Forethought of a Technological Regime

In “Techne and Politeia” Langdon Winner writes, “To argue a moral position convincingly these days requires that one speak to… people’s love of material well-being, their fascination with efficiency, or their fear of death.”  These seem reasonable and justifiably highly ranked among priorities one might consider as personal or social objectives.  With regards to technology, Winner points out that there are other priorities and suggests we give, “…due consideration to what means or manner of life best serves our purpose”.  Importantly he writes, “…each significant area of technical/functional organization in modern society can be seen as a kind of regime, a regime of instrumentality, under which we are obliged to live.”  In general, Winner makes the point that capitalism has placed too much emphasis on efficiency at the expense of other values, and that this and other  factors constitutes a structuralism which constrains our lives.  So how did this develop? 

 

Beginning roughly with the Enlightenment era and proceeding from feudalist to industrial society, perceptions of progress originated as being in the service of liberation from political oppression.  Later as the Western mode of industrial development shifted towards latter forms of capitalism, the original conception of progress was transformed and supplanted by a highly technocratic view, which valued improvements in power, efficiency, and rationality as ends in themselves.  But as capitalist society evolved over time, emphasis on efficiency grew to paramount importance while other values diminished. 

 

As the character of society moved from agrarian to industrial, a new progressive ideology developed.  Industrialists, because of their vested interest, redefined progress and technological development in terms of maximizing profits.  The original enlightenment concept of progress as a liberating force turned to dissolution as technocracy became a socially oppressive force.  With Fordism the protestant work ethic was gradually given up in exchange for a $5 per day wage.  By the 20^th century, the new technocratic view eventually became obsessed with, “...interest in economies of scale, standardization of process and product, and control of the workplace.” (Marx, 1987)

 

Winner cites Thomas Jefferson who noted, the development of industrial scale manufacturing would be, “…incompatible with the life of a stable, virtuous republic.”   He argued that, “Manufacturing would create a thoroughly dependent rather than a self—sufficient populace.”  And this “Dependence… begets subservience and venality” and “suffocates the germ of virtue”.  Jefferson foresaw the coming of a proletarian class and the associated urban problems and thus rejected the idea of developing an American factory system.  It could be said that Jefferson anticipated the viewpoint of the environmentalists. “…for whom the test of a technological innovation is its effect on the overall quality of life.” (Marx, 1987) 

 

Jefferson, however, viewed progress as necessary a criteria for the achievement of political and social liberation and regarded the new sciences and technologies as instruments for carrying out a comprehensive transformation of society.  about the time thinkers like Jefferson passed away, Thoreau warned about confusion between the relationship of ends and means and wrote of the new inventions as "improved means to unimproved ends".  He referred to his countrymen as becoming "the tools of their tools." 

 

Everyone knows, “it’s the economy stupid!”—or is it?  If there is to be a shift in political emphasis from short-term economic well-being to something with a more socially desirable long-term outcome, then how do we find some new unified goal to get from here to there without being utopian?  Winner writes, “All varieties of hardware and their corresponding forms of social life must be scrutinized to see whether they are friendly or unfriendly to the idea of a just society.”  Nothing utopian here—right?  It’s easy to criticize a technological regime, with hindsight, but with so many social constructionist and constructivist forces pushing and pulling these trajectories, how do we begin to predict or influence such developments? 

 

Ref:

 

Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” in L. Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: The Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago Univ Press, 1986).

Leo Marx, “Does Improved Technology Mean Progress?” Technology Review 90, 1987.