Economic and Technological Advancements

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Description of the Topic
Evaluation
Alternative Solutions/Recommendations
Conclusion
References

Introduction

For the past decades the industrialized world has seen a number of economic and technological advancements which changed people’s lives, irrespective of the country they lived in. Globalization has affected most of the world countries and was not always beneficial for them. Rapid development and inability to correspond to certain standards of technological development have considerably undermined the economies of developing countries.

Spreading of economic and technological advancements had a paradoxical effect on the modern world. On the one hand, it facilitated the lives of a number of people and opened new possibilities to them. It is a common knowledge that the development of technology “has contributed enormously to economic growth and social progress in the industrialized world.” (Karwowsky, 2002) Economically, it made trade and a number of other operations easier, which increased the profits of the exporter countries and ensured their rapid economic development. Socially, it brought advancements in communication and transportation which broke down all the existing barriers of space and time. On the other hand, economic and technological advancements entailed unequal distribution of wealth and profits.

Globalization opened new opportunities in front of the countries, but only the well-developed ones: “To take full advantage of globalization required both capital and access to technology. Many states in the international system have neither.” (Griffiths, O’Callaghan, & Roach, 2008) The spread of globalization, as well as its impact, was uneven. For instance, the citizens of some of the countries of the Third World do not have access to telephones, let alone the Internet which, as people of the developed countries believe, is impossible to live without. In this way, globalization resulted in poverty, low quality of life, and environmental degradation.

This paper is going to discuss the main issues related to the topic of economic and technological advancements and disclose how these advancements create wealth for some people and make others poorer at this, in what ways economic and technological development is causing environmental degradation, which governmental policies, international agreements, regulations, etc. were implemented since the issue under consideration became concerning, how effective these policies, agreements, regulations, etc. were, and which plausible solutions for managing the negative repercussions of technological applications exist.

Description of the Topic

Economic and Technological Advancements Make Some People Wealthier

Economic and technological advancements were noticed to have positive effect on the lives of wealthy people and developed countries. Firstly, those countries which can afford improving their economies by means of innovative technologies get profits from using them and become even wealthier. Similarly, those people who are wealthy enough to buy new technologies can use them for improvement of their businesses and production processes and increase their profits, thus increasing their wealth. Moreover, wealthy people who have their own businesses can purchase new technologies and create new job places for people to work with these technologies.

Extra working force will with time bring them extra profits. Lastly, wealthy people can invest money in new technologies, because they are the main source for investment capital. (Skousen, 2002) After investing money they will be able to get returns on their investments and get wealthier.

Economic and Technological Advancements Make Some People Poorer

Just like wealthy people become wealthier, poor people become poorer with the development of technologies. Poor people possess limited sums of money and, trying to keep pace with development, they have to purchase new technologies which have nowadays become a necessity (such as TV-sets or cell phones). This exhausts their financial resources and makes them even poorer. Figuratively, they become poorer because wealthy people get wealthier; this increases the gap between them and makes poor people’s profits insignificant as compared to wealthy people’s profits.

Furthermore, development of technologies engenders economic development of the country; the government increases taxes because, due to wealthy people’s profits, living standards are raised. Taxes are calculated depending on the overall profits of population. As a result, poor people have to pay higher taxes and this makes them poorer. Finally, due to the same economic development, the prices for food and services are raised, which also has negative influence on poor people’s welfare.

Development of Technologies Causes Environmental Degradation

Natural environment is often sacrificed in the pursuit of economic growth. It is ignored by the government policies most of which are aimed at improving economic welfare and ensuring proper technological development of the country.

It is a rare occurrence that such policies take into account that this pursuit of economic growth leads to environmental degradation. In the first place, this leads to the exhaustion of natural resources because of constructing hydroelectric power plants, coal mines, metallurgical plants, and factories. Secondly, development is causing environmental degradation through the pollution of water and air which is caused by different technological innovations. Lastly, development of technologies results in the shortage of water resources, because such industries as, for instance, hospitality industry, develop rapidly and consume large amounts of water. These facts show that technological development leads to environmental degradation.

Statistics

According to the data obtained from the National Poverty Center, 12.5 percent of the world population lived in poverty in 2007. This means that the rates fell as compared to 1993 (15.1 percent) but increased by 1.2 percent in the period from 1993 till 2000, because in 2000 the number of poor people constituted 11.3 per cent. (National Poverty Center, 2006) Wealth rates are more striking, which means that economic and technological development increases the welfare of rich people more than that of poor people.

Thus, as stated in 2008 World Wealth Report, “Global HNWI wealth totaled US $ 40.7 trillion, a 9.4% gain from 2006, with average HNWI wealth surpassing US $ 4 million for the first time.” (McCann, 2008) These data testify to the fact that wealth rates are growing faster than the poverty rates increase, which means that technological and economic advancements indeed cause poverty and low quality of life.

Evaluation

Government Policies and National Agreements

To control the development and distribution of technologies the governments of different countries have adopted numerous policies and agreements. Some of them were applied locally and others on a nation-wide scale. One of the first national agreements was the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980.

As stated by Hallacher 2005, “this act established mechanisms for monitoring national industrial competitiveness and for encouraging technology transfer from national laboratories to industry and marked the emergence of a new technology paradigm in the United States.”Among other national agreements dealing with technological advancements The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act is the most well-known. This act became law in March 1996 with the purpose of development of the standards for technology production and distribution:

Under this Act, agencies are required to “use technical standards that are developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies” to carry out policy objectives determined by the agencies, unless they are “inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical.” There is also a waiver provision authorizing an agency to waive this provision … if the head of each such agency or department transmits to the OMB [Office of management and Budget] an explanation of the reasons for not using such standards. (Lubbers, Administrative conference of the United States, Office of the Chairman, American Bar Association, 2007)

The United States of America was the most active in adopting relating to technological advancement acts and policies and implementing numerous programs. Thus, the Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 established Small Business Innovation research program under which it was allowed to commercialize the firm’s resulting programs and processes. This was followed by the Small Business Technology Transfer program which encouraged firms to cooperate with federal laboratories and universities with the purpose of commercializing the results of the research. Another act, The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act which became law in 1988 established the Advanced Technology Program which provided funding to companies and industries to accelerate the development of technologies. (Schacht, 2007) All these acts were amended and altered from 1990 till 2002-2004, though it did not considerably influence their primary objectives.

Effectiveness of Government Policies and National Agreements

On the whole, all of the abovementioned acts and policies were relatively effective. The disadvantages which these legislations involved were insignificant. For instance, the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act facilitated the access to science and technology. However, cooperation of federal laboratories with firms producing technologies could result in the dissemination of federal information to the private industries.

This is a mere matter of security which the federal government should have enhanced after adopting the act. The same is true about The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act which provided access to federal laboratories for private businesses. As far as the Small Business Innovation Development Act and the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act are concerned, they could hardly be inefficient, because all the inconsistencies were dealt with by means of numerous amendments and alterations of the acts themselves and the programs which they created.

Alternative Solutions/Recommendations

Dealing with the negative repercussions of technological applications requires serious government intervention. Each of the issues the technological advancements have entailed, namely poverty, low quality of life, and environmental degradation should be dealt with separately. Trying to cope with environmental degradation nation-wide and world-wide is unlikely to bring any tangible results, because it would be hard to see different policies implemented and to trace corresponding changes. The government of each country should be responsible for local violations of policies; it should not only report the slightest violations of environmental policies, but try to reduce the number of such violations.

To do this, environmental policies should be enforced in each state or region of the country and a person responsible for observing of these policies should be assigned. Firms, companies, and industries which violate the policies should be called to account and punished up to legal punishment and closing of the industry or transforming it into a more environmentally conscious one. Prior to these measures, one common environmental policy act should be adopted. For this, governments of each country in a definite region (for instance, East Asia or Western Europe) will have to create approximate standards of the usage of technology harmful for the environment.

Poverty and low quality of life should be dealt with locally, because the development of the countries of the world is uneven. There are hardly any solutions to these problems since they are rooted far deeper than in mere development of technology.

Technological advancements have increased poverty and lowered quality of life of some people, but they did not breed it. The damage which technologies continue inflicting can be slowed down and eventually stopped if the rates of technology penetration into a definite country are controlled. The government should establish correlation between technology penetration and poverty rates, as well as quality of life. After obtaining definite figures it would be easier to control the penetration of technology and its effects on poverty rates and quality of life.

Conclusion

This paper has identified that the consequences of the economic and technological advancements may be positive and negative. They facilitate people’s life and work providing them with all the possible means for communication, trade, transportation, etc. However, these advancements made the spread of profits uneven, which resulted in rich people getting wealthier and poor people becoming poorer.

Due to technological advancements, rich people have an opportunity to improve their businesses and invest in technological innovations, which with time increases their profits. Poor people, in their turn, have to spend money for at least some of these innovations and pay higher taxes, which makes them even poorer. Moreover, technological advancements have damaged the environment. Government policies and national agreements which the countries carry out seem to be effective, but not strong enough to fight with poverty, law quality of life, and environmental degradation. This paper has suggested possible solutions to these problems, though those were only suggestions which would be hard to put into life.

References

Griffiths, M., O’Callaghan, T., & Roach, S.C. (2008). International Relations: the Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.

Hallacher, P.M. (2005). Why Policy Issue Networks Matter: The Advanced Technology Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Karwowsky, W. (2002), International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors. New York: Taylor & Francis.

McCann, R. (2008). World Wealth Report. New York: Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

National Poverty Center. (2006) Poverty in the United States. Web.

Schacht, W.H. (2007). Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement: Debate Over Government Policy. CRS Report for Congress. Web.

Skousen, M. (2002). The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of The Great Thinkers. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

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