Eric Bleys
RESET Economics Assignment
“China’s Gift” is a Actually a Curse
In November 2020, the Guardian posted an article titled “Lahore’s metro line open to fanfare - but what is the real cost of China’s ‘gift’”? The article discusses a new metro line recently opened in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan. The metro line was financed by a Chinese bank as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive China-led infrastructure construction project in over 60 countries throughout Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. For critics, the Belt and Road Initiative is a form of Chinese economic imperialism; from their perspective, the Chinese loans are being used to fund attractive development projects which ultimately create excessive public debt and dependency for the countries receiving the loans. For the most part, the Guardian’s article seems to echo these concerns. More specifically, the article cites public debt, bad working conditions and the deaths of over 50 laborers as reasons to be concerned about the project. However, the article also cites the views of Pakistanis thankful for China’s investment.
The project embodies many important issues at the intersection between economics, responsibility, science and technology. In particular, the article relates to the problems of dehumanization through technological development and notions of progress. The deaths of the laborers helped to create a development project which will, at least in the short term, help the city’s economy. This situation naturally raises several important questions about responsibility. Were the deaths justified due to their contributions to society? Can the value of human life be measured against economic benefits? Should individual rights be sacrificed for accomplishing the greater good? Does the project resemble a colonial style technocratic dehumanization of a culture deemed less developed?
Some would argue that the 50 + deaths were justified because increased economic prosperity could save a greater number of lives. From this perspective, the ends would justify the means and hence the project itself. However, even if this economic assumption comes true, this would not prove that the 50 + deaths were needed to build the subway line. Therefore, the project will still be guilty of bloodshed which wasn’t necessary to accomplish the economic benefits.
The article reminded me of Visvanathan’s critique of the violent aspects of modern Western science in “A Carnival for Science.” Although the Lahore metro line was constructed with Chinese financial power rather than Western investments, the project still relates to the concept of science as a structure of violence and domination in the name of progress. China is now a major leader in science and technology; therefore, China can use this leadership as a justification for dominance in projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. Western colonialism was defined by an attitude of benevolent chauvinism in regards to the colonized; those cultures deemed inferior were said to need subjugation to Western governance as part of a civilizing mission. The alleged lack of scientific development was a core justification for viewing these cultures as inferior.
Visvanathan proposes four theses in order to describe modernity as technocracy. “1. The Hobbesian project, which is the conception of society based on the scientific method. 2. The imperatives of progress, which justifies social engineering on those deemed backwards or retarded. 3. The vivesectional mandate, where the “Other” becomes the object of violence in the name of science. 4. The idea of triage, where a society or subculture is condemned to death because reason has deemed it incurable.”
Clearly, the 50+ deaths resulting from the constructed metro line in Lahore are an example of violence in the name of technological progress. Importantly, we must distinguish between deaths caused by accident, neglect and murder. In a responsibility context, different levels of blameworthiness are attributed based on these distinctions. The Guardian article implies that the workers died as a result of neglect. “More than 50 Orange Line workers have died, highlighting the country’s labour problems, including its pattern of relying on precarious, subcontracted workers for large infrastructure projects, as well as weak enforcement of relevant laws.” Violence can exist through neglect rather than malicious deliberation. If scientific knowledge and technological development are deemed more important than health and safety, then it is very easy to rationalize such brutal neglect as a consequence.
Are the deaths of the workers being conceptualized as the death of a more “primitive” Pakistan? For those who prioritize “development” at all costs, the sacrifice of human life from a more “primitive” time can be justified to support the more “advanced” life which is to come. This notion is similar to the social Darwinian emphasis on “improving” humanity by means of the death of “biologically inferior” persons. Visvanathan points out that this concept of progress through violence can be compared to museum showcases in which chronological order shows the “development” of older inferior products slowly evolving into newer and superior products.
I challenge this concept on the grounds that the historic projects of development through violence failed to produce progress in actuality. The horrors of Western colonialism, fascism and authoritarian Marxism, all used notions of scientism and progress to commit unspeakable atrocities which did not lead to any substantial progress or development. In fact, these movements frequently lead to the under-development of affected areas. Importantly, during the 19th and 20th centuries, it was often the most scientifically advanced nations, such as Great Britain, Germany and Japan, which unleashed the most brutal atrocities of the era. Furthermore, during the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union, two technological superpowers, played a game of intimidation with nuclear weapons which could have resulted in the extinction of human life. By invoking this history, I do not wish to condemn science as intrinsically evil, but instead to condemn the prioritization of science over notions of morality and human rights. Unfortunately, the Lahore Orange Line project was guilty of this ugly technocratic policy perspective in action.
https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu05se/uu05se0k.htm