[page 25]
INTERNATIONAL NOTES ++ INTERNATIONAL NOTES +* INTERNATIONAL NOTES ++ IN POLAND: a regime in fear of the workers The regime in Poland is one of extreme fear of the workers. economic sphere, example, despite the growing balances" revealed by the governthe bureaucracy is incapable of taking decisive action: "They can't do anything big without our say-so any more", one Gdansk shop-foreman told the 'New York Times', recently: "They try and we stop work."
In May, the Prime Minister admitted that, despite increased meat imports and increased investment in consumer goods, demand still exceeds supply. The reason is that workers' incomes have increased by 14% in the recent period instead of the 6.3% allowed for in the economic plan. Therefore the government needs to raise prices. But the explosive strikes that erupted when they attempted to raise prices last year paralysed them as far as moves in this direction are concerned It is not at all coincidental, of course, that a sustained campaign in the official Polish press to explain the necessity of price rises has been accompanied by an intensified campaign against political dissidents. At the beginning of May, the police arrested Adam Michnik, Jacek Kuron, and Jan Jozef Lipki, leaders of the Committee to Defend Workers Victims of the Repression Connected with the Events of 25th June, 1976 (KOR for short)-that is the massive strike wave that followed the announcement of 45% increases in food prices.
These, and other leaders of KOR, have been charged with "maintaining contacts with foreign organisadamaging tions intent on the interests of the People's Republic". Every kind of vilification, including anti-semitism, has been used against the students and intellectuals involved in KOR. But their real "crime" far as the is bureaucracy as concerned, is their success in openly campaigning against regime, collecting money and signatures in support of workers arrested or thrown out of work for expressing their opposition.
The by wide support recieved KOR is indicated by the fact that by May this year it had distributed 3 million zloties ($90,000 at official rate) to the families of arrested or sacked workers, the equivalent of about 3,000 months of an average worker's wage. Most of it came from thousands of individual donations. They have also collected over 3,000 signatures to petitions protestíng against repression, no small number given the risks involved in openly criticising the regime. KOR's campaign has undoubtedly played an important part in securing the releae of most of the Ursus and Radom workers arrested after the strikes. Gierek e curacs with plant englacen This year, however, the regime has increasingly turned against the committee itself. Fearful of provoking a reaction from the workers, with whom the socialist intellectuals and writers have established close links, the police have resorted to cat-and-mouse persecution, arresting KOR activists, interrogating them, threatening them, and then releasing them.
The situation point again, however, with the death of 25-year-old Stanislaw Pyjas, a leader of KOR who was battered 4p death in an apartment block in Cracow on May 7th. Like other members of KOR he had been arrested several times, and shortly before his death had officially complained to the public prosecutor about anonymous letters and death threats that almost certainly came 25
[page 26]
303533
From "Tygocinite porniting"
from the police themselves.
Over 5,000 attended Pyjas's memorial service in Cracow on May 11th, despite mass arrests aimed at preventing this protest. Two other leaders of KOR narrowly escaped death when their car was mysteriously forced off the road by a truck as they returned from the funeral demonstration in Cracow. On May 22nd, 60 workers were arrested in Ursus. At least six more leaders of KOR have also been arrested. Only the fear of triggering off new mass strikes restrains the regime from even more savage repression.
It now seems ironic that, following Gomulka's reforms after the 1956 strikes, Poland's regime was considered to be the most liberal and popular in Eastern Europe. But in 1970, Gomulka himself announced huge price increases which provoked mass uprisings in Gdansk and Czettin. The regime resorted to the only solution it has in a crisis: bloody repression. But Gierek, who replaced Gomulka, himself tried once again to "liberalise" and buy off the workers with promises of better conditions and more consumer
26
to seit Erica
goods. Gierek, however, improved on Gomulka: whereas it took the latter fourteen years to exhaust his credit, Gierek managed to arrive at a new crisis in only seven.
What can the bureaucracy do? If it does not increase prices soon, it will pile up even worse economic problems. But the consequences of new price rises are clear. Intensified repression, the method always used in the past, will only stimulate opposition and revolt given the new mood among the workers. Gierek, unlike Gomulka, does not even have the comfort of a rival faction within the ruling clique prepared to relieve him of his miseries.
The Polish regime has exhausted the whole gamut of economic reforms and "liberalisation". They have demonstrated in practice that reforms are at best only temporary expedients. They cannot solve the fundamental contradiction: the fact that the bureaucracy is now a complete fetter on production, and the power and privileges of the higher echelons of the bureaucracy are a contant stimulus to opposition.
The Polish workers have already
demonstrated that they have the effective power of veto over the economic policy of the government. But discontent with the economy is only one side of the question. On the other, is the hatred of the bureaucracy, the lack of democratic expression, and national humiliation at the hands of the Russian bureaucracy. The workers of Poland have learned through bitter and bloody experience that the bureaucracy is sometimes prepared to make concessions to "liberalise" , to shuffle the top leadership, but never to get off their backs.
Step by step, the most active and conscious workers-undoubtedly already organising in underground groups—are moving towards the idea of a political revolution based on the fundamental demands of workers' democracy put forward by Lenin in 1917 and again by the Hungarian workers in the 1956 Rising: for the right of election and recall of all officials; for the limitation of official's salaries to the average for skilled workers; for the abolition of the standing army and other organs of state repression; for the right to strike and form democratic trade unions; and for freedom of speech, publication, assembly, and political organisation.
[page 27]
THE CONTROL
OF TECHNOLOGY
By David
And Rutl Elliot
Publi Ltd E
shed by £3.50] R
Wykeham Publications
eviewed by Vivien Seal
Pollution and atomic bombs, automation and data banks-these and many other developments, point to the apparently contradictory character of technology. Science and technique offer the means by which humanity can dominate and control nature, and raise its own social relations to a high level of sophistication and rationality. Yet, in practice, new technology frequently has unforeseen results which become the cause of the unintended disruption and loss of control of natural processes, or is actually deliberately used to manipulate and control the majority of society.
'The Control of Technology' is concerned with this problem. Early on in the book, the Elliotts give two sorts of examples of the effects of technology on individuals and on society. One is the sort of technology which is out of the control of the working class through the "normal" democratic processes, but nevertheless an intentional development as far as the ruling class is concerned. The other is the sort of development that is an unintended consequence of technology and potentially out of any control by society.
Among examples of the first kind, the authors describe technological advances in industry which have meant the re-organisation and automation of jobs, increasing the intensity of work, making it less skilled and more boring, and increasing redundancies: "a frantic work-tempo for some and the dole queue for others" , according to an AUEW-TASS pamphlet on computer-aided design. Figures are given which show the reduction in the labour forces in various industries as
a result of technological advance. For instance the introduction of numerical control of the turret lathe led to a 76.7% "saving" in labour. The Elliotts also give information about the reaction of workers to technology, such as the absentee rate in the motor industry, which is 20% at General Motors (in the USA) and 25% at Saab (in Sweden).. The "intentional" effects of technology are used to increase profits but could, in a socialist society, be used to reduce the working day and free workers from dirty and dangerous jobs.
An example of the unintentional effects of technology is the ecological crisis, involving pollution, waste and depletion of resources.' As Engels said long ago in "The 'dialectics of Nature': "In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the immediate, the most tangible result; and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be quite different, are mostly quite the opposite in character."
The Elliotts discuss a number of technological and other "fixes". By "fix" they mean a purely technical splution to a problem. However, since most problems are not purely technical, technological "fixes" usually don't solve them. The idea is to overcome the unwanted side effects of science and technology (from the capitalists' point of view), such as absenteeism and pollution, without changing the class relations •of society. Among the "fixes" discussed are: the "Green Revolution", birth control programmes, "zero growth",
participation. They
the limita-
tions of the "fix" approach, and that in some cases-for example, the
Green Revolution-social relations
were such that the "fix", though perhaps technically sound, made things worst.
The authors discuss the relations between science, technology and society, and the works of other writers on the subject. The section tends to be rather schematic-for example, they talk about "models" such as the "economic determinist model" and the technological determinist model" so that although they rightly conclude that there is a complex interaction between econo mic forces, ideology, the political power of the ruling class, and technological change, they also call this a model, the "interactionist approach", ', and still do not explain the relationship.
The book also shows that the kind of research that is carried out, and hence the sciences and technologies that are developed, are also a relfection of our lack.of control of technology. Figures are given showing how much money is spent on atomic, space and defence research compared with economically motivated research and research on health, welfar, "pure" science, etc.
In the UK in 1969-70 about 70% of total government spending on research bad space, atomic or defence objectives, and half of that went in contracts to industry. The Control of Technology' has an interesting section on what research is done and contains quite a lot of information on the interpenetration of economic and military activity known as the "military-industrial complex", and in particular the résearch and development associated with it.
In the same year, 40% of economically oriented research, the largest single item, was funded by industry and carried out by industry, and of course was aimed at producing innovations that would be
27
[page 28]
profitable investments. In the last live years or so, against a background of cuts and depression, government reports have recommended that even the scientific research done in Universities should be economic justified by some future benefit and not the "mere" advanceof knowledge.
ment It has been proposed that and the scientists government should have a "customer -contractor" relationship. The existence or otherwise of certain branches of science may be 'ast-breeder nuclear reactor, Dounreay directly related to profit. For example like DDT is fairly well understood, because the big chemical companies saw that there was money to be made from developing chemical methods of pest control; they invested accordingly, and many of the scientists with an interest in the appropriate branch of chemistry or physiology found suitable jobs. On the other hand, the branches of science associated with either the study of side effects of DDT and similar compounds on the environment, or the study of alternative, biological methods of pest control, since they did not appear to offer the prospect of returns on investment, received very little funding (none from industry) and very few scientists went to work in those areas. Consequently, it took about 15 years, by which time the poisoning had become serious, for the effects of DDT to be widely recognised; and it will take longer for an alternative approach to become available.
Chapter four, in the Elliotts' book, is about the "technocracy". The 28 access to technological skills. It is very easy to get the feeling nowadays that groups of experts with access to technological knowledge, incomprehensible to most of us, control the direction and advance of technology, if not society itself. This is reflected in the impression may people have, that democratic control of society is not really possible now that such a lot of technological and other knowledge seems to be necessary for term suggests a bureaucracy with making decisions; or that if someone can mysity you with scientific jargon then they must be right.
I he book surveys various views of the "technocracy", form those which blame all society's misfortunes on technological advance or suggest that a malevolent technocracy could control society for its own ends (if it doesn't "do so already), to those whose utopia is a society run for the benefit of all according only to the rational principles of science. The authors rightly conclude, however, that "we are slaves to the inexorable laws of capitalism, rather than the inexorable laws of technique." There can obviously be no such as an autonomous "techno , neutral in class terms. The scientific and technological apparacapitalist production and is controlled, mor or less directly as the cas may be, by the capitalist class. This undoubtedly reflected in mental outlook, prejudices, political views, etc., of its top personnel, the "technocrats". In a socialist society : agencies of scientific and the technological development would necessarily be controlled by the working class. Specialised bodies would certainly still be necessary, but they would be rid of the narrow, "technocratic" character that the present institutions derive from their capitalist foundations.
This is not to say that under capitalism technologies may not develop a logic and a momentum of their own, or that "technocrats" may not develop their own self interest as a group. Consequently, at certain periods of capitalist such as the post-war boom, it is possible for "discovery push" inno vations to take place, in which the driving force is scientific discovery rather than the immediate needs of society reflected (more or distorted) in marketing possibilities seen by companies.
At the same time, research and innovation may have unforeseen results, either positive "spin off" or negative side effects. Developments of this sort, because they cannot always be traced directly to the needs or aims of capitalism, give rise to the illusion that technology is the main, independent driving force of "modern society". This is a view particularly acceptable to those who don't want to recognise the class divisions of society, including those liberals who now regard science and technology as a pernicious force. But science and technology only consti-
[page 29]
An Atlas rocket launching John Glens Lute a driving force for society in so far as the system of production can utilise them, and this is ultimately determined by social and economic, not purely technical, tactors.
Increasing specialisation among the "experts" also reinforces the impression that we are increasingly dominated by "technocrats" . Not only is science and technology mystifying to ordinary people, but even to the "experts" in different fields. Nature is a complete system in which nothing takes place in isolation. Living organisms are in ceaseless interaction with each other and the physical environment. Yet scientific activity is fragmented into "disciplines". Scientists specialise, and each specialism involves its own set of methods, theories, prejudices and preconceptions and, in particular, its own hierarchical career structure. Scientists then turn the real world into a refracted image of their own academic world• with its separate. compartments.
Clearly it is 'necessary to study small areas of science in depth, in order to have more than a superficial understanding. However, this has been done entirely at the expense of studying the interactions between
natural phenomena, or seeing one "field" in the context of others. Trotsky, writing at the time of the chemist Mendeleyev's centenary, showed thạt another result was an inability in most scientists to apply scientific methods to "real life", or "common sense" to science.
Technology is usually associated with "hardware" , but it has now been applied to the methods of management, with the development of such subjects as "operational research". . Our lack of control of technology is nowhere more apparent than in its development for the specific aim of improving the ability of the ruling class to "manage" the workers in its own interests. But even here, techniques have been develo ped which could be used, on the basis of democratically planned production, to the benefit of the working class in the future.
Al the moment, the control of rechnology is chiefly the "control" exercised by market forces-that is, technology is developed to produce what will sell-modified by government intervension. The latter ranges from direction of resources to certain areas—for example to atomic, space and defence research-to modifica-
tions intended to protect society from undesirable effects of science and technology. For intance, there are various committees of experts which decide whether to allow things like new food additives and drugs onto the market. Laws exist to restrict the extent 10 which employers can pollute the environment or put the health of workers at risk. Royal Commissions are appointed from time to time to decide on things like where to have the third London Airport. In the United States, there is an Office of Technology Assessment which has the job of assessing the social, economic, political, environmental and other impacts of new technologies or new innovations. On limited issues, "pressure groups can campaign and somethimes have some effect, especially if they are articulate and have funds. In some cases they have financed researchfor example, the birth control movement contributed to the development of birth control technology by financing research as well as campaigning for acceptance.
In practice, however; these "normal" democratic channels for the control of technology are, from the point of view of the working class, very limited. How many workers have really changed things by joining pressure group or giving evidence to Royal Commissions? The sacking of GMWU safety officer carlier this year for calling a tactory inspector to an asbestos factory, and the infrequency with which companies used to be prosecuted by the Alklali Inspectorate for pollution, show that having a law on the statute books is not enough. The case of cyclamate aritficial sweeteners and the fact that the ex-Chairman of the Safety of Medicines Committee is now a director of a pharmaceutical company, show how little expert committees represent the interests of the working class.
In practice, the extent to which we can control technology in Our interests, especially where our interests conflict with those of big business or individual employers, depends on the organised strength of the labour movement. And even this control is usually limited to preventing damage from existing technological advances rather than promoting new developments. That will only be possible when the economy is in the hands of the working class. However, the growth in organisation and militancy of scientific and engineering workers, •and campaigns by workers such as those in. the aerospace industry lo work on alternative, socially useful products, is an important step in this direction.
As capitalism moves into a new period of crisis and the successes of science and technology are increasingly overshadowed by problems and potential disasters, the study of
29
[page 30]
"Science and society".
the control of technology"
etc., is → Cology, ecoming more respectable in aca. This undoubtedly demic circles.
reflects a recognition among the thinking representatives of capitalism of the need to try to unravel some of the contradictions produced by the system and limit some of the more dangerous side effects of advanced technology. It also reflects à reaction among scientists, technologists and academics against the haphazard development of techno logy and its misuse and outright abuse by capitalism, though this is mostly far from being understood or expressed in conscious political terms. In many cases these two, apparently contradictory, motives for analysing the relationship of science and society are completely mixed up and confused. The Elliots' book is therefore a valuable contribution in that it sets out to analyse and criticise present-day technology from a socialist point of view. It contains a lot of interesting material, figures, examples and summaries of work by other authors, and is well worth reading on these counts. Clearly, however, the authors have produced a book intended more for those who wish seriously to study the questions of science, technology and society rather than for readers with a more general interest in the subject. Even so the book is hard going, in places, burdened by "academic"
language. This is not just a question of style: a more serious criticism is that the authors unfortunately seem to lack confidence in their socialist ideas, appearing to be too concerned to justify themselves to academic and allowing their own readers, analysis. and arguments to be obscured by a plethora of imperfectly digested quotations.
[page 31]
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