The Social Shaping of Technology v How the refrigerator got its hum Vl ll Edited by 2 DONALD MACKENZIE 6 Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh 9 and jUDY WAJCMAN School of Sociology, University of New South Wales Open University Press Milton Keynes · Philadelphia Open University Press 12 Cofferidge Close Stony Stratford Contents Milton Keynes MK11 1 BY, England and 242 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA Notes on Contributors v Acknowledgements First Published 1985 VI Editors ' note VIII This selection and editorial matter copyright © 1985 Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman Part One Introductory essay and general issues All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, Introductory essay: The social shaping of technology 2 by mimeograph or by any other means, without permission in writing from Langdon Winner the publisher. Do artifacts have politics? 26 2 Thomas P. Hughes British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Edison and electric light 39 The social shaping of technology. 3 Ruth Schwartz Cowan 1 . Technology-Social aspects Gender and technological change 53 I. MacKenzie, Donald A. II. Wajcman, Judy 306'.46 T14.5 4 Cynthia Cockburn Caught in the wheels: the high cost of being ISBN 0 335 15027 6 a female cog in the male machinery of engineering 55 ISBN 0 335 15026 8 Pbk Part Two The technology of production 67 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The social shaping of technology Introduction 68 Bibliography: p. Includes index. 5 Marc Bloch 1. Technology-Social aspects-Addresses, essays, The watermill and feudal authority 75 lectures. I. MacKenzie, Donald A. II. Wajcman, Judy. 6 Karl Marx T14.5.S6383 1985 306'.46 84-22691 The machine versus the workn 79 ISBN 0-335-15027-6 7 Harry Braverman ISBN 0-335-15026-8 (pbk.) Technology and capitalist control 81 8 Tine Bruland Industrial conflict as a source of technical innovation: the development of the automatic spinning mule 84 9 William Lazonick Text design by Clarke Williams The self-acting mule and social relations m the workplace 93 Photoypeset by Dobbie Typesetting Service, Plymouth, Devon 10 David F. Noble Printed in Great Britain by M. & A. Thomson Litho Limited, Social choice in machine design: the case of automatically East Kilbride, Scotland. controlled machine tools 109 - Contents 11 Cynthia Cockburn The material of male power 125 12 Jane Barker and Hazel Downing Notes on Contributors Word processing and the transformation of patriarchal relations of control in the office 147 13 Mike Cooley Michael H. Armacost is currently Under Secretary for Political Affairs, US Department of Drawing up the corporate plan at Lucas Aerospace 165 State. Part Three Domestic technology 173 Jane Barker works at the Centre for Alternative Industrial and Technological Systems, Polytechnic of North London. Introduction 174 Marc Bloch, who died in 1943, was the author of J.eudal Society. 14 Ruth Schwartz Cowan Harry Braverman, who died in 1976, was the author of Labor and Monopoly Capital: the Degradation The industrial revolution in the home 181 of Work in the Twentieth Century. 15 Ruth Schwartz Cowan Tine Bruland works at the University of Oslo. How the refrigerator got its hum 202 16 Moyra Doorly Cynthia Cockburn is a researcher, currently located in the Department of Social Science and Humanities at City University, London. A woman's place: Dolores Hayden on the 'grand domestic revolution' 219 Mike Cooley was a leading member of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards C,ommittee and is now Director of Technology at the Greater London Enterprise Board. Part Four Military technology 223 Ruth Schwartz Cowan is Associate Professor of History, State University of New York at Stony Brook. Introduction 224 17 William H. McNeill Moyra Doorly is a freelance journalist in London. De Gribeauval and the origins of planned invention for war 233 Hazel Downing was trained as a secretary, and did her PhD on the effects of word processors 18 James Fallows on women office workers. Currently she is a researcher for a merchant bank. The American Army and the M -16 rifle 239 James Fallows is Washington correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. 19 Michael H. Armacost Thomas P. Hughes is Profeswr in the Department of History and Sociology of Science, The Thor-Jupiter controversy 252 University of Pennsylvania. 20 Mary Kaldor Mary Kaldor is Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex. The armament process 263 21 Mary Kaldor William H. Lazonick has been with economics and business faculties of Harvard 0 niversity Military technology in the Soviet Union 270 since 1975. 22 Alan Roberts William H. McNeill is Professor of History at the University of Chicago. Preparing to fight a nuclear war 279 David Noble is Curator of Industrial Automation at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Other areas of study 295 Alan Roberts teaches Physics and Environmental Science at Monash University. Bibliography 308 Langdon Winner is Associate Professor of Politics and Technology, University of California, Index 323 Santa Cruz. Acknowledgements Chapter 11. Reprinted from 'The :Vlaterial of Male Power' by Cynthia Cockburn in Frminist Review, 9, 41-58. @1981 Cvnthia Cockburn, bv permission of the author. Acknowledgements Chapter 12. Reprinted from 'VVord Processing and the Transf(mnation of Patriarchal Relations of Control in the OHice' by .Jane Barker and Hazel Downing in Capital and Class, 10, 64-99. @ 1980 Conference on Socialist Economists, by permission of the publisher. The editors and publisher wish to make the following acknowledgements for the extracts which constitute the twenty-two numbered chapters of this book. Chapter 13. Reprinted from Ardlltat or Bee! The Human/Technology Relationship by Mike Cooley, 63-8~. @n.cl. Langley Technical St>rvices, by permission of the publisher. (Copies from Langley Technical Services, Thatch am Lodge, <J5 Sussex Place, Slough SL1 1 NN, Chapter 1. Reprinted from 'Do Artifacts Have Politics?" by Langdon Winner in Daedalus, UK, £2.50 plus SOp ;,urface mail or £2 air mail.) 109, 121-36. ©1980 Daedalus, by permission of the publisher. Chapter 14. Reprinted from 'The "Industrial Revolution" in the Home: Household Chapter 2. Reprinted from 'The Electrification of America: the System-Builders' by Thomas Technology and Social Change in the Twentieth Century', by Ruth Schwartz Cowan in P. Hughes in Technology and Culture, 20, 125-39. @ 1979 The University of Chicago Press, Technology and Culture, 17, 1-23. @ 1976 The University of Chicago Press, by permission by permission of the publisher. of the publisher. Chapter 3. Reprinted from 'From Virginia Dare to Virginia Slims: Women and Technology Chapter 15. Reprinted from Afore Workfor A1other.· The Ironies of Household Technology from in American Life' by Ruth Schwartz Cowan in Technology and Culture, 20, 51-63. @ 1979 the Open Hearth to the Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, 127-45. @1983 Basic Books, The University of Chicago Press, by permission of the publisher. by permission of the publisher. Chapter 4. Reprinted from 'Caught in the Wheels' by Cynthia Cockburn in Marxzsm Today, Chapter 16. Reprinted from 'A \'\'oman's Place' bv Moyra Dourly, in the Guardian. 1983, 27, 16-20. ©1983 Marxism Today, by permission of the publisher. by permission of the Guardian. Chapter 5. Reprinted from Land and Work in Medieval Europe by Marc Bloch, 156-9. @ 1967 Chapter 17. Reprinted from The Pursuit of Power. Tahnology, Armed Force and Society since Routledge & Kegan Paul, by permission of Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC and the University A.D.IOOO by William H. McNeill, 166-74. @ 1983, Basil Blackwell, by permission of Basil of California Press. Blackwell (Publishers) Ltd and the University of Chicago Press. Chapter 6. Reprinted from Capital, I by Karl Marx, 435-7, ©Lawrence & Wishart, by Chapter 18. Reprinted from The lVatwnal Defense by .James Fallows, 76-93. @ 1981 by James permission of the publisher. Fallows. Reprinted by permission of Random House Inc., and of the Julian Bach Literary Agency. Chapter 7. Reprinted from Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century by Harry Braverman, 192-5. © 1974 Monthly Review Press, by permission of the Chapter 19. Reprinted from The Polztio of ~Veapum lnnuvatum. The Thor-Jupiter Controversy publisher. by Michael H. Armacost. @ 1969 Columbia University Press, by permission of the publisher. Chapter 8. Reprinted from 'Industrial Conflict as a Source of Technical Innovation: Three Cases' by Tine Bruland in Economy and Society, 11, 91-121. ©1982 Routledge & Kegan Chapter 20. Reprinted from 'Disarmament: The Armament Process in Reverse' by Mary Paul, by permission of the publisher. Kaldor in Protest and Survive, 203-20, E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith ( eds. ). @ 1980 Mary Kaldor, by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Chapter 9. Reprinted from 'Industrial Relations and Technical Change: The Case of the Self-Acting Mule' by William H. Lazonick in Cambridge journal of Economics, 3, 231-62. Chapter 21 . Excerpt from The Baroque Arsenal by Mary Kalclor, 101-22. © 1981 by Mary 1979 Academic Press, by permission of the author. Kaldor. Reprinted by permission of Hill & Wang. a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and by permission of Anthony Sheil Associates Ltd. Chapter 10. Reprinted from 'Social Choice in Machine Design: The Case of Auto matically Controlled Machine Tools' by David Noble in Case Studies on the Labor Chapter 22. Reprinted from 'Preparing to Fight a \!uclear War' by Alan Roberts in Arena, Process, 18-50, A. Zimbalist (ed.). ©1979 Monthly Review Press, by permission of the 57, 45-93. ©1981 Arena, permission given by the publisher. publisher. Editor's Note PART ONE Many friends and colleagues have helped us with ideas, suggestions and references while we have been editing this book. Given a limited amount Introductory essay and general tssues of space, we have not always been able to take their advice, but we have always been grateful for it. Particular thanks for help are due to Barry Barnes, Merriley Borell, Cynthia Cockburn, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Scott Davis, Jenny Earle, David Edge, Anne Elder, Moyra Forrest, Martin Fransman, Jim Gillespie, David Greasley, Ken Green, Eric Hanley, Tom Hughes, Lynn Jamieson, Roger Jeffery, Andrew Lyon, Ian McLoughlin, Kath Melia, David Miller, Trevor Pinch, Alan Roberts, Wolfgang Riidig, Carole Tansley, Howard Wagstaff and Peter Weingart. The system of referencing we have used is as follows. Each of the reprinted readings-whose sources are given in the acknowledgements on p. vi-vii is self-contained, and the footnotes and references for each will be found immediately after it. Similarly the footnotes to the various editorial introductions we have written come directly after each. But we have gathered together at the end of the book all the references in the editorial material. So a reference in an introduction such as '(Hughes 1983)' can be traced by turning to the bibliography on pp.308-22. Finally, we wish to draw our readers' attention to the collection of readings, Science in Context, edited by Barry Barnes and David Edge (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1982). While this book and it were planned and edited separately, readers of this book might like to refer to it for '; coverage of such topics as the interaction of science and technology, the 'i political role of technical expertise and the controversial nature of the assessment of the risks associated with particular technologies. The two books are, we hope, independent but complementary. Introductory essay like, 'How can society best adapt to changing technology?' We will takel technological change as a given, as an independent factor, and think through our social actions as a range of (more or less) passive responses. If, alternatively, we focus on the effect of society on technology, then technology ceases to be an independent factor. Our technology becomes, like our Introductory Essay economy or our political system, an aspect of the way we live socially. It becomes something whose changes are part of wider changes in the way we live. It even becomes something whose changes we might think of consciously shaping- though we must warn right at the beginning that to say that technology is socially shaped is not to say that it can necessarily be altered easily. To draw an analogy, political systems clearly are shaped IWe live our lives in a world of things that people have made. Mostly we by the wider societies they are part of, but changing them is no simple take that world for granted. We do not ask why our refrigerator makes business, no straightforward consequence of an individual or collective an annoying humming noise, nor why our domestic appliances are shaped decision to try to change them. the way they are. We think about electricity only when the bill has to be 'Technology' and 'society' arc both complex terms. As this book paid, or when the supply fails. An electric light bulb is an object that excites proceeds, we will start to unravel a few of the sets of social relations and no comment. When technology does get into the news-as has happened social institutions that together make up 'society'. Here, we will make only with nuclear weapons and nuclear power, with the microchip, with test one point: that to talk about the social shaping of technology is not to imply tube babies-we often feel powerless to affect the course of events. that the only factors at work are those that pervade a whole society. As Technological change seems to have its own logic, which we may perhaps we shall see, especially in Part Four, very particular localised social protest about or even try to block, but which we appear to be unable to organisations and social interests have a vital role to play too. alter fundamentally. About 'technology' we can say a little more. The term is a slippery one. When we turn to what social scientists have written about technology, Its boundaries with 'science' are unclear, as indeed are those with 'art' we find a dominant approach that does little to shake this way of looking or the 'economy'. Furthermore, how we see these boundaries changes from at things. Social scientists have tended to concentrate on the 'effects' of one historical period to another. And, perhaps most importantly, the word technology, on the 'impact' of technological change on society. This is a 'technology' has at least three different layers of meaning. At the most basic perfectly valid concern, but it leaves a prior, and perhaps more important, level, 'technology' refers to sets of physical objects- to cars, or lathes, or question unasked and therefore unanswered. What has shaped the vacuum cleaners, or computers. Here, the question of the 'social shaping technology that is having 'effects'? What has caused and is causing the of technology' has a clear enough meaning: we are talking about the technological changes whose 'impact' we are experiencing? influence of social factors on the design and configuration of these physical Our focus in this reader is on answers to this often unasked question. objects. But few authors are content with such a narrow 'hardware' In particular, we are interested in the social factors that shape technological definition of technology. An object such as a car or a vacuum cleaner is change. To what extent, and how, does the kind of society we live in affect only a technology, rather than an arbitrary lump of matter, because it forms . the kind of technology we produce? What role does society play in how part of a set of human activities. A computer without programs and the refrigerator got its hum, in why the light bulb is the way it is, in why programmers is simply a useless collection of bits of metal, plastic and nuclear missiles are designed the way they are? silicon. So 'technology' refers to human activities, as well as to objects. Our purpose is twofold. First, we wish to provide readers, both inside 'Steelmaking', say, is a technology: but this implies that the technology and outside academic settings, with a collection of lively and informative includes what steelworkers do, as well as the furnaces they use.1 And when articles which argue that technology is shaped by society. Second, we want we start to talk about what people working do, it could well be said that to persuade those of our fellow social scientists who are not already convinced we are already talking about society, not about something separate that to study this issue more seriously and systematically. We wish no one to is influenced by society. abandon research on the effects of technology on society, but we want at Thirdly, technology refers to what people know as well as what they do. least equal time for the study of the effects of society on technology. Technology is knowledge, as Layton (1974) emphasises. Technological Such a shift offocus is not without consequence. If our thinking centres 'things' are meaningless without the 'know-how' to use them, repair them, on the effect of technology on society, then we will tend to pose questions design them and make them. That know-how often cannot be captured 3 Introductory essay Introductory essay chang~ ~ocial in words. It is visual, even tactile, rather than simply verbal or mathematical The second part is that technical causes change. SometimeJ the social changes referred to can be quite particular. Thus Ogburn a~d (Ferguson 1977). But it can also be systematised and taught, as in the various N imkoff ( 1964, 5 71-5) quote a list of no fewer than 1_50 sug9ested soCI~l .• disciplines of engineering. This indeed is the older meaning of 'technology' one predating the use of the term to mean 'hardware'- 'technology' a~ effects of the radio in the United States, such as 'regwna~ d1ffer~nces m culture become less pronounced'. The more dramatiC v:rswns of systematic knowledge of the practical arts. 2 technological determinism, however, are those that see the entire form of _Th~se different layers of meaning of 'technology' are worth bearing in mmd m what follows. But our purpose is not to attempt to refine a definition. a society as being conditioned by technology. . . Some more futuristic commentators, such as Large (1980), clann_th1s The rest o~ this essay is organised as follows. First, we discuss at greater of the microchip. The microelectronic revolution, they claim, is c~uszng a length t~e 1dea that_ technology has effects on society, particularly a version new form of society to emerge. We will be forc~d. to change_ our 1~eas of of that_l~ea,(a mistaken or:e, to our minds~ known as 'technological work and leisure, it is said, as the chip 'puts rmlhons out of wo~k (note determm1sm . Then we begm more systematically to ask the question, the cause-and-effect sequence in this statement). It is usually ad~1tted that 'What shapes technology?' We discuss arguments that science shapes we have options. We can, for example, choose b~tween _a. so~1ety w1~h greatly te_chnology, then arguments that preceding technology shapes technology. reduced working hours for everyone, and one w1th an ehte m _full-~lrr:e ':ork Fmally, and at greatest length, we introduce various pathways through and a mass of permanently unemployed. But the range o~ optwns 1s hm!ted, which society shapes technology. and limited by the new techn~logy. It _is t~e ch,anges_ m tec~nology th,a; ,. are bringing about the new 'leisure soCiety , or p~s~-~ndustn~l soc1ety ·. Our human role is at best to choose the most ClVIhsed vanant of th1s \Technological determinism technologically determined new society. . . . Technological determinism is not always futunsuc. It has ~!so been The si~gle ~ost influential theory of the relationship between technology e~ployed as an historical theory, explaining why past forms. of s~Ciety_ came ~n.d society~~ 'technological determinism'. This is the theory that technology into being and passed away. While it would b~ an over-s~rr:phfic~tlon. to 1s mdeed an mdependent factor, and that changes in technology cause social present his theory as a straightforward technologi_cal deter~mism, hlstonan ~hanges. In i~s strongest version, the theory claims that change in technology Lynn White's account of the coming about of feudal society r,eveals ~o"'; 1s the most Important cause of change in society. a technologically determinist history can be constructe?. By feudahs~ According to technological determinism, technology impinges on society he means a 'society dominated by an aristocracy of warn or~ en_dowe? WI~h from outside of society. There is a parallel with nineteenth -century theories land' (White 1978, 38). He attribu·.es t~c c~mmg about of th_ts soCI:ty m of 'climatic determinism', where it was said that the climate (an independent Western Europe to the invention, and diffusiOn_ w:stwards, of_ the s_ttrr';IP· factor, over which societies had no influence) shaped the nature of society. Prior to the stirrup, fighting on horseback was hmtt:d by the nsk of falhng Sometimes technological change may be seen as outside of society, in the off. Swipe too vigorously with a sword, or lun_ge w1t~ ~ spear: and horse same wa~ as the weather is, as when a 'backward' society is affected by borne warriors could find themselves lymg Ignommwusly m the dust. the supenor technology of a more 'advanced' one with which it has come Because the stirrup offered riders a much more secure posit_ion on _the horse, into contact. At other times, technology may be seen as outside society it 'effectively welded horse and rider into a single fightmg umt capabl~ ~mly _me_tap~orically. The technologists who produce new technology are of a violence without precedent' (ibid., 2). But the 'n:ounted shoe~ combat m this. v1ew mdeed members of society, but their activity is in an important it made possible was an expensive as well as an effective way of domg ba_ttle. sense mdepen~nt of their n:e~bership of society. In the most common versiafil It required intensive training, armour a_nd war ho~:es. It could be sustai~:d of_ technological determ1msm, these technologists are seen as 'applying! only be a re-organisation of society ?cs1gned specd_Icall~ t<~ support an_ ehte sc1ence', as working out the practical implications of new scientifi~ of mounted warriors able and equipped to fight m this new and highly discoveries, and those scientific discoveries are seen simply as new, more1 1 accurate insights into natural reality. Scientists discover, technologists follow specialized way' (ibid., 38). the ~ogic of those discoveries in turning them into new techniques and new dev1ces, and these techniques and devices are then introduced into society Does technology have '~[feels? and have (often unpredicted) 'effects'-that is the most widespread account of how technology comes to be an independent factor. The example of the stirrup and fcudali~m, howevei> ~hows us the p_roblems . _So the first part of technological determinism is that technical chan~ of the second aspect of technological determmism, the claim that ISm some sense autonomous, 'outside' of society, literally or metaphorically) I 5 4 Introductory essay Introductory essay technological change causes social change. Leaving aside issues of often require an understanding of the overall dynamics of a society, and archaeological and historical evidence (for which see Hilton and Sawyer it is thus one of the most difficult, rather than one of the easiest, questions 1963), we can immediately note a grave difficulty in seeing the stirrup as to answer. the cause offeudalism. White himself identifies it (1978, 28): 'a new device It would be terribly mistaken, however, to jump from the conclusion merely opens a door; it does not compel one to enter'. The device itself does that technology's effects arc not simple to the conclusion that technology not force societies to adopt it. We know of plenty of instances where tech has no effects. That is our reason for including in this collection the article nologies later judged useful or essential were not taken up, or at least were by Langdon Winner. His is one of the most thoughtful attempts to strongly resisted (for a classic discussion of this, see Morison 1966).4 The undermine the notion that technologies arc in themselves inherently characteristics of a society play a major part in deciding which technologies are adopted. neutral- that all that matters is the way societies choose to use them. Once we admit this-and it is hard to see how it can justifiably be denied Technologies, he argues, can be inherently political. This is so, he says, technology begins to look rather less like a genuinely independent factor. in two senses. Technologies can be designed, consciously or unconsciously, Even more damaging to a simple technological determinism is the fact to open certain social options and close others. Thus New York builder that the same technology can have very different 'if/eels' in different situations. Amongst Robert Moses designed road systems to f~Kilitate the travel of certain types the Franks, the stirrup 'caused' feudalism. But it had no such effect in, of people and to hinder that of others. Secondly, he argues that not only say, Anglo-Saxon England prior to the Norman Conquest. There is nothing arc certain design features of technologies inherently political, but some essentially mysterious about this. To explain why the creation of a feudal technologies in their entirety arc political. Even if it is mistaken to see system was attempted, and to explain why it was possible, inevitably requires technologies as requiring particular patterns of social relations to go along reference to a wider set of social conditions than military technology alone - with them, some technologies arc. in given social circumstances, more the decline in European trade, which made land the only reliable source compatible with some social relations than with others. Hence, argues Winner, of wealth; the possibility (under some circumstances and not others) of basing energy supply around a nuclear technology that requires plutonium seizing land for redistribution to feudal knights; and so on. Since these other may enhance pressure for stronger state surveillance to prevent the theft conditions are not necessarily the same everywhere, it is not surprising of plutonium. and help erode traditional civil liberties. that the stirrup did not everywhere have the same 'effects'. Indeed, it Furthermore, the adoption of particular technologies is of long-term as becomes difficult to see why technology should be singled out for special well as immediate significance: technologies cannot always be traded in attention, rather than be treated as one condition amongst many others. at will. Road and rail systems remain- and inf1uencc patterns of housing So the idea of technology having straightforward social 'effects' is and industrial development -long after their designers are dead. A national altogether too simple. Assessing the effects on society of a given technology electricity grid is a massive embodied investment that no society would is an intensely difficult and problematic exercise, despite the apparent clarity lightly scrap-yet a national grid may well cause bias towards huge, of the question and the frequent desire of research sponsors to know its centralised energy sources such as nuclear power rather than small-scale, answer. Take one pressing example-the effect of the microchip on local sources of solar or wind power. Adoption of nuclear energy now will employment. It is relatively easy to guess what proportion of existing jobs leave generations to come in need of technologies for nuclear waste manage could be automated away by present or prospective computer technology. ment, even if they have themselves abandoned nuclear power. Marx once But that is not the effect of the microchip on employment, precisely because wrote (Marx 1968, 97) that people 'make their own history, but they do not the question cannot justifiably be approached in isolation like this. To know make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen the microchip's effect on employment levels, one needs to know the different by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and rates at which it will be adopted in cliff rent locations, the likely siting and transmitted from the past'. Amongst the circumstances transmitted from the nature of the industries producing computer technology, the indirect past is, often significantly, the technological legacy of previous generations. economic effects of the creation and destruction of jobs, the likely role of Finally, technology's consequences are directly biological and ecological trade union action and government policy, the interaction of all of these as well as social. Technologies can and do feed, clothe and provide shelter developments in one country with what goes on in other countries, the for us; they can and do also kill and poison. Technologies can preserve growth or decline, and changing patterns, of the world economy (see, for or degrade our environment; and 'ecological' critique of technologies has example, Freeman, Clark and Soete 1982, Cooper and Clark 1982). In become of great importance, playing for example an important role in other words, answering the question of the effects on society of a particular blocking the development in the United States of a supersonic transport technology requires one to have a good theory of how that society works. aircraft analogous to Concorde (Horwitch 1982). In moves to construct an The simplicity of the question is misleading. Answering it properly will 'alternative' or 'radical' technology, benign ecological consequences are 6 7 Introductory essay Introductory essay central (Dickson 1974, Boyle and Harper 1976). The environmental risk marginal. The watermill, the plough, the spinning wheel, the spinning posed by a technology is not a simple matter. How societies perceive the jenny, even the steam engine - these crucial inventions were in no real sense physical possibilities and constraints inherent in their environments, and the application of pre-existing science (see, for example, Cardwell 1971 the risks they see those environments as subject to, are intensely variable, and 1972b). Rhetoric about the contribution of science to technology there both between different societies and, sometimes, within them (Douglas was in plenty, but the rhetoric often bore little relation to the modest reality 1975). It is notoriously impossible to find consensus on the environmental of that contribution, and needs to be interpreted differently (Shapin 1972, risk posed by controversial technologies such as nuclear power. Once again, 335-6). though, to say that biological or ecological effects are complex is not to Where science and technology are connected, as they increasingly have say that they are non-existent. been in this century, it is mistaken to see the connection between them as one in which technology is one-sidedly dependent on science. Technology has arguably contributed as much to science as vice versa- think of the What shapes technology? great dependence of science on the computer, without which some modern scientific specialties could scarcely have come into existence. Most Important though these questions are, the problematic nature of importantly, where technology does draw on science the nature of that technology's effects is not the central theme of this reader. Our focus relation is not one of technologists obediently working out the 'implications' and where our criticism of technological determinism would centre - is on of a scientific advance. Technologists use science. They seek from science the assumption that technological change is autonomous, 'outside' of the resources to help them solve the problems they have, to achieve the goals society in which it takes place. Our question is, what shapes the technology towards which they are working. These problems and goals are at least in the first place, before it has 'effects'? Particularly, what role does society as important in explaining what they do as the science that is available play in shaping technology? for them to use. Again, we are dealing here with an issue that has been As explained above, the most common answer to this question has society fully documented in recent literature. 5 playing at best only a marginal role. Science, it is said, shapes technology Another way of arguing that technical change is autonomous is much and science itself is discovery of reality, unaffected by the society in which less common but more plausible. It is to say, not that science shapes it is conducted. technology, but that technology shapes technology (see Ellul1964, 85-94, Winner There are several things wrong with this notion. First, we now know 1977, 57-73). To understand the force of this argument, it is necessary that science is affected at the most profound level by the society in which to see what is wrong with our common, but wholly mystified, notion of it is conducted. Not only has the social context affected the rate and direction the heroic inventor. According to that notion, great inventions occur when, of the growth of science (that much is obvious), but studies have shown in a flash of genius, a radically new idea presents itself almost ready-formed numerous cases where the models and images used in scientific theories in the inventor's mind. This way of thinking is reinforced by popular have been drawn from the wider society and where social and political histories of technology, in which to each device is attached a precise date considerations have entered into scientists' evaluations of different theories and a particular man (few indeed are the women in such lists) to whom as true or false. Even the level of 'fact' -of experiment and observation the inspired invention 'belongs'. is social, and different groups of scientists in different circumstances have One important attack on this inspirational notion of invention was been shown to have produced radically different 'facts'. Several recent mounted by the group of American writers, most importantly William collections (Barnes and Shapin 1979, Collins 1981 and 1982, Barnes and Ogburn, who from the 1920s onwards set themselves the task of constructing Edge 1982, Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay 1983) and an important survey a sociology of technology (Westrum 1983). In a 1922 article, Ogburn and article (Shapin 1982) offer a useful introduction to this literature. his collaborator Dorothy Thomas argued that far from being the result of Further, it is now increasingly realised that science and technology have unpredictable flashes of inspiration, inventions were inevitable. Once the by no means always been closely connected activities. Looking backwards 'necessary constituent cultural elements' are present- most importantly is tricky, because people in previous times did not operate with our notions including component technologies- there is a sense in which an invention of 'science' and 'technology' (Mayr 1976), and there is some controversy must occur. 'Given the boat and the steam engine, is not the steamboat amongst historians who have studied the issue (see, for example, Musson inevitable?' (Ogburn and Thomas 1922, 90.) They regarded it as crucial and Robinson 1969, Mathias 1972). But it can be concluded that before evidence for the inevitability of invention that a great many inventions the latter part of the nineteenth century the contribution of activities we were in fact made independently by more than one person. would now think of as science to what we would call technology was often Not the least of the difficulties in this position is that apparent 8 9 Introductory essay Introductory essay inventions of the same thing turn out on closer inspection to be of most plausible attempts to argue that existing technology is more than just importantly different things (Constant 1978). A solidly based critique of a precondition of new technology, but is an active shaping force in its the inspirational notion of invention can, however, be constructed directly, development. These attempts focus around the ideas of technological drawing on the work of writers such as Ogburn's contemporary Usher 'paradigm' and technological 'system'. (1954), his colleague Gilfillan (1935a and 1935b) and, more recently, The idea of 'technological paradigm' (see Constant 1980, Dosi 1982) historians of technology like Thomas P. Hughes (1971 and 1983; see also is an analogical extension of Thomas Kuhn's idea of the scientific paradigm pp. 39-52 of this book). Hughes's work is of particular relevance because (1970). In Kuhn's work, 'paradigm' has two main meanings, which are much of it focuses on classic 'great inventor' figures such as Thomas Edison inter-related by distinguishable. In the more basic sense, the paradigm is (credited with the invention of, amongst other things, the gramophone and an exemplar, a particular scientific problem-solution that is accepted as the electric lightbulb) and Elmer Sperry (famed for his work on the successful and which becomes the basis for future work. Thus Newton's gyrocompass and marine and aircraft automatic pilot). explanation of the refraction of light, in terms offorces acting on the particles Hughes has no interest in disparaging the achievements of those he writes he believed light to consist in, formed a paradigm for much subsequent about-indeed he has the greatest respect for them-but his work work in optics-researchers sought to produce similar explanations for other demonstrates that invention is not a matter of a sudden flash of inspiration optical phenomena (Worrall 1982). The paradigm in this first sense of from which a new device emerges 'ready made'. Largely it is a matter of exemplar plays a crucial part in the paradigm in the second, wider sense the minute and painstaking modification of existing technology. It is a of the 'entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared creative and imaginative process, but that imagination lies above all in by the members of a given [scientific] community' (Kuhn 1970, 175). seeing ways in which existing devices can be improved, and in extending The discussion of paradigms in technology has been less profound than it the scope of techniques successful in one area into new areas. might have been because it (like discussions of extensions of Kuhn's ideas to A vitally important type of technical change altogether escapes our the social sciences) has tended to focus on the second meaning of paradigm, conventional notion of 'invention'. Technical change, in the words of despite Kuhn's explicit statement that the first meaning is 'philosophically Gilfillan ( 1935a, 5) is often 'a perpetual accretion of little details ... probably . . . deeper' (ibid.; see Barnes 1982) .7 But there is no doubt that the having neither begining, completion nor definable limits', a process Gilfillan concept of paradigm applied to technological change does point us towards saw at work in the gradual evolution of the ship (1935b). The authors of important phenomena. Particular technical achievements have played a this process are normally anonymous, certainly not 'heroic inventor' figures, crucial role as exemplars, as models for further development (see Sahal 1981 a and often skilled craft workers, without formal technical or scientific training; and 1981 b). In the field of missile technology, discussed in Part Four below, it is probably best seen as a process of collective learning rather than indi the German V-2 missile played this role in early post-war American and vidual innovation. 'Learning by doing' in making things (Arrow 1962) and Soviet missile development. Because technological knowledge cannot be what Rosenberg (1982, 120-40) calls 'learning by using'-feedback from reduced to a set of verbal rules, the presence of a concrete exemplar is a vital experience of use into both the design and way of operating things -are both resource for thought. The Americans possessed actual German-built V -2s, of extreme practical importance. Individually small changes may add up to as well as most of the design team; the Soviets painstakingly constructed, an overall considerable improvement in design, productivity or effectiveness. with help from some of the designers, replicas of the original missile (Ordway New technology, then, typically emerges not from flashes of disembodied and Sharpe 1979). To a significant extent the V -2 formed the model from inspiration but from existing technology, by a process of gradual change which further ballistic missiles were derived by conscious modification. to, and new combinations of, that existing technology. Even what we might If we find technologists operating with a paradigm -taking one technical with some justification want to call revolutions in technology turn out to achievement and modelling future work on that achievement- it becomes have been long in the making. Constant's important study (1980) of the tempting to treat this as somehow self-explaining and discuss it in terms change in aircraft propulsion from the propeller to the jet shows this clearly. of mechanical analogies such as following a techniral 'trajectory' (Dosi Revolutionary as it was in the context of aircraft propulsion, the turbo jet 1982). But to do this would be to miss perhaps the most fundamental point built upon a long tradition of work in water and gas turbines. of Kuhn's concept of paradigm: the paradigm is not a rule that can be Existing technology is thus, we would argue, an important precondition followed mechanically, but a resource to be used. There will always be more of new technology. It provides the basis of devices and techniques to be than one way of using a resource, of developing the paradigm. Indeed, modified, and is a rich set of intellectual resources available for imaginative groups of technologists in different circumstances often develop the same use in new settings. 6 But is it the only force shaping new technology? We paradigm differently. American and Soviet missile designers, for example, would say that it is not, and that this can be seen by examining the two developed significantly different missiles, despite their shared use of the 10 11