------------------------------------------ -- EZ A SZÁM CSAK TEXT FORMÁBAN LÉTEZIK -- ------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 22:48:40 EST Subject: *** FORUM *** #170 Tartalomjegyzek: ---------------- Felado : pvoros@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Temakor : Competitive Advantage of Nations Felado : pvoros@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Temakor : Competitive Advantage of Nations =f.= Felado : h1105dea@ella.hu Temakor : ??? Felado : 72600.3046@compuserve.com Temakor : ...from the margins - media watch II. Felado : hetyei@athena.mit.edu Temakor : A Baltikumi nemzetisegi kerdes- a tavoli Amerikabol nezve =============================================== Felado : pvoros@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Beerkezett: Tue Mar 12 03:34:08 EST 1991 Temakor : Competitive Advantage of Nations - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Kedves Forumozok! Eloszor is elnezest kerek a hosszura nyult elozo reszert az orszagok versenykepessegerol szolo cikk ismerteteseben. A kovetkezo resz rovidebb lesz, temaja is egyike a legerdekesebbeknek: itt foglalja ossze Porter, o hogyan latja az allam, a kormanyok szerepet a gazdasagban, a "national diamond"- ban.^Z *************************************************************************** ^?WPC6^A *************************************************************************** Udv Voros Peter =============================================== Felado : pvoros@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Beerkezett: Tue Mar 12 05:34:54 EST 1991 Temakor : Competitive Advantage of Nations =f.= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Elnezest, osszekutyulodtak a file-jaim, itt kuldom az igert harmadik folytatast: ************************************************************************ The Diamond as a System Each of these four attributes defines a point on the diamond of national advantage; the effect of one point often depends on the state of others. Sophisticated buyers will not translate into advanced products, for example, unless the quality of human resources permits companies to meet buyer needs. Selective disadvantages in factors of production will not motivate innovation unless rivalry is vigorous and company goals support sustained investment. At the broadest level, weaknesses in any one determinant will constrain an industry's potential for advancement and upgrading. But the points of the diamond are also self-reinforcing: they constitute a system. Two elements, domestic rivalry and geographic concentration, have especially great power to transform the diamond into a system - domestic rivalry because it promotes improvement in all the other determinants and geographic concentration because it elevates and magnifies the interaction of the four separate influences. The role of domestic rivalry illustrates how the diamond operates as a self-reinforcing system. Vigorous domestic rivalry stimulates the development of unique pools of specialized factors, particularly if rival are all located in one city or region: the University of California at Davis has become the world's leading center of wine-making research, working closely with the California wine industry. Active local rivals also upgrade domestic demand in an industry. In furniture and shoes, for example, Italian consumers have learned to expect more and better products because of the rapid pace of new product development that is driven by intense domestic rivalry among hundreds of Italian companies. Domestic rivalry also promotes the formation of related and supporting industries. Japan's world-leading group of semiconductor producers, for instance, has spawned world-leading Japanese semiconductor-equipment manufacturers. The effects can work in all directions: sometimes world-class suppliers become new entrants in the industry they have been supplying. Or highly sophisticated buyers may themselves enter a supplier industry, particularly when they have relevant skills and view the new industry as strategic. In the case of the Japanese robotics industry, for example, Matsushita and Kawasaki originally designed robots for internal use before beginning to sell robots to others. Today they are strong competitors in the robotics industry. In Sweden, Sandvik moved from specialty steel into rock drills, and SKF moved from specialty steel into ball bearings. Another effect of the diamond's systematic nature is that nations are rarely home to just one competitive industry; rather, the diamond creates an environment that promotes c l u s t e r s of competitive industries. Competitive industries are not scattered helter-skelter throughout the economy but are usually linked together through vertical (buyer-seller) of horizontal (common customers, technology, channels) relationships. Nor are clusters usually scattered physically; they tend to be concentrated geographically. One competitive industry helps to create another in a mutually reinforcing process. Japan's strength in consumer electronics, for example, drove its success in semiconductors toward the memory chips and integrated circuits these products use. Japanese strength in laptop computers, which contrasts to limited success in other segments, reflects the base of strength in other compact, portable products and leading expertise in liquid-crystal display gained in the calculator and watch industries. Once a cluster forms, the whole group of industries becomes mutually supporting. Benefits flow forward, backward, and horizontally. Aggressive rivalry in one industry spreads to others in the cluster, through spin-offs, through the exercise of bargaining power, and through diversification by established companies. Entry from other industries within the cluster spurs upgrading by stimulating diversity in research and development (R & D) approaches and facilitating the introduction of new strategies and skills. Through the conduits of suppliers or customers who have contact with multiple competitors, information flows freely and innovations diffuse rapidly. Interconnections within the cluster, often unanticipated, lead to perceptions of new ways of competing and new opportunities. The cluster becomes a vehicle for maintaining diversity and overcoming the inward focus, inertia, inflexibility, and accommodation among rivals that slows or blocks competitive upgrading and new entry. The Role of Government In the continuing debate over the competitiveness of nations, no topic engenders more argument or creates less understanding than the role of the government. Many see government as an essential helper or supporter of industry, employing a host of policies to contribute directly to the competitive performance of strategic or target industries. Others accept the "free market" view that the operation of the economy should be left to the workings of the invisible hand. Both views are incorrect. Either, followed to its logical outcome, would lead to the permanent erosion of a country's competitive capabilities. On one hand, advocates of government help for industry frequently propose policies that would actually hurt companies in the long run and only create the demand for more helping. On the other hand, advocates of a diminished government presence ignore the legitimate role that government plays in shaping the context and institutional structure surrounding companies and in creating an environment that stimulates companies to gain competitive advantage. Government's proper role is as a catalyst and challenger; it is to encourage - or even push - companies to raise their aspirations and move to higher levels of competitive performance, even though this process may be inherently unpleasant and difficult. Government cannot create competitive industries; only companies can do that. Government plays a role that is inherently partial, that succeeds only when working in tandem with favorable underlying conditions in the diamond. Still, government's role of transmitting and amplifying the forces of the diamond is a powerful one. Government policies that succeed are those that create an environment in which companies can gain competitive advantage rather than those that involve government directly in the process, except early in nations in the development process. It is an indirect, rather a direct, role. Japan's government, at its best, understands their role better than anyone - including the point that nations pass through stages of competitive development and that government's appropriate role shifts as the economy progresses. By stimulating early demand for advanced products, confronting industries with the need to pioneer frontier technology through symbolic cooperative projects, establishing prizes that reward quality, and pursuing other policies that magnify the forces of the diamond, the Japanese government accelerates the pace of innovation. But like government officials anywhere, at their worst Japanese bureaucrats can make the same mistakes: to manage industry structure, protecting the market too long, and yielding to political pressure to insulate inefficient retailers, farmers, distributors, and industrial companies from competition. It is not hard to understand why so many governments make the same mistakes so often in pursuit of national competitiveness: competitive time for companies and political time for government are fundamentally at odds. It often takes more than a decade for an industry to create competitive advantage; the process entails the long upgrading of human skills, investing in products and processes, building clusters, and penetrating foreign markets. In the case of the Japanese auto industry, for instance, companies made their firs faltering steps toward exporting in the 1950s - yet did not achieve strong international positions until the 1970s. But in politics, a decade is an eternity. Consequently, most governments favor policies that offer easily perceived short- term benefits, such as subsidies, protection, and arranged mergers - the very policies that retard innovation. Most of the policies that would make a real difference either are too slow and require too much patience for politicians or, even worse, carry with them the sting of short-term pain. Deregulating a protected industry, for example, will lead to bankruptcies sooner and to stronger, more competitive companies only later. Policies that convey static, short-term cost advantages but that unconsciously undermine innovation and dynamism represent the most common and most profound error in government industrial policy. In a desire to help, it is all too easy for government to adopt policies such as joint projects to avoid "wasteful" R & D that undermine dynamism and competition. yet even a 10% cost saving through economies of scale is easily nullified through rapid product and process improvement and the pursuit of volume in global markets - something that such policies undermine. There are some simple, basic principles that governments should embrace to play the proper supportive role for national competitiveness: encourage change, promote domestic rivalry, stimulate innovation. Some of the specific policy approaches to guide nations seeking to gain competitive advantage include the following: F o c u s o n s p e c i a l i z e d f a c t o r c r e a t i o n . Government has critical responsibilities for fundamentals like the primary and secondary education systems, basic national infrastructure, and research in areas of broad national concern such as health care. Yet these kinds of generalized efforts at factor creation rarely produce competitive advantage. Rather, the factors that translate into competitive advantage are advanced, specialized, and tied to specific industries or industry groups. Mechanisms such a specialized apprenticeship programs, research efforts in universities connected with an industry, trade association activities, and, most important, the private investment of companies ultimately create the factors that will yield competitive advantage. A v o i d i n t e r v e n i n g i n f a c t o r a n d c u r r e n c y m a r k e t s . By intervening in factor and currency markets, governments hope to create lower factor costs or a favorable exchange rate that will help companies more effectively in international markets. Evidence from around the world indicates that these policies - such as the Reagan administration's dollar devaluation - are often counterproductive. The work again the upgrading of industry and the search for more sustainable competitive advantage. The contrasting case of Japan is particularly instructive, although both Germany and Switzerland have had similar experiences. Over the past 20 years, the Japanese have been rocked by the sudden Nixon currency devaluation shock, two oil shocks, and, most recently, the yen shock - all of which forced Japanese companies to upgrade their competitive advantages. The point is not that governments should pursue policies that intentionally drive up factor costs or the exchange rate. Rather, when market forces create rising factor costs or a higher exchange rate, government should resist the temptation to push them back down. E n f o r c e s t r i c t p r o d u c t , s a f e t y , a n d e n v i r o n m e n t a l s t a n d a r d s . Strict government regulations can promote competitive advantage by stimulating and pugading domestic demand. Stringent standards for product performance, product safety, and environmental impact pressure companies to improve quality, upgrade technology, and provide features that respond to consumer and social demands. Easing standards, however tempting, is counterproductive. When tough regulations anticipate standards that will spread internationally, they give a nation's companies a head start in developing products and services that will be valuable elsewhere. Sweden's strict standards for ep have promoted competitive advantage in many industries. Atlas Copco, for example, produces quiet compressors that can be used in dense urban areas with minimal disruption to residents. Strict standards, however, must be combined with a rapid and streamlined regulatory process that does not absorb resources and cause delays. S h a r p l y l i m i t d i r e c t c o o p e r a t i o n a m o n g i n d u s t r y r i v a l s . The most pervasive global policy fad in the competitiveness arena today is the call for more cooperative research and industry consortia. Operating on the belief that independent research by rivals is wasteful and duplicative, that collaborative efforts achieve economies of scale, and that individual companies are likely to underinvest in R & D because they cannot reap all the benefits, governments have embraced the idea of more direct cooperation. In the United States, antitrust laws have been modified to allow more cooperative R & D; in Europe, mega-projects such as ESPRIT, an information-technology project, bring together companies from several countries. Lurking behind much of this thinking is the fascination of Western governments with - and fundamental misunderstanding of - the countless cooperative research projects sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), projects that appear to have contributed to Japan's competitive rise. But a closer look at Japanese cooperative projects suggests a different story. Japanese companies participate in MITI projects to maintain good relations with MITI, to preserve their corporate images, and hedge the risk that competitors will gain from the project - largely defensive reasons. Companies rarely contribute their best scientists and engineers to cooperative projects and usually spend much more on their own private research in the same field. Typically, the government makes only a modes financial contribution to the project. The real value of Japanese cooperative research is to signal the importance of emerging technical ares and to stimulate proprietary company research. Cooperative projects prompt companies to explore new fields and boost internal R & D spending because companies know their domestic rivals are investigating them. Under certain limited conditions, cooperative research can prove beneficial. Projects should be in areas of basic product and process research, not in subjects closely connected to a company's proprietary sources of advantage. They should constitute only a modest portion of a company's overall research program in any given field. Cooperative research should be only indirect, channeled through independent organization to which most industry participants have access. Organizational structures, like university labs and centers of excellence, reduce management problems and minimize the risk to rivalry. Finally, the most useful cooperative projects often involve fields that touch a number of industries and that require substantial R & D investments. P r o m o t e g o a l s t h a t l e a d t o s u s t a i n e d i n v e s t m e n t . Government has a vital role in shaping the goals of investors, managers, and employees through policies in various areas. The manner in which capital markets are regulated, for example, shapes the incentives of investors and, in turn, the behavior of companies. Government should aim to encourage sustained investment in human skills, in innovation, and in physical assets. Perhaps the single most powerful tool for raising the rate of sustained investment innovation in industry is a tax incentive for long-term (five years or more) capital gains restricted to new investment in corporate equity. Long-term capital gains incentives should also be applied to pension funds and other currently untaxed investors, who now have few reasons not to engage in rapid trading. D e r e g u l a t e c o m p e t i t i o n . Regulation of competition through such policies as maintaining a state monopoly, controlling entry into an industry, or fixing prices has two strong negative consequences: it stifles rivalry and in as companies become preoccupied with dealing with regulators and protecting what they already have; and makes the industry a less dynamic and less desirable buyer or supplier. Deregulation and privatization on their own, however, will not succeed without vigorous domestic rivalry - and that requires, as a corollary, a strong and consistent antitrust policy. E n f o r c e s t r o n g d o m e s t i c a n t i t r u s t p o l i c i e s . A strong antitrust policy - especially for horizontal mergers, alliances, and collusive behavior - is fundamental to innovation. While it is fashionable today to call for mergers and alliances in the name of globalization and the creation of national champions, these often undermine the creation of competitive advantage. Real national competitiveness requires governments to disallow mergers, acquisitions, and alliances that involve industry leaders. Furthermore, the same standards for mergers and alliances should apply to both domestic and foreign companies. Finally, government policy should favor internal entry, both domestic and international, over acquisition. Companies should, however, be allowed to acquire small companies in related industries when the move promotes the transfer of skill that ultimately create competitive advantage. R e j e c t m a n a g e d t r a d e . Managed trade represents a growing and dangerous tendency for dealing with the fallout of national competitiveness. Orderly marketing agreements, voluntary restraint agreements, or other devices that set quantitative targets to divide up markets are dangerous, ineffective, and often enormously costly to consumers. Rather than promoting in a nation's industries, managed trade guarantees a market for inefficient companies. Government trade policy should pursue open market access in every foreign nation. To be effective, trade policy should not be a passive instrument; it cannot respond only to complaints or work only for those industries that can muster enough political clout; it should not require a long history of injury or serve only distressed industries. Trade policy should seek to open markets wherever a nation has competitive advantage and should actively address emerging industries and incipient problems. Where government finds a trade barrier in another nation, it should concentrate its remedies on dismantling barriers, not on regulating imports or exports. In the case of Japan, for example, pressure to accelerate the already rapid growth of manufactured imports is a more effective approach than a shift to managed trade. Compensatory tariffs that punish companies for unfair trade practices are better than market quotas. Other increasingly important tools to open markets are restrictions that prevent companies in offending nations from investing in acquisitions or productions facilities in the host country - thereby blocking the unfair country's companies from using their advantage to establish a new beachhead that is immune from sanctions. Any of these remedies, however, can backfire. It is virtually impossible to craft remedies to unfair trade practices that avoid both reducing incentives for domestic companies to innovate and export and harming domestic buyers. The aim of remedies should be adjustments that allow the remedy to disappear.^Z ************************************************************************ Voros Peter =============================================== Felado : h1105dea@ella.hu Beerkezett: Tue Mar 12 08:17:41 EST 1991 Temakor : ??? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ujabb optimista hireim (vicc: Te gazsi, csuklik a lo. - Hat adjal neki vizet. - nem ugy, ossze.) 1. A cegbirosagra az elmult evben tapasztalnal is nagyobb mennyisegu uj ceg bejegyzesere iranyulo kerelmet adtak be januarban. A birosag nem is tudja megmondani, hogy hany uj ceget akartak februarban bejegyeztetni, mert meg mindig a januarban beadottak ugyintezesevel foglalkoznak. 2. A magyar fizetesi merleg 1991. januar es februar ho osszesitett merlege mintegy 350 millio dollar magyar pozitivummal zarult.(Ennek a hirnek az ertekebol levonando az a jelenseg, hogy jonehany ceg az akkor mar rebesgetett forintleertekeles hatasara az esedekes kifizeteset 1990 vegerol elhalasztotta 1991 elejere) 3. Az elso ket honapi kulkereskedelmi merlegben 500-550 millio dollar magyar aktivum van. 4. Feketepiaci arfolyamok. Vaci utca markat eladni 52 Ft. ha venni akar valaki, 54-55 Ft Dollar 78 Ft. ill. 81-82 Ft. Schilling 7,20 ill. 7,70 Ft. Berlinben 100 Ftert 1,50 - 1,70 markat adnak, ha 100 Ft-ot vesz valaki, akkor 2,30 -tol 2,50 ig kell fizetni. Becsben 100 ft 11,70 schiling, illetve 14,75 schilling. Az elmult heten kb 5%-al megemelkedett Becsben a forint ara, vagyis az ottani piac ugy ertekelte, hogy tobbet er. Ez szerintem, meg a feketepiaci arfolyamnak a hivatalostol alig eltero (10 % koruli) erteke azt mutatja, hogy az inflacios penzek nem mozognak mar at valutaba. Kevesbe jo hirek 1. A szovjettel valo kulkereskedelem az elso ket honapban gyakorlatilag egyiranyu, a megyarok veszik az olajat es keszpenzben fizetnek dollarral, az oroszok meg vennenek mindenfelet, de nem fizetnek. Mintegy 200 millio dollar erteku arura van szerzodes, ami javareszt el is keszult mar, de nem szallitjak ki, mert az oroszok csak 20-30 millio dollarra nyitottak akreditivet (vagyis csak ennyi penz kifizetese biztos.) 2. Az inflacio januarban 6,5, februarban 4 szazalek volt az Ujcsako szerint, a kormany szamitasa szerint a januari inflacio 7,5% volt. Udvozlettel: Deak Istvan Kelt 1991. marcius 12. =============================================== Felado : 72600.3046@compuserve.com Beerkezett: Tue Mar 12 18:04:49 EST 1991 Temakor : ...from the margins - media watch II. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The nature that the sciences - which means, scientists - tell us about is a nature scientists invent so as to provide the kinds of explanations of it, and uses of it, that the society requires. Societal intensions toward nature are what shape scientific descriptions of it, the descriptions, if you will, are intension-laden. What I am getting at is that science and the conceptualizations of nature that scientists explain by means of it are no less cultural products and social productions than are economics, political science and philosophy. Ruth Hubbard, biologist Elvezettel olvastam Posfai Janos genekrol szolo fejtegeteseit a mult heti forumban, egeszen addig mig az utolso bekezdeshez nem ertem: >Szukseg van-e az elovilag ma meglevo teljes diverzitasanak megorzesere? Nem >biztos, hisz fajok kihalasa mindig egyutt jart az evolucioval. Szuksegunk >lehet-e a jovoben a mar kipusztult fajok genjeire? Nem lehetetlen, hogy mire >kideritik, hogy mikepp mukodtethetok hasznosan es biztonsagosan idegen genek >egy fejlett organizmusban, addigra mar tudnak a letezo es letezett geneknel >jobbakat is tervezni. Ettol kicsit nyugtalan lettem: egy huxleyszeru brave new world sejlett fel elottem, amiben nem hiszem, hogy jol ereznem magam. A temaban nem vagyok szakerto, de azt hiszem a biotechnologia eleg fontos uj ag ahhoz, hogy tudomanyos/technikai problemain kivul tarsadalmi/politikai kontextusba beagyazva is megvizsgaljuk. Itt most ezzel szeretnek hozzajarulni Posfai Janos irasahoz, utolagos engedelmevel. Ennek kapcsan szeretnem bemutatni a SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE nevu publikaciot, amely kethavonta jelenik meg, onkentes szerkeszto gardaja fiatal tudosokbol all, akik fontosnak tartjak a tudomany uzesenek, felhasznalasanak, es az eredmenyek technologiaba valo atultetesenek tarsadalmi kerdeseit, es ezzel kapcsolatos cikkeket jelentetnek meg. Az ujsag hasabjain tobbek kozott heves vita folyik a genetika altal elert tudomanyos eredmenyeknek a biotechnologiaban torteno alkalmazasarol. A kerdes egyik szakertoje a biologus Barry Commoner (director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College, CUNY. Egyebkent elnokjelolt is volt, ha jol emlekszem a 80-as valasztasokon. Emellet az USA elsoszamu kornyezetvedelmi szakemberekent tartjak szamon. Tavaly megjelent konyvet, Making Peace with the Planet, mindenkinek a figyelmebe ajanlom). Az o 87-ben a Science for the People-ban megjelent cikken szeretnek vegigmenni, mert szamomra igen tanulsagos volt, es azt hiszem van mit vegiggondolni rajta mas tudomanyagakkal foglalkozoknak is. Commoner szerint a biotechnologianak mint uj iparagnak az alapveto kerdese az kene, hogy legyen, hogy kinek a kezeben alljon a termeles iranyitasa, annak eldontese, hogy mit termeljunk: a maganvallalatokeban vagy koziranyitas alatt. I'm talking about the social governance of the means of production. That's the fundamental issue. There's no way of working on the industry's regulation without dealing with the decisions that determine what the industry produces and how it produces it. This introduces the whole question of social intervention in the infant industry itself. Since this is such a taboo, I need to mention two justifications for raising it. Egyik erve az, hogy a tudomanyos kutatast kozpenzen finansziroztak - a National Science Foundation-on keresztul az adofizetok penzebol, nem lenne hat fair, ha a maganvallalatok ebbol nemcsak hogy profitot huznak, de meg ok is hatarozzak meg a fejlodes iranyat: I well remember the debate years ago on the structure of the National Science Foundation when practically every senator said, "You know, if we pay for this work, the results should be owned by the people and there should be no way of making private profits out of any research sponsored by the NSF." Well, you know what happened to that idea, but I remember very well when this was a serious issue to debate. Now if ever there was a new industry created by public money, biotechnology is it. So it's worth thinking about public control of publicly funded research in this industry. Masik erve az, hogy a biotechnologia mint uj iparag hasonlo tuneteket mutat mint a petrokemia gyerekkoraban, es tudjuk, hogy annak fejlodese milyen iranyt vett: The lesson from the petrochemical industry is that environmental regulation has become essentially impossible. The only thing you can do is to roll back the industry if you're concerned with its impact on the environment. The problem with regulating the petrochemical industry is that 99 percent of its toxic wastes are now put into the environment, half of them into underground wells and the rest on the surface. In other words the waste is not destroyed. A toxikus hulladek elpusztitasanak jelenlegi legjobb modja az elegetes. Azonban ez se problemamentes, tobbek kozott az is a baj, hogy a petrokemiai ipar altal egy ev alatt termelt toxikus hulladek elegetesehez tiz milliard dollarra lenne szukseg. Ez az osszeg az egesz ipar evi osszprofitjanak haromszorosa... The petrochemical industry is very much like biotechnology. It was also a rapid conversion of academic research into commercial use: what the organic chemists learned was converted into chemical engineering. Along came an industry that produced enormous amounts of man-made organic compounds, nearly all of which do not occur in living organisms. Just to give you one example, the amount of vinyl chloride (a powerful carcinogen) produced annually in the U.S. is roughly equivalent to the dry weight of the fruits and vegetables produced. There's a marvelous paper written by Walter Elsasser, a physicist, in which he asks the following question: Take a 200 unit protein, with 20 possible different amino acids in any sequence, and ask, "What is the total weight if we produce one of each possible molecule?" - in other words, one molecule of each of the various possible sequences of amino acids. The answer is, it's larger than the total weight of the known universe. What does that tell us? It tells us that the proteins that ARE produced represent an enormously narrow selection of the proteins that could be produced. The basic point is that, during the course of evolution, organic chemistry has been restricted to a narrow range of possible compounds. What the petrochemical industry did was to break out of those limits. Organic chemistry in life is the outcome of a very long evolution, and it represents a highly restricted assemblage of compounds; incompatible compounds have been eliminated. In my opinion, an organic compound which does not now occur in living things has to be regarded as an evolutionary reject. You need to regard the products of the petrochemical industry as evolutionary misfits and therefore very likely to be incompatible with the chemistry of living things. The failure to understand this basic fact has caused the whole problem in chemical pollution. We keep being surprised that chemicals which were perfectly nice and simple to make turn out to have very serious biological consequences. ...Another aspect of the petrochemical industry is that it's a system for displacing existing materials. This is a statement from Hooker Chemical, a leader of the petrochemical industry: "Rather than manufacturing known products by a known method for a known market, the research department is free to develop any product that looks promising. If there is not a market for something, the sales development group seeks to create it." [- Talking about manipulation - l.l.] And that's why we have plastic nooses on six packs and all of the unnecessary plastic geegaws. [kiemeles tolem:] SO WHAT WE HAVE IS A NEW INDUSTRY WHICH FORCES ITS WAY INTO THE PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT NEEDED. WHY? BECAUSE IT IS MORE PROFITABLE THAN THE INDUSTRIES IT REPLACES. THE OUTCOME IS THAT WE HAVE AN INDUSTRY WHICH IS DELIBERATELY DESIGNED NOT TO MEET SOCIAL NEEDS BUT TO MEET THE NEED OF THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE CAPITOL TO MAXIMIZE THEIR RETURNS. Ezutan vegigmegy egy sor peldan a fentiek alatamasztasara, ezt hely hianyaban most atugrom. Now let's look at biotechnology. My first point is that you have to regard the bioengineered organisms as evolutionary rejects. By that I mean - in parallel with my argument about petrochemical products which do not occur in living things - that the new organisms created by genetic engineering are likely to contain genetic combinations that were, so to speak, once tried out during the course of evolution and rejected. Such a rejected genotype should, I believe, be regarded as inherently dangerous to existing organisms. I realize that the industry has often argued that its new organisms ought to be regarded as harmless because all of the genetic combinations have been tried out in the evolutionary past and, in that sense, the industry's creations are not really "new". But that approach fails to take into account that the reinvented organism now enters into a greatly changed biosphere. El kell-e hat vetnunk mindenestol a biotechnologiat? Nem, de meg kell vizsgalnunk, hogy a termek tarsadalmilag hasznos-e es ez a hasznossag felulmulja-e a benne rjlo veszelyeket. Az igazi problema az, hogy a biotechnologiai ipar nem ezen az alapon donti el, hogy mit termeljen. Ennek illusztralasara hoz vagy feltucat peldat, en itt most csak kettot ragadok ki a dolog erzekeltetesere. Human insulin was the first genetically engineered product, at least in this country. Genentech developed it, and then made a deal with Ely Lilly, which has an 85 percent monopoly on pig insulin, giving Lilly the exclusive right to human insulin production in the U.S. What's the purpose of producing human insulin? At first it was thought that it would be less immunologically reactive than pig insulin. In fact, both pig and human insulin have about the same positive and deleterious effects, so there is no medical value in human insulin. Eli Lilly's ads say that the purpose of producing human insulin is to be prepared for a shortage of pig insulin. Under what circumstances would that happen? I suppose if religious objectors to pigs take over the world, then we'll be short of pigs. When that happens, we'll need human insulin. In reality human insulin has been produced for a very simple purpose: to maintain Eli Lilly's monopoly on insulin. Suppose some other company got the Genentech contract. Eli Lilly would suddenly have a competitor in producing insulin. I have to conclude that this arrangement was not governed by the social need for human insulin; it was governed by the age-old notion of maintaining a monopoly. Everyone agrees that the most important use of genetic engineering would be to produce vaccines, particularly for malaria. The World Health Organization supported this research at New York University. They got to the point of producing the sporozoite vaccine, and said to Genentech, "OK, how about you making it?" Genentech said, "Well, we want exclusive rights." So WHO, being a very old-fashioned and unAmerican organization, said, "We don't work that way. We want this vaccine widely available. And Genentech said, "No thanks." Here was something really needed, unlike human insulin, and it wasn't produced. Quoting from one of the vice presidents of Genentech, "We are forced at this stage in our corporate development tp compare vaccines with other opportunities. The company does not have the resources such that it can take extraordinary risks. Thus it seems apparent that the development of a malaria vaccine would not be compatible with Genentech business strategy. It is not sufficiently profitable to give them the income they need, and FOR THAT REASON, they won't produce it. A tobbi peldaja is hasonloan szivmelengeto. Aki a biotechnologia tarsadalmi kontroljanak altala elkepzelt formajara kivancsi, a cikkhez kell, hogy utaljam. Befejezesul: We simply have to face an ideological issue which, in this country, is politically taboo. One doesn't raise the issue of society determining what the owners of capitol can do. The Catholic bishops' letter on the economy bucked that taboo by saying, "No one can own capitol resources completely or control their use without regard for others and society as a whole."...We have to raise these moral and political questions and break the taboo. If the Catholic bishops could do it, we can too. Otherwise, we are going to see very very quickly an industry which is too large and powerful, and economically entrenched, to be controlled in the interest of the people. Bringing up Biotechnology, Science for the People, March 1987 (Remelem a forum kedves szabadpiaci szimpatizansainak nem kerulte el a figyelmet az amit ez a cikk is sugall: a free market rendszer mukodesevel, legalabbis itt Amerikaban ket gond van: egyreszt, hogy ez tiszta formajaban nem letezik (bar ezt mar Polanyi Karolytol illene tudnunk - The Great Transformation, 1944). Masreszt, hogy a free market onmagaban nem garantalja, hogy az emberek es a tarsadalom valos igenyei lesznek kielegitve.) SfP hasonlo magvas irasokat kozol a computerekrol (a legjobb A.I. kritikakat itt olvastam) es egyeb hi tech iparagakrol is. Ezenkivul a technologia-kritikat megprobalja differencialni: szetvalasztva az azt mindenestol elvetot, a megkerdojelezes nelkul mindent elfogadot, a "use-abuse" iskolat es a "technology as politics" iskolat. Hasabjain altalaban az elso ket megkozelitest elvetik, mig az utobbi ket nezet allando osszecsapasban all. Kulonosen mi, a termeszettudomanyok koreben tevekenykedok vagyunk kiteve annak a veszelynek, hogy nyugatra kikerulve egy pillanatra elkabulunk a munkank soran korulvevo hi tech gadget-ektol, es elfeledkezunk a szelesebb osszefuggesekrol, a tarsadalmi kontextusrol (es szep csendben technokratakka valunk). Ehhez ajanlanam ellendoziskent a Science for the People-t. Miutan en egy ideje nem fizettem elo ra, felhivtam oket impresszum infoert. Kiderult, hogy szervezetuk tevekenykedik, de az ujsag kiadasat egyelore szuneteltetik, mert - mint altalaban minden nonprofit szervezetnek a periferian - penzugyi nehezsegeik vannak. Oh well, c'est la vie; azert a regebbi szamokat erdemes atbongeszni. Leirer Laszlo =============================================== Felado : hetyei@athena.mit.edu Beerkezett: Tue Mar 12 19:53:58 EST 1991 Temakor : A Baltikumi nemzetisegi kerdes- a tavoli Amerikabol nezve - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Egy adalek Incze Lajosnak, a Forum 120-as szamabol, Hirek a USENET-rol cimu cikkembol. >Egy nemzetisegi statisztika a USENET-rol. Forras egy1989-es szovjet atlasz. >Esztorszag: 64.7% eszt, 27.9% orosz, 2.5% ukran, 1.6% bjelorusz es egyeb >Lettorszag: 53.7% lett, 32.8% orosz, 4.5 bjelorusz, 2.7% ukran, 2.5% lengyel > 1.5% litvan >Litvania: 80 % litvan, 8.9% orosz, 7.3% lengyel, 1.7 % Bjelorusz es egyeb A statisztikat egyebkent Neal Dalton tette kozze a talk.politics.sovietben No comment. Udvozlettel : Hetyei Gabor