1672 



3. The economic aspects of the problem derive from the nature of an evolving 

 and globalizing industrial revolution with parallel developments in the world 

 of science and technology. This dual phenomenon has created an expanding world 

 economy, stimulated the universalization of knowledge, and generated a com- 

 petition of needs and demands, priorities and goals between the advanced in- 

 dustrial societies and the LDCs: the former seek expanding markets and resources, 

 human and material, for enlarging their industrial systems ; the latter seek develop- 

 ment and modernization of their undeveloped or developing countries One of the 

 primary objects of the competition is to secure trained professional manpower 

 needed by both. 



4. By reordering immigration priorities to stress quality over quantity and by 

 enlarging incentives, the advanced industrial societies have been able to draw 

 heavily on the LDCs for their professional manpower requirements, seemingly 

 to the detriment of the latter. 



o. In this competition for trained manpower [the] advanced industrial societies 

 bear "univenal culpability" for brain drain from the LDCs. The data suggest 

 that the United States, long the mecca of world immigration, has been a prime 

 beneficiary; though the number of immigrant scientists and engineers has de- 

 clined in 1972, the inflow of foreign physicians and surgeons continues on a steady 

 upward trend.*" 



There appears to be little awareness among the Ameiican people — 

 or even in most quarters of the U.S. Government — of the significance 

 of a brain drain to the United States from the LDCs. Yet, though 

 largely hidden, the problem is a durable one that poses the question: 

 What is the true attitude of the United States toward the developing 

 countries and the development process? "For brain drain and devel- 

 opment are principles in contradiction: one cannot have it both 

 ways — an LDC cannot develop without an educated elite." ^" The 

 contradiction is heightened by the inability of the United States — 

 despite the pei-vasive current atmosphere of disenchantment with 

 foreign commitments other than those with clearly j^crceived benefits 

 to national security, and specifically despite a declining interest in 

 foreign aid and international development— to escape involvement 

 with the LDCs. These countries have the greatest concentration of 

 the world's population and natural resources; they piovide the indus- 

 trially advanced states with both materials and markets; and, not 

 least important in the restless world of 1976, they include most of the 

 iuceiiiational trouble spots, actual or potential. ^"^ 



The principal stages in solving or ameliorating a problem are (1) 

 discovering that it exists; (2) perceiving what impacts it has or is 

 likely to have, and assessing their significance; (3) analyzing its 

 causes and deciding on remedial measures that would be feasible and 

 worth the cost; and (4) carrying out those measures. In these terras, 

 the brain drain problem as of the time when the study was published 

 had yet to reach stage (1) for most Government officials and citizens 

 in the United States; a relatively small number of officials and spe- 

 cialists had made some partial headway into stage (2), and a few 

 even into stage (3) ; but virtually no headway at all had been made in 

 stage (4). 



2M Ibid., pp. 1133-1134. 



2M Ibid., p. 1287 



«K Of the following statement by Russell W. Peterson, chairman of the Council on En- 

 vironmental Quality, in a Waahington Post article (September 4, 1975), on "World Popula- 

 tion : A Forgotten Crisis" : "Today, about 70 percent of the world's population lives in the 

 developing countries. At present rates of growth, that proportion will, within 35 years, 

 grow to 82 percent. That rate of expansion, if unchecked, threatens unpredictable danget 

 for all nations. When one considers the growing Interdependence among the nations, the 

 new policies of inequality in which developing countries charge that our abundance has 

 been achieved at their expense, and the proliferation of sophisticated weaponry around the 

 world, it becomes clear that no nation can escape the consequences of failure to moderate the 

 world s population growth." 



