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Title: Intermediate-Scale Technology Author: Kevin Carson Date: January 14, 2005 Language: en Topics: technology Source: Retrieved on 3rd September 2021 from https://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/intermediate-scale-technology.html
Aid to tsunami victims, and who is giving how much, has been a big
source of contention lately. But the kind of aid to be given is at least
as important.
According to “Plunkett’s Law,” formulated by energy technologist Dr.
Jerry Plunkett, governments have an “almost incurable habit” of choosing
large-scale technologies over smaller-scale, decentralized ones; when
there are two alternative solutions to a problem, equally viable
technically, government will inevitably choose the one most amenable to
centralized, bureaucratic control. [Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale
(Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980), p. 215]
The Intermediate Technology Development Group takes the opposite
approach. The ITDG is providing relief on its own nickel, which is
important. But even more important, it’s providing reconstruction aid in
the form of human-scale technology that local people can control for
themselves. The ITDG, sounded by the late E.F. Schumacher, operates on
the following philosophy:
ITDG has a unique approach to development – we don’t start with
technology, but with people. The tools may be simple or sophisticated –
but to provide long-term, appropriate and practical answers, they must
be firmly in the hands of local people: people who shape technology and
control it for themselves.
Another worthy effort, based on a similar philosophy, is the Appropriate
Technology Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is an index to thousands upon
thousands of books and technical articles on the kinds of appropriate
technology that can be integrated into the life of a small town or rural
village. For a few hundred dollars, the Sourcebook comes with a fiche or
CD-Rom library of those articles and books--dollar for dollar, probably
the best form of development aid imaginable. The literature provided
includes countless simple and user-friendly technologies that can
significantly increase the productivity of labor and improve the average
person’s quality of life, while promoting rather than hindering local
self-reliance.
By the way, if you’re a fan of Schumacher and of attempts like these to
implement his philosophy, you could do a lot worse than to pick up a
copy of Karl Hess’ Community Technology (Harper & Row, 1979). In it,
Hess describes his involvement in human-scale technology experiments
with the Adams-Morgan Organization, a largely black working-class
community organization in Washington, DC. Among other nifty things, they
successfully designed: basement trout farms, with jury-rigged pumps and
filters, that produced protein cheaper per pound than anything available
at the supermarket; a working passive solar heating system made from
empty cans; and lots more--read it yourself!