Cement, Energy and Environment

WORDS OF WISD 1 0M - I TECHNOLOGY, GLOBAL MARKET AND ETHICS SK Sharma Developing countries have become the sinks for absorbing the aberrations of the global market. A ripple in the d eveloped nations becomes a blast in the developing world . Truly speaking, without the two worlds, rich and poor, the global marke t cannot function. It operates largely by transfer of resources from poor to rich nations through skewed trade practices. This raises issues of global ethics. Is it fair for rich nations to bleed the poor nations? The more bothersome question is, is it fair for self-seeking political systems of poor nations to bleed the poor in their n ations through their exploitative centrali sed polity? The two ins truments through which ethics operate are the polity and the economic system.. Both are h eavily skewed in favour of the rich nations and the rich in the poor na tion s. While the global marketplace gives an illusion of global prosperity, in reality, it is a one way route to global disaster. The price tha t such illusory development is paying in terms of loss of en vironmental resources is totally irreversibl e. While globalisation of ideas and ideologies IS desirable, the global market is clearly a serious concern . Before we make any more blunders, we need to review in depth both the political and the economic system. It would be best to adop t a common sen se approach, a methodology fast disappearing. Social philosophers such as Gandhi have been highly critical of consumerismdriven capitalism as being exploitative and unsustainable. Soviet type controlled socialism has collapsed . Chinese type neo-fascism may best be avoided . The question is, if both capitalism and socialism a re undesirable, wh a t is the type of economic system that can realise a sustainable world order. Gandhi advocated an egalitarian economic sys tem in which all have equ al soc ial , environmental, economic and political rights and opportun iti es, realised through true g r assroo ts empowerment. Sadly, fe w unders tand h is simple language. Gandhi favours free enterprise but operating under the di scipline of empowered local communities. While leasing land, local communities can enforce that industry produces goods and services useful to society and generates wealth for crea ting productive employment and expansion, and for philanthropy, but does not indulge in ostentatious consump tion. Man must Tecognise the limits of science and technology. Notwithstanding the s trides made in the twentieth cen tury, science still has not been able to unravel the medium on which electromagnetic waves travel. To cover their ignorance, scientists call it ether but cannot explain it. Indian sages talked of celestial vibrations, OM, pronounced A-0-M, the three sounds instinctively made by a just born baby. According to them, such celesti al vibrations pervade the tmiverse. Th ey are the crea tor, the protector and the desh·oyer. They can makeman reach great spiritual heights . They carry the electromagnetic waves, and the internet. Sages have realised them. Science w ill never be able to unravel them. Physics needs to bow to metaphysics. Technology and markets to ethics. Courtesy: Development Alternatives May 2002, P 19, Fax: 91-(11) 686 6031 E-mail : tara.@sda lt. emet. in Web: www. deva.lt.org . ,.