Unhappy Highways: Economic growth, technology and alienation

John Samuel cautions Africa that technology should not come at the expense of Africa's "a shared sense of community, mutual support, trust and a culture of collective approach."

Growth and technological innovations are the two key drivers of change. Technology and economic growth feed in to each other. Access to economic growth and technology is supposed to make life more comfortable. But the key paradox of economic and technological growth is that both of them tend to increase comfort and decrease the level of happiness. While rapid economic growth can create access to income, it can also create the paradox of abundance - wherein quantity of money and comforts subvert and undermine the quality of time, life, living and environment.

When growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not produce a parallel growth in Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), the purpose of economic growth and the use and misuse of technology are put into question. Economic growth is not a bad idea. But abundance can also create perpetual tension between the zest for freedoms and entrenched fears within and without. Such tensions can wake up the demons within the self and society - ceasing to trust each other, with increasing insecurity, paranoia and violence.

While embracing neo-liberal economic growth and new technologies, it is important for Africa to understand and appreciate the pros and cons of economic and technological growth. Africa's biggest resource, apart from its natural resources, is a shared sense of community, mutual support, trust and a culture of collective approach. However, bulldozing capitalism and economic growth of few elites superimposed on rather traditional societies can create new inequalities, individuation, paranoia and consequent violence. If only a minuscule minority get access to the fruits of economic growth and technology, it can indeed create an Economics of Violence. A shared sense of inequality and injustice become breeding grounds for alienation and reactionary violence. This is evident on the streets of Johannesburg to Nairobi.

Hence, it will be worthwhile to look at the experience of some of the fast growing economies in Asia. Most of the Asian countries too have a strong sense of community and collective ethics. But in the new flood of economic growth and technological invasion, new challenges are emerging.

Technology is both the beauty and the beast at the same time. Technology is a double edged sword. Every tool's validity depends on who uses it for what. Tool itself may not be political- but the use of tool is always an exercise of Power.

Technology has been the main protagonist in the drama of economic growth in the modern and post-modern times. Technology did make a difference to human condition, comforts and lives. Technology has almost acquired God-like- power to create, sustain and destruct; and at the same time a means for the search for perfection; conquering stars and cloning life. The ground zero in New York, the blazing guns and exploding young men on a busy street symbolize the frightening dance of technology.

It is the unequal and asymmetric access to technology that also propelled various kinds of dominations. In fact, technology, as means of domination- as means to travel great distance, communicate and as a means to confront an "enemy' with more "productive" killing power( weapons of mass destruction- played a very important role in all conquests. Those who had access to horse breeding, gun powder, steam energy, ship technology, missiles, space technology used all these to create muscle power to dominate. This power play and technology are still being played out across the world. The origin of this very technology- Internet- too is in the defense labs of the US.

There is a clear connection between patterns of conquests, colonialisation, technology and natural resources. Colony went where there was coal, timber, iron, and food. Hence, in the 18nth or 19th century the so called “middle east” did not exist in the imperialist scheme of things. Railway lines happened wherever there were some resources to be ripped off. The printing press created new politics of knowledge, and new rules for domination. Of course, printing press also unleashed a linguistic revolution- through hundreds of new grammar, new dictionaries, new Bibles and new books. Translations translated and transformed lives and times. Shipping technology helped us to cross the sea to hold hands as well as to capture lands. The moment technology shifted from Steam based mechanics to Oil one could see the shift in focus of imperialism. There is a direct connection between the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century and the shift of imperial interests to the so called “Middle East"(erstwhile Persia and Arabia).

In a metro-line in Tokyo, most of the young people are glued to their mobile, playing games, browsing Internet, chatting with someone on line and they hardly even notice the person sitting next. While people are connecting with some in the distance, they are alienated from the person sitting or living next door. The cyber world, social networking on the net etc creates different sort of virtual and imagined communities, while subverting and undermining human communities in real lives.

In counties like Japan, young people seem to be too busy to fall in or rise in love. Thirty thousand people commit suicide every year- one of the highest in the world. An aggressive economic growth and an invading technology seem to have created more people using Internet to find a "mate' to sleep with or to do "love- networking, and young people using technology to get a high kick to make "suicide- pact" on the net. When even love, passion and feeling get automated and orderly with sense of perfect routine, life becomes a boring burden: where life cease to give any excitement, people may search excitement in death! It has become a case of an economic society superimposed on a very traditional socio-cultural society , with pervading sense of new individuation and depoliticisation.

Everyone seems to be so pre-occupied with his or her own economic survival, at the cost of emotional security, resulting social/community disintegration. Every young person seems to be busy finding a job, proving his or her sense of self-worth as a "hardworking" professional with “sincerity" to the job. There is no time to hold hands, to walk in a park or to sing a song. When life is so automated and orderly without a possibility of anarchic thinking and life, creativity takes a back seat and productivity takes a front seat. Livelihood takes precedence over living and living takes precedence over life. Efficiency of our work goes up and the effectiveness of life gets discounted.

So when human beings cease to be social and creative and tend to be productive workforce, preoccupied with survival of the self, the seeds of alienation bloom in to a cancer of social disintegration and depolitisation. One ceases to be a part of a community but a loner in the midst of an anonymous crowd. This sense of erosion of aesthetics from human relations and society tend dehumanize the society and the world.

Sudden economic growth can induce more demands in some sectors, pushing up the cost of price and living. The increased income of a miniscule minority also propelled new consumerism with consequent increase in cost of living. In rapid growing economies of Asia, the sky rocketing real estate prices, smashed the housing dreams and rights of the majority of urban middle class. This in turn reduces the real purchasing capacity and increase the discontent of those who did not get much out of economic growth; making the recipe for an economics of violence.

Economic growth and technology may increase the access to comforts, but may also induce new individuation (transforming people from "social animal" to "economic animal" driven by economic compulsions), social disintegration, new paranoia and consequent loss of time or mindset for poetry, politics, love, companionship or community.

This paranoia, emotional insecurity and loss of community also create a new market for spiritualism and new adapted form of market-driven religious denominations. Brand new spiritual shops and “gurus” are thriving as a result of the market induced emotional and social insecurity among people who have becomes the villains and victims of the mega-markets!

*John Samuel is a social activist and the International Director of Actionaid.

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