Abstract
There is a central concept that must be grasped if one is to comprehend the role, possibilities and amenability to policy measures of technology in the contemporary world. It is a type of social capital that is created by an investment process, yields a return in the same way as other investments and requires continuing expenditure on maintenance against depreciation and possibly improvement in the face of obsolescence. The investment may be worthwhile, in economic terms, or it may not — just like other kinds of investment. It may or may not require a prior investment in creating intellectual capital in the form of basic scientific knowledge; conversely, social investment in the creation of intellectual capital may or may not lead to the development of profitable new technologies. Similarly, it may or may not require expensive and impressive investments in engineering new types of capital equipment and designing new types of buildings and transport and conveyor systems; and public investment in, or subsidisation of, new types of machinery and construction may or may not pay off in terms of establishing a more profitable technology.
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Notes
The factors contributing to the deterioration in international economic relations are succinctly discussed in Hugh Corbet, “Global Challenge to Commercial Diplomacy”, Pacific Community, Tokyo, October 1971.
The issues involved in the international monetary crises of these years are reviewed in my Stamp Memorial Lecture of November 1973, The Problem of International Monetary Reform ( London: Athlone Press, 1974 ).
When the deliberations of the Committee of Twenty, appointed by the IMF to recommend reforms of the international monetary system, were suspended in the early spring of 1974 they had clarified a number of issues. The situation was set out in British, European and American Interests in the Negotiations on International Monetary Reform, Staff Paper no. 3 (London: Trade Policy Research Centre, 1973). But certain basic principles were being overlooked in the deliberations. In this connection, see Johnson, “General Principles of World Monetary Reform”, in Corbet and Robert Jackson (eds), In Search of a New World Economic Order (London: Croom Helm, for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1974; and New York: Wiley, 1974 ).
The problems which were likely to thwart the progress of monetary union were in fact discussed in: Johnson, “Problems of European Monetary Union”, Euromoney, London, April 1971.
Also see Corden, Monetary Integration, Essay in International Finance no. 93 ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972 ).
For a review of the energy situation in the European Community following the precipitation of the oil crisis, see George Ray, Energy Policy in Western Europe, Thames Essay no. 6 ( London: Trade Policy Research Centre, 1974 ).
Although the writing had been on the wall for several years, and had been bluntly expressed by several commentators not in the public eye, it took a former official of the Commission to state the obvious: Ronald Grierson, “Wishful Thinking in Brussels is the Barrier to Real Progress in the European Community”, The Times, London, 13 August 1974.
D. Gale Johnson, World Agriculture in Disarray (London: Macmillan [hard-cover] and Fontana [paperback], for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1973; and New York: St. Martin’s Press [hard-cover] and New Viewpoints [paperback], 1973 ).
Two thorough analyses of “market disruption” and the provision of temporary “escape clause” protection are: Tumlir, “Emergency Protection against Sharp Increases in Imports”, in Corbet and Jackson (eds), op. cit., pp. 260–84; and David Robertson, Fail Safe Systems for Trade Liberalisation, Thames Essay no. 8 (London: Trade Policy Research Centre, 1975).
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© 1975 Harry G. Johnson and the Trade Policy Research Centre
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Johnson, H.G. (1975). Technology and International Economic Integration. In: Technology and Economic Interdependence. Trade Policy Research Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15611-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15611-5_8
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