South, it may be more relevant to a consideration of the future
political stability of the planet to consider soberly the extent to which
the South faces a common economic and political environment which
has the potential to drive the states of the South together in an
increasingly desperate and potentially aggressive alliance against the
North (Box 5.4).BOX5.4 NORTH V SOUTH: A MAJOR FAULT LINE IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS?
Many of these issues were raised by the report of the Independent
Commission on International Development Issues (Brandt, 1980) to
which the reader is referred. The likelihood of such a development
must depend upon the extent to which the South feels deliberately
excluded from the affluent economy of the North. Conversely the
degree to which it is thought possible that individual countries will
gradually be able to participate in the benefits of Northern affluence
will reduce instability. So far the dangers of the situation may be
emphasised by a quotation from the Brandt report: ‘It is a terrible
irony that the most dynamic and rapid transfer of highly sophis-
ticated equipment and technology from rich to poor countries has
been in the machinery of death’ (Brandt, 1980: 14).132 PROCESSES
Consider such issues such as:- Southern indebtedness to Northern banks
- adverse movements in the terms of trade for the primary products
of the South - Northern monopolisation of intellectual property rights and infor-
mation resources - activities of (Northern) multinational enterprises
- destruction of the planetary environment in the interests of
Northern consumption.