Title: Human resources and industrial development: new social roles

Authors: Keith Cowling, Roger Sugden

Addresses: Department o f Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. ' Research Centre for Industrial Strategy, Department of Commerce, The Birmingham Business School, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B 15 2TT, UK

Abstract: The key to successful industrial development is a move away from free market systems. These systems constrain people|s talents. They are characterised by concentrated decision-making power, leading to such problems as product market monopolisation, deindustrialisation and constrained technological change. In contrast, it is desirable to cultivate a diffuse, deconcentrated economic process where people are given new roles in society. We advocate a process where communities strategically plan their own futures and do so using markets as an instrument. Government industrial policies – for example measures to influence technological progress – should be designed and assessed in the context of nurturing such democratic economies.

Keywords: centripetalism; diffuse economies; deconcentrated economies; strategic decisions; free market systems; industrial development; monopoly capitalism; short-termism; social efficiency; technological progress; transnationalism; human resources.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.1994.025576

International Journal of Technology Management, 1994 Vol.9 No.3/4, pp.287 - 296

Published online: 23 May 2009 *

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