Economic Growth and Man’s Environment

Abstract

Technology is sometimes man’s chief hope and at other times his main fear.¹ A dramatic example is provided by the rapid change in attitude towards technology that has occurred since World War II. Initially, technology was regarded as the key to everything desirable in the way of human betterment, ranging from the achievement of unquestionable military supremacy by techniques involving no risk of loss of human life to the militarily dominant country, to the satisfaction of man’s needs for food and shelter without the necessity of back-breaking toil in the “less developed” countries. In the United Kingdom during the 1960s the promotion of technological improvement even became the distinguishing feature of socialism. Since then, however, social thinkers in the developed countries have become disillusioned with material improvement via technology as the key to the good life. They have become concerned about the effects of the application of technology in endangering, as they see it, the environment provided by nature for man’s use and enjoyment.²