Notes from Chapter 2:

Society and Technological Change

Rudi Volti

The ideas and examples referenced below are notes compiled by Robert Keel and Shannon Mayer in their reading of Volti's, Society and Technological Change, 6th edition, Worth Publishers, 2010. They are intended for classroom use.

WINNERS AND LOSERS: THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

• There are both negative and positive aspects to technology.
• Technology – greatest single source of economic growth (technology of production)

Technology myths

1. Technology can function w/out altering existing social arrangements
2. Technological solutions better than (less painful) social or political solutions

"Technological change can be a subversive process that results in the modification or destruction of established social roles, relationships and values." (page 18)

• Some change is small
• Some change is massive
• Economy distinctly affected by Technological change:
  1. Destruction of obsolete firms: Pony Express: Telegraph wires & Telephone
  2. Typestting vs. Computers
  3. Internet Phone vs. Telephone
• Concern over Technology has always been present:

"Railroads, if they succeed , will give an unnatural impetus to society, destroy all the relations that exist between man and man, overthrow all mercantile regulations, and create, at the peril of life, all sorts of confusion and distress." (from Muller in Volti, page 18)

Effects of Technological Change:

Yir Yoront:

• Australian aboriginals (Paleolithic people)
• Greatest Technology was Stone Axe
• Stone axe—simple axe but involved many materials
• Axe tied to gender identity—only men possessed axe.
• Introduction of steel axe by missionaries- men, women & children got axes
• Men lost distinct identity, culture began to disintegrate
• Demise of Yir Yoront not only tied to axe, BUT axe is a good symbol for the new world and technology imposing itself on traditional aboriginal peoples

Caliente, Nevada:

• Small town supported by single industry: steam locomotives
• Onset of diesel-electric locomotive
• Once thriving community vanished within a few years.

Same true for countless "blue-highway" towns following the construction of the Interstate Highway System.

Groups can and do defend themselves against technological change:

China:

• Silk industry: (pre 1850’s) manually unwound silkworm cocoons.
• Jardine Matheson trading company (Britain) seeks to use steam powered machinery to reel silk.
• Although faster, not successful because of opposition from Silk Makers Guild.

The Luddites

• England- Ned Lud a stocking maker who smashed stocking frames. (see also)
• Luddites- different groups who smashed machines, but began in hosiery trade.
• Hosiery trade- wanted to use wider frames to make more hosiery for less money.
• Allowed for use of less skilled (cheaper) labor. Workers objected.
• Also—bad harvest led to increase in food costs. Workers pay wasn’t meeting their basic needs: Rebellion.
• Fear of unemployment because of technological change, not intrinsic fear of machinery.
• Machinery was target for aggression.
• Worker Protest eventually took more peaceful forms—e.g. unions were established.
• Luddite: anyone opposed to modern technology and its extensions.

Recent opposition to the use of computers and their potential to replace human labor can be seen as A form of Neo-Luddism (David Noble on "educational technology")

Technology does not succeed or fail on its intrinsic merit—social, political, economic factors play role:

• Some technology succeeds because of particular group interest: Atomic Power
• Some technology fails because of particular group interest: AIDS research in early 1980s

Technology costs money LOTS of money

Technology sponsored by corps. and gov’t. thus, disproportionately representing these groups.

What Technology Can and Cannot Do

• Why is there such a gulf between social progress and technological progress?
• "If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we…?"

The Technological Fix

• Technology used to attempt solutions for many problems.
• Heroin addiction: development of Methadone and now "cocaine vaccine"
• Car Accidents: seat belt and air bags.
• Grafitti on public property: stronger chemicals to resist paint.
• YET, none of these technological solutions address underlying social factors

Why Can’t Technology Fix It?

• Social problems are fundamentally different from technological problems.
• Goals for technology usually clear and unambigious: how do you assemble a car.
• Goals for society anything but clear: many different ways to "solve poverty."
• Social problems- causes are manifold, human motivation key factor.
• Technological solutions work best in closed system—no outside factors to interfere.
• When problem cannot be easily isolated: technological solution less likely to be effective.
• BESIDES, No problem, technological or otherwise is ever really solved.
• "Solution" to one problem creates new problems.
  • Artificial hearts help sustain life BUT:
    1. expensive
    2. aging population needs to be cared for
    3. issues of morality
  • Internet security

• Despite limitations, groups (Technocrats) still attempt to make social problems into technological ones.
• Scientific Management Theory (Early 20^th Century).
  • Frederick Taylor- Metallurgical engineer. (2)
    • Time and motion study: how many motions should it take to complete a job?
    • Managers determine amount of motions needed and workers follow unreservedly.
    • Workers benefit because they don’t waste time & managers benefit from higher yields.
    • Workers paid piecemeal, not wages & since workers are efficient they’ll earn more.
    • Taylor: extend this theory everywhere, homes as well as workplaces.
    • Lenin (Russia) – Taylor admirer.
    • Work and Monopoly Capitalism: Critique

Once again, technical problems are not the same as social problems. Even if Scientific Management Theory was ideal, workers upon whom it was imposed resisted its use (Hawthorne Experiment and "Human Relations" approach). Basic Fallacy of Technocracy: administration can replace politics.

"Neither technology nor administration can supply the values that form the basis of [our] choices. They cannot tell us what we should do with our lives, nor can they help us to resolve the fundamental issue that all societies confront: how to distribute fairly life’s necessities and luxuries." (page 30)

Questions (pages 31-32:

1.  Can you think of some established industries that have been undermined by technological advance?  What industries might be threatened in the future?

2.  Were the Luddites justified in their attacks on machinery?  What about modern day Luddites?

3.  What examples of technological fixes can you give?  Are they successful?   How can we judge success in this context?

4. What is a technocrat?  What role would or do they have in modern political systems? 

Chapter 15

Chapter 3