Technology Outlook

Twentieth-century technology spread from Europe and the U.S. to other major nations such as Japan and the Soviet Union. It has not, however, pervaded all the countries of the world, by any means. Some so-called developing nations have never experienced the factory system and other institutions of industrialization. The leaders of such countries tend to feel that the acquisition of modern weapons and new technology will provide them with power and prestige. No one, however, can predict the religious, social, and cultural consequences of the transfer of technologies to these countries. In fact, some of the most severe social dislocations during recent decades have occurred in regions where radical changes caused by technology transfer have taken place; Uganda and Iran are two unhappy examples.