Time's Harvest, Fall 1997

Questions for Society and Technological Change

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Last updated: 11/1/97

NOTE: This is NOT the quiz. Some of these questions will be chosen for Quiz 2, and also for the Final Exam. (The Final will be cumulative.)

Also, I have chosen these questions (and the quiz questions for the other books) to draw on more than one part of the book, so you should keep these questions in mind during your reading. It might even be a good idea to make notes as you read on which parts deal with which questions. The questions should be answered on the basis of the textbook.

I do not have in mind that you should be able to answer these questions without discussing them. Use the computer conference for this discussion. I will start it off.

And finally, apart from the quiz questions, there are some specific points from this book that I want to emphasize. These points are listed after the quiz questions.

  1. For Society and Technological Change,
    1. Volti does not feel that a technology is simply the tool or the machine or the technique. What does he say it takes to make something a technology?
    2. What examples does he give of this?
  2. For Society and Technological Change,
    1. What is the difference between science and technology? Give specific examples of each, and discuss how your examples illuminate the differences.
    2. What are the similarities between science and technology, and how do your examples illuminate them?
    3. What has the connection been between the two? How has it changed over time, and over the stages of society?
  3. For Society and Technological Change,
    1. Does the author feel that technology is an independent force, apart from the rest of society?
    2. Give some quotations from the book that support your answer.
    3. Give some historical examples from the book that support your answer.
  4. For Society and Technological Change,
    1. Describe the effects that the author feels technology has had on work.
    2. Describe what is meant by "displacement" of employment or jobs.
    3. Does the author feel that technology has reduced employment? If productivity goes up, how can employment keep up?
  5. For Society and Technological Change,
    1. Volti describes technologies as taking time to mature and develop. Describe three examples of this. For each example, how many years was the development process.
    2. Volti also describes cases where the development process was not smooth and continuous, but had false starts and interruptions. Describe two examples of this.
    3. Are there examples in the book of technologies that take very short times to develop? Say, a year or less?
  6. For Society and Technological Change (Give specific examples in each case),
    1. What are the conditions that Volti describes that foster technical innovation?
    2. Has private industry played a role in technical innovation? Describe this role, if any.
    3. Apart from forming companies to manufacture a technical innovation and then sell the product, has private enterprise played any other type of role? Describe these roles, if any.
    4. Has government played a role? Describe this role or roles, if any.
    5. What other institutions have played important roles in technical innovation? Describe this role or roles, if any.

Specific points:

#1. I was very struck by the section on the effect of printing on society, especially the second paragraph on Page 182. This sounds exactly like one of the criticisms of computer-based communications technology; we will all be isolated and lose our connection to each other. But reading is also a very isolated activity. If society didn't break down when we started reading, maybe it won't break down when we type on our keyboards. I am reminded about the recent controversy about whether or not students should be allowed to use calculaors in school. Many people said that would lead to students forgetting how to "do math", by which they meant doing math using paper and pencil. But paper and pencil were a nineteenth-century innovation in schools, andmany people then argued that paper and pencil would lead to students forgetting how to do math, by which they meant then, doing it in your head. And we have forgotten how to do math in our heads, but we can in fact do much more complicated problems using paper and pencil than we ever could using just our heads, and even more complicated problems, more accurately, using computers.

#2. A related point is that the excesses of newspapers during the 19th century, described on page 185. Stories were simply made up, and reported as the truth. Photographs were falsified. And apparently, at least some, and perhaps all, of these falsifications were believed. All of this sounds very much like what many people are saying is wrong with the Internet. Much incorrect and even false information is on the Internet. Perhaps the person you are corresponding with is not who you think. Now, not that I am saying this is OK, but we lived through it once before, so perhaps we can live through it again. As with newspapers, standards will evolve and some sources will become known as being trustworthy and reliable, while others will hopefully come to be regarded as entertainment rather than fact. And while this is going on, be careful.

3#. From the point of view of technology being or not being an independent force, not subject to social controls, I was also struck by the quotation on Page 229: "[A] new device merely opens a door; it does not compel one to enter." By "opens a door" I understand that Lynn White meant that a new device makes possible a new activity, or enables us to carry out an existing activity faster, better, or more conveniently. Now, certainly today there are many practical pressures on an individual to own a car. But when cars were first developed, there was no such pressure. People did not need the first cars to commute, or to buy groceries. Jobs and shopping were set up to be within walking distance, or along trolley or train lines. So originally, we were not compelled to "enter the door" of buying a car. And even today, I believe it is an exaggeration to say that we are compelled, that is, forced. Especially when you consider the cars that we do buy. If we were compelled, we would buy the least expensive car that would do the job. But those are cars that are not selling very well.

#4. A repeated concern in the on-line conference has been that automation will decrease employment and many of us will end up losing our jobs. On the other hand, technology has been developing for hundreds of years, while at the same time the number of jobs has been increasing.

First, here is how technology can reduce employment in a given industry. One of the quantities that economists talk about is "labor productivity." There are other types of productivity -- investment productivity, for example -- but labor productivity is the most common, and is often shortened to "productivity." Basically, this tries to measure how much labor it takes to produce a given product. I haven't actually seen it defined, but I suspect it is units of output divided by hours of labor to produce that output. If it takes one hour of labor to produce one VCR, let's call that a productivity of 1 VCR divided 1 hour of labor, and 1/1 = 1, so the productivity is 1. Now, suppose an improved assembly line is installed, and it now takes half an hour of labor to produce a VCR. The new productivity is 1 VCR divided by 0.5 hours = 1/.5 = 2. The productivity has doubled, from 1 to 2.

Now, what effect will this have on employment? If the same number of VCRs is produced, the labor force will be cut in half. But wait, it is not that simple. Labor costs are often the highest part of production costs, so the higher productivity will cut the manufacturer's costs, even after the cost of the new assembly line is factored in, and if competition is working, lower prices will result. The law of supply and demand will then increase demand. If the demand doubles, enough more VCRs will be sold so that the same number of workers will be needed. It sometimes happens that demand more than doubles, so that even more workers are hired. On the other hand, if demand increases but does not double, some workers, but less than half, will be laid off.

But there is more. If consumers spend less money on VCRs, they have more money to spend on other things, so demand will increase in other sectors of the economy. If your paycheck is $1,000, and the cost of a VCR goes from $200 to $100, you have another $100 to spend on other things Historically, some of the increased profit from higher productivity has been shared with workers in the form of higher wages and salaries. If this happens in many industries, overall demand in the economy will also rise. To continue the paycheck example, the amount of the paycheck may also go up.

(On the average, a certain percentage of the gross income of all companies goes to workers. This fraction has fluctuated up and down over time. Currently, this fraction is about as low as it has ever been, so a lower fraction of the savings due productivity goes to workers these days, but they still get some. Economists note that union membership has a strong upward influence on workers' wages, so perhaps the current strengthening of unions means that workers will be getting a larger fraction of cost savings and the proceeds from increased sales.)

Rising income produces more demand. And the largest effect seems to be that the demand is for new products and services, in industries that haven't existed before. On page 145, the author writes, "most of the occupations held today did not exist a hundred years ago."

So the result has been, over hundreds of years, that new technology means that employment levels rise. While there are no guarantees, it seems that, if we all continue to want more things and more services, overall employment will keep pace.

Now, does this mean that there are no problems? In the section on "Softening the Blow" starting on Pg 150, the author says that there are indeed problems, even if employment keeps up or even accelerates. I agree that there are problems. The problem is that existing jobs disappear. Even if they are replaced with new jobs, people will still be put out of work and have to find new jobs.

One thing that the author doesn't talk about is the emotional trauma of losing a job, especially when you had "settled in" and thought you were all set until retirement. Maybe the work process and skill levels had been dormant. I have been fired (although in education it is called "non-renewal" of a position) several times. The first time, in particular, depressed me for months. And it was never pleasant, just something you shrug off. It would be nice if we could find a way to lessen this trauma.

But even without that, there is real uncertainty for the laid-off, and probably lost time, and often the disruption of moving and breaking up relationships with neighbors, and so on. And beyond that, there is retraining.

Economists lump all of this, or at least the economic effects, into the term "displacement." Jobs disappear in one sector and are displaced into another, and the workforce has to follow.

I don't see an up side to any of this, except that the retraining keeps skills current. But, if this is going to be a continuing and foreseeable effect of our type of economy and society, then I persoanlly fee that we should try to anticipate these effects and take social (that ususally means government) actions to help citizens make these transitions. Unemployment insurance, retraining programs and similar aids come to mind. And employers should help employees keep their skills current, and should receive government support for doing this. But, this paragraph is my own veiw only, and I don't see society or government going in that direction. The rationale that is given is that only the individual has the real pressure on, and can find the path to keeping employed.

Well, that is an overview of how the economics works out. In a larger view, critics have noted that this economic model assumes that we will produce more and more goods, using more and more natural resources and producing also more and more pollution. How long can we keep this up? Several recent trends point to possible ways out of this dilemma: