The issue of technology is, in part, a question of values. The dominant position is currently held by those who might broadly be described as technological optimists.
The 'optimist' position is that
-The general direction of technological development is right and positive
-The drawbacks and risks of technology are outweighed by the benefits
-Further technological progress will compensate those who have lost out in earlier stages of the process
-Progress will rectify the problems caused by existing technologies
-Optimists basically see technology as politically neutral and, more often than not, historically inevitable 'Evidence from space of humanity's mark upon the world is cause for celebration. These are not Mother Earth's scars, but the legacy of human progress. Human progress is being impeded by the deluded belief that the Earth's environment has some mysterious intrinsic value, and that we have a moral obligation to protect it. In truth, the only value in nature is the value that we derive from it. And the only authority that can decide the future direction of human progress is our authority. To rein ourselves in, to conform to the imagined needs of a mindless aggregate of flora and fauna, is a tragic waste of potential.' 'The marks of human progress', Sandy Starr, Spiked We present an alternative to the optimist position by assuming that technology is political. This 'technological sceptic' approach argues that:
-Technological progress is a flawed concept
-The current direction of technological development, dictated by the existing structures of corporations and states, is wrong
-The balance between costs and benefits to society from a given technology is often neutral or negative
-The vision that there will always be technological solutions to social problems -- themselves often caused by earlier technological developments -- is a dangerous illusion: it is more important to address the political and social causes of those problems. It is a mistake to presume that technology is in itself neutral and becomes political only as a result of how it is used and implemented. The current state of technology is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but an effect and a reinforcement of existing power structures, meaning that changing power structures and changes to technologies go hand in hand. For one thing, there is no such thing as an abstract, neutral 'technology', only existing, actual 'technologies'. These always interact with power and social structures, and usually act to support the status quo -- corporate power. Corporations, by controlling research and development, automatically influence which of these technologies are to succeed. The dominance and structure of corporations, along with the search for profit, encourage particular forms of technological development. In order to reduce wages, companies push technologies which replace labour with machinery. A side-effect of this tendency is that technology comes to be identified, in the popular imagination, with machines or goods which do work previously done by humans. Innovations which work in the opposite direction -- such as those elements of organic agriculture which replace chemicals with labour -- fail to be identified as technologies at all and are seen as regressive. Corporate technology also favours the desires of the rich (who are able to pay) over the needs of the poor (who cannot pay). For example, in modern medical research, far more is spent on non-fatal 'lifestyle' conditions of the rich, such as baldness or impotence, than on serious or lethal diseases, such as malaria or dengue fever, which mainly affect the poor. Technologies which increase the opportunity for centralised control -- e.g. standardised machinery, monitoring of workers -- are also favoured. Technological development is not inevitably pro-status quo -- sometimes it can undermine existing power structures. For example, contraception has been important in improving the position of women in some societies and has consequently weakened institutions based on male power. We could also say that some aspects of the internet have undermined previously existing hierarchies, particularly by increasing access to information. However, more often, technological developments will strengthen one part of a power structure over another, as, for example, the British industrial revolution strengthened manufacturing interests while weakening landowners. Technologies both reflect and reinforce existing political conditions of control and organisation. Certain technologies can be seen to characterise our current society, run by powerful states and corporations. One example is nuclear power. It requires very large-scale, hierarchical and strictly-controlled organisation. It is based on mining of a scarce natural resource (uranium), a vast research and education budget -- and armed security. A society using nuclear power must include these political and social elements just to maintain the technology. Whatever one's opinions of nuclear power as a practical means of electricity generation, it is inherently incompatible with a locally-organised, small-scale, pacifist, ecological model of society. Likewise, mechanised, chemically-aided, agriculture can only exist in a situation where farmers have cash for capital inputs, have large enough holdings to make these fixed investments worthwhile, and where they produce more for sale than home consumption. It is not possible in societies based on high levels of self-sufficiency and a non-cash economy. Such communities have experienced the introduction of techno-agriculture -- usually from above, by a government or a landowner bent on maximising profits from the land. This is usually results in a concentration of land ownership; bigger farmers sell more in the marketplace, invest in expensive machinery, start to buy up the smaller ones and become the employers of the former small farmers, who are forced into wage labour. Most modern technologies are fostered by the pursuit of economic growth and financial and productive 'efficiency'. This encourages technologies which exploit natural resources, and produce external costs to society (such as pollution), rather than internal costs to the producer (such as paying for skilled labour). Since the world is being shaped to the wishes of the corporate elite, humans and the natural environment are required to adapt to technology -- such as making workers suit the pace of the machine, and crops suit the mechanical harvester -- rather than concentrating on developing new techniques that suit society and the environment. The pursuit of economic growth leads to the creation of manufactured needs -- new products which were previously undreamt-of become 'necessities'. Technology feeds corporate profit in a variety of ways: the purely novel product (think of the billions of pounds made in the mobile phone industry in the last ten years); the new use of an existing resource (the thousands of uses for crude oil developed since the nineteenth century); the opening up of new resources (as when developments in shipbuilding and navigation in Europe made colonialism possible). In each case, technology makes new areas available for economic exploitation, enabling 'growth'. One aspect of corporate technologies has been their tendency to increase the process of enclosure. Historically, enclosure refers to the takeovers of commonly-owned grazing and gathering land in Britain by rich landowners in the early modern period. The concept has been extended to:
-water resources
-raw materials
-radio frequencies
-the air -- flight paths
-genetic information (including the genomes of whole species)
-nano-sized particles of pre-existing chemicals
all of which have been deemed 'ownable' and licensed, patented and 'enclosed'. In the relationship between technology and politics, the role of the state is crucial. The state functions as an enabler of technologies (e.g. by distributing research funding), as their protector (e.g. in enforcing patents and other property rights), and as their beneficiary. Military technologies, while increasingly produced in the private sector, are mostly used by governments. Developments in surveillance, statistics and IT all permit ever-increasing levels of state control. This in turn benefits corporations, as the providers of technological hardware and as partners in the power structure of the state. At the same time, the state is generally the main agent responsible for the regulation of technology. State regulation and promotion of technology is, however, heavily dominated by representatives of corporations. They hold seats on the Research Councils which allocate academic funding and on most consultative bodies. At present, regulation of new technologies is almost always a case of damage limitation after the fact, and usually only happens in response to pressure from outside, as in the case of GM crops. There is a significant lack of strategic thinking (let alone legislation) on the development of technology. Only a very few areas, such as human embryology or biological and chemical weapons research, have any prior restrictions or consultative processes in place. Priorities for --even publicly-funded -- technology research are dictated by crude goals of economic growth and feasibility, looking almost entirely to potential benefits with little consideration of the potential for wider social costs and impacts. New technologies are often described as 'emerging', as if their development is inevitable and self-propelled. This only allows their implications to be dealt with after-the-fact and ignores the role of the state, corporations and others, in determining and developing these technologies in the 'upstream' stages. Behind the state's usual pro-technology approach is a top-down view of society - the assumption that technologists know best and are in control and other people have to deal with what they are given. An alternative approach would be to attempt consideration of the potential impacts of technologies before they are developed, let alone commercially available. This would give people the possibility of stopping undesirable developments and allow much more strategic input into the direction of technological research. It follows from this to call for a re-appraisal of the effects and implications of existing technologies. Technology is political, therefore it should be democratic; it confers power, therefore it must be controlled equitably to ensure justice. At present, decisions on technological development are made almost entirely by those who stand to benefit from further progress in the current direction. Only by involving everyone affected by a technology in its development and use can society determine what is really beneficial as opposed to merely 'efficient'. Such a development both requires and leads to changes in society's power structures. Checklist for technological democracy:
-Who owns it? (the hardware, the knowledge and the intellectual property rights)
-Who controls it? (who can switch it off?)
-Who profits from it? (directly, in money, or quality of life, and indirectly by opportunities created)
-Who loses by it? (directly in money or quality of life, indirectly through loss of opportunities)
-What has gone into it? (raw materials, 'enclosed' resources, cultural assumptions)
-What does it need? (power, space, time)
References
Richter, A, Tsalik, S, Khafaji and McCarthy, J (2004) Disorder, Negligence and Mismanagement: how the CPA Handled Iraq Reconstruction Funds, Iraq Revenue Watch, report no. 7, New York: Open Society Institute.
Richter, A, Tsalik, S, Khafaji and McCarthy, J (2004) Iraq Fire Sale: CPA Rushes to Give Away Billions in Iraqi Oil Revenues, Iraq Revenue Watch, briefing no. 7, New York: Open Society Institute.
Transparency International (2005) Global Corruption Report, available online at www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download.html#download.
-The general direction of technological development is right and positive
-The drawbacks and risks of technology are outweighed by the benefits
-Further technological progress will compensate those who have lost out in earlier stages of the process
-Progress will rectify the problems caused by existing technologies
-Optimists basically see technology as politically neutral and, more often than not, historically inevitable 'Evidence from space of humanity's mark upon the world is cause for celebration. These are not Mother Earth's scars, but the legacy of human progress. Human progress is being impeded by the deluded belief that the Earth's environment has some mysterious intrinsic value, and that we have a moral obligation to protect it. In truth, the only value in nature is the value that we derive from it. And the only authority that can decide the future direction of human progress is our authority. To rein ourselves in, to conform to the imagined needs of a mindless aggregate of flora and fauna, is a tragic waste of potential.' 'The marks of human progress', Sandy Starr, Spiked We present an alternative to the optimist position by assuming that technology is political. This 'technological sceptic' approach argues that:
-Technological progress is a flawed concept
-The current direction of technological development, dictated by the existing structures of corporations and states, is wrong
-The balance between costs and benefits to society from a given technology is often neutral or negative
-The vision that there will always be technological solutions to social problems -- themselves often caused by earlier technological developments -- is a dangerous illusion: it is more important to address the political and social causes of those problems. It is a mistake to presume that technology is in itself neutral and becomes political only as a result of how it is used and implemented. The current state of technology is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but an effect and a reinforcement of existing power structures, meaning that changing power structures and changes to technologies go hand in hand. For one thing, there is no such thing as an abstract, neutral 'technology', only existing, actual 'technologies'. These always interact with power and social structures, and usually act to support the status quo -- corporate power. Corporations, by controlling research and development, automatically influence which of these technologies are to succeed. The dominance and structure of corporations, along with the search for profit, encourage particular forms of technological development. In order to reduce wages, companies push technologies which replace labour with machinery. A side-effect of this tendency is that technology comes to be identified, in the popular imagination, with machines or goods which do work previously done by humans. Innovations which work in the opposite direction -- such as those elements of organic agriculture which replace chemicals with labour -- fail to be identified as technologies at all and are seen as regressive. Corporate technology also favours the desires of the rich (who are able to pay) over the needs of the poor (who cannot pay). For example, in modern medical research, far more is spent on non-fatal 'lifestyle' conditions of the rich, such as baldness or impotence, than on serious or lethal diseases, such as malaria or dengue fever, which mainly affect the poor. Technologies which increase the opportunity for centralised control -- e.g. standardised machinery, monitoring of workers -- are also favoured. Technological development is not inevitably pro-status quo -- sometimes it can undermine existing power structures. For example, contraception has been important in improving the position of women in some societies and has consequently weakened institutions based on male power. We could also say that some aspects of the internet have undermined previously existing hierarchies, particularly by increasing access to information. However, more often, technological developments will strengthen one part of a power structure over another, as, for example, the British industrial revolution strengthened manufacturing interests while weakening landowners. Technologies both reflect and reinforce existing political conditions of control and organisation. Certain technologies can be seen to characterise our current society, run by powerful states and corporations. One example is nuclear power. It requires very large-scale, hierarchical and strictly-controlled organisation. It is based on mining of a scarce natural resource (uranium), a vast research and education budget -- and armed security. A society using nuclear power must include these political and social elements just to maintain the technology. Whatever one's opinions of nuclear power as a practical means of electricity generation, it is inherently incompatible with a locally-organised, small-scale, pacifist, ecological model of society. Likewise, mechanised, chemically-aided, agriculture can only exist in a situation where farmers have cash for capital inputs, have large enough holdings to make these fixed investments worthwhile, and where they produce more for sale than home consumption. It is not possible in societies based on high levels of self-sufficiency and a non-cash economy. Such communities have experienced the introduction of techno-agriculture -- usually from above, by a government or a landowner bent on maximising profits from the land. This is usually results in a concentration of land ownership; bigger farmers sell more in the marketplace, invest in expensive machinery, start to buy up the smaller ones and become the employers of the former small farmers, who are forced into wage labour. Most modern technologies are fostered by the pursuit of economic growth and financial and productive 'efficiency'. This encourages technologies which exploit natural resources, and produce external costs to society (such as pollution), rather than internal costs to the producer (such as paying for skilled labour). Since the world is being shaped to the wishes of the corporate elite, humans and the natural environment are required to adapt to technology -- such as making workers suit the pace of the machine, and crops suit the mechanical harvester -- rather than concentrating on developing new techniques that suit society and the environment. The pursuit of economic growth leads to the creation of manufactured needs -- new products which were previously undreamt-of become 'necessities'. Technology feeds corporate profit in a variety of ways: the purely novel product (think of the billions of pounds made in the mobile phone industry in the last ten years); the new use of an existing resource (the thousands of uses for crude oil developed since the nineteenth century); the opening up of new resources (as when developments in shipbuilding and navigation in Europe made colonialism possible). In each case, technology makes new areas available for economic exploitation, enabling 'growth'. One aspect of corporate technologies has been their tendency to increase the process of enclosure. Historically, enclosure refers to the takeovers of commonly-owned grazing and gathering land in Britain by rich landowners in the early modern period. The concept has been extended to:
-water resources
-raw materials
-radio frequencies
-the air -- flight paths
-genetic information (including the genomes of whole species)
-nano-sized particles of pre-existing chemicals
all of which have been deemed 'ownable' and licensed, patented and 'enclosed'. In the relationship between technology and politics, the role of the state is crucial. The state functions as an enabler of technologies (e.g. by distributing research funding), as their protector (e.g. in enforcing patents and other property rights), and as their beneficiary. Military technologies, while increasingly produced in the private sector, are mostly used by governments. Developments in surveillance, statistics and IT all permit ever-increasing levels of state control. This in turn benefits corporations, as the providers of technological hardware and as partners in the power structure of the state. At the same time, the state is generally the main agent responsible for the regulation of technology. State regulation and promotion of technology is, however, heavily dominated by representatives of corporations. They hold seats on the Research Councils which allocate academic funding and on most consultative bodies. At present, regulation of new technologies is almost always a case of damage limitation after the fact, and usually only happens in response to pressure from outside, as in the case of GM crops. There is a significant lack of strategic thinking (let alone legislation) on the development of technology. Only a very few areas, such as human embryology or biological and chemical weapons research, have any prior restrictions or consultative processes in place. Priorities for --even publicly-funded -- technology research are dictated by crude goals of economic growth and feasibility, looking almost entirely to potential benefits with little consideration of the potential for wider social costs and impacts. New technologies are often described as 'emerging', as if their development is inevitable and self-propelled. This only allows their implications to be dealt with after-the-fact and ignores the role of the state, corporations and others, in determining and developing these technologies in the 'upstream' stages. Behind the state's usual pro-technology approach is a top-down view of society - the assumption that technologists know best and are in control and other people have to deal with what they are given. An alternative approach would be to attempt consideration of the potential impacts of technologies before they are developed, let alone commercially available. This would give people the possibility of stopping undesirable developments and allow much more strategic input into the direction of technological research. It follows from this to call for a re-appraisal of the effects and implications of existing technologies. Technology is political, therefore it should be democratic; it confers power, therefore it must be controlled equitably to ensure justice. At present, decisions on technological development are made almost entirely by those who stand to benefit from further progress in the current direction. Only by involving everyone affected by a technology in its development and use can society determine what is really beneficial as opposed to merely 'efficient'. Such a development both requires and leads to changes in society's power structures. Checklist for technological democracy:
-Who owns it? (the hardware, the knowledge and the intellectual property rights)
-Who controls it? (who can switch it off?)
-Who profits from it? (directly, in money, or quality of life, and indirectly by opportunities created)
-Who loses by it? (directly in money or quality of life, indirectly through loss of opportunities)
-What has gone into it? (raw materials, 'enclosed' resources, cultural assumptions)
-What does it need? (power, space, time)
References
Richter, A, Tsalik, S, Khafaji and McCarthy, J (2004) Disorder, Negligence and Mismanagement: how the CPA Handled Iraq Reconstruction Funds, Iraq Revenue Watch, report no. 7, New York: Open Society Institute.
Richter, A, Tsalik, S, Khafaji and McCarthy, J (2004) Iraq Fire Sale: CPA Rushes to Give Away Billions in Iraqi Oil Revenues, Iraq Revenue Watch, briefing no. 7, New York: Open Society Institute.
Transparency International (2005) Global Corruption Report, available online at www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download.html#download.
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