Globalization of Technology International Perspectives (1988) / Chapter Skim
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The Technology Revolution and the Restructuring of the Global Economy
The Technology Revolution and the Restructuring of the Global Economy
Pages 23-31
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From page 23... ...
This old paradigm consists of the mass production of essentially standardized goods in ever-larger units; an emphasis on quantitative goals for production, requiring ever higher inputs of capital, energy, and raw materials to produce more and more; and little attention to environmental impact, resource use, and conservation issues. In contrast, the new paradigm taking shape is identified with an emphasis on quality and diversification of products and processes, diffusion of small but highly productive units that rely on new technologies and are linked to a process of decentralization of production, adoption of process and product choices requiring far less energy and materials input per unit of output, and a greater awareness of the need to preserve the quality of local and global environments.
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From page 24... ...
These sectors demonstrate a highly flexible approach to production, making possible less standardized products specifically designed to satisfy the tastes and needs of customers. They also demonstrate considerable creativity through attention to design factors and closer links to the market and its fluctuations, attentiveness to moods and fashions with highly imaginative marketing, and a capacity to absorb new technology and indeed to interact with it to generate improvements and adaptations.
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From page 25... ...
Mature sectors that undergo such technological renewal and then strive continually to keep abreast of technological developments and market trends can retain competitiveness even in the face of increasing international competition. This pattern is one of the elements suggesting that long-established concepts of comparative advantage and ensuing international division of labor must be challenged.
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From page 26... ...
Not only is it created and developed on scientific bases, but it also generates fundamental scientific knowledge. The discovery of new superconducting materials, for example, is simultaneously a great scientific achievement that implies fundamental advances in our understanding of the behavior of matter in the solid state and a technological invention that is immediately open to extraordinary applications in many fields, from energy transmission to computers and from high-field magnets to nuclear fusion.
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From page 27... ...
and of the estimated annual turnover of the London financial market alone ($75 trillion, or 25 times greater than the entire world's visible trade)
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From page 28... ...
The housing stock, the environment, and infrastructures in the less favored regions are all in need of upgrading. With an economy long oriented toward "creative copying" and finding applications for advances achieved elsewhere, Japan admits a lack of individual creativity among its people, especially in the basic sciences.
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From page 29... ...
Policies to pump subsidies into ailing agriculture, declining industrial sectors, and overstretched nonmarket services such as public sector health care, road and rail networks, postal services, and primary and secondary education-Europe's first response to the economic crises of the 1970s-are proving difficult to remove.
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From page 30... ...
In general, however, European industry still tends to think in terms of closed markets with the survival, wherever possible, of producer cartels. Public procurement policies remain largely at the level of single nations; this is a serious obstacle to a more active, relevant role in the world economy.
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From page 31... ...
Those developing countries endowed with raw materials and energy may convert them into more valuable commodities, but unless they are able to master the technology needed to upgrade such commodities, they will derive little benefit from this primary transformation. Emphasis must therefore be placed on research and development and enhanced international cooperation, because it is not in the interest of advanced countries to keep the developing countries' margins so low as to hamper their advancement and preclude their becoming healthy producers and active market forces.
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