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BKDEMTEC.RVW   980816

"Democracy and Technology", Richard E. Sclove, 1995, 0-89862-861-X,
U$18.95
%A   Richard E. Sclove
%C   72 Spring Street, New York, NY   10012
%D   1995
%G   0-89862-861-X
%I   The Guilford Press
%O   U$18.95 212-431-9800 fax: 212-966-6708 staff@guilford.com
%P   319 p.
%T   "Democracy and Technology"

"This book promotes the reconstruction of technology along more
democratic lines.  [...]  Insofar as (1) citizens ought to be
empowered to participate in shaping their society's basic
circumstances and (2) technologies profoundly affect and partly
constitute those circumstances, it follows that (3) technological
design and practice should be democratized."  Personally, I can
sympathize with the aims, and even the thesis, that the author
proposes for this text.  However, he also notes a personal experience
that taught him "that even the most well-intentioned, elite study
group can be deeply unaware of the extent to which its conclusions
embody far-reaching value judgements."  What Sclove seems to have
missed is the fact that however important your ideas may be, they have
to be communicated to those who may have different backgrounds, and
also have to be backed up by some kind of evidence.  Although the
declamations may be impassioned, only the most sympathetic and
dedicated reader will be able to plow through the prose; and the
arguments, as they proceed, have little support beyond force of
personality.

Part one is intended to synthesize modern research in the social
dimensions of technology and democratic theory into a rudimentary but
comprehensive democratic theory of technology.  Chapter one, using a
statistical sampling of two communities (one of which is
oversimplified into caricature) states that technology affects
society, but that society can choose those technologies that it will
accept.  The idea that technology affects society is re-examined in
greater detail and verbiage in chapter two.  Democratic decision-
making is said to be superior in chapter three, and some objections
are replied to.  Unfortunately, this entire section is based on only
four real examples, and those situations include one failure, one
closed and homogeneous community, and two "megaprojects" requiring
massive, formal bureaucratic and political decisions.  The theory
eventually turned out is extremely rudimentary: it states that
technology should be democratized, but fails to determine whether it
can be.

Part two proposes a set of evaluation points that can be used to
review technologies for compatibility with democracy.  Chapter four is
supposed to look at technologies of community, but concentrates
primarily on work situations.  In this regard it weakens the arguments
of part one in that examples are given of cooperative social
structures (successfully) imposed on hierarchical work environments,
and democratically designed work technologies subsumed to a
centralized corporate structure.  When the topic does finally turn to
a purer consideration of community it is to dismissively denigrate the
possibility of technological support of virtual community.  Democratic
work is said to be free of routine and inflexible schedules, but
chapter five singularly fails to say how this utopian state of affairs
is to be accomplished.  The first of three discussions of politics,
chapter six proposes that technologies that promote distorted
ideologies or exacerbate social inequities be avoided.  Actually,
though, the material hardly touches on any example technologies at
all.  Two of the points in chapter seven boil down to "smaller is
prettier" since technologies with a smaller scope of impact promote
local self-governance.  The third, however, is rather vague.  We are
to prefer technologies that promote decentralization and federation,
without any real ideas of what those are.  (There is also no analysis
of the relative importance of self-governance versus federation, a
debate that my Canadian heritage finds most compelling.)  The first
point in chapter eight is that we should not foul our own nests, and I
assume that most would agree with that; the only problem being the
determination of how strictly to adhere to it.  The second, however,
seems to be an almost religious insistence on flexibility.  For the
perpetuation of a species we might note that adaptability is a good
thing, but technology can be managed by the species (that is, us)
according to changing conditions.  Is the slotted screw somehow
morally superior to the Robertson because slotted screwdrivers can be
used as (rather clumsy) chisels?

Part three is a defence of the democratic politics of technology
against traditional economic models.  Chapter nine appears to want to
eliminate the concept of value from the discussion.  Economic theory
is not actually challenged in chapter ten.  Instead it is turned into
a straw-philosophy, "economism," and attacked as unfit for comparison
with social justice.  I fully agree with the kind of participatory
inventiveness that chapter eleven espouses, which used to go by the
name of amateur scholarship.  It cannot, however, be successfully
mandated: it must be self-driven.  This has to be obvious from the
examples given in the chapter which are almost universally either
proper systems analysis stories or failures.  Chapter twelve purports
to lay out a roadmap for pursuing more democratic technologies, but is
weakened by a vast majority of statements that use "could" or "might"
rather than "will."  Sclove does admit to a number of important social
factors that work against his ideals (at least in the United States)
in chapter thirteen, but finishes by only hoping that they can be
overcome.

This book is forceful, turgid, passionate, dull, and verbose.  At
first reading, I thought that the nine criteria for evaluation of
technologies were the most important part of the work.  However, as an
exercise I tried reviewing some processes.  War and weapons
technologies came out surprisingly well, marred only by a tendency to
perpetuate authoritarian structures.  Guerilla or sectarian violence
came out even better.  Again, I am in full agreement with the general
aims of the book, but have to conclude that a lot more work needs to
be done on the specifics.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKDEMTEC.RVW   980816

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