Abuse of science and technology in capitalism
Claim
The selling of scientific and technological knowledge to developing countries forms the basis for economic imperialism and foreign control through debt, and the development of science and technology applied to the production and evolution of machinery, gradually eliminates the need for human labour, thus producing unemployment. Since those who are displaced by machines cannot easily buy the goods that are produced, resources, including human resources, are wasted. Alienation of the majority from the production process sharpens class consciousness.
Counter-claim
Freedom and free-market economies produced the health, human and physical sciences we know today. Some socialist countries, such as the USSR, cannot feed themselves and they desperately try to acquire Western agricultural technology. In the developing countries, millions of persons are saved from disease and death by capitalist medicine and public health measures. The countries of the South are industrializing and trying to increase their exports of manufactured goods, as well as trying to build infrastructures and extend human rights. The science, technology and machinery of developed countries are being exported to the South to help meet these needs.