SELF RELIANCE terials and the local capital that the task is to find forms that stimulate local creativity. This should not be confused with labor - intensive forms of production which may constitute a solution where there is scarcity of capital and excess of labor. Such factor-substitution is entirely compatible with centralized management and manipulation, professionalism and bureaucratization. Rather, the point would be to opt for those forms of production that permit local grassroots initiative and innovation yielding results compatible with local conditions tastes culture. The point would be that the loss in efficiency caused by sometimes reinventing something already invented elsewhere is more than offset by the gain in self-confidence in accepting the challenge of being the innovator. To be the able recipient of a technology developed elsewhere casts the person/community /reg ion in the role of the good pupil; a role which is very difficult to unlearn and is the very opposite of being self-confident. 10 The basic economic principle, then, would be to use local factors and produce for local consumption. Before producing anything, however, the basic question asked during times of crisis should always be asked: do we really need this product? The argument that it can be used for exchange even if we do not need it for any use presupposes that there are other communities that are not based on self-reliance - like capitalism assuming that there will always be a periphery somewhere that can serve as a "market". Moreover, only with the masses in command is there a sufficient guarantee that first priority will be çiiven to production for the satisfaction of the basic needs of those most in need, emphasizing use-value over exchangevalue.11 If the answer is yes, the rroduct is needed, the task would ' 0 At this point a Western preoccupatlon wlth the loss of lnefflclency ln multiple Innovation, or re-lnnovation, enters. Great efforts are exerclsed to avold thls through "coordination 1 and documentation". Without denying the value of that approach ·ln some ~lelds it should be notlced how thls serves the functlon of reinforcing the Canter as a Center because they have the largest capability, e.g. ln pure R and D, ,science and technology, terms for creatlng new science and technology. 11 However, no absolute dogmatlc position about only producing for use, never for exchange wili be taken here. When one produces for the use of others there ls a·lways an exchange element present whlch makes lt hard to draw an absolute borderline. But the concept of production for soclally beneficial goals, including the satisfaction of basic material needs of oneself and others mlght be seen as a basic lngredlent ln self-rellance as a concept. 55
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