The accelerating pace of scientific and technological change has both positive and negative implications for economic and social systems. Indeed:
The change wrought by technological advance continually remakes society, and this transformational process is, on the one hand, central to the dynamic that is commonly labeled “progress,” and yet on the other is a source of continual destabilization and dislocation as experienced by individuals, communities, institutions, nations, and cultures (Crow and Sarewitz 2001: 45).
This paper discusses ways in which the scientific and technological advances of the past 200 years have shaped the development of modern economic and social systems.
Technology can help to structure social relations since technology helps to “constitute social systems of cooperation, isolation, and dominance” (Sclove, 1995: 11). Three elements of technology as a social structure, with examples, are now outlined. First, technology can affect social structure through coercive compliance, in the sense that technology is used in such a way that it compels people to do certain things in certain ways. For example, driving a car is mandated by law but is also governed by social norms. The second element is subconscious compliance, in which behavior and relationships are reshaped unconsciously. For example, Barley (1986) describes how diagnostic technology (CT scan) restructured the way between radiologists and technicians working in hospitals interacted and so caused the organizational structure to change to suit. Third, technology represents opportunities and constraints. For example, by making some places considerably more accessible than others, a rail system creates opportunities and constraints that influence how people organize their lives and their daily activities. Sclove (1995) also argues that technology has social functions, effects, and meanings outside of those intended and he calls this ‘holy potency.’
Using the example of the rail system again, it can be argued that the intended function of the rail system is to provide convenient transportation among destinations. However, the rail system also impacts the configuration of a range of social characteristics such as patterns relating to the class stratification of neighborhoods. The rail system exhibits polypotency because other forms of social behavior and activity are transmitted through the channels established by the transport system. In addition to the effects caused by the physical structure, the personnel and management infrastructure associated with a rail system can reinforce the unintended effect of the rail system in that the human structure of the rail systems also determines the opportunities and constraints that exist for people to pursue their goals.
Technology can have even more dramatic impacts on social and economic systems. For example, the cotton gin was invented at the end of the eighteenth century and led to a great expansion in cotton cultivation in the South of America. One and a half centuries later the mechanical cotton picker was invented and caused the unemployment of millions of people and over three decades more than 5 million people migrated from the South to the cities in the North of America (Crow and Sarewitz 2001: 45). These examples point to the power that technology has to change society in small ways as well as in truly transformative ways (Johnston et al., 1999). The invention of motorcars and television, for example, have both led to fundamental changes in society over the past decade, although not in the same ways as the invention of the mechanical cotton picker, the invention of nuclear weapons, or the invention of the Internet (Toft et al., 2003).
References
Barley, S. (1986). Technology as an occasion for structuring: Evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31, 78-108.
Crow, M. and Sarewitz, D. (2001). Nanotechnology and societal transformation. In M. Roco and W. Bainbridge (Eds.). Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (p. 45-54). National Science Foundation.
Johnston, S., Gostelow, P., and Jones, E (1999). Engineering and Society: An Australian Perspective. South Melbourne: Addison Wesley Longman.
Sclove, R. (1995). I’d hammer out freedom: Technology as politics and culture. In R. Sclove (Ed.), Democracy and Technology (p. 10-24). New York: Guilford.
Silberglitt, R. (2006). Global Technology Revolution 2020, in-Depth Analyses: Bio/Nano/Materials/ Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Toft, Y., Howard, P., and Jorgensen, D. (2003). Changing paradigms for professional engineering practice towards safe design: An Australian perspective. Safety Science, 41 (2-3): 263-276.