Econ: how are technologies today helping to turn developing nations into developed?

One Comment

1. simplicitus says:

   November 1, 2009 at 4:06 am

   It isn’t clear that they are.

   1. As Stiglitz and many others have noted, most underdeveloped countries just haven’t developed much, if at all, in the last few decades.
   http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15630

   2. Then there are the destructive uses of technology. Egypt with its Aswan Dam and Siwa Oasis:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam#Environmental_and_cultural_problems
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8289532.stm
   is typical. (Babylon dies because the soil was poisoned by salt from the irrigation – then high-tech)
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

   3. Then there are the non-productive uses such as the investment in modern weaponry by underdeveloped countries and the correspondingly more destructive wars they wage on each other. India, Pakistan, North Korea, etc. putting all that time and money into developing nuclear weapons is the most obvious example,
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Unsanctioned_nuclear_activity
   but far from the only ones.

   India is #11 in the world in military expenditures, perhaps because it is afraid of China which is #4
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_defence_budgets
   but as a percentage of GDP, many underdeveloped countries are higher still:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_as_a_percentage_of_GDP

   4. Then there is the way technology has been helping the developed world take even more advantage of the underdeveloped world. Even something simple like access to better computers and communication gives the developed world an advantage:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry

   5. Even life-giving technologies may have done more harm than good.

   Most developing countries have populations growing faster than the economy can grow so the people are, on average, getting poorer. One reason is that some of the lessons of sanitation have been learned, so fewer babies die in infancy, which means more families have more mouths to feed with the same resources. The result is all the countries with high population growth rates are underdeveloped:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate

   etc.

   Of course one can always point to a few potential benefits:

   - cell phone networks are cheaper to install than traditional wired phone systems

   - the cheap laptop project seems to have the potential to help with education (but then, most government of underdeveloped countries don’t care much about education)

   - condoms do allow birth control should families want it (but too often they don’t)

   etc.