74 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
recipients. The control exercised by technology suppliers may tend to deny the opportunity for the recipients to adopt, generate and operate technology appropriate to their development objectives.
Technology here is viewed as essentially a commodity bought and sold in the international market with its known imperfections.3 Once we view technology transfer as a trade relation we have to identify the structure of the technology market, sources of technology and the nature of sellers and buyers to understand the real forces that dynamize the market relation. To the extent that technology is embodied in physical goods, its market is not independent but constitutes an integral part of the market for the latter. This market integration of various inputs creates non-competitive conditions for each when sold in a package form. A large part of technology transfer thus involves transaction in intermediate goods and capital equipment, or more appropriately, intrafirm goods trade which crosses state boundaries as a part of the international commodity market subject to known imperfections. As for the disembodied technology (knowledge) apart of it is legally recognized as ^owned55 under the international patent, trade mark and other institutions of private property rights which give the seller the monopoly power.
Trade in Technolgy
International market for technology thus remains highly imperfect, its structure being characterized by a large number of weak buyers and dominance of few sellers, meaning thereby that transfer is unlikely to be of 'arms length9 trade. The trade relations can therefore be better explained in terms of unequal exchange4 than comparative advantage. Relative bargaining power settles the terms of transfer rather than the price mechanism. The bargain will be struck to the greatest disadvantage of the buyers to whom suppliers transfer technology at onerous cost.
The suppliers are mostly multinational corporations . oligopolisti-cally organized on a global scale whose main source of strength is technology5 protected by institutions of private property rights. The monopolistic position bestows upon them advantages which they consolidate fairly easily, given the weakness of buyers. Irrespective of the ownership mix (mode of transfer), technology transfer is forged as an instrument of control on production and marketing decisions of recipients to subserve the global strategy of the multinational framework. Such a vast power has caused widespread concern about its economic dimensions. Multinational corporations either singly or in collaboration with local partners have given a monopolistic character to the emerging industrial structure of developing countries. This has helped the multinationals to orient the product structure of these countries within the former's scheme of things. The advanced market economies' industrial structure, characterized by monopoly, is thus repeated in technology