We could usher in a new dark ages in the way Lester Thurow describes it happening. Although, Thurow lays his analysis off on William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire; the analysis is Thurow not Manchester. It's more like Thurow's economic interpretation of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Enzo, I'm sure that you are aware that the ancient Romans built large scale irrigation systems in North Africa and the Middle East. With the fall of the Roman Empire these systems were destroyed by the barbarians or fell into disrepair and were never re-built. Even today lands that were irrigated way back then are not irrigated today!
Please, remember that what is low tech to us may be rocket science or dreaming in the 3rd world. The growth of deserts, deforestation on a massive scale, polluted water and toxic waste is this the world we want? Or do we want to gear our industries to building productive equipment that can make life in most of the world tolerable.
Sincerely, Tom Lehman
Enzo Michelangeli wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lehman <TLEHMAN at lor.net>
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> Date: Sunday, December 13, 1998 7:32 AM
> Subject: Re: Merger Mania
>
> >The, sort of ,defense argument that I think works goes something like this:
> people
> >all over the world need clean water, irrigation, and sanitary sewer
> systems. We in
> >the USA make the best equipment to solve these types of problems. We make
> the
> >pipe, we make the pumps, the motors, have the technology to make the
> deserts and
> >wastelands of the world bloom. We should be exporting this equipment and
> these
> >technologies. It's low tech---it's also what people need in the 3rd world.
> To my
> >way of thinking this makes long term friends and allies.
>
> No you shouldn't: low tech is what industries in the 3rd world can do best,
> and if you flood their market with subsidized products you destroy their
> fledgling industries. Instead, you should open your markets and _buy_ their
> products. Even if this upsets your steel lobby (and your textile lobby, and
> your toy lobby and...)
>
> Enzo