INTERNATIONAL

 Paccard, the Missionaries of the Millennium

-Sylvie Bullo, France

Without our realizing it, they often set the rhythm for town and village life. Sometimes, they get on people's nerves as they are noisy, but without bells and chimes, everything would be different and the Paccard company would not exist. Sine the 18th century, from father to son, they have been manufacturing bells, and they are proud of it.

Pierre Paccard is a happy man. He was full of enthusiasm when he came back from his last trip to the United States, where he was received with great consideration. He was even the subject of a report on the American television CNN. It must be said the Mr.Paccard's area of activity is far from usual and he recently carried off a master stroke by building the biggest 'swinging' bell in the world. This bell, weighing thirty-three tones, rang in the year 2000 at the Millennium Monument Company in Newport in Kentucky. "It was fabulous! This bell was commissioned by an American multimillionaire from the building and the public works sector, Mr. Carlisle, to whom the Millennium Monument is due. As we are very well-known in the United States, he thought of us to make this huge bell, four meter across and there and a half meters tall, which could be heard ringing forty kilometers away. Not bad eh! This bell is my favorite daughter"', Pierre Paccard, the father of two sons who have taken up the torch, states with humor. At the Paccard company, seven generations have worked at the foundry from father to son. "But mind you, no Paccard has ever forced his sons to work at the foundry. But as one of my sons put it, "once you have caught the bug, you can't do without it".

It all began in Annecy, in 1796. The revolutionary spirit had calmed down, but town and village bells were in smithereens. So, this foundry was called upon to have the time of the mass and time quite simply ring out again. "Very early on, Paccard looked abroad. As early as 1872, my great-grandfather delivered his first bells in Canada and the United States. It ll began with the missionaries some of whom ran up to fifteen parishes alone. Each one wanted his Church and his own bell and there was no need to drum up business. They spontaneously turned to us". Thanks to the missionaries, the Paccard bell foundry set the rhythm for life in villages out in the bush as well as in the Far North. "Today, things are quite different. Churches are more or less deserted and parishes are grouping together. As a result, the market, in France at any rate, has dwindled considerably and all the more so as the life span of a bell is about two centuries. However, abroad, churches and cathedrals are still being built. Bells have also secular function. On my recent trip to the United States, I signed two contracts with two American Universities, in Indiana and in Pennsylvania. All big campuses have their bell and it sets the pace for student life. It is a tradition."

At present, the main customers of this foundry based in Savoy are in the United States, but also in Vietnam, Japan, Latin America and China. With its staff of eighteen people, this family business achieves more than half of its turnover from abroad that is 65% in tonnage. "Our success can, above all, be explained by the quality of our work and our products. On 31 May 1891, it was my great-grandfather who founded the Chambery and those on the campus at Berkeley and Princeton. There are only four or five foundries in the world which know how to make them." There is no stopping Pierre Paccard once he gets onto the subject of making bell chimes, from the four octaves to programming by computer and including the number of bells and the mechanical carbon fiber transmission system. To make bell chimes, we use thirty different professional bodies, he points out.

His own trade clearly suits him to a T. This cheerful and bubbly man can also thank the bells for making him meet a lot of people, and important ones at that, such as John-Paul II, General MacArthur, and Presidents Truman, Giscard d'Estaint and indirectly, Clinton. "My father had been asked to make fifty-four replicas of the famous Liberty Bell, which had proclaimed American independence in 1750, to advertise a loan floated by the American State. Each of the bells had been placed outside the Parliament of the various states and, when Bill Clinton was elected President, he rang the one in Washington. It was a Paccard!. For this foundry which is the world-leader for bell making, the death knell is unlikely to toll.

Development and Democratic-Socialism: are they for each other?  -1

-by Dr. Suresh C. Chalise, Political -Sociologist

Introduction:

Most of the democratic socialists of the contemporary social systems, still try to explain the doctrine of socialism differently than the idea of development, by giving an excess emphasis to its political elements. Their mode of interpretation contains more socio-political connotation than economic, accepting the supremacy of the superstructure over the substructure of a society. They are right, since the idea of late Karl Marx that the force of production and relation of production dominate the entire superstructure i.e. the socio-political and cultural conditions of a society, is disproved in all social systems of the present world. In contemporary society, this partitioned school of thought, however, is loosing its ground by and by, as in recent years, the development theorists have profoundly paid attention to see the processes of development must not disdain the elements of social justice to the common populace of a society. The protagonists of the school of development not only have started championing thoughts be synonymous for each other? These are two basic, however, significant questions to be addressed by the socio-political thinkers of contemporary society. Besides, on the basis of experience in the past, the social and political elite must explore and identify the agencies of balance development needed for a society of Twenty First Century.

In this article, therefore, a small attempt has been made to divulge the elements and agencies of development. It also has been tried to explain how the philosophy of development enjoys a similarity with the doctrine of social justice. Furthermore, this paper may question the unchallenged domain of democratic socialism by accepting the philosophy of contemporary development policy that includes all ingredients of democratic socialism, in itself.

What is development?

It is economic phenomenon. Traditionally, development has been regarded as the capacity of a national economy of a country to generate an annual increase in its Gross National Product at the rate of 5-7 per cent, by U. N. standard. Therefore, 1960s and 1970s, were dubbed or considered as the development decades by the United Nations and development was conceived in terms of the attainment of a 6 per cent annual target growth rate of the GNP. Another index of development has been the use of rates of growth of per capita GNP, in order to take into account the ability of a country to expand its output at a rate, that is, faster than the growth rates of its population. The levels and rates of growth of the economic phenomenon alone. However, mainly the experience of 1950s and 1960s- when a large proportion of Third World countries achieved the overall growth targets i.e.6 per cent annual growth rate of GNP set by UN but the standard of living of the masses of these nations was remained poor, indicated that there was something wrong with the definition of development. As a result of which, the concept of development was redefined later.

The definition of development, apart from economic prosperity, now has included in itself: elimination of poverty, socio-political inequality, and employment of a population. In this connection, it is worthwhile to quote Prof. Dudely Seers who has rightly said that the questions to ask about a country’s development are, therefore: What has been happening to the poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality? If all three of these have declined from high levels, then beyond doubt, this has been a period of development for the country concerned. If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’ even if per capita income doubled  (Seer, 1984). Prof. Seer’s this assertion carries a significant meaning with regard to the definition of development as it takes into consideration the major areas of progress such as unemployment, poverty and social inequality. For instance, in 1960s and 1970s, many a developing countries attained high rates of growth of per capita income, nevertheless, witnessed an actual decline in employment, social equality and the real incomes of the bottom 40 per cent of their populations. If we look at this, by the earlier growth definition, these countries were developing. But on account of the recent criteria that includes employment, social equality, they are rather not, in true sense.

Elements of development.  Scholars are unanimous on the components of development and are of the view that such socio-economic and political processes should encompass three major ingredients directly bearing upon the people of a society. They are: freedom, self-esteem, and life-sustenance. To evaluate the real progress of a country, it is imperative to investigate as to whether its developmental phenomenon has achieved these fundamental ingredients or not? The first element is the concept of freedom. This element upholds the basic idea of freedom from social servitude of men to nature, institution, and other dogmatic beliefs. The second element of development is self-esteem of an individual i.e. to be a person having sense of worth and self-respect in a nation or society. Every member of a society seeks some form of self-esteem- some kind of identity, dignity, recognition, honour etc. As Denis Goulet (1971) points out Development is legitimised as a goal because it is an important, perhaps even an indispensable, way of gaining esteem. And finally, the Third ingredient of development is life- sustenance, which signifies that, every life requires some basic human needs such as food, shelter, health care and social security for survival. Without meeting these needs, it is impossible for every one to survive on the earth.

On the basis of above discussion, it can be said that development is a multi-dimensional process which functionally involves the re-orientation and re-organisation of entire socio-economic and political systems. Apart from improvements in institutional structures as well as in popular attitudes and beliefs, if someone wants to examine or judge a nation’s development,  he or she must pay their attention to find whether the country’s people are suffering from absolute poverty or not; whether socio-economic and political inequalities are prevalent in society or not? Similarly, individual and social group´s esteem, are safeguarded or not, internally and externally. Internally, vis -a -vis one another, whereas externally, vis-a- vis other regions and nations. Whether economic progress has expanded the range of human choice to be freed from external dependence and internal servitude to other individual and socio-economic and political institutions or not? If reply or answer to these questions are in affirmation, then, it can be said that a nation is developing or developed, otherwise, it is not so.

Agencies of development .

Now, after knowing the meaning of development, it is necessary to identify the major agencies of development and analyse them on the basis of their functional role. In this regard, looking at the contemporary social structure, in view of its integration into the world social system, the processes of technology transfer, mobilisation human capital and socio-economic and political reforms, could be heeded as the main ingredients for the progress of the societies: developed or developing world. These agencies of development, how do play a significant role, are discussed here one by one.

Technology Transfer. Technology, which is regarded as one of the most important forces of development, is a matter of concern for both developed or developing societies. Because, it contributes to economic growth, through the incremental and radical innovation of skills, machines, and organisation (Rush, 1984). In other words, technology is essential for improving the quality of human lives by helping to increase food production, better health conditions, fast and comfortable transportation and communication and even security systems. It consists not only of machinery role but also contains knowledge, skills and organizational elements in it (Meire, 1994). Technology is the knowledge that leads to an advance machinery products and processes. Any addition to such a   knowledge, reduces the real cost of production and leads to the introduction of new products. Reliance on technology to perform a wide range of functions has come to affect virtually every sphere of human activity (Dickson, 1974).

(To be continued)