SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: IMPACT ON SOCIETY 29 a transitional phase in the total process of changing, social organization with a view to increasing the social productivity of labour. The earlier-mentioned constraints requiring varying levels of application of technology, which characterize this transitional phase, cannot therefore, be raised to the level of theoretical principles. The attempt to build an 'alternative9 technology is an attempt to veer the scientific and technological revolution from its path of enhancing the pace of social productivity. Though it may have originated as self-deception it ends up concretely as a means cf duping the people in the name of a unique path of national development. The technological determinism that provides the theoretical inspiration for this approach attempts to absolve the Indian ruling classes of 27 years of gross misrule by contending that the lack of innovation required for an alternative technology suited to cultural and national needs has been responsible for our problems. It is significant that this approach dovetails into the theory of the international division of labour' as presented by the imperialist powers : the developing nations specialize in the export of labour-intensive technology, the imperialist countries in the export of capital-intensive technology. The backwardness of the former is justified so as to ensure the dominant position of the latter in 'developing' economies. A wishful negation of the laws of social development offers no real solutions to the problems of poverty, economic backwardness and scientific and technological development. The approach revealed in the advance of the socialist countries, where these problems have been tackled as part of the process of social transformation, offers the only alternative approach to development. 1 Engels, "Letter to Starkendurg" ("1894), Selected Correspondence, Moscow, p 548. 2 Man, Science and Technology, Prague 197^. 8 Quoted from Kommunist in Scientific and Technological Revolutions', Social Effects and Prospects, Moscow 1972. A Marx, Grundrisse, Penguin Books, London 1973. s Marx. op. cit. 6 Manual Azcarate, "The New Role of Science", Marxism Today, March 1972. 7 Marx, op. cit., p 701; (Capital) 'quite intentionally-t-reduces human labour, expenditure of energy to a minimum. This will redound to the benefit of emancipated labour and is the condition of its emancipation.' 8 Marx, op. cit., 8 The increasing number of mergers of big corporations and the dominating role that the multi-national corporations have come to play is ^abolition of private property within the framework of capitalist production itself.' (Marx) 10 K K Subramanian, A Study of Foreign Private Investment in India since 1950, (Thesis submitted to Bombay University in 1967): In the case of India the boom in foreign collaboration is attributable to government's deliberate policy - the official policy of deliberate inducement to foreign collaboration would not have been effective were it not that the domestic and foreign firms find in the collaboration arrangement a common interest - taking advantage of the sheltered market.' 11 A Rahman. "Historical and Social Factors in the Development of Science in India" Science and Human Condition in India and Pakistan, Bombay 1972, p 44.