Page4 RAIN January 1978 - \.__ c;-- '\__ - - ~-:' '"'---- , / j_ ---\ /~ ' Why -·,', - '· · ,• ' -~ \ \ , • I '\._ -~-" 1/ ) , }) ' .- ) : f I I ,•f ,., <~· ~ \ • "· i ' - . '\ "-._/ ~ } ' . -------...., ~~ - , I / / _/ =-~ -~ :....._-_~_· _:.·-_·_-_ _ _ _-·-=s::=::-::c= c_ ==--.:- ·"'~~ -::... - .- . Things seem to be moving along almost too well for a.t.-the ideas of ~ommunity production, decentralization, local control of local situations, etc. seem to meet encouragement rather than resistance from government and business. The power companies are ominously quiet, sometimes even cooperative. Executives of large corporations came to listen to Schumacher in droves. Small Is Beautiful is a best seller. ERDA, AID and NSF have set up a.t. programs. The U.S. Congress is interested in a.t. Carter meets with s·chumacher and Amory Lovins. Y.et these are 'not compatible bedfellows. What's happening? Why does Big Business love a. t .? . . ,Ask them. Surprisingly, you're likely to find out, but also to have some fantasies about a.t. nicely shattered. Ann Becker and Carol Ulinski did a study a year or so ago on IRRI, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (Development Digest, Jan. 1976). IRRI has developed a number of highly useful small-scale agricultural tools and machines ·adapted specifically to the Southeast Asian rice culture and • has been working to encourage the production, marketing and use of such machines. They found out, in brief, that Marsteel, •the dominant machinery manufacturer in the country, encouraged IRRI's efforts to get small businesses to adopt and produce their designs locally. Marsteel's logic was simple. Their marketing manager, Luis Bernas, freely admitted that they were quite willing to let someone else do the hard and risky work of ~eveloping designs and production, demonstrating, testing, overcoming local inertia, and developing markets for new products. They 1vere confident that if demand · for a product did develop they could step in and gain dominance in the market through their economie and advertising power and ability to overwhelm, fairly or unfairly, the small producers. Big business also welcomes the use of appropriate I
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