THE FRAUD OF PHILANTHROPY- THE CONSENSUS ON "THIRD WORLD" DEVELOPMENT

[Orwellian_Ghost]

The Consensus on Third-World Development

The work of these development-oriented sociologists, like that of their fellow social scientists, was heavily subsidized by' the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, either directly or through the Social Science Research Council. Ford's Melvin Fox recalled how the foundation was "twisting arms very, very vigorously" to get scholars to concentrate on development theory. Foundation subsidization of the work of these mainstream social scientists had its desired effect. By the late 1960s, as Packenham indicates, there had evolved a clearly delineated viewpoint among mainstreams social scientists in elite American universities, as well as among Washington policy makers, regarding the most efficacious path to development for Third-World nations. This consensus held that Third-World development should be carried out mainly in terms of stable, nonradical, constitutional, and, if possible, peaceful and pro-American policies.... The scholars and policymakers supplemented economic determinism with sociological and psychological determinism. Both groups also largely assumed the converse, namely, the beneficience for socio-economic transformation of stable, constitutional political systems.



The fact that such conservative ideas concerning development meshed perfectly with the goals of United States was not fortuitous. Myrdal has noted that American studies of the developing world at this time were "expected to reach opportune conclusions , and to appear in a form that is regarded as advantageous, or at least not disadvantageous, to national interests as these are popularly understood." The interests of the United States in the Third World, as popularly understood at the time by mainstream social scientists and policy makers, were defined in terms of gradual movement toward a form of Western democracy, continued alignment to the world capitalist system, continued access to strategic raw materials, order, and stability, and at best a policy not antagonistic to the United States -- all of which were to be encouraged by the nurturing of an indigenous elite that understood the benefits that could accrue from such policies.



O'Brien notes that this developmental consensus endorsed the leadership role of "technological and bureaucratic elites." The political scientists concerned with the development shared the "bureaucrat's perspective in fearing the passion and unpredictability which may be unleashed if people escape control from above." Social scientists, business leaders, foundation personnel, and those who implemented United States foreign policy agreed on the importance of order and stability for Third-World development. Packenham notes that the consensus held that "radical politics, including conflict, disorder, violence, and revolution, are unnecessary for economic and political development and therefore are always bad." As early as 1949 the director of the Rockefeller Foundation's Division of Social Science commented on the role of the social sciences in helping "to serve the orderly evolution of the unindustrialized countries." In short, the measured and gradual development of Third-World nations was seen to serve the interests of world stability, preclude the advance of "radical" regimes and the concomitant possibility of nationalization of foreign holdings, while simultaneously affording an international context within which the major foundations could play crucial roles in developing national polities.

The views of the social scientists, foundation personnel, and government officials toward Third-World development were mutually reinforcing. Many of the key foundation personnel concerned with the social sciences had worked in one of the Washington agencies involved with foreign policy in the immediate post-1945 period, while others had close ties to major American universities.



http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/ideologyofphilanthropy.htm

[Orwellian_Ghost]

1. An Example

Biotechnology in the Rockefeller Foundation’s new course of action
Interview with Gordon Conway and Gary Toenniessen



The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) is a US philanthropic institution that was instrumental in shaping the Green Revolution. In 1998, the Foundation adopted a new programme strategy especially to target poor and marginalized people throughout the world. The Monitor spoke to the president, Gordon Conway, and the director of the food security programme, Gary Toenniessen, on the implications of this new course for agricultural research and biotechnology.

Monitor: Mr. Conway, your recent book calls for a doubly Green Revolution. What does this idea entail?

Conway: The idea of a doubly Green Revolution came about because we know we need to enhance food production over the next 30 years just as we did in previous decades to keep up with population increase. We also know that we are running out of land on which we can expand agriculture, so food production has to be expanded by increased yields. Essentially we need another Green Revolution. But we also know that the new Green Revolution has to be more environmentally sustainable. We have to avoid the problems of pesticides and the overuse of fertilizers. And we have to have a greater diversity of cropping systems. However, equally important is that a second Green Revolution should reach the poor. The previous Green Revolution did benefit the poor, in part, because prices for food were lowered, but it did not bring universal improvement. That is why we have 800 million people chronically undernourished now. The people by-passed, for instance, are those living in urban areas, poor people in the Green Revolution lands, and those groups who live on marginal lands. Therefore, the new Green Revolution is going to aim at these groups as well.

Monitor: Does this mean that your programme will no longer target farmers who have already profited from the first Green Revolution? Or just that it will no longer exclude marginalized farmers?

Toenniessen: There has been a shift away from tackling both groups of farmers. For instance, a lot of our rice biotechnology programme was concerned with further improvements for farmers on the Green Revolution lands. With Mr. Conway’s arrival in 1998, we have focused more on those farmers who have benefited very little so far from the Green Revolution.

Conway: Presently our priority is to tackle the big problems that poor farmers face, such as drought, salinity, or Striga weed in Africa.

Monitor: In dealing with these problems, what will be the role of biotechnology for the Foundation?
Conway: We have to distinguish between the different kinds of biotechnology, of which at least three are important. The first one is tissue culture to cross species that would only very rarely cross in nature. For instance, there are two different species of Oryza, the African and the Asian rice. The African rice grows vigorously in dry conditions and smothers weeds. By crossing two species the rice starts out as African rice and then becomes like Asian rice with high yields. The second is marker-aided selection. This technique helps to identify a gene in normal crossbreeding. For example breeding against rice blast, a rice disease common in Asia, would traditionally involve growing the plant and then infecting it with blast to see whether it is resistant. Using molecular markers the whole procedure is accelerated because this process detects whether the resistance gene is present in a new cross without actually going through the whole plant cycle. The third is genetic engineering, which is used if it is not possible to transfer certain genes by traditional means. This is the case with the beta-carotene enhanced or so-called Golden Rice. Pro-vitamin A or beta-carotene occurs in the entire rice plant except in the grain. However, it was not possible to enhance it in the rice grain using traditional means.

...

http://www.biotech-monitor.nl/4406.htm