BOOK REVIEW 73
system operates it is quite obvious that ai^ production beyond a- certain point can lead to decline in the rate of profit. As such, employment is just a tool in the hands of profit maximizcrs and any attempt to make it a separate objective in a basically capitalistic framework is an exercise in futility. As if to rub it in, the adoption of labour-intensive technique is suggested exactly when the rate of return on capital-intensive techniques is higher, and what are called ^management difficulties" are on the decline due to an increased labour force. Further, the development of small-scale industries is suggested as well as a general decentralization of industries when it is known fully well that in the present set up the reserve army of trained industrial labour force is only available in the cities.
Technology/or Progress or Profit?
The analysis of Marx contained in this book totally misses the essence of his writings. For example it is alleged that, according to Marx, the rate of exploitation increases with the development of technology and, therefore, technological progress is to be avoided. It is universally recognized that Marx's writings point the way towards a transformation of society and look upon technological progress as ene of the means of liberating it from Ac capitalistic framework. Behari's assessment of Marxist approach to technology betrays a typical inability ^to see beyond the present framework* It is the same outlook towards the working of this system which makes the author see labour as the cause, through strikes, of industrial stagnation. He does not pause a moment to think of the reasons for labour unrest and strikes. If he did, it would have naturally brought him to the question of inflation and the sources of stagnation within the monopoly-oriented industrial system, aided and abetted by a bourgeois-landlord state.
Coming to the choice of the appropriate technology—on condition that the cost to the ultimate consumer should be the lowest—a more careful analysis would have brought the author again to the contradictions of the system. Let us consider the case of a commodity which is produced in the capital goods sector, say, tractors. Suppose there are two techniques A and B for manufacturing tractors, A being more efficient than B. Suppose that the tractor produced by A proves t6 be not as efficient a farm machinery as that made through technique B. If the increase in farm efficiency by the use of B tractors more than compensates for the falHn tractor production efficiency of technique A, it is technique B which will be more beneficial to the economy. In an anarchic capitalistic system, however, where the two sectors are controlled by two different monopolies, since technique A is more profitable in the manufacture of tractors, it-will be favoured and the product of this technique (a less efficient tractor) will be the most easily available in the market, simply because the profit on this technique will be greater. Needless to say, such a problem will not arise in a planned economy where profit-motive is not a primary consideration.