PRICE OF PROGRESS: HUMANITARIAN PRICE OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS IN THE GLOBAL WORLD

Current decline in competitiveness of many highly developed capitalist countries with innovation-driven economy stimulates scientists to find explanations for this by rethinking territory development’s conceptual framework. Based on relevant publications of A. Toffler (1970, 1980), Ch. Murray (2003), G. Easterbrook (2004), R. Wright (2004), own research findings as well as ideas of Development Economics and Philosophy of Technology, the research hypothesis is as follows: territory development in the modern world declines when humanitarian price of technological progress begins to outweigh benefits, and this price determines different paths of development for concrete territories. Scientific approach proposed for using in this research is based on the fundamental economic Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity applied for technological progress and humanitarian price of the progress in different parts of the world, which are perceived ñ based on the conception of F. Braudel - as “worlds-economies”. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to outline key elements and tasks of the further empirical and econometrical researches aiming to propose a relevant methodology and techniques of measuring humanitarian price of technological progress for different territories as well as to define mechanisms to reduce this price in existed “worlds-economies”. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 2007ñ2013) under grant agreement No. 291823 Marie Curie FP7-PEOPLE- 2011-COFUND (The new International Fellowship Mobility Programme for Experienced Researchers in Croatia - NEWFELPRO). This article has been worked out as a part of the project “Rethinking Territory Development in Global Comparative Researches (Rethink Development)” which has received funding through NEWFELPRO project under grant agreement No. 10.