Fong Chan Onn

Appropriate Technology: An Empirical Study of Bicycle Manufacturing in Malaysia

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CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

Morawetz defines appropriate technology "as the set of techniques which makes optimum use of available resources in a given environment. For each process or project, it is the technology which maximizes social welfare if factor prices are shadow priced" (12, p.517). The definition implies that a technically efficient technology is not necessarily an appropriate technology because the price and availability of limited resources, and the social welfare function should eventually determine the set of appropriate technologies. The definition, however, Ieaves social welfare function undefined. Though it would be relatively simple to offer a rigorous definition of the social welfare function; it is however difficult operationalize from Morawetz's concept of appropriate technology to arrive at a set of criteria for the evaluation of appropriate technology. ( See Sen (17, p. 7) for discussions on the difficulties involved in operationalizing any rigorous definition of the social welfare function. Thus instead of operationalizing Morawetz's definition, we utilize Eckaus's approach which states that the only criteria for evaluating the "appropriateness" of technological discussions is with reference to the general goals of development (3, p. 37). This assumes that the group social welfare function is as enunciated in the develop- ment goals, and appropriate technologies are technologies which can enhance (and not retard) the achievement of these goals. The principal development goal of Malaysia is eradication of poverty with a reduction in inequality of income disiribution (10, Chap.9). Within the extent of this goal, this means that the whole range of technologies which pruduce different qualities of bicycles should be examined. Relevant characteristics are investment and labor intensities, scale of operation, simplicity of operation and repair, appropriateness of product, and use of locally produced inputs (raw materials and machinery) (18, p.98). From this examination, it may be possible to identify a current technology (or an improved version of a current technology) which comes closest to being an appropriate technology-in the sense of enhancing the achievement of the goal of poverty preventation. However, before we priceed to evaluate the bicycle manufacturing technologies currently available in Malaysia, we shall briefly describe the present state of the Malaysian bicycle industry. This would provide a good basis upon which the technologies can be evaluated.