Vimukt
Shiksha - September 2001
Learning to Challenge the Global Economy
Contents
Editors' Note
The
Continuum - Colonialism-Development-Globalization
What
Makes Globalization Different from Its Predecessors
Simple Questions
Globalization as 'McDonaldization'
' Free'
Trade in the WTO?
Global Rhetoric vs. Reality
Case Study: Capturing the Classroom
Big Business of Education
Buying
and Selling Knowledge
Behind Closed Doors: Business Plans
There's No Bang in the Buck
Why
We All Lose in the Race to Win
Exposing
the IT Revolution
Case Study: Universalizing Consumer
Culture
Myth of Microcredit
Great
Debt Dilemma
Rethinking
Swadeshi During the Great
Indian Sell-Out
Is
Socialism the Answer?
Why It's
Time to Stop 'Leaving it to the Experts'
Why
Bigger Is Not Better: Making Way for the Small
Freeing
Our Expressions
A
Turn Towards the Local
Redefining Progress
The Resistance of the Zapatistas
Voluntary Simplicity
From the Four Directions
Closer to Home... IDSP
Further Resources
Special
Insert: The Political Economy of War
The
Algebra of Infinite Justice
Saving
the
Is
It All about Oil?
The
Thoughts
in the Presence of Fear
A
Letter from Parents
A
Letter from
* * * * * *
Editors'
Note
“Even if the cargo on a boat is
distributed evenly, the boat will inevitably sink under too much weight — even though it may sink optimally.”
- Herman Daly
What
is the global economy? How does the global economy impact/reshape the purpose,
content and pedagogy of education? How does factory-schooling strengthen the
global economy? How can we (re)generate diverse spaces and learning processes
for challenging the global economy?
In education circles around the world,
educators are being told that they must overhaul their education systems to
help their citizens compete in the Global Economy. The World Education Forum’s Dakar
Framework for Action describes the benefits that are waiting to be reaped
by All: “Globalization is generating new wealth and
resulting in greater interconnectedness and interdependence of economies and
societies.” Those of us who are somehow not convinced by all this hype are told
that nothing can be done to stop the Global Economy. We just have to squeeze
out a place for ourselves in it.
Sadly, most educators know very little
about the Global Economy: how it is shaping them or how they can re-shape it,
or its many implications for education. First, the Global Economy seeks to
remake us All into ‘Global-Citizen-Consumers’ — competent in consuming what we
do not need, consuming what we cannot afford, consuming ourselves into
oblivion. Second, new education models
are busy converting diverse learning spaces into marketplaces/malls: by
bringing products directly to children in their schools and homes, and by commodifying and re-selling the common gifts of humanity —
knowledge, intelligences, creativity, spirituality, Nature, etc. Third, custodianship over people’s learning
processes is being transferred from the inefficient/insensitive Welfare State
to greedy, unaccountable Corporations.
Lastly, diverse modes of human expression, reflection and dialogue are
being colonized by new technologies. In
the sterile virtual world, people’s minds are not only being overwhelmed with decontextualized information, they are being ‘rewired’.
Educators should be concerned that the
Global Economy not only impacts education but threatens what it means to be
human. Fitting into
the Global Economy means adopting the value system of the ‘bottom line’: efficiency,
profits, foreign investment and competition. Any crime against humanity
— ecological destruction; cultural and linguistic homogenization; massive
social displacement, the illegitimate concentration of power; the manipulation
of genetic codes; brutal violence; genocide — can be morally rationalized on
the basis of this bottom line. While some may appear to benefit from this
economy in the short-term, the long-term consequences for life on this planet
will be disastrous.
The fatal attraction
of the Global Economy lies both in the unfulfilled promises of Development
(good health, democratic and peaceful relationships, greater leisure time, less
poverty) and in the achievements of Development (massive, unsustainable
infrastructure that, to maintain itself, continuously needs new resources —
which it doesn’t have and must take from others). The culture of schooling has
also brainwashed us into believing several tantalizing myths of Progress:
bigger is always better; science and technology can solve all our problems;
survival of the fittest is the natural law; economic growth trickles down to
the poor, etc. Even worse, it has
manufactured inferiority, selfish individualism, and impatience which has made
us lose faith in ourselves and in our local communities. We are forced to spend our time watching the
Left and Right publicly debate whether State vs. Market institutions should
have more power (i.e., who will be better at distributing the weight on the
sinking boat?).
Luckily,
globalization is not an irreversible or unstoppable process. As the Global Economy spreads around the
world, so do the pockets of dissent. The
vast majority of people in the world are still not part of the Global Economy;
nor, despite what the mainstream media propaganda tells us, do they want to
be. Many groups are struggling to
regenerate ‘the local’: to reclaim their whole Selves and their communities
from the myths of Progress and dependency on the State/Market; and, to
replenish their own wells of practical knowledge, wisdom, love,
interdependence, creative expression of life-affirming living. New possibilities for unlearning and
re-learning for challenging the Global Economy eagerly await
to be created. We invite you to join us
in this process.
Colonialism-Development-Globalization
Despite different
names, the cultural, psychological and economic forces that have shaped the
last 500 years of human history are closely linked to each other. From the European ‘discovery’ of the New
World(s), through years of imperialism and colonialism, from the post-War
Development decades (1950s-80s), to today’s era of globalization. Together, all
of these time periods constitute a continuum, defined by the similarity in
their goals, processes and outcomes.
For example, a
desire for gold and natural resources, upon which to build empires, motivated
the Europeans to colonize the rest of the world. Similarly, in the last several
decades, the pursuit of profits, of markets and commodities, has driven both
the Development and the Globalization agendas.
Some would add that these periods also share an ‘altruistic’ agenda: to
civilize, develop, or protect the Other (i.e., those
peoples with languages, cultures, histories, values, etc. different from the
elite Euro-American white male). That
is, pillage has been justified on ‘moral’ grounds of “making the world safe for
democracy”, “reducing poverty”, or “enduring freedom”.
Terrorism and
genocide have been the main processes used in the continuum. In the first 450 years, physical/military prowess
was a decisive factor; in the last 50 years, more subtle tools of domination
have emerged (the United Nations, free trade, universal schooling, mass media,
Human Rights, Science/Technology). But
regardless of the tool, all of the processes devalue the Other
in order to manipulate/manage Them. This
manifests not only in the language used to describe common people (from
“wild”/”primitive”, to “backward”/”undeveloped”, to “technologically
deprived”), but also through the violent elimination of knowledges,
languages, and other living traditions.
Such processes have led to similar
outcomes. Colonialism, Development, and
Globalization have all resulted in the exploitation of people and of natural
resources, brutal oppression, and widespread injustice. The psycho-cultural internalization of the
West is another common effect in the continuum.
Each period has undertaken measures to ensure that the Other consider the West to be progressive, advanced, and
living the future of their dreams. Those
who most successfully internalize this ‘truth’ (i.e., the babus) are then used to manage
the exploitation process from within.
What this leads to is a ‘mono-culture’: the destruction of diversity in
favor of homogenization, and the concentration and control of raw materials in
the hands of an elite few.
Sources: Z. Sardar, et al. The Blinded Eye: 500 years of
Christopher Columbus.
V. Shiva. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
What Makes Globalization Different from
Its Predecessors
New
Actors (More Powerful and Unaccountable to the Public)
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) (or Multinational
Corporations, MNCs) are businesses that seek to
increase their profits by expanding their operations across country
borders. They invest their capital where
there are the least restrictions, and where they can pay the least amount
possible in taxes, for raw materials, for labor, for ‘acceptable’ working
conditions, for environmental clean-up/responsibility. By moving across borders, not only do they
reduce production costs, but they also find new markets for their
products. From both angles, they make
higher profits.
Transnational Institutions (the United
Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund-IMF, and the World
Trade Organization-WTO) are international bodies that empower TNCs
by prescribing certain policies to developing countries (see below). They are able to force these policies on
countries, by either threatening economic sanctions, or by promising debt
relief to countries and/or granting them new loans. The powers/policies of
these institutions transcend those of national authorities (like the
Parliament). They also lack any ‘democratic’ input (that is, any input from
experts or citizens who do not represent corporate interests).
New Processes
and Policies (Forcing a Race towards the Bottom)
Structural Adjustment Program-SAP is a package of conditions that the IMF and World Bank dictate to
developing countries with high debts or in macro-economic crisis. These conditionalities
include raising interest rates, devaluing currency, privatizing public
investments, opening economies to unlimited foreign entry/ownership, cutting
social welfare, and rewriting labor laws to eliminate workers’ rights.
Free Trade Agreements/Liberalization are policies to open countries’ national borders to
unrestricted foreign investment and trade.
Free Trade implies a reciprocal agreement between countries (i.e.,
Canada-US-Mexico’s NAFTA), while liberalization is one-way opening to outsiders
(what
Privatization is a process by which government-owned industries and public resources
are sold to private corporations, who then manage them for their own profits.
Intellectual Property Rights (patents, copyrights) give legal ownership of knowledge, biodiversity,
creative products, methods, etc. to individuals and corporations.
New
Speed, Scale and Intensity (Everywhere, All the Time, and Fast!)
Information and Communication Technologies-ICTs (computers, the Internet, satellite TVs,
cellular telephones) have accelerated the speed and scope of the new
policies/processes/actors. ICTs enable TNCs to expand into
new markets and to move very large amounts of capital quickly across the world.
ICTs also allow commercialization to enter into all aspects of our
life, i.e., the bedroom, festivals, classrooms, religious places, clothing,
folk music, etc.
Source: J. Brecher & T. Costello. Global Village
or Global Pillage.
Simple
Questions by Non-Pompous People
This is an excerpt
from “Globalization: The Myth That Rules and Ruins Our Lives” (2000) by Dr. M.
O. Arigbede
<www.networkcultures.net/38_39/index.html>:
- If we say we
are trading and development partners with the people of Europe and America, why
are we always having to buy more and more expensively what they make with their
machines, while selling them in return, more and more cheaply, only those
products that we harvest from the land?
- Why are
our rulers pretending to rule or have power when it is becoming ever clearer
daily that the policies they enforce on us are made outside this country and
rammed down our throats?
- We do
not understand the meaning of ‘National External Debt’. There is no time when the people, that is us,
gathered and instructed our leaders to go borrow such huge amounts of monies
that we are now alleged to be owing... Should we really be repaying such
‘corrupt’ loans forever at the cost of our national livelihood?
- If two financial
organizations (the World Bank and IMF) can dictate to the rest of the world and
make decisions for us all without our participation, what is the meaning of the
democracy that these organizations recommend to us?
Globalization
as 'McDonaldization'
With 25,000 outlets in 115 countries,
the American fast food restaurant, McDonald’s, is ubiquitous. In The McDonaldization
of Society (
1. Efficiency – optimum
(fastest) method for getting from one point to another;
2.
Calculability – emphasis on quantitative aspects (time/money) of
product/service;
3.
Predictability – assurance that product/service will be same over time, in
all locations;
4. Control – over both
the consumers’ and the employees’ experience; heavy use of technology to limit
human error.
Ritzer’s argument is that McDonaldization
has infiltrated almost all aspects of modern society, from travel to healthcare
to language. In education, this process
is unfolding in many ways. Multiple
choice exams replace creative essays and projects (efficiency in grading);
quantity (of students, hours in class, in test scores, etc.) takes priority
over quality; teaching, curriculum and textbooks all conform to predicable
routines; and children are increasingly controlled through rigid structures,
rote memorization and external discipline. Such mass production is also evident
in the proliferation of ‘designer’ school franchises, like Delhi Public School
(DPS) and Egmont’s “Euro Kids” preschools.
Some see McDonaldization
as positive: “It brings ‘quality’ products/services equally to all consumers,”
they say. But they seem to have confused equality with ‘sameness’, and quality
with ‘bland-ness’. Indeed, most who experience the monotony of McDonaldization feel disconnected from their unique selves,
diverse societies, and from nature. Such alienation, dehumanization and boredom
only appear to increase over time.
'Free' Trade
in the WTO?
Since joining the World Trade
Organization (WTO)
last year,
In theory, everyone benefits from free
trade. The WTO website <www.wto.org>
explains: the best quality products become available at the lowest prices, the
cost of living drops, incomes rise, economies grow, life is more efficient,
global inequality is reduced. Why then,
in the 5 years since the policies of the WTO have taken effect worldwide, has
the opposite occurred? Why, for the
majority of peoples, are wages decreasing and the cost of living
increasing? Why has inequality between
the North and South and within countries increased sharply? And who benefits if free trade ignores public
health issues (such as food safety standards), undermines working conditions
and accelerates environmental degradation and biopiracy?
Originally conceived in 1821 by David
Ricardo, the free trade theory was based on the assumption that capital is immobile and that production stays
within a country’s borders. Today,
however, this is clearly not the case.
Employers can instantly move their operations to countries where
production and labor are cheaper, and where there are minimal restrictions on
environmentally harmful processes.
Workers around the world thus compete with each other for lower wages
and worsening working conditions.
Meanwhile the lion’s share of benefits goes to the North, to the world’s
largest corporate and financial institutions.
In addition, WTO exercises authority on
issues such as the use of pesticides or biotech materials in foods, and the
public’s access to local medicine (which corporations are rapidly claiming
ownership of through patents). WTO
policies and processes are not democratically accountable; rather decisions are
made behind closed doors and enforced with the threat of economic
sanctioning. As a member of the WTO, the
Indian government makes its population vulnerable to policies that are not
aimed at improving equality or well being, but toward increasing short-term
profits for corporations. Thus, before
supporting prescriptions to increase economic growth, it is crucial to ask the
questions that the elite and experts refuse to ask: “Growth of what? Free for whom? Who wins and who loses?”
Sources: K.
Danaher and K. Burbach (Eds),
Globalize This!,
Global
Rhetoric vs. Global Reality
“Free trade enhances standards of living through the
effects of competition on productivity.”
— Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank
The world’s richest fifth receives 82.7% of the world’s
income and resources, the poorest fifth receives 1.4%.
The assets of the three richest people in the world between
1994-1998 were more than the combined GNP of 48 least developed countries.
The
UN Human Development Report states that per capita incomes in 80
countries are lower than they were a decade ago.
UNDP
reports that US$50 billion in “aid” flows annually from the North to the
South. The South loses US$500 billion
every year in interest payments on debts and from the loss of fair prices for
commodities due to unequal terms of trade.
“Sustainable Development is development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.”
— World Commission for Environment & Development
Tropical forests are disappearing at the rate of
100+ acres per minute.
Between 150 and 200 species of life become extinct every 24 hours.
President
Bush announced that the
“By expanding trade, we can advance the cause of
freedom and democracy around the world.”
— Bill Clinton, 1997
The WTO has
the right to overturn any health, safety, or environmental laws (local, state
or national) which are perceived by other nations to be unfair barriers to
trade.
Since the
implementation of SAP in 1991, the World Bank has ‘monitored’ India’s
macro-economic policies (foreign investment, balance of payments, money supply,
etc.) — all functions which were formerly held by the Government of India.
In 1997-98
A Case Study:
Capturing the Classroom
Lifetime Learning Systems (LLS) is a
marketing service that specializes in producing and distributing
corporate-sponsored ‘educational programs’ that promote companies’ products or
general views. Its materials especially
target under-funded schools, which are eager to obtain new resources. Examples of LLS’s
clients and products include:
-
Lederle Laboratories, which produces Centrum Jr.
multivitamins, hired LLS to make a teaching kit to introduce 4th,
5th, 6th grade children to the importance of using
vitamins to maintain good health.
-
For General Mills, Inc., LLS created a “Grow-Up!” teaching kit on fruit and
nutrition for preschool children. Each
kit contained certificates, growth charts, booklets
for parents, & 96 ‘candy’ product samples.
-
Northeast Utilities hired LLS to distribute films, booklets, teaching kits,
board games to local schools, with the objective of “re-educating consumers
about the energy crisis and increasing public support for nuclear power
development”. Northeast later conducted a survey, which found that public
opinion had shifted 20% in its favor.
LLS says its
materials are reviewed by educators and textbook publishers and have received
“consistently positive responses” from teachers. But those representing
environmental and consumer concerns stress that these materials offer biased mis-information.
They say that most teachers are unaware of corporate promotion
techniques and “do not recognize propaganda when they see it.”
· Would you accept corporate-sponsored
materials into your classrooms? What are the trade-offs?
·
How can we recognize and counter such
corporate manipulation in classrooms and, as importantly, in our daily lives?
The Big
Business of Education
In the
Calculations are based on the following assumptions:
20 crore children, age 6-14, will
all be enrolled in school with UEE.
Annual student costs include uniform, shoes, stationary,
textbooks, bag.
All children will take additional tuition at the rate of
Rs.200/month.
Teachers supplied at ratio of 40 students: 1 teacher.
200 children/school
in rural areas; 300 children/school in urban areas.
Schools built/year at 1980-1995 rate.
Computer/printer:
school; rural = 1; urban = 5.
The Buying and
Selling of Knowledge
The Knowledge Economy is considered to
be the most evolved phase of the global economy. Its cornerstones are the same as the
industrial-technology economies: private ownership, production and consumption,
for the highest profit. Once considered
the collective domain of humanity (shared with all for the benefit of all),
today intellectual resources are marketed as ‘products’, to be bought by and
sold to the highest bidder.
The commodification
of knowledge occurs in several ways. For
example, we ‘pay’ for knowledge when we send our children to private schools or
tuitions, or when we ourselves attend special workshops and courses. In doing so, we affirm two ideas: (1)
information can be given a price, and (2) the ‘quality’ of information you
access will vary, depending on the amount of money you have. In other words, the knowledge economy follows
the rest of global economy; it increases levels of inequality by linking
participation to a price.
Knowledge is also being bought and sold
through patents and copyrights. Laws are used to declare ideas, products, and
even living things, to be the ‘intellectual property’ of individuals or
corporations. But although one might
want credit for his/her contributions, patenting prevents the general public
from using creations without permission and payment — which again means that
only those who can afford to pay, get to use it. Ironically, many of the people who acquire
patents steal and manipulate knowledge to claim it as their own. For example, in
Buying and selling knowledge is a
growing epidemic in universities around the world as well. In the guise of donations, private companies
give equipment, buildings, facilities, professorships, research grants, etc. to
universities. In exchange, the
university provides them with exclusive rights to the research produced.
“Commercially-sponsored research” means that companies’ interests are
dominating the research agenda — which could seriously limit which questions
are asked, which are not, and how the studies are designed. For example, many universities only put their
money into commercially lucrative disciplines (science/technology) and stop
funding humanities and social sciences, which do not yield profits in the
global market. Further, many
privately-funded studies are biased; professors receive additional monies from
the companies that fund their research and so, not surprisingly, end up giving
conclusions that endorse corporate interests.
More and more it seems research is done for private gain (profit) rather
than for public good.
Members of a learning community can
reflect on the following questions:
- How can we credit
inventors/creators for their work and encourage new creations, in the absence
of patents or copyrights?
- How can we
draw upon other understandings of knowledge (as shared wisdom, for example) to
begin to de-link it from the market economy and profit motives?
Source: E.
Press and J. Washburn, “The Kept University” in The
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 285, No. 3, March 2000.
Behind Closed
Doors: Business Plans
In April 2000, the Prime Minister’s
Advisory Council on Trade and Industry produced “A Policy Framework for Reforms
in Education”. Co-authored by M. Ambani and K. Birla, the report articulates a contradictory vision for
education in
- expand private and community-supported schools;
- allow foreign direct investment in education;
- form partnerships between industries and universities;
- use computer technology to establish education networks in
villages;
- diversify revenue sources (private financing in
school/universities);
- develop student loan and credit markets for higher
education;
- keep the economy free from controls to foster a market for
education.
For these traders and industrialists,
education means big money. For example, the report anticipates recurring
expenditures on all three tiers of the education industry to be Rs.1,80,000 crores by 2015, and
capital expenditures to be Rs.89,000 crores. Learning
communities must ask themselves: (1) do these businessmen really have the best
interests of our children and society in mind?; and
(2) will spending more money solve the deep crises facing education?
There's
No Bang in the Buck
In this excerpt from “Beyond Money: Deschooling
and a New Society” <www.life.ca/nl/44/gatto.html>, John Taylor Gatto discusses how the abstraction of money and of schooling
have devalued social relationships and real learning processes:
“At the turn of the 20th century, a profound social thinker in
I
mean [this point] to be a lesson for our schools too… Experts who are the
sellers of school services to the government have consistently misdiagnosed and
misdefined the problem of schooling… Our cultural
dilemma has nothing to do with children who don’t read very well. It lies
instead in the difficulty of finding a way to restore meaning and purpose to
modern life. There is no point in reading if it seems to lead nowhere. We have
progressively stripped children of the primary experience base they need to
grow up sound and whole by pricing abstract study higher… When we fail to take
into account how most children, rich or poor, really learn – by involvement, by
doing, by independent risk-taking, by shouldering responsibility, by
intermingling intimately into the real world of adults in all its
manifestations – when we set up a laboratory universe in which all are confined
with anonymous strangers, then we have created in advance a world of failing
families, wrecked cities, and blasted individuals...”
Why We All
Lose in the Race to Win
Competition is
glorified in today’s world. Companies
are incited to compete in the global economy, to make competitive products and
services and to have a competitive workforce.
Similarly, every aspect of schooling trains children to compete — if not
in formal contests and exams, then for grades, ranks, labels, teacher approval,
etc. But just as only a few employees
are given bonuses, so do only a few children receive prizes, certificates or
other rewards. The rest are declared
losers; their failure is explained by either a lack of hard work or a lack of
ability. Although the situation may seem
unfair, we are all told that, in the ‘survival of the fittest’, competition is
the only way to motivate us to be productive and to do our best.
In No Contest: The
Case Against Competition (1992), Alfie
Kohn refutes this myth, as well as three additional myths about competition:
that it is part of human nature; that it is the only/best way to have fun; and
that it builds character and confidence.
He explains that those who are pro-competition subscribe to a win-lose
view of the world. Both the dominant
economic structure and the school deliberately make ‘success’ scarce, by
creating unnatural situations where only a few can win and the rest must
lose. They then use these ‘successes’ as
evidence to promote more cutthroat competition.
Kohn cleverly elaborates, “Capitalism works on the same principle as a
glass company, whose employees spend their nights breaking people’s windows and
their days boasting of the public service they provide.”
And far from making us do our best,
competition actually inhibits us. Kohn
cites multiple studies that show that in competitive atmospheres, people
produce less spontaneous, less complex, less diverse, and less creative
products; while the reverse holds true in cooperative atmospheres. This ‘paradox’ happens for several
reasons. First, competition restricts
our vision; it makes us narrowly focus on ‘winning’ the reward, so that we
neither use our time or our resources well.
At the same time, it breeds hostility, anxiety, fear of failure, and
fear of risk-taking/exploring, which further constrains our creativity and
performance. Lastly, competition results
in a “loss of community and sociability and a heightening of selfishness.” It prevents us from working together or
caring about each other. These outcomes
of competition not only affect the losers, but also the winners.
Those who advocate competition fail to
see the fundamental difference between ‘learning’ and ‘competing’. With learning, we give attention to
accomplishing the task, the skill, or the goal, because we value the effort
itself. With competition, we focus on defeating others; the quality of our work
is only important insofar as it wins us the reward.
Kohn makes strong recommendations to
abandon this competitive ethic and adopt a vision of cooperative learning, so
each of us can achieve our full potential in ways that are beneficial to the
whole community. The “enormous potential
of mutual benefit (cooperative) strategies will not be tapped — or even
understood — until we broaden our perspective beyond the narrow prejudice that
we always do best by trying to beat others.”
Please discuss with your family,
friends and colleagues:
How is competition promoted in your
community?
What are
spaces/opportunities for promoting cooperation instead?
What are some strategies for challenging
competition and ensuring everyone’s success in learning and growing?
Exposing the
Information Technology Revolution
“What
I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for
what they call labour-saving machinery. Men go on
‘saving labour’ till thousands are without work and
thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. . .Today machinery merely
helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not
the philanthropy to save labour, but greed.” - M.K. Gandhi
The increase in information and
communication technologies (ICTs) is seen as a major
contribution from the global economy.
Educators favor ICTs for connecting learners
of all ages and for bringing them more information. With
But serious reality checks are in order
before we swallow the ICT hype. For one, there is very little research to prove
that ICTs actually enhance human learning. In fact,
several researchers now argue that ICTs damage many
natural learning processes. They limit children’s creativity and imagination;
diminish self-motivation and attention spans; and reduce risk-taking ability.
They also distort the brain’s growth, motor skills, depth perception, and
hand-eye coordination. ICTs also take time away from
other learning opportunities and relationships. Instead of playing, pursuing
arts, strengthening different relationships, or participating in real work/home
activities, children are sitting in front of computers. An entire generation
may be growing up anti-social, impatient, withdrawn.
Advocates suggest that ICTs increase communication among people from all corners
of the world, thus bringing us together in a ‘global village’. While one may
‘connect’ with the less than 10% of the world that has real access to ICTs, the nature of such interactions is usually
superficial. The medium is inherently limiting to many
forms of human expression, dialogue and ways of knowing. Info-glut is also
becoming a huge problem as we are bombarded with more (irrelevant) information
than we can digest. In addition to this are all the cyber-village horror
stories: viruses, pornography, credit card scams, hacking,
stalking, and even serial killers.
It is also questionable whether ICTs really save us time. We are continuously faced with a
paradox: with more technologies in our lives, we have less and less time to
reflect deeply on or dialogue about who we are and where we are going; we must
spend all of our free time attending to the technologies. As Eduardo Galeano describes, “The car, the television set, the video,
the personal computer, the portable telephone and other pass-cards to happiness,
which were developed to ‘save time’ or to ‘pass the time’, have actually taken
time over.”
Nor do ICTs
really democratize society. Unjust and illegitimate institutions of authority
use ICTs to dominate with greater force and
sophistication. Public funds are being
diverted to subsidize ICT infrastructure, which is primarily utilized by
private companies, while public services like post offices and libraries
decline due to lack of funds. Plus, information is not free—it requires money to access most interesting content on the world wide web as well as to make/maintain web sites. We
also remain totally dependent on product obsolescence cycles (which force us to
buy new hardware/software every 3-4 years).
Lastly, while ICT professionals in the
‘new economy’ might sound appealing, one should note that this economy is
already over-saturated and has begun to down-size itself.
Today, ICTs
largely remain a ‘solution’ in search of a problem. Many of the so-called sucess stories, particularly those concerning rural areas,
must be more critically looked at. ICTs can play a role in society but we must be careful not
to let ourselves get swept away by the hype. Learning communities should
reflect carefully on:
- How are ICTs
reshaping/controlling our minds, our lives and our relationships?
- In what situations are ICTs
useful tools?
- What are the trade-offs that come with making ICTs
a development priority?
- Who actively pushing for more ICTs? Why?
Too many people spend money
they haven’t earned,
to buy things they don’t want,
to impress people they don’t like.
-
Will Rogers
Case
Study: Universalizing Consumer Culture
On
Hundreds of
— In D. Korten,
When Corporations Rule the World, 1995
-
Do you feel that
-
Are their any links between NGOs, development projects and building rural
markets?
-
In what specific ways can people be prepared so that they are not manipulated
by such campaigns?
The Myth of Microcredit
Microcredit is the extension of small loans to those
without access to lending institutions or too poor to qualify for traditional
bank loans (mostly women). It allows them to borrow money at bank rates and
start small businesses. Microcredit advocates say it encourages a savings habit,
gives women seed capital to generate an independent source of income and
thereby empowers them, both in their families and in the larger political
economy. Microcredit
is thus presented as a way to ‘flatten’ the economic hierarchy, to reduce
poverty and ensure that people have more choices.
However, there are
several flaws in the microcredit solution — including
the fact that it does not question the institutions/values of this system,
which manufacture greed and exploit people and resources to make profits. Rather, it subscribes to the belief that
poverty can be alleviated if people simply get money, work hard, change their
consumption patterns, and try to fit in the System. Studies also show that it undermines
culturally-specific roles and relationships.
The second problem with microcredit is who controls and benefits from it. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest
(CGAP), which was set up by the World Bank and is
composed of OECD countries, co-ordinates microcredit
operations worldwide. In its first 2½
years, CGAP provided about US$18 million in grants to microfinance institutions
and US$400 million for microfinance activities.
In
But what of
‘successful’ microcredit programs? Paradoxically, it seems they have created a
new breed of institutions, laws and regulations, which seem to reduce the
self-sufficiency and independence of ‘beneficiaries’. One loanee from
As the “Report to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations on the Role of Microcredit in
the Eradication of Poverty” acknowledges, most of the ‘success stories’ are
isolated cases. It further explains that
donors do not have the money to sustain poverty eradication worldwide through microcredit, and that microcredit
does not address root causes of poverty.
It also shows no conclusive evidence that microcredit
really empowers its beneficiaries, as loanees require
profit margins of 30-50% to get out of the loan-debt cycle. But the report does clarify the real goals of
microcredit schemes: to create deeper and more
widespread financial markets in developing countries, by using the small
enterprise sector to strengthen the private sector and by promoting sustained
linkages to commercial capital. In light of this, learning communities need to
think about how to reduce, not expand, peoples’ dependency on cash and the
Market economy.
Sources: The Virtual Library on Microcredit; A Report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Role of Microcredit in the Eradication of Poverty; Sarah Blackstone, “Bandaid Bandwagon,” in The New Internationalist, July 1999; John Samuel, “The