Accelerating Change --- Why technology will be the defining battle of the 21st century

Can technological progress be brought to a halt? Despairing technological determinists like philosopher Jacques Ellul feared that technology had escaped the bonds of human control and was now, in some sense, an autonomous force. In The Technological Society (1964), Ellul declared, "Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity." So in his view technological progress is, alas, inevitable. But is that so?

Northwestern University economist Joel Mokyr has written a remarkably interesting history of Western technological progress over the past two centuries, called The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (2002). Gifts masterfully analyzes how the growth of scientific and technological knowledge has underpinned 200 years of amazing economic growth in the West.

But why the West? "[T]he true key to the timing of the Industrial Revolution has to be sought in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century. The key to the Industrial Revolution was technology, technology is knowledge," writes Mokyr. "The rate of technological development has been deeply affected by the fact that people who studied nature and those who were active in economic production have been, through most of history, by and large disjoint social groups."

The 18th century saw the rise of institutions in Europe that established firm linkages between scientific and economic actors. These included scientific societies like the British Royal Society and the convention that scientific knowledge be made public rather than kept secret. Eighteenth century Europe also fractured into many independent sovereignties at the conclusion of the religious wars that had wracked continent for the previous two centuries. This political diversity promoted greater freedom of thought among merchants, scientists, and other thinkers, who would often simply pick and up leave if the government of one place displeased them.

Useful knowledge, according to Mokyr, comes in two varieties. The first is propositional knowledge about natural phenomena and their regularities, e.g., the law of gravity and the germ theory of disease. Propositional knowledge can then be used to create instructional or prescriptive knowledge; that is, to develop such techniques as disinfectants to control germs. The new propositional knowledge was widely disseminated through a growing network of scientific and engineering journals and encyclopedias. These publications gave inventors cheap access to information, enabling them to develop new technologies such as steam engines, locomotives, canning, anesthesia, electric motors and lighting, and the production of nitrogen fertilizer.

History, according to Mokyr, shows that "technological progress in a society is by and large a temporary and vulnerable process, with many powerful enemies with a vested interest in the status quo or an aversion to change continuously threatening it. The net result is that changes in technology, the mainspring of economic progress, have been rare relative to what we now know human creativity is capable of, and that stasis or change at very slow rates has been the rule rather than the exception. It is our own age, and especially the rapid technological change in the Western world, that is the historical aberration."

Rapid technological and economic growth is indeed an aberration. It took nearly 1,800 years for per capita incomes in Western Europe to triple, from about $450 in 0 A.D. to $1,269 in 1820 A.D., according to economic historian Angus Maddison. But then the scientific and technological revolution hit, boosting West European incomes with unprecedented rapidity, up 13-fold to $17,456 in less than 200 years. That adds up to a mere 39-fold increase over the average income in the Roman Empire, almost all of it in the last two centuries.

But given all the benefits that modern scientific and technological enterprise has bestowed upon humanity, why would anyone want to vote "no"? "Technological progress inevitably involves losers, and these losers...tend to be concentrated and usually find it easy to organize," notes Mokyr. "Sooner or later in any society the progress of technology will grind to a halt because the forces that used to support innovation become vested interests. In a purely dialectical fashion, technological progress creates the very forces that eventually destroy it."

Candle makers, after all, cannot be expected to hail the invention of the electric light bulb, nor hostlers the advent of automobiles, nor canal-boat owners the building of railways, nor TV broadcasters the laying down of cable systems.

Mokyr notes that, historically, "technological progress has a better chance in the long run in free self-organizing market societies than in command economies." However, this is exactly what dismays technology critics like Ellul. If technological decisions are left to people freely acting in markets, those who favor a new technology can vote "yes" by buying it or switching to it. Those who oppose it can refuse to buy or use a new technology; but, as Mokyr notes, they "have no control over what others do even if they feel it might affect them. In markets it is difficult to express a no vote."

Thus it is no surprise that opponents of technological progress often want decisions about new technologies to be made in political arenas. Opponents of a given new technology believe that they will have more luck by lobbying their local congressperson or member of parliament to vote to prohibit its development. The European Union's effort to slow the introduction of genetically enhanced crops is a contemporary example of this process at work.

The defining political conflict of the 21st century is shaping up to be the battle over the future of technology. Fortunately, technological progress doesn't just have opponents; it also has boosters. The rise of neo-Luddism is calling forth self-conscious defenders of technological progress. Growing numbers of extropians, transhumanists, futurists and others are entering the intellectual fray to do battle against the neo-Luddite activists who oppose biotechnology, nanotechnology, and new intelligence technologies.

One such pro-technology group, the Institute for Accelerating Change in Los Angeles, would give Jacques Ellul nightmares. The IAC doesn't just favor technological progress; it promotes accelerating technological progress exponentially.

"Activists, bureaucrats, and lawyers are hampering promising research and making it more costly," writes Mokyr. "But the achievements made possible by new useful knowledge in terms of economic well-being and human capabilities have been unlike anything experienced before by the human race. The question remains, can this advance be sustained?"

Ronald Bailey, Reason's science correspondent, is the editor of Global Warming and Other Eco Myths (Prima Publishing) and Earth Report 2000: Revisiting the True State of the Planet(McGraw-Hill).

It took nearly 1,800 years for per capita incomes in Western Europe to triple, from about $450 in 0 A.D. to $1,269 in 1820 A.D., according to economic historian Angus Maddison.

I am staggered by the sheer stupidity of this statement. Per capita income cannot be meaningfully measured during this time-frame.

My initial instinct is to concur wholeheartedly. I especially liked the line about candlemakers vehemently opposing the light bulb.

I'm of the opinion that one of major reasons that code-writers and technical documentation specialists in India and China can work on projects for Oracle is that the internet has advanced to the point where this is possible.

The tech-workers losing their jobs in SIlican Valley today are the candle-makers of the 21st century.

"The question remains, can this advance be sustained?"

The answer to this is a resounding "YES", but with one caveat... Government must not get in the way of advancement. Governments are wonderful at destroying things, very poor at encouraging or creating advancements.

Without pondering this article at length, I cautiously disagree with its premise. At its root, technology is motivated by human curiosity and a desire to control one's surroundings. There is a strengthening movement against both of those motives, apparent in such ideologies as anarchists and latter-day Luddites.

In a more moderate vein, technology has, in many cases, outstripped the moral boundaries that should constrain it. It's like handing a two-year-old a loaded gun. We're capable now of doing so much more than ever before, but at our simplest, we're still just hairless apes grunting and howling around a different jungle.

Technology may continue its advance, but the repercussions will not be solely economic. The question becomes "Will technology define our society, or will our society define our technology?" I'm inclined to believe the latter.

"Per capita income cannot be meaningfully measured during this time-frame."

The Romans were pretty damned good at keeping records, so we DO have a reasonable idea of the population of various areas and the level of income therein (remember why Joseph was in Bethlehem--so "all the world can be taxed"). Admittedly, it is an estimate rather than a true measurement as we expect today, but it is an estimate based on reasonable information.

"In a more moderate vein, technology has, in many cases, outstripped the moral boundaries that should constrain it."

Dr. Gatling invented his gun because it would end warfare by making it too horrible to contemplate.

Other examples come readily to mind.

--Boris

Your point is well taken. But what I was getting at was that the world did not really function as a cash economy back then. There was slavery, and later serfdom. Most people were subsistence-level farmers. You could go through life without ever touching a coin -- it would have been unusual if you did get a coin.

Based on that, I say that comparing per-capita income in (let's say) the year 500 with the year 2003 is silly. It can be done, but I think it gets you nowhere.

Boris...you are, of course, pointing out the age-old problem with technology: that it can be used for good or evil.

Unfortunately, this line of logic is usually what leads to government interference (i.e., to keep the evil controlled). I am not sure how I feel about it. I feel that technology is generally good (e.g., advances in medicine, scientific understanding, etc.), though I obviously would concede the possibility of utterly attrocious uses as well.

P.S. I hadn't seen (no offense, noticed?) you out on the boards lately. Good to post with you. It is always an interesting discussion, even when (maybe especially when) we don't agree.

"Based on that, I say that comparing per-capita income in (let's say) the year 500 with the year 2003 is silly. It can be done, but I think it gets you nowhere."

Sure it does. Total goods and production (i.e. GNP) divided by total population means the same thing now as it did then--but the "error bars" are bigger, as both the "GNP" and "total population" numbers are estimates rather than measurements.

We have even today a large percentage of the population as "zeros" just as they did then. Only today they are not slaves--they are just "on welfare". Even so, they still are part of the overall economy (as consumers rather than as unpaid producers of wealth).

Now, if you want to talk about "wealth distribution", then that is a horse of a whole different pigmentation, as the fraction of "dirt poor folks" was significantly larger than in the "First World" today.

That's precisely why I think "per-capita" is a red herring. Look, in the USA we might say that our per-capita income is $30,000 (or whatever) and Sweden's is (let's say) $31,000. This tells us that lifestyles in the two countries are roughly comparable. But in Zimbabwe, the per-capita income is $1000, so we know that most folks don't have DVDs, microwaves, and 401K plans.

I feel that the term "per-capita income is silly if wealth is inherently held by the few (as it was before industrialization). Look, if we have a small country occupied by Bill Gates and 1000 people on welfare, the per-capita income in about $20,000,000. It's true enough, but I think it tells you little of importance.

In short: I think that economic data from long ago can be derived and studied and use can be made of it in many cases. But "per-capita income" is, IMO, meaningless when society is divided between rich royalty (1%) and dirt poor serfs (99%).

"In short: I think that economic data from long ago can be derived and studied and use can be made of it in many cases. But "per-capita income" is, IMO, meaningless when society is divided between rich royalty (1%) and dirt poor serfs (99%)."

But it is NOT meaningless. It measures the productivity of the given society as a whole. That the wealth ends up being concentrated in a tiny percentage of the population is irrelevant--the meaningful information is that a certain number of people generate a certain amount of wealth per person---not that they end up OWNING it.

Gross domestic product (i.e. total wealth) won't give you tne necessary info, as it tells you nothing about the productivity per person.

Well, I don't want to beat a dead horse. I'm not an economist and I may be way off here. My final attempt:

If we are discussing technological change, and its affect on productivity, then is income the right metric? Inflation and deflation over the course of a millenium are very hard to figure and, I think, create a margin of error which is far too big.

Inflation ups your income, but doesn't (necessarily) increase your productivity. Deflation can be caused by higher productivity, but can lower your income. So, isn't is risky to look at overall societal income (or per-capita income) and make a judgement call about how productive the people are?

If I want productivity metrics, I would measure productivity. If I want income metrics, I would measure income. I don't think they are the same thing. I'm not comfortable postulating a whole lot of data from the year 1 to the year 1820, swallowing error margin after error margin and coming up with a "per-capita income" figure and THEN using that figure to make a statement about productivity. I think at some point in the process we just go off into neverneverland.

The tech-workers losing their jobs in SIlican Valley today are the candle-makers of the 21st century.

Your analogy is completely flawed. IT and Engineering are not obsolete, so anyone with delusions of making a "buggy whip" comparison needs to rethink it. In order to find a correct and legitimate analogy to the gutting of U.S. technology base, you would have to look back in history for another viable, strategically important industry that was simply shipped overseas.

You write like a frightened man who is hearing the sound of inevitability. Industries and jobs are not birthrights and there are never guaruntees. If IT was viable, it wouldn't have crashed in 1999 and noone would incur the transactions costs involved in finding foreign workers to fill professional positions.

Perhaps, another way to look at it, is that IT is no longer viable at $90,000 a year per employee. The Governement hasn't paid entry-level employees in IT even close to that. Their jobs advertise all over www.USAJobs.opm.gov every day and remain unfilled. Sometimes for three years.

The starting salary for a GS-9 is 7 times what Oracle pays Chinese db programers and once you get tenure, they have to catch you in bed with a live boy or a dead girl to ever get rid of you. Permanent IT job security is just a point, a click and an annoying application process away. It just doesn't come with the Hamptons lifestyle.

It's not the IT jobs that are getting exported, its the champaigne lifestyles and the caviar dreams.

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