Impact of Technology on Society. A Documentation of Current Research

253 Pages·1983·3.912 MB·English

by  B. Schmeikal, H. Hogeweg-de Haart and W. Richter (Eds.)

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Publisher at Pergamon Press
IMPACT OF
TECHNOLOGY ON SOCIETY
A Documentation of Current Research
Edited by
BETTINA SCHMEIKAL
HUBERTA HOGEWEG-DE HAART
WERNER RICHTER
with an Introduction by
ALEXANDER KING
Compiled at the Sozialwissenschaftliche Dokumentation,
Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1983 European Coordination Centre for
Research and Documentation in
Social Sciences
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any
form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic
tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without permission in writing from copyright holders.
First edition 1983
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Impact of technology on society.
"Published on behalf of the European Cooperation in
Social Science Information and Documentation (ECSSID)
programme . . . coordinated by the European Coordination
Centre for Research and Documentation in Social
Sciences" —Verso t.p.
1. Technology and civilization — Research — Europe —
Bibliography. I. Schmeikai, Bettina. II. Hogeweg-de Haart, H. P.
III. Richter, Werner. IV. European Cooperation in Social
Science Information and Documentation (Organization)
V. European Centre for the Co-ordination of Research and
Documentation in Social Sciences.
Z7164.T26I56 1983[HM221] 016.3034'83 83-13391
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Impact of technology on society.
1. Technological innovation —Social aspects
I. Schmeikai, Bettina II. Hogeweg-de Haart,
Huberta III. Richter, Werner
IV. Sozialwissenschaftliche Dokumentation.
Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien
306'.46 T173.8
ISBN 0-08-030847-3
In order to make this volume available as economically and as
rapidly as possible the authors' typescripts have been
reproduced in their original forms. This method unfortunately
has its typographical limitations but it is hoped that they in no
way distract the reader.
This book is published on behalf of the European Coopera-
tion in Social Science Information and Documentation
(ECSSID) programme which is coordinated by the Euro-
pean Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation
in Social Sciences (the Vienna Centre)
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Redwood Burn Limited, Trowbridge
PREFACE
This inventory of research projects on "The impact of technology on society" is the
second publication of the results obtained in the ECSSID (European Cooperation in
Social Science Information and Documentation) working group which deals with the ex-
change of information on current research. The first one was an inventory on current
research on "Social integration of migrant workers and other ethnic minorities" in
eight European countries, issued in 1982.
The working group consists of representatives of social science information centres
from each of the participating countries in Eastern and Western Europe who have ac-
cess to current social science research in their own country. Each member of the
working group contributes to the common inventory.
In the course of the collection of the materials for this inventory it was realized
that research on the subject is probably not only carried out in social science en-
vironments but also in industry and other technological environments, to which the
members of the working group have less access.
The present inventory therefore does not pretend to be comprehensive. It might not
give more than a random selection of ongoing research in the ten participating coun-
tries. Its unique value lies in the cooperative effort of Eastern and Western Euro-
pean organizations to bring together research projects on the subject that is cru-
cial for all. The philosophy of life may differ, the problems caused by technologi-
cal change are comparable. Brought together the research projects give an insight
on the national focuses on these problems and the directions in which solutions are
sought.
May the inventory contribute in this way to a better understanding.
B. Schmeikal H.P. Hogeweg-de Haart W. Richter
V
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
The following centres have submitted details of research projects which are current-
ly being undertaken in their country. The majority were able to extract data from
their holdings, but others undertook a special survey in order to collect the data.
This information was then incorporated into the questionnaire approved by the ECSSID
Working Group 2.
In all cases except one this work also entailed the translation of the texts into
English. We would like to thank all the contributing centres and their staff for
their willingness to record the research data in this way. Without this internation-
al co-operation the compilation of this research register would not been possible.
Austria
Sozialwissenschaftliche Dokumentation der
Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien
Bettina Schmeikal
Prinz-Eugen-Straße 20
A-1041 Vienna
Belgium
Belgian Archives for the Social Sciences
Philippe Laurent
UCL Batiment J. Leclerq
Place Montesquieu 1 Bte 18
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Czechoslovakia
Main Library - Scientific Information Centre
of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
Jiri Zahradil
Narodni trida 3
CS-11522 Praha 1
IX
X LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Federal Republic of Germany
Informationszentrum Sozialwissenschaften
Erika Schwefel
Lennestraße 30
D-5300 Bonn 1
German Democratic Republic
Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR
Wissenschaftliches Informationszentrum
Werner Richter
Schiffbauerdamm 19
DDR-1040 Berlin
Hungary
Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
V. Roosevelt ter 9
H-1361 Budapest
The Netherlands
SWIDOC
Sociaal-Wetenschappelijk Informatie-
en Dokumentatiecentrum
Geke Brouwer
Herengracht 410
NL-1017 BX Amsterdam
Poland
Polish Academy of Sciences
Scientific Information Centre
Jan Lenart
Nowy Swiat 72
PL-00-300 Warsaw
United Kingdom
The British Library
RBUPC Office
Stella Pilling
GB-Boston Spa, Wetherby LS23 7BQ
USSR
INION, USSR Academy of Sciences
Liparit Kiuzadjan
Krasikov St. 28/21
SU-Moscow B-418
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS XI
Coordinator in the EUROPEAN COORDINATION CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND DOCIJIVIENTATION IN
SOCIAL SCIENCES for ECSSID Working Group 2
Manfred Biskup
Grünangergasse 2, POB 974
A-1011 Vienna
Author of the Introduction
Alexander King, IFIAS The International Federation
of Institutes for Advanced Study
168, rue de Grenelle
F-75007 Paris
INTRODUCTION
This subject which, in recent years has become a matter of considerable public con-
cern is, in reality, one of very long standing. Ever since the dawn of human his-
tory from the shaping of the first primitive tools, technology has influenced the
nature of society as well as individual life styles Lnvention of the wheel, the
plough, the lever, the discovery of the properties of fire - these and many other
simple technological advances had a fundamental influence on the evolution of soci-
ety. However, the diffusion of these discoveries was extremely slow and they were
few in number.
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the process of technological develop-
ment accelerated enormously and it was no longer possible to ignore its social con-
sequences as the machine-driven factories began to spring up all over Europe, "the
dark satanic mills" of the contemporary William Blake, as workers streamed from the
fields to the factories and urban growth mushroomed and spawned the industrial slums.
It should be remembered, however, that many of the fathers of the Industrial Revolu-
tion , to their credit were deeply concerned, individually and collectively, about
the social and other consequences of the new technology. The industrial changes,
coincided with the arising of the physical sciences as we know them and the scien-
tists and industrialists of the new epoch, in common discussion of the two ap-
proaches would produce an utterly new world in which poverty could be abolished. Un-
fortunately it took nearly a century for the natural sciences to build up their con-
tent of substance so as to be able to provide the basis for fundamentally new innova-
tions in technology and during this period most of the new technology was based on
empirical invention, assisted and rationalized, of course by the growth of theoreti-
cal knowledge, especially in thermodynamics.
The end of the XVIIIth century did, however, witness many social experiments, asso-
ciated with technology, such as that of the New Lanark Mills (textiles) of Robert
Owen and David Dale. The XlXth century saw of course the reign of exploitative capi-
talism with little of the idealism which the founding fathers of the new industria-
lism had displayed. It also was the century of Karl Marx in whose theories techno-
logy and society were so organically related. During this period and, indeed up to
the end of the Second World War, there was little research on the impact of techno-
logy on society, although there was a lot of social commentary, for instance in the
novels of Dickens and Zola or the poetry of Francis Coppet. The whole subject was,
however, given a fresh impetus by the appearance of Bemal's book on science and
society which aroused an awareness of the importance of the relationship in the
minds of a whole generation of scientists, both physical and social.
XIII
XIV INTRODUCTION
So far we have been going on the assumption that technology and behind it, natural
science is a major impulsor of social change. The question might be posed as to whe-
ther the reality is just the opposite - is technological change initiated by econo-
mic and social forces ? Certainly in the consumption dominated societies of the free-
market economies, new technologies - processes, materials and products - are encour-
aged and, indeed avidly sought, in order to create new consumer demands and hence
market expansion. While there is little mention, at least until recently, of the
place of technology, in the writings of the Keynesian economists, many of them im-
plicitly assume and a few explicitly state that technology evolves when required, by
the interaction of economic forces. The scientists, on the other hand,assume that
technology arises from discoveries made in the basic research laboratories, which
are taken up by entrepreneurs, go through stages of applied research, technological
development in pilot plants or by engineering prototypes attraction of capital and
finally emerge on the market as new products. There are certainly elements of truth
in both approaches and the reality may well be a hen and egg situation. Undoubtedly
the relationship between technology on the one hand economy and society on the other
has many reciprocal features.
Contemporary interest in the impact of technology on society started after the Se-
cond World War and with it, an awareness of the need for research in the social sci-
ences if an understanding of the social, anthropological, psychological and politi-
cal mechanisms involved were to be understood. Firstly the success of the natural
sciences in influencing the outcome of the war through the upsurge of military tech-
nological sophistication was so great that all the governments concerned were con-
vinced that research might contribute equally to economic growth in a post war so-
ciety. In addition, the achievements of operational or operations research, in which
statistics played a dominant role, but which has also sociological and oiherelements
indicated that the post war research should not only make possible the development
of new products and processes, but could also help in the understanding and opera-
tion of systems. As a result of these hopes for a rich yield from scientific re-
search, the subsequent decades saw an immense increase in the funds voted for re-
search and development, to the extent that such activities undertaken during the last
two decades represent an overwhelming proportion of the total scientific research
and technological development of the whole of human history. This great expansion of
research activity, while motivated by the expectation of practical results, included
very considerable elements of basic research as a consequence of recognition by the
authorities that technological success depended on the uncovering of new knowledge.
Thus much of the basic research undertaken today is in reality orientated towards
application, however remote such practical outcome may be. This applies to research
in the social as well as in the natural sciences. It must be admitted that the grea-
ter part of the total research activity was undertaken in support of defence, econom-
ic growth and matters of national prestige such as Atoms for Peace or placing aman
on the moon. Relatively little of the resources was devoted to research in support
of social objectives, even that of health, or to social science elements of other
problem areas.
Problems of Contemporary Society
Before discussing the survey of work in progress on the impact of technology on so-
ciety, it is necessary to mention briefly a few of the main problem areas which have
stimulated research and concern on this topic. The first of these arises from the
consequences for society, of the period of very rapid growth of the 1950s and 60s.
This was a time when it was commonly assumed that economic growth was almost an end
in itself, in that it would generate sufficient economic resources to ensure that the
broader problems of society were solved. Indeed in the post war period, increasing
proportions of the national income of most industrialized countries were devoted to
social objectives with the creation of national health schemes and welfare benefits
over a wide range in addition to the very considerable extension of educational sys-
INTRODUCTION XV
terns which took place.
During the post-war reconstruction and the economic growth decades, despite the low
priority given to the funding of research in the social sciences, there was arising
in the potential contribution of these sciences to the solution of a wide variety
of problems , accompanied, it must be admitted, by a considerable degree of scepti-
cism as to their ability to provide the answers. Thus in the growth process itself
the human and the social element began to be recognized and investigated. For example
even during the war there was an interest in research on the problems of adaption to
change, of considerable significance to the impact of technology which was a later
concern. Again the need for the European countries to achieve much higher levels of
manpower productivity gave rise to a whole series of social science interests, for
example in explaining why productivity levels differed greatly between countries and
between enterprises, despite great similarity of technological and economic condi-
tions. Again management/labour relations received much attention and stimulated ac-
tivity in industrial and work sociology, social anthropology and psychology. Later
also, the disparities between countries and enterprises in their ability to apply
the results of scientific research quickly and creatively in the development of tech-
nology, gave rise to a wide spectrum of studies on the nature of technological inno-
vation. It was found that the technical and scientific inputs, while initial essen-
tials were only the beginning of the process and that educational levels, attitudes
to the use of risk capital, entrepreneurial skills and national psychologies were
amongst the critical elements which determined success or failure.
In the early 1960s, the growth process itself became a matter for investigation. It
was found , for instance, that the increase of GNP in the United States between 1900
and 1950 could only be explained to the extent of about 40% by growth of the tradi-
tional economic inputs of capital and labour. The rest, named the residual factor
soon appeared to be due to improvements in the quality of these inputs, namely in
the increasing educational standards of manpower at all levels from that of the un-
skilled worker to top management and to the quality of capital utilization, mainly
through new technological opportunities. Here again the only vaguely understood re-
lationships between human and material factors began to grow in importance.
By the end of the 1960s the era of euphoria for science, technology and economic
growth had begun to evaporate with the appearance and public recognition of many
symptoms of inadequacy. 1968 saw student unrest and dissatisfaction with the educa-
tional system in most of the Western countries and this was also the time of growing
popular disquiet with regard to the obvious deterioration of the environment due to
the pollution of air and water by the effluents of the industrial society and of an
agriculture increasingly dominated by chemicals. Furthermore urban growth and sub-
urban sprawl was seen as contributing to increases in crime, terrorism, drug-addic-
tion and alienation. It appeared to many that the unwanted side effects of a techno-
logy dominated material society was leading to a loss of the quality of life. In the
eyes of many technology was, indeed villain of the piece, and the science on which
it was increasingly based was equally suspect. Questions began to be raised there-
fore as to how technological development might be better directed to the improvement
of the conditions of life of people as a whole rather than to the benefit of the few.
Material and quantitative growth seemed to many to be insufficient and there was in-
creasing concern with the quality rather than only with the quantity of growth.
One aspect of this was the interest shown for the necessity of foreseeing, well in
advance, the social and cultural as well as the economic consequences of technologi-
cal development. The Japanese government, for example, stated that in the future
technological development must be seen as socially desirable and in the United Sta-
tes, Congress, rather than the executive branch of government established its own
Office of Technology Assessment. This constructive approach to identifying future
impacts of particular technological developments on social and cultural life was,
however, slowed down by the inherent difficulties, complexities and costs of the in-