The Pros and Cons of Economic Development

Abstract

All living creatures including man have had to struggle for survival, and this struggle is predominantly for food to keep alive. Predators are constantly vying with one another for means of subsistence. Man and his ancestors have always been conscious of their macro-predators in the form of wild animals, but more especially of other members of their own species. They have, however, been infinitely more vulnerable to micro-predators in the form of micro-organisms of all kinds and the numerous parasites that prey upon man. Because all but the larger of these have until recently been invisible and consequently unrecognized, man has not been able to mount any conscious effort to combat them. These micropredators, whether viruses, bacteria, or parasites, depend on man and animals or intermediate hosts for their survival. In man, they can give rise to disease that may or may not be lethal, and in the long run it is better for their survival that death of the host they invade should not be the outcome.