ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issues of dependence, and continued underdevelopment of most of the countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia. In order to attain technological self-reliance in the broad sense, technology must be transferred, absorbed, adapted and, in the most favorable cases, changed to suit emerging needs. The social and organizational mechanisms for attaining these goals tend to be almost as varied as the social formations involved in the process. Absorption of technology from abroad or laboratory set-ups at home is not a one-shot affair. The absorption process covers a number of stages, and successful absorption involves the ability to meet unforeseen problems as well as to run the production facility under "normal" conditions. As a first approximation to grasping the economic characteristics of global technology a fourfold classification has been proposed, in terms of the rate of change of the technology and the degree of economies of scale characterizing it.
