Biotechnology and International Development: Prospects for Overcoming Dependence in the Information Age

Abstract

The last ten years have been marked by protracted crisis in the global economic system. The economies of the less developed countries (LDCs) initially seemed immune to the stagnation that began in the early and mid-1970s in the developed countries. The 1970s were an era of intense growth for LDCs such as Brazil, Mexico, Korea and Taiwan — in substantial measure because formerly highly profitable areas of production were moved from developed countries to LDCs in search of cheap labor while simultaneously becoming lower profit industries. In retrospect we can now see that this phase of capital mobility was the root of a growth boom that, up to the end of the 1970s, buoyed the economies of many LDCs. By the end of the 1970s, however, the investment boom in the Third World had peaked. Even the relatively ‘successful’ LDCs that were the major beneficiaries of the global capital mobility of the 1970s became mired in the global recession, calling into question whether even the privileged handful of ‘semi-industrialized’ countries will be able to adopt successfully the heavy industry and consumer durables growth model that supported post-war economic expansion in the North.