated journeys from the bottom of the mines to the surface difficult for a full size man but children could easily traverse them without much trouble (Reilly). In the textile industry, women’s smaller hands made it easier for them to manipulate the threaded looms (Bonvillain). Women and children were also less resistant to the changes technology introduced into the manufacturing process than men and it did not take long for the industrial magnates to capitalize on both these physical and cultural attributes.

Like the factory systems of the American Industrialization era, many of the third-world factories seek to take advantage of women and child labor because women and children are easier to control than men, have better manual dexterity than men, can be paid less than men and are less likely to complain about their circumstance (Bonvillain). In many of the countries where “maquiladoras” are established, the factory system is responsible for up to fifty percent of all exports, a large percentage of the country’s gross domestic product and big percentage of its employment (Bonvillain). In 2006, the factories in Mexico accounted for about 45% of the export business, 17% of the labor force and 25% of Mexico’s GDP (World Fact Book). Most of the factories are foreign owned and do not contribute directly to the growth of the host country’s economy development. Worse, the long hours, low wages and displacement these women have to endure leads to a devaluation of family values and traditions which are so crucial to these developing societies (Shah). In Indonesia, young women are regularly separated from their families for several years while they work in the factory system making them the sole provider for their families but also putting them at odds with cultural traditions that limit the power of women (Shah). Forced into work to support their families, many women throughout the world are challenged with the duality of being both a wage earner and the core provider of domestic labor. Despite the importance of their role as an earner and nurturer, women have traditionally been limited in their capacity to shape the values of the larger community because of the social barriers between men and women (Bonvillain).

In more industrialized countries, women are beginning to take a more prominent role in government and in business but still have a long way to go before they are totally on par with men. In the United States, women working in the technology industry still only make eighty cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn (Rottenberg). In less developed nations the gap is even wider with the majority of women forced to work for wages that keep them at or below the poverty line (Shah).

Under the heading Z59.5 of its International Classification of Diseases, the World Health Organization lists severe poverty as biggest killer of women and children worldwide (WHO). The volume of women affected by poverty on a global scale has helped define the phenomenon known as the “feminization of poverty” which has consistently increased since the establishment of development indicators such as Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) and Human Development Index (HDI) were introduced to measure third-world human development. But inequality and injustices toward women, their ability to gain a fair wage, participate in social freedoms and economically develop above poverty levels are not limited to women on the periphery, suggesting that economic policies and conditions are not in and of themselves enough to correct the global issues of gender disparity (Shah). Women in the third-world are, however, more susceptible to the underpinnings of a market-orientated economy for several key reasons. Whether it is caused by abandonment, life attrition, social constraints or work migration, an increasing number of rural women on the periphery are becoming the sole provider of income for their households. But Market conditions, social stratifications, and economic policies and programs make it difficult for women to participate as full partners with men in the job market with men often taking precedence over women for the few worth while jobs (Bonvillain). Many women throughout the globe are forced into situations where they must sell whatever they have or whatever they can, including their own bodies, in order to scratch out the simplest of incomes (Shah). Women are also more closely associated with child rearing, household upkeep, and sustenance preparation than men; making it increasingly difficult to find the time to participate in the few programs designed to help alleviate some of the underlying causes of their poverty (such as literacy) (Shah).

According to the UN, Women in the third world produce 75 to 90 percent of the food crop, are solely responsible for raising their children, and perform a vast majority of the housework; often with little or no direct compensation (UN). While it could be argued that these factors would exist with or without market economies, the division of labor within these market economies only serves to further exacerbate the situation. Statistically, women in the third world are less educated than men, they have fewer ownership rights and are far too often relegated the least desirable tasks (Bonvillain). Access to technology is also a troubling issue. Most mechanized forms of production, especially within the agricultural sector are limited to male dominated sectors but women could use the most help. Most agriculture produced by women, while abundant, is relatively small scale and localized with relation to trade (Robbins). The volume and types of crops produced by women are far too limited to have any large scale economic impacts.

Household manufacturing, like the 17th century English cottage industries, is mostly based on artistic production of traditional arts and crafts where the aesthetic quality of the art is less conducive to large scale, industrial production (Bonvillain). Purchasers of these objects are looking for authenticity and originality which do not align with industrialized production (Zinn). Today, women in China, India, Africa, Latin America, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Oceania are farced with similar challenges faced by women in early Industrial America. Stripped of their lands and removed of their modes of economic production, young women the world over are being driven to urban centers and free trade zones in search of work (Robbins). Labor conditions in some factories mimic the conditions of New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1911. Factories are being built with substandard safety measures leading to serious injury and death. According to the International Labor Organization, China experiences more than 800,000 industrial related injuries per year with a growing number of accidents resulting in the deaths of more than ten people (ILO). Statistics provided by United Nation indicate that women comprise of more than 50% of China’s manufacturing workforce (UN). In Mexico, 85% of “maquiladora” workers are young women (Bonvillain). Throughout Africa, populations have begun shifting away from interior agricultural centers toward urban sea ports and trade centers ripe with manufacturing (Zinn). In India, the green revolution has forced families off of farms and into the manufacturing or commercial agricultural sectors (Robbins). Men are given job preferences over women forcing most into seasonal jobs or jobs within the casual sector that do not include direct access to technology (Robbins).

The role women play in society is a fair indicator of the overall economic well-being of the developing world. Women are among the poorest members of society and a close examination of their social and economical condition helps us evaluate the overall conditions of larger society. With the exception of the Middle East where human rights issues continue to plague women, evaluations of women’s well-being shows severe economic and social depravity in the areas surrounding the equator including Latin America, Sub-Sahara Africa, Southeast Asia, India and Indochina (Bonvillain). These areas also experience other geographical conditions that make the application of technology in solving poverty issues problematic. Most of the countries along the poverty belt lag behind the rest of the world in education and economic trade but lead the world in heat index and environmental concerns (Reilly). Along with heat and inadequate infrastructures comes disease and dysentery where again, the tropical countries within the poverty belt lead the rest of the world. Malaria affects between 350 and 500 million people a year and approximately 3 million deaths (UN). In comparison, HIV/AIDS which is also prominent in these same regions, accounts for about 2.5 million deaths (UN). More than 64% of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, as are more than three quarters of all women living with HIV (World Factbook). In 2005, there were 12.0 AIDS orphans living in sub-Saharan Africa 2005. South & South East Asia is second-worst affected with 15% of the total (Shah). AIDS accounts for the deaths of 500,000 children in this region (UN). Two-thirds of HIV/AIDS infections in Asia occur in India, with an estimated 5.7 million infections surpassing South Africa's estimated 5.5 million infections, making India the country with the highest number of HIV infections in the world (One.org).

Despite the outbreaks, treatments for AIDS and Malaria and technologies to stop the spread of these diseases get little attention in the pharmaceutical industry. To date, there still is not a vaccination or cure for Malaria but scientists have managed to create and refresh vaccinations for a variety of influenza virus which only impact up to 5 million people a year with a death rate of less than 10 percent (One.org). Scientists are also frantically searching for vaccination options for the H5N1 influenza strand (bird flu) which has yet to metastasis in humans. Billions of U.S. dollars are being raised and spent to research H5N1 just to prepare for a potential avian flu pandemic (WHO). Over ten billion dollars have been lost and over two hundred million birds have been killed trying to contain H5N1 (One.org). Why are scientists so consumed with H5N1 while malaria remains unchecked? The answer is simple, H5N1 has the potential to do significant damage to the health and well-being of westerners. Malaria, on the other hand, has a limited geographical disbursement. The scientists involved in research drugs and medicines are also largely consolidated within the more technically advanced nations where according to Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, scientists have more access to research funds and direct access to the type of collaboration they need to be successful (Sachs). Sachs believes that these huge western markets give a lot of incentive to the scientific world for research and development while the poorer nations have very little market impulse. Funds for research and development are largely a mix of governmental contributions and private donor money, none of which is readily available to the third-world with impoverished governments. The smaller countries that do dedicate themselves to the research and development of drug treatments, like Thailand and Vietnam, often find their progress slowed by the lack of collaboration between scientists. Fewer scientists mean less output which also translates to longer production cycles (One.org).

Disparaging technological differences between the poorer nations and their rich counterparts are not limited to drug treatments. Countries within the poverty belt also experience critical problems related to food supply, nutrition, environmental management and climate change (Shah). All of which harbor enormous barriers to economic development. The geographic positioning of the third-world makes the translation of technology difficult. Advances in agriculture developed within the temperate climate of the United States is less suited for the climates experienced in Africa, Asia or India where water, soil management and other factors make adopting out of box solutions difficult (Reilly). In India, for example, an irrigation project which was supposed to provide a valuable source of water for Indian farmers caused a huge water shortage when engineers severely overestimated the region’s ability to naturally replenish ground water (Rottenberg). By damming up the only natural aquifer, the engineers changed the natural replenishment cycle of local wells and watering holes from once every 5 years to once every 1400 years (Rottenberg). The Army Corps of engineers faced similar problems in Central Africa when they tried to establish wheat production within the region. The top soil conditions, water stress and disease conditions prohibited the crops from taking hold for more than a few crop cycles (Robbins). The Council to the Group for International Agricultural Research, the one organization which traditionally helps poorer countries develop more indigenous forms of agricultural technology has been several inhibited by a budget strain. Its total world wide budget is less than one half of the average life sciences company in the United States (Rottenberg). A single, multi-national corporation has far more funds at its disposal than one of the most crucial non-profit, non-governmental firms with the means to assist the world in combating its food shortages.

Perhaps the most inequitable forms of technology discrimination can be found in the environmental impacts of industrialization. As mentioned earlier, the poverty belt has some of the warmest climates on this planet. Along with the heat comes an extreme need to manage and balance the local environment. Unfortunately, globalization has taken it toll in this area as well. Brazilian rainforests are disappearing at a rate of about a hundred acres per minute (Robbins). Some scientists predict that the rate of deforestation will completely destroy the rainforests by 2025, although more conservative estimates point to rising costs of lumber and other protectionist policies which have slowed the rate significantly over the past five years (Shah). Despite these efforts, Brazil faces a number of economic factors which may result in an increased deforestation rate. Large sections of rainforests are still being cleared to make way for industrialization, urban expansion and a growing cattle industry (Robbins). In other areas, climate changes from global warming are already threatening food productivity, average precipitation rates and crucial water stores (Zinn). Climate changes, such as increased intensification of the El Nino cycle and changes to oceanic currents will in all likelihood have the most severe impact on the third-world (Rottenberg). These anthropogenic climate changes are directly attributed to increases in carbon emissions, greenhouse gases and other bio-pollutants associated with the technological advancements of man, especially the advancements manufactured by the rich industrialized nations over the past few centuries (Robbins). Technology, it seems, although intended to simplify our lives and provide us with more access to wealth has done more to disadvantage the lives of the world’s poorest citizens. But technology also offers the power to heal.

Whatever its course or location, human technological advancement has followed the same basic pattern since its inception during the industrial age. Governmental or environmental conditions contribute to population increases which lead to a demand for jobs. The search of jobs leads to urbanization and loss of productive land and traditional cultural values. Entrepreneurs look to seize upon market conditions by taking advantage of the labor pool available to them. Once a business is established, business owners reinvest the profits of the business in to product research and development. Advances in product development lead to faster time to market and greater supply which must be augmented through the creation of market demand. Local markets become inadequate and local labor becomes too specialized, too consciously aware or too costly to maintain. Technology aids workers in creating a small scale market based income for themselves or allows them to develop skills that stretch beyond simple unskilled labor tasks. To continue profitable growth, cheaper forms of production, including off-shoring help companies find new markets for their products and less stringent trade and labor regulations. Sustenance based economies are introduced to a market based economy and the cycle begins again.

Muhammad Yunnus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in India, recognized the particular problems of poverty and the possibilities of technology in helping eradicate the problem. Yunnus understood that poverty impacted women the most and by placing technology into the hands of the world’s poorest citizens he could do something about the problem on a micro-economic scale. Yunnus believes that poverty is a condition of man’s inability to escape the pressures of the economic world. He found that most people could change their lives for under $30 dollars but had no access to credit. He also realized that women were much more likely to pay back loans and use credit to their advantage than men (Shah). Ninety-four percent of Grameen Bank borrowers are landless rural women who have made great strides to rise above the poverty line. Grameen Bank’s programs are heavily reliant on technology and leverage technology tools as a means for escaping poverty. Grameen Telecom, for example, is a non-profit cellular telephone company that provides training and equipment to Grameen Bank borrowers who in turn sell airtime on their phone systems to their neighbors at the market rate (Shah). This accessibility to information, something we might take for granted, can mean a world of difference in isolated pockets of the world. Grameen is also providing internet kiosks which make it possible to deliver computer based employment and education as well as access to agricultural and market information. Farmers are able to learn the current market prices for their crops over the internet, increasing market efficiency and cutting out a middle man who can unfairly control prices. The Cyber Kiosks are also helping reduce the amount of young people who migrate to urban centers to find work by providing computer based jobs such as transcription services and data entry (Shah). These youths can then in turn educate other members of society, thereby breaking the cycle of urbanization and allowing cultural traditions to remain intact.

By examining the cycle of industrialization, Grameen Bank was able to recreate the cottage industries that were absent in so many poorer countries by providing access to credit and technology. Other small scale programs such as Technology for Poverty Eradication (TAPE) have followed suite by employing technology to address basic needs, access resources and promote sustainable livelihoods globally (One.org). TAPE advocates believe that technology empowers the poor by providing them access to knowledge and should therefore be considered a central component of rights-based poverty eradication. On a larger scale, the United Nations has established a platform of action which specifically engages women and technology as the two major cornerstones in combating the world’s poverty crises. The UN platform’s call to action hopes to reverse the trend of marginalizing women’s access to technology and provides direct funding to the types of agricultural technologies directly engaging women (one.org). It also funds programs that bring common, household technologies into the homes to reduce the drudgery of common household chores such as cooking and cleaning. Technologies such as rice cookers, gas ranges, electric irons, and even condoms can go along way toward improving the quality of life for these women (Shah). As the Grameen bank and other micro-economic programs have proven, specific action oriented plans designed to take women out of poverty are more successful than programs that work on a macro-economic scale and either target men or industries that traditionally employ men.

Technology has the strength to make a significant difference in this world but we have a lot of work to do in making access to technology available to those who need it most. We need a new paradigm in technology which not only produces increases in manufacturing but also touches the lives of the most impoverished members of society. Micro-economic policies and initiatives have shown that communication has the ability to level the playing field by restoring non-industrial forms of economic production in areas where industrialization and economic development have passed them by. By examining and understanding the cycles of industrialization we can establish newer, more creative solutions to bridge the gaps between each of the various stages, intervals that seem to trap poorer nations for longer periods of time than their first world counterparts. Poorer nations need private sector partnerships to address particular problems and to provide vital resources. In the health sector, private sector funds have helped make drugs and vaccines available in the fight against AIDS. Similar programs are needed for malaria, tuberculosis and other heat exacerbated diseases. We also need to increase the availability of research programs and grants beyond the scope of first-world issues. Developing countries needed scientific advancement that extends well beyond the first-world’s challenges. Research in areas such as renewable energy sources, water extraction, distribution and storage, sewage removal, smarter crops, cheaper wireless access and pollution control are among some of the most challenging arenas currently facing humanity. Finding solutions for these issues should be a priority for all of us and should challenge our strong sense of achievement. Our ability to create and to innovate has led us down a path of industrialized destruction and only through partnership and fair access will be able to leverage that same spirit in helping us combat the terror we have created for ourselves and the world’s poor.

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