4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
the registered unemployed in mid-1977 numbering 1.3 million against an urban population (in the 15-59 yeais age group) of 7.5 to 8.0 million, that is, an urban unemployment rate of 16 to 17 percent.1 Industrial production as well as employment in the factory sector have declined compared to the peak reached in the mid-1960s. Conditions of life in the city of Calcutta are worsening. Hence there is a tremendous pressure on the state government to do something tangible. Further, in view of the limited finances available with the government for development, it has a strong temptation to stretch out its hand for assistance regardless of the source it may come from.
Is this state of affairs, admittedly unhappy in the reckoning of Left Front leaders, inevitable? We are not convinced that this is so. In this paper we seek to restate the basic political premises. Then we go on to show why the conventional path of industrialization through foreign capital and technology is self-defeating. Thirdly, we present an alternative strategy posited on the growth of small and village industries which, we believe, is feasible. Fourthly, we underline the crucial role of politicized mass organizations in this alternative path of development;
unless these social forces become actively involved there can be no progress whatsoever. Lastly, we indicate in bare outline an alternative approach to science and technology which is a sine quanon for the development strategy.
The strategy as conceived by us does not amount to a blueprint. We cannot foretell, for example, the level of living or output or employment a few years after the adoption of our strategy; not even crude estimates are possible. Our ideas are tentative in nature, cttiphasissing merely the desirable direction of change Many of these can be implemented by the Left forces even when they are not in power. Indeed, one of our major assumptions is that after 25 years of national planning, our economy is far from fully integrated leaving enormous scope for policy initiatives at various levels, often bypassing the official administrative or financial agencies. It is for this reason that the ^Left Movement' and not the 'Left Front Government^ appears in the title of this essay.
It is worth clarifying that by'industrialization5 we mean a growth pattern in which an increasing proppy^iojn of the available labour-time of the workforce, male and female, is engaged in industrial production;
it may be destined either for exchange or for the self - consumption^of the producers themselves. The other definition, very much ix^Wguc in bourgeois economics, puts the accent on the share of industrial output in national income. By this latter yardstick some of the West Asian countries would be the most industrialized ones in the contemporary world, which is patently absurd.
In the present paper we have not broache4 the central question in economic development, namely, land reforms, without which no sustained growth in agricultural or industrial production is feasible.