ABSTRACT
It is sometimes asserted that the failure of most Third World societies, including India, to satisfy the minimum physical requirements of food, clothing, and shelter of substantial numbers of their people, let alone the equally basic non-physical needs of productive employment, education, good health, and psychological self-realization, is causally linked to the marginalization of modern science and technology in those societies. To understand the role of technology in social change, this chapter examines the process of technological change itself and how it interacts with changing economic, social and political relationships and institutions. A local technology system might serve any community and/or productive or service sector, including villages and groups of villages or a district town and surrounding rural community. Repetitive access over time is essential to understanding the dynamics of any social system, but unfortunately in China, the opportunities for this repetitive access are much more limited.
