1058 



drain. Tliere are a number of scientists who are taking; what appear to 

 tliem to be better jobs that do not hapj:)en to be in the United King- 

 dom. The first thin^ to realize is that it is quite legitimate for them 

 to do this ... it is also proper. . . . The world of scholarship is the 

 last which should allow social^ political or nationalist considerations 

 to be paramount." ^^ 



The internationalists' criterion in defining brain drain is. whether 

 the individual scientist performs a greater service to humanity by 

 leaving his native country or in remaining or returning home. Ulti- 

 mately, they argue, the losing country can gain if he has greater op- 

 portunity abroad for exercising his skills and talents and realizing 

 his professional soals. Germany, for example— as indeed all of man- 

 kind — has benefited from the work of Wernher von Braun and the 

 other German space scientists who came to the United States after 

 World War II. Their contributions virtually assured America's suc- 

 cess in space exploration. 



In contrast, the nationalist view defines brain drain from a far more 

 narrowly circumscribed perspective. The principal criterion is service 

 to the nation. When Sir Kenneth Robinson complained of the medical 

 brain drain to the United States, he was more concerned with satisfy- 

 ing Britain's health needs than either "swelling the membership" of 

 the American Medical Association (AMA) or conceivably serving the 

 larger interests of humanity. The nationalist view, however, has 

 greater relevance for the LDCs, for it is many of them who pay the 

 highest social cost for the loss of skilled manpower. Accordingly, they 

 perceive this problem more directly in terms of how it impairs their 

 national welfare and development and not how it serves the aggregate 

 welfare of the world. The nonreturn of a single Nigerian medical 

 graduate from postgraduate training in an advanced country is con- 

 sidered a serious loss to the health needs of that much deprived na- 

 tion and accordingly constitutes a drain on its high-level manpower 



resources.**' 



VARIATIONS ON DEFINITION 



There are perha]os as many variations on the definition of brain 

 drain as there are situations to which it is applied. It is a term, wrote 

 Dr. Harold Margulies and Lucille Stephenson Bloch in their study 

 on foreign medical graduates (FMGs), which "time has proved to be 

 more convenient than descriptive. It implies more than it says and 

 disguises what should be made more apparent."*^ For them, a "rela- 

 tively tasteless" translation of brain drain is "loss of human capital 

 investments." and a less inclusive term is "migration of talented or 

 highly skilled individuals." A brief economic definition is "rational 

 allocation of scarce resources," that is, the most economically efficient 

 use of manpower. For those deeply, and at times emotionally, con- 

 cerned about the issues provoked by brain drain, Margulies and Bloch 

 write, "it is the unwarranted and undesirable loss of urgentlv needed, 

 highly educated individuals from poor countries to more fortunate 

 countries like ours which could get along very well without them." ^^ 



39 ( 



40 ■ 



' Onoted in. Seltzer, op. clt., p. 55. 



'For a filscussion of the nationalist view, see, Don Patlnliin, "A 'Nationalist' Model, 

 In Af^nms!. The Krain Drain, pr>. 02-]fl8. 

 *^ Margulies and Bloch, op. cit., p. 78 

 «ibid. 



