Technology in Society 50 (2017) 31e32

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Technology in Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techsoc

Issues and Opinions

Good intentions with limited outcomes: Three limitations of trying to

reduce mass migration with industrial thinking
Stephen Fox a, *, Idriss El-Thalji b, Safwan A. Altarazi c
a
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, 02044 Espoo, Finland
b
Cluster for Industrial Asset Management, University of Stavanger Stavanger, Norway
c
Industrial Engineering Department, German Jordanian University, 11180 Amman, Jordan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Industrial thinking is being applied in efforts to try to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. In particular,
Received 9 April 2017 industrial production in the Middle East is being subsidized by the European Union. This is being done
Accepted 19 April 2017 with good intentions. However, positive outcomes are limited. In this paper, it is explained that limited
Available online 22 April 2017
positive outcomes are inevitable, because industrial thinking is too out-of-date and out-of-place to
address the causes of mass migration in the Middle East. By contrast, “leapfrog” socio-technical systems
Keywords:
could be applied to address the complex causes of mass migration, not as socio-economic crises, but as
Industrialization
opportunities for mutual prosperity growth.
Leapfrog
Mass migration
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Middle east
Prosperity
Socio-technical system

Reducing mass migration is a goal for regions of emigration,
which seek to retain their human capital, and for regions of
immigration, which seek to maintain their established way of life.
Widespread measures to stem the flow of mass migration include
devising higher barriers to entry, and providing financial incentives
for geographically intermediate nations to host migrants. Mean-
while, there is little investment in using innovative socio-technical
systems to address the causes of mass migration. These include
solutions that “leapfrog” over industrialization. These “leapfrog”
solutions exist at the intersection of technology, society and eco-
nomic growth. They can be used to address the complex causes of
mass migration, not as socio-economic crises, but as opportunities
for mutual prosperity growth [1].
By contrast, using old-fashioned industrial thinking hinders the
ability to address the fundamental causes of mass migration and
the factors that influence it. Consider, for example, the EU's subsi-
dizing of industrial production in Jordan in order to stem the flow of
Syrian refugees towards Europe. In 2016, Jordan was reported to be
the nation hosting the largest number of refugees in the world,
including hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees [2]. This
outstanding humanitarian achievement is sustained amidst chronic
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: stephen.fox@vtt.fi (S. Fox), idriss.el-thalji@uis.no (I. El-Thalji),
safwan.altarazi@gju.edu.jo (S.A. Altarazi).
water shortages and persistently high unemployment among Jor-
danians [3].
On 20th July 2016, a ten year agreement came into effect be-
tween the EU and Jordan, which has the initial aim of providing
200,000 jobs for Syrian refugees. This involves relaxed import re-
strictions for Jordanian exports into the EU. According to a report in
the The Jordan Times, the most significant provision is that the EU
allows made-in-Jordan products to include up to 70% of production
inputs from non-local materials. This relaxed “rules of origin” deal
is applied to export goods that are manufactured in designated
industrial zones in Jordan. The deal depends upon 15% of the
workforce being Syrians in any factory seeking to export to the EU
within this agreement: with the rate rising to 25% in the third year
of the agreement [4]. This arrangement has been undertaken with
good intentions. However, potential for positive effects are limited
by its underlying simplistic industrial thinking.
Firstly, the complexities of socio-technical systems are not taken
into consideration. In particular, how multiple social factors can act
upon industrial interventions. The complexity of social factors have
led to relatively few Syrians taking up work in the designated in-
dustrial zones. Major social factors are that some 250,000 Syrians
are already employed in the shadow economy. This enables them to
maintain their refugee status that brings aid from international
agencies. At the same time, maintaining refugee status enables
them to maintain the hope of being able to emigrate through

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2017.04.002
0160-791X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
32 S. Fox et al. / Technology in Society 50 (2017) 31e32
official channels to a Western country. Thus, while the “rules of
origin” deal is attractive to the EU, low paid factory work making
goods for export to the EU is not so attractive to Syrian refugees in
Jordan [5e7].
Secondly, the inefficiencies of industrial zones in countries such
as Jordan are not taken into account. In particular, Jordan is situated
at a nexus of geopolitical forces largely beyond its control, with
industrial investments often coming from foreign countries for the
benefit of foreign countries. Previously, for example, East Asia
countries have invested in Jordanian industrial zones. This is
because they faced quotas into the US market, which they could
circumvent through US preferential quotas for Jordan. Subse-
quently, when the priorities of foreign countries change, industrial
zones lose their only source of competitive advantage. Overall, the
effects of Jordanian industrial zones on the Jordanian labour market
have been disappointing historically. For example, foreign workers
have taken 20e25% of created job positions. With foreign workers
transferring most of their pay back to their home countries. Often,
the Jordanian workforce has had limited interest in working in in-
dustrial zones due to stagnant low pay, long working hours, diffi-
cult working conditions, little training, and poor job security. These
conditions arise from focus on a few low value adding sectors, such
as textiles, where the differentiating factor of Jordanian factories is
not production innovations or branding strategies. Rather, it is
foreign subsidies through various deals to suit the purposes of
foreign countries. At the same time, positive effects from industrial
zones on the Jordan economy overall have been limited. This is
because, for example, linkages are limited since Jordan has few
upstream and downstream resources related to factory production
in its industrial zones. Hence, the EU's relaxed “rules of origin” deal
is very similar to previous foreign deals that have had very limited
positive outcomes [8e13].
Thirdly, the fundamental anachronism and ineptitude of in-
dustrial production is not taken into account. With regard to
anachronism, industrial production is an old-fashioned paradigm
based on the need for large-scale capital investment, which can
only be recouped through continuous large-scale production to
meet large-scale commercial demand. If there is not large-scale
commercial demand, large-scale production is not economically
viable. Hence, unless there is some kind of subsidy, industrial in-
vestment only takes place at locations which are close to large-scale
demand or where production costs are so low that production is
economically viable for distant large-scale demand. This de-
pendency upon large-scale demand or large-scale subsidy is now
old-fashioned because of low cost lightweight means of production,
which radically reduce investment costs for setting-up production.
This is especially the case when production is moveable in vehicles
that would hitherto have been used for distributing inbound ma-
terials or outbound goods. Importantly, when production is
moveable there is no need to incur the investment costs of con-
structing factory buildings [14].
With regard to ineptitude, industrial production is out-of-place
in a region where the urgent needs are for resilient infrastructure
for energy, water, food and shelter. For such urgent needs, fixed
factories producing goods for Europe are of little relevance to Jor-
danians or to Syrian refugees. By contrast, use of moveable pro-
duction to fabricate capital goods and infrastructure for energy,
water, food and shelter is relevant to both. In such work, Syrians can
gain expertise in doing exactly the work that will be needed to
rebuild their own country. At the same time, it takes development
in the opposite direction from the concentration of populations in a
few conurbations based on the centralization of resources and
production. Rather, widespread distribution of infrastructure can
enable highly distributed economies. This a more resilient alter-
native to populations being concentrated in just a few locations,
which can easily become the overcrowded starting places for mass
migrations over borders [1].
Thus, investing in innovative socio-technical systems with
proven efficacy to enable rapid fabrication of highly distributed
infrastructure is far more relevant to supporting prosperity growth
for Jordanians and Syrians. In particular, moveable factories can
quickly be prepared with low cost lightweight production equip-
ment to enable rapid fabrication of local systems for solar energy,
water harvesting, food production, and shelter construction with
local materials. Many of the needed socio-technical systems have
been developed and tested in research, development and innova-
tion projects carried out in Europe with EU funding over the past
twenty years [15]. These are EU innovations in need of applications,
which can be put to use by Jordanians and Syrians in need of highly
distributed socio-technical systems. Thus, rather than subsidizing
old-fashioned out-of-place fixed factory production of goods for
Europe, better outcomes can come from subsidizing up-to-date
moveable socio-technical systems for use by Jordanians and
Syrians in producing their own highly distributed prosperity.
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