INVENTIVENESS IN SOCIETY 49 and non-exploitative inventions shall form the bulk of the socialist inventions. Socially demanding innovations, which can often generate pressure for changes in production relations and which arc expected to be in conflict with the second best innovations that take the present structure of society and international relations for granted, will have to be, almost by definition, non-exploitative. Invention of coal-mining is called an exploitative invention, "for its success in expelling tribal people from their homelands and the employment of miners on low wages in those 'death-traps'." It is quite clear that, firstly, a confusion arises out of the failure to distinguish between invention and innovation. It is the innovation that actually reflects the ways in which the technique gets embodied and corresponds to the characteristics of the relations of a particular mode of production. Invention of coal-mining does not inherently require low wages and exploitation of the tribal people. These issues cannot be resolved technologically and they come within the ambit of socio-economic and political solutions to the problems of development. The sole aim of getting the highest profit at the lowest cost regardless of any adverse effects on workers is a characteristic of the capitalist mode of production. It is not difficult to conceive that with the progress in scientific knowledge underground gasification of coal would become technically and economically feasible—which will even eliminate the harmful effects experienced on the health of miners. Harmful effects of coal-mining on health and environment have already been brought under considerable control with the adoption of improvements in the technique of mining in the socialist countries. The distinction made is ahistoric and comes close to the position of technological determinism. It was the discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels which actually preserved the vestiges of the Western forests from the industrial demand for charcoal. It will be sufficient to recall here the service done by the exploitation of coal strata which saved the forests of England and north-west Europe from total destruction. Pollution, disturbance of the ecological balance and the depletion of natural resources are the three main aspects of the problem of the environment. It is important to note that man's negative influence on nature was in evidence both before and after the advent of modern machine technology. It is known, for instance, that vast tracts of forests and consequently a large number of lakes and streams were wiped off the face of the earth by man hundreds of years ago— in the period of extensive development of agriculture and stock-breeding. The Sahara is not a product of capitalism.