SPAIN: A CASE OF RAPID DEVELOPMENT

Five of the new driving forces of development can be illustrated by Spain. Spain is doing ve.y well; it is, I think, the seventh largest aut mobile man facturer in the world. Is Spain doing well because of its great talent for development? Not particularly. Then what are the reasons Spain can develop? First of all, tourism. Spain has about 32 million people and each year it receives 35 million tourists, who leave about $3 billion dollars in the country. Tourism solves about half of Spain's balance of payments problems. Why do people go to Spain for tourism? Because there is sun and sand, it's cheap, and the people are pleasant. Why is it cheap? Because of the gap: The tourists come from nearby countries that are rich.

The second reason for Spain's development is exported labor. How can Spain export labor? Again it's because of the gap. The third reason is that industry now wants in many instances to move the work to the labor rather than the labor to the work. That's the basic U.S. and Japanese strategy. It is also, increasingly, the European strategy. As a result, a number of European enterprises are moving to Spain. Why? Once again, it's because of the gap; they can no longer find cheap labor in their own country.

The fourth reason is the Spaniards themselves are catching on. Why? Because they have training, the example of the rich countries, and big markets and credit are available. Why are the big markets available? Why is there credit available? And where do you think the training came from? Again, it's all available because of the gap.

The fifth and final reason is technology transfer. Fifty or 60 years ago there were only about 10 or 12 countries that had steel mills. It was very tough to transfer technology. You really couldn't do it. Today, technology is more typified by the pocket computer that I carry around with me. It cost me $750, as I recall. Twenty years ago the same computing ability would have required a large room and a staff of 10 people. Today I can buy it for $750. I can give it to anybody and he can take it home. No staff is required and it works. All of a sudden he has the ability to do computations which nobody had 15 or 20 years ago. And that's what technology transfer is like today: Technology has become terribly easy to transfer.

OPTIMISM FOR FUTURE

The overall prospects for the world are basically optimistic except for two things: One is the possibility of nuclear war and the other is the possibility of misunderstood technology. I can give you a list of 50 problems which we don't understand; any one of these might kill or harm us greatly. Misunderstood technology may result in the earth becoming overheated or overcooled or may cause the destruction of the ozone layer. We may get too much garbage in the ocean, or we may do something else that will destroy us. But I cannot, in good conscience, pick out any one of these for you to worry about because all of them seem to be unlikely. However, there are 50 problems and we only have one earth. Can we improve our odds by slowing down growth? I don't believe it.

One of the main reasons I expect us to survive growth is the enormous surplus that we have in both technilogical ability and money. The United States has $7,000 per capita If we had an accident which reduced our income by a factor of ten, we could still live quite well.

WHY IS THERE CONCERN ABOUT GROWTH?

I would characterize the limits-of-growth people in the following way: You look at a 14-year-old boy and you extrapolate his growth rate. You realize that at that rate he'll be a monster at the age of 25, so you say, "Let's starve him." This is probably the world's worst stragegy. If you wanted to keep the kid small you should have started at birth; now, it's too late.

Why is there such great hostility to growth among upper-middle class elites? The hositility is almost worldwide, but particularly intense in Japan and in the Atlantic-Protestant culture area (Scandinavia, Holland, England, U.S., Canada, and Australia).

The first and most important reason for the hostility to growth is kind of a failure of nerve, an attitude I share. I'm scared by much current technology. I no longer always look at the laboratory with great delight. I approve of some things coming out of the laboratory but not of everything. Let's take one of the most obvious things: Let's assume that by the year 2000 you'll be able to do

enough genetic manipulation so that you can actually order a child by sex, color, size, shape, intelligence, etc. Does anybody believe there will be a huge increase in happiness when you can do this? There are lots of things you are probably better off leaving to luck or not even knowing about.

The next most important reason for hostility to growth is class interest. I recently came back from Southeast Asia, where we had a meeting with about 120 people present-20 Indonesians, 100 Americans. Among these were government officials, academics. The Indonesians earn from $5,000 to $20,000 a year, no graft. The Americans earn from $20,000 to about $100,000. We compared the quality of life between the two groups. The Indonesians have very big houses, two to five times as big as the Americans' homes. The Indonesians have three or more servants a maid, a cook, a gardener and the servants are good, because when you give a person a job in Indonesia you are giving him something valuable. The Indonesians have status. The repair man wouldn't dare cheat them; it would be dangerous. If they want girl friends or mistresses, they have them. Look at the Americans. The maid comes in twice a week-if they are lucky-and she isn't very good. The houses are small and provide no status. True, the Americans own cars but so do 50 million other American families. Many of these Americans mow their own lawns, wash their own dishes. I believe that in societies in which the poor largely disappear, and the upper-middle class has to do its own chores, the upper-middle class experiences a decline in its quality of life even though the increasing income benefits the country as a whole. In my own judgment, the decreased quality of life influences the opinions and behavior of the upper-middle class, which becomes an enemy of the economic growth which diminishes the starkness of the gap between the upper-middle class and the poor.

The foregoing article is adapted from Herman Kahn's remarks at the opening of the Second General Assembly of the World Future Society, Washington, D.C., June 2, 1975.