- External debt: its cultural origin ..
TPSIPOL FORUM: NETWORK DEMOCRATIC
February 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eleccion/message/17906
DEBT: ITS ORIGIN IS CULTURAL
Embj. Oswaldo de Rivero
underdeveloped debtors States pay more than $ 50 billion annually on account of external debt, and when they can not pay, restructure its debt with higher interest. Thus, debt service continues to grow and is now a sort of perpetual high tribute paid by developing countries to foreign creditors, tribute in many cases exceeds the aid and foreign investment they receive.
In such a situation of non-development, would be worth asking: If today you forgive all debt to these countries, mistakenly called "developing" they begin to develop? The answer is no! After a few years, these countries would again be in debt because of his mounting debt problem is because they are trapped in underdevelopment of the export of primary products and manufactured goods with low technological content, as low demand, lean and volatile prices, not generate sufficient resources to meet basic needs of their growing urban populations are discussed in the informal sector and unemployment. Consequently, these underdeveloped countries have no choice but to borrow continuously.
The World Bank, the real prices of raw materials, which have fallen below the actual prices were during the depression of 1932, will decline during the twenty-first century. Also, recent reports of UNCTAD, the prices of manufactured goods with low technological intensity is also a downward trend. Today the world demand for raw materials does not even reach 3% and manufactured goods low-technology does not pass the 4%, while that of high technology products and services increased to 15%.
While the mounting debt and the chronic insolvency of the underdeveloped countries of Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, is due to primary production and manufacturing of very low-tech that has no competitive advantage in the modern global economy, this reality is just the visible result of the real problem, which is hidden and the colossal misery is science and technology in Latin American societies, African and Asian part.
Indeed, national culture, almost all developed societies, is fraught knowledge in the humanities, deeply cultivated hardly exact sciences, biological, physical, mathematical, there is no vocation for experimentation, scientific research and even less for the invention and technological innovation. Consequently, all these countries because their cultures, science is unable to quickly provide more technology to the export of low technological intensity, the impoverished. Thus the increasing debt and insolvency of the underdeveloped countries, displayed and is focused as an economic problem is in the last analysis, a cultural problem. Today
development of scientific and technological culture of international countries is calculated by the number of scientists and engineers, by the number of computers and spending on research and scientific and technological development. Today only 10% of all scientists and engineers in the world is in the misnomer of "developing" and almost all of them, 7% are in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. Latin America has only 1.8% and the rest of Asia and Africa. is 1.2%. Furthermore, all developing countries holds only 10% of computers and invests about $ 3 billion annually in research and scientific development technology compared with Western developed countries spend 220 billion annually. The 3 / 4 of these expenditures on scientific research in underdeveloped countries is carried out in Asian countries mentioned. So it is no coincidence that China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore do not have debt problems that have Latin American countries and other underdeveloped.
As we can see, the Latin American region is a cultural wasteland science and technology, not only compared to developed Western countries, but also against Asian countries. In Latin America, for example, culture essentially identifies the humanities, historical, social, legal, with the scholarship in literature, the arts, but rarely identified in the research culture in the natural sciences, physical, biological, mathematical . We love the verb over the experiment, the deduction that the induction, the narrative research, the letter that the logarithm. Thus, the Latin American cultural discourse is almost always, literary, historical, legal, sociological, there is almost no discourse of natural sciences, almost no articles, magazines and scientific debates. In reality Latin American culture not transformed by experiment but by the verb.
The Latin America, Africa and much of Asia, without research, without invention and innovation, are trapped each time in the underdevelopment of the non-competitive export of minerals, sugar, coffee, textiles, beverages, preserves, and maquila. These species are not suitable in a Darwinian global economy that increasingly rejects the raw materials and processed products and demand little more and more sophisticated goods and services
Never-tech and scientific societies, with urban population explosion, trapped in a low-tech production may stop paying tribute perpetual debt, but even if these underdeveloped and scientific societies are culturally dominated by the consumption patterns of affluent societies. Today, developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa want to consume like Americans and Europeans but did not invent or innovate as Americans and Europeans, therefore, are forever indebted. Without research, invention and innovation, and scientific cultures are doomed to perpetual debt then import the material and intellectual progress that constantly produces the current technological revolution in consumer societies.
If Latin America, especially Peru, not start a genuine educational revolution, making scientific curiosity, experimentation and innovation are part of the culture of Latin American and Peruvian new generations, our countries will be increasingly becoming viable national economies more in (ENIS) with chronic debt and insolvency and only survive in the intensive care ward of international aid.
Today we must be very aware that humanity is entering its third millennium as a dual planetary society, divided between a small minority who live on the accumulated knowledge of the development of science and technology, and a vast majority without scientific culture that is impoverished because only living natural resources and low-technology activities. The first research, invent and innovate, pay the second debt.
Oswaldo de Rivero The Latin America, Africa and much of Asia, without research, without invention and innovation, are trapped each time in the underdevelopment of the non-competitive export of minerals, sugar, coffee, textiles, beverages, preserves, and maquila. These species are not suitable in a Darwinian global economy that increasingly rejects the raw materials and processed products and demand little more and more sophisticated goods and services
Never-tech and scientific societies, with urban population explosion, trapped in a low-tech production may stop paying tribute perpetual debt, but even if these underdeveloped and scientific societies are culturally dominated by the consumption patterns of affluent societies. Today, developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa want to consume like Americans and Europeans but did not invent or innovate as Americans and Europeans, therefore, are forever indebted. Without research, invention and innovation, and scientific cultures are doomed to perpetual debt then import the material and intellectual progress that constantly produces the current technological revolution in consumer societies.
If Latin America, especially Peru, not start a genuine educational revolution, making scientific curiosity, experimentation and innovation are part of the culture of Latin American and Peruvian new generations, our countries will be increasingly becoming viable national economies more in (ENIS) with chronic debt and insolvency and only survive in the intensive care ward of international aid.
Today we must be very aware that humanity is entering its third millennium as a dual planetary society, divided between a small minority who live on the accumulated knowledge of the development of science and technology, and a vast majority without scientific culture that is impoverished because only living natural resources and low-technology activities. The first research, invent and innovate, pay the second debt.
New York, February 2004
0 comments:
Post a Comment