Clark University

Technology and Economic Development: The Dynamics of Local, Regional, and National Change
by Edward J. Malecki
Review by: John B. Fieser
Economic Geography, Vol. 69, No. 1, African Development (Jan., 1993), pp. 94-98
Published by: Clark University
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94 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
These results diverge dramatically from
the series of official forest statistics pub-
lished by the Philippine government. The
latter have consistently understated forest
losses for political considerations. From
Kummer's discussion it is evident that
remote sensing is but one tool in the
arsenal of forest surveyors. It is not a
panacea. Instead, the most reliable Philip-
pine survey to date combined aerial
photography with remote sensing data
and ground truthing-all subject to care-
ful analysis. This does provide a base line
in the 1980s useful for both future and
retrospective time series.
A reduction by half of Philippine forests
in the recent past is a dismaying, but not
especially surprising, conclusion. All re-
cent observers have called attention to
unrestrained timbering and forest clear-
ing. The causes of this rapid depletion are
complex and much debated. Kummer
argues that we must consider deforesta-
tion as a flow, or "the recent marginal
change (negative) of stock" (p. 142). The
stock is forest cover which is the sum total
of both negative and positive changes over
time. If we are interested in the causes of
deforestation, there is little benefit in
showing a positive relationship between
rising population density and decreasing
forest cover. Instead we must look at the
specific historical context and rigorously
employ both quantitative and qualitative
methods of analysis.
Kummer sharply rejects claims made
by foresters that indigenous shifting culti-
vation (kaingin) is primarily responsible
for forest depletion. Following Nicholas
Guppy's theoretical model, he identifies
intensified commercial logging, both legal
and illegal, followed by agricultural ex-
pansion, as the two driving forces of
postwar Philippine deforestation. Behind
these processes lie the "desire of the
Philippine elite to enrich themselves
through controlling access to the primary
forest resource" (p. 143). Postwar timber-
ing aimed at export markets generated a
steady flow of profits to the few in power.
That the profits were returned in hard
currencies scarce in the Philippines made
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this an even more attractive proposition.
Restricted opportunities for lowland agri-
culturists then pushed them into occupy-
ing cleared forest lands. Deforestation was
not simply the result of misguided policy,
but was the product of highly successful
policy that accomplished its intended
ends. Those in power engaged in "delib-
erate manipulation of the statistical re-
porting system and of the agencies osten-
sibly in charge of the forestry sector" (p.
143).
This is a commendable piece of scholar-
ship by a talented geographer. We need
more of this kind of research and analysis
at the national level. Kummer's approach
is strengthened by looking at deforesta-
tion as a process over a lengthy period of
time and by his critical use of statistical
and narrative sources. In the end he
arrives at a powerful statement which
reveals the true nature of post-war defor-
estation in the Philippines.
John F. Richards
Duke University
Technology and Economic Development:
The Dynamics of Local, Regional, and
National Change. By Edward J. Ma-
lecki. New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1991.*
Where was your car produced? Are you
sure? An article in the June 1992 issue of
Car and Driver said that your "American"
Dodge Colt was made in Japan by
Mitsubishi whereas your "Japanese"
Honda Accord was actually assembled in
Marysville, Ohio. Winner of the "all the
world's a factory" prize is the Pontiac
LeMans: designed in Germany by Opel,
built in Korea by Daewoo, using a
Japanese transmission by Isuzu and a GM
engine from Australia. Parts and major
subassemblies of Boeing jetliners are
supplied by firms all around the globe. Ed
Malecki's own book, authored by an
* These opinionsare the reviewer'sand do
not reflect policies or positions of the U.S.
Departmentof commerce.
 BOOK REVIEWS
American, was originally published by a
U.K. firm and was printed in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.To the uninitiated, wel-
come to the new industrial age. Those of
us brought up to think that a Ford is a car
produced in Dearborn out of Ford-rolled
steel and all-Midwestern parts-and who
still think so-are way out of date.
Unfortunately, there are surprisingly
many who either think the old ways are
still with us, or think that they can and
should be made to return. These people
are not just small-towners sitting around
the county courthouse; they often occupy
high public and private positions. Ma-
lecki's book should be required reading,
with a lengthy examination to follow.
Before continuing, I'll dispense with a
few criticisms of the book. The paperback
version for the U.S. market that I
reviewed is attractively printed and
bound, but sells for a fairly high 40
dollars. Errors were few and seldom
substantive. All seemed inadvertent. For
example, Malecki probably meant to say
"Migration to nice (high amenity) areas,
however, can increase labour supply and
decrease wages, leading to unemployment
increases," not "employment increases"
(p. 77). Also, I'm sure he is aware that
President Lyndon Johnson's domestic
programs were collectively called the
"Great Society," not the "new society" (p.
98). The reluctance of business executives
to admit in surveys any bias against
livable wage rates and unions would have
been even clearer if "low wage rates" and
"non-union sites" had been in quotes like
the euphemistic "favorable labour cli-
mate" (pp. 214-15). Most other errors are
obvious printer's goofs.
A more serious criticism is the book's
lack of supporting illustrations. I can
understand an absence of photographs as
an economy measure, though not in a
book of this price. Furthermore, there is
the near absence of maps (only four
simple ones, by my count). Map possibil-
ities not seized by the author include ones
of North America, Europe, and East Asia
identifying the various technology cen-
ters; one or two world maps showing
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95
trade volumes and content; and some
sector-specific ones of subjects like Silicon
Valley or the U.S. auto industry. Using
text, graphs, and diagrams, the book looks
like it might have been written by
(heaven forbid) an economist, not a
geographer. (However, we can be thank-
ful that the book's formulas are as rare as
its maps.) Seriously, the lack of attractive
and useful illustrative material diminishes
a major purpose that the book could
serve: its use by officials and executives to
educate themselves on the many valuable
lessons it contains.
This purpose is further jeopardized by
the book's use of British English (e.g., be-
haviour, centres, labour, lorry, ploughed,
and tyres). The book's editor at John
Wiley & Sons in New York City told me
that the U.K.'s Longman Scientific &
Technical did the original editing for the
U.K. audience but copublisher Wiley
didn't change back to U.S. usage in the
U.S. version. I don't think I'm quibbling
here; to the nontechnical component of
this book's audience-like public and
private policymakers-British English can
and will signal that the book is somehow
not applicable to domestic U.S. industrial
issues. If the U.S. is the major market for
the Wiley version of this book, U.S.
English should have been used. This
change should be considered in future
editions.
These shortcomings are minor, how-
ever, compared with this book's valuable
contribution to the literature. Its value
lies primarily in its scope, despite its
moderate size-380 pages of text. Using
concise and clear language, Malecki ex-
poses the reader to the fundamentals and
fine points of his broad topic in nine
action-packed chapters.
In his first chapter Malecki covers
"Economic growth and decline: theories
and facts," an apparently provocative title
that I assume the author intended so, and
of which I approve. There's a lot of
nonsense and inertia in the economic
development field and anything done to
minimize and dislodge it is welcome.
Introducing the concept of regional devel-
96 ECONoMIc GEOGRAPHY
opment, Malecki says it will not be
familiar to all readers. Some of the very
people to whom it should be most
familiar-development practitioners and
elected officials-are too often among the
unfamiliarized. Malecki nicely sums up
the concept: the qualitative or structural
features of a region's economy, as opposed
to its sheer size or growth rate. Showing
the many sides of various growth and
development issues, he sets the tone for
the remainder of the book.
Malecki contrasts the often misunder-
stood Manufacturing Belt with the more
diverse but nonetheless manufacturing-
intensive Sunbelt. His point about the
Sunbelt agrees with some recent work on
EDA's eight-state southeastern adminis-
trative region: In peak expansion year
1989 every state except Florida had a
higher percentage of manufacturing em-
ployees than the U.S. average. The rural
state of Mississippi had the second highest
manufacturing percentage in the region.
The second chapter deals with "The
measurement of regional economic activ-
ity." Among other things, it describes the
relationship between a region's economic
diversity, multiplier effects, and suscepti-
bility to economic downturns. Malecki's
citation of what he considers to be fairly
high multipliers (e.g., 3.71 and 5.45)
should cause some industry and commu-
nity boosters who sometimes claim much
higher numbers to quell their overenthu-
siasm. (For example, what kind of multi-
pliers will really result if the Washington
Redskins build a stadium at Virginia's
Potomac Yard? Will Old Town Alexan-
dria's economy benefit? Or will it suffer,
with low or possibly negative multipliers?)
Chapter 2 also concisely covers the
advantages and disadvantages of tourism
as an economic base-much in vogue as a
clean "export" industry; military spend-
ing, with its limited commercial spin-off
potential (e.g., stealth technology's lack of
value to commercial aviation); and the
tendency of desirable producer services to
concentrate in large urban centers.
Common knowledge continues to take
some heat in the third chapter, entitled
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"Regional growth theory and policy: the
burden of conventional wisdom." In his
discussion of the crucial role of productiv-
ity growth in national and regional eco-
nomic development, Malecki mentions
the partially undeserved reputation of the
service sector for having notoriously slow
productivity gains. It may be true that the
speed and quality of a haircut or taxi ride
haven't changed much in decades, but can
we say the same thing about medical care
and higher education? Another controver-
sial issue is the dilemma in regional
development policy of whether to help
people or places. My own agency's
development tools try to help places, but
we are frustrated in those cases where the
jobs created don't seem to be going to the
people most in need of them.
In my opinion, the core of the book is in
Chapters 4 through 6, dealing with
technological capability, innovation in the
firm, and the location of economic activi-
ties. Their coverage alone is worth the not
inconsiderable price of the book. Al-
though Chapter 4 has a Third World
emphasis, it also has lessons for developed
economies. Why does technology invest-
ment vary from region to region? Are
large or small companies leaders in
innovation and competitiveness? (Robert
Reich says of competitiveness that "rarely
has a term in public discourse gone so
directly from obscurity to meaningless-
ness without an intervening period of
coherence.")
"Innovation in the firm" wrestles with
the problem of defining high technology
industries. Is it R&D intensity, percent-
age of technical workers, or "newness" of
products? Or put another way, the tech-
nological intensity of capital, labor, and
product. Malecki's thorough treatment of
this issue is second only to that done by
Chris Thompson and Thomas Klak in
their 1988 report to EDA, "The Geogra-
phy of High Technology Development in
the USA."
The last of the book's three "core
chapters" deals with industrial location,
and is about as good a discussion as one is
likely to read. Malecki makes the case
 BOOK REVIEWS
loud and clear for the importance of urban
agglomerations in attracting many high
level economic activities. Important work
in this area by Allen Scott, Amy Glas-
meier, Richard Walker, and others is
copiously cited. Opposite agglomeration
in importance, "business climate indexes
. . . are useless as predictors and are
actually political statements," according to
C. L. Skoro. Right on target.
Chapters 7 and 8 deal with creating
technological places at the national, re-
gional, and local levels and with entrepre-
neurship's role in economic development.
In the former, the role of national science
policy is discussed and the situations of
developed and developing countries are
compared. U.S. dominance in govern-
ment financed defense R&D is over-
whelming-both as a dollar amount and as
a percentage of total government R&D. In
contrast to this relatively "dead end"
research-so far as civilian applications
are concerned-the U.S. is also predomi-
nant in health research. Malecki, of
course, covers Japanese R&D policy. In
doing so, he mentions an unsuccessful
electric car project, but gives no specific
reference-a very rare lapse in this book.
The difficulty of framing effective re-
gional high technology development poli-
cies is also covered in Chapter 7. Once
again, Malecki and those he cites sum up
the situation well: "The intense competi-
tion between regions places the less
developed ones at a considerable disad-
vantage in that they are unable to provide
conditions and incentives comparable to
those offered by more developed regions
. . . The resulting situation [is] a gap that
does not narrow." Mississippi's Institute
for Technology Development is a recent
attempt by an economically lagging state
to jump-start those technology sectors in
which it senses a comparative advantage.
The chapter on entrepreneurship cov-
ers regional concentrations of venture
capital sources and investments. It also
includes a discussion of the controversial
late-1970s study for EDA by David Birch
that attributed most net job creation to
small firms. His early methodology was
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97
flawed in several ways and his findings
almost certainly exaggerated the job-
creation of small firms. Recent research
shows that medium-size firms may have
faster job-creation rates. Nevertheless,
"small firms create the most jobs" has
become a political and media mantra that
will be almost impossible to displace.
The ninth and last chapter poses
development challenges and questions for
our fast-paced world. Here, the author
stresses the importance of investments in
infrastructure and human skills-espe-
cially the latter. The section devoted to
"The importance of skills" could join
Chapters 4 through 6 as the core of the
book. The increasing skill levels de-
manded by new jobs projected to 2000
and beyond require immediate attention
at all levels of education. Malecki further
states "American firms . . . have been
shortsighted by moving production off-
shore rather than to stay and sustain and
develop the linkages and expertise do-
mestically needed to preserve competi-
tive manufacturing."
Finally, a great strength of the book and
a treasure to seasoned scholars and
students alike is its 103 pages of refer-
ences. I can't praise this feature highly
enough. Virtually everything in English
on the subject seems to be included. I had
one rather unique way to check this. Over
the years, EDA has been pleased to fund
a number of research studies that deal
with aspects of this book's broad topic.
Malecki cites virtually all of them or their
related products. Just a partial list of those
grantees includes the aforementioned
Thompson and Klak, David Allen, Bill
Beyers, Rod Erickson, Richard Florida,
Andrew Isserman, Merrill Johnson, and
John Rees, plus visiting scholars like Mike
Greenwood, Carol Jusenius, and Larry
Ledebur.
The jury is still out on many, many
issues in our field. The student using this
book will find a rich source of research
topics that are far from settled. Issues like
firm size and job creation are begging to
be examined further. Ed Malecki is to be
commended for presenting virtually all
98 ECONoMIc GEOGRAPHY
sides to so many important questions. We
in the diverse economic analysis and
development field are in his debt.
John B. Fieser
Economic Development Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C.
The New Social Economy: Reworking the
Division of Labour. By Andrew Sayer
and Richard Walker. Cambridge,
Mass.: Blackwell, 1992.
The division of labor refers to the
system whereby people specialize at
work. Technically, a whole raft of different
tasks have to be performed if people are
to acquire the goods they need to
reproduce themselves and their depen-
dents; socially, those tasks have to be
divided into different jobs each performed
by one person. Since Adam Smith, and in
modern times since Young, the division of
labor has been recognized as a source of
productivity increases. The immediate
economic problem is one of organization:
how, that is, are all the people doing all
these different jobs and all the firms
making all these different products or-
chestrated to produce the goods that
people and firms consume? How could it
be organized? Most people now live in
capitalist economies in which the owner-
ship of commodities is divided in a
particular manner. People in these socie-
ties suffer a range of inequalities. Some
are classbased, that is due directly to
ownership within production, but some
may be due to the division of labor rather
than ownership. Is it possible to differen-
tiate the effects of the division of labor
from the effects of the ownership struc-
ture? These are the two central questions
addressed by Sayer and Walker in this
important collection of six essays.
The first essay examines the relations
between the division of labor and two
other social structures-class and gender,
Sayer and Walker argue that class, gen-
der, and the division of labor are distinct,
if intertwined, social structures. This
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claim is the central argument of the entire
book.
The division of labor is a part of the
forces of production, but it contains the
seeds of definite social relations. It divides
people experientially, organizationally,
ideologically. It implies a hierarchy of
organizers and organized. Class by con-
trast rests on the relations of production,
centered on exploitation. It commonly
centers on the triad: extraction of surplus,
ownership of means of production, control
over labor process. But the precise
characteristics of the structure that is class
evolve over time and differ from place to
place: history does not stop. Class has an
objective basis, but it is abstract: many
people are outside class processes and the
concrete fit differs from place to place.
The relationship between the division of
labor and class is not simple. Capitalism
obviously drives the division of labor but
other modes of production also drive a
division of labor. Equally elaborations of
the division of labor give rise to new jobs,
processes, knowledge, workplaces, that
are contested and affect class structure:
engineers and doctors, teachers and
nurses. Thirdly, gender relations are
relations of power (patriarchy) centered
on control over women's labor, control
over child bearing, and control over
desires. These controls are present in
gendering the division of labor, within the
household and in representing the body.
Each of these major structures of
oppression exists in its own right though
they are constructed simultaneously and
reciprocally. Thus patriarchy is reinforced
through capitalist class relations; class and
the division of labor are gendered; and
capitalism affects domestic life. In partic-
ular the two structures, class and gender,
do not simply derive from separate
spheres, production and reproduction.
They intersect. One way in which they
intersect is the division of labor between
domestic and industrial labor, which has
an overwhelming influence on the shape
of the family; another is in the limitations
placed on women's participation in the
paid labor market. Understanding the