Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #6 (Reel 1)

Manufacturing is in the process of declining as an area in which human hours are spent in a way that is somewhat analogous to the decline of Agriculture. The reason for it is somewhat similar. It's worked itself out of a job. You know this is only the beginning the process is far from over. No really nice actually ever disappear any more than agriculture would disappear. But the train is in motion. Manufacturing is done more and more recently. That was Dr. Anthony Weiner assistant to the director at the Hudson Institute speaking at the twenty sixth annual Institute on world affairs conducted as a special feature of the instructional program at San Diego State College the institute is dedicated to the use of the free academic forum for the presentation and discussion of current and continuing issues of international significance. The main theme of this year's Institute is expressed in one word revolution and I want to introduce our speaker at the session. Here is Professor Minas generalise director of the Institute on world affairs.

We are indeed fortunate having again with us tonight. Dr. Anthony we know assistant to the director of the Hudson Institute in New York. Doctor we spoke before this institute last year and is in self a political scientist a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He taught political science at MIT where they have as you know an excellent program in this area which by virtue of its location in the school of technology produces almost automatically a kind of cross-fertilization. As chairman of the research council of the Hudson Institute. He has coauthored with Herman Cohen who is well-known I'm sure to quite a few of you a book and titled the year 2000 a new framework for speculation. This work was prepared for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and involves a study of technology projected into the future.

So when we speak of technology this evening in economic development as revolutionary forces we do automatically indicate that cross-fertilization between technology and political science or government policy. Thank you very much. Happy to be here again. Last year we were discussing toward a new world. And this year we're discussing or the emphasis is more on revolutionary forces in the current world. The things that are creating the changes in conditions that will make the world we're approaching a new world a different one from the one we are in now. I don't know what some of the other speakers have said in this program I imagine that many people have called attention to the fact that the revolution that's now in progress

has many aspects that they are interrelated that there are world wide aspects of revolution. I want to try to do this again perhaps in a somewhat different point if you want to talk about technology and economic development and try to point out how these are revolutionary forces in several different arenas of the world and in several different senses. Now if you ask what is it like technology and economic development why these particular aspects of social change why are they so salient why should we take them out for emphasis. I think the answer is that they too have something in common and that there is an underlying element and I like to call the underlying element manipulative rationality. I want to make this the theme for tonight's talk manipulative

rationality as a revolutionary force. And then I also in some ways as a counter revolutionary force now by the manipulative rationality I mean. The inclination to think rationally that is in terms of logical relationships between causes and effects. I think rationally and in manipulative terms in terms which I take into consideration the possibility Henri. Or are terms that are oriented toward challenging things changing our own physical world changing our social world social organization economic organization institutions and then changing our own selves interfering in with people with what is happening to people in the natural state interfering in terms of medical progress. Interfering in terms of taking drugs. We are a

drug taking society that is most people in this society regulate their body chemistry at least through such drugs as caffeine and aspirin. Many people nicotine and then sedatives bromides and then of course increasingly in some sectors on marijuana LSD many many kinds of prescription drugs. So far we have no hesitation in interfering in our own selves we intervene through psychotherapy. We intervene. Been through surgery. We do such things as heart transplants. We manipulate the human being. We manipulate human society and we certainly manipulate our own environment. We create problems of smog of pollution. We change the water supply. We change whatever we want to to suit our convenience. But we do

it rationally we think about it. Now this may seem obvious commonplace background fact of our lives but. It is unworthy of notice but I think it is very much worthy of notice for one thing. Western society is almost unique in the world in the emphasis it puts on manipulative rationality. Modern Western society is distinguished from its own antecedents by the emphasis that is put on this attitude disorientation. Traditional societies around the world don't ask the kinds of questions we do. We ask Are we satisfied with the way things are. And if not is there some better way to do it. Can we change it. Well let's see how would we do it. Take a traditional society for example in which a man is building a canoe in order to go out and get some fish in order to bring them back and

feed himself and other members of the tribe. Now as you point out to that member of the traditional society that that is in fact what he is doing and those are the purposes of his activity. He will have any difficulty recognizing that. But that isn't the way he ordinarily thinks of it. For most societies he will think his activity as a kind of ritual. He is now doing the kind of building ritual because it is that time of year when canoes are to be built and the proper dances are danced in the proper songs are sung the proper offerings are made to the proper deities and the canoes are built or are very much in the same spirit. And the question does not ordinarily come up. Is there some better way to build the canoe stedfast does the question come up is there some better way to to get the fish. Should we be using nets and still less does the question come on. Is there something better to do than to

fish for food supply. Should we turn to agriculture societies in which those questions come up regularly don't stay traditional. Our own society has many aspects of ritual many more than we often recognize. Nevertheless it is quite different from the others. Now this manipulative rationality has set in motion. The forces which dominate the modern world particularly the forces of economic development and the forces of technological change. The same is of course social change and that have led to an acceleration of social change economic development comes from an accumulation of a process of investment and incorporation of new technology better ways of manufacturing things increase productivity of man hours in the production of goods and services increased productivity comes from doing things in better

ways investing more capital using more advanced technology. As a result of this we have changed from an agrarian society to an open society as the productivity of Agriculture has gone up and the productivity of the kinds of jobs that need to be done in factories in urban centers typically as I said going up and the 5 percent of the society 150 years ago derives its living from agriculture. This is down to 5 percent. The US became the last year the first economy in the world in which more people were employed in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing is in a process of decline as an area in which human hours are spent in a way that is somewhat analogous to the decline of Agriculture. And the reason for it is somewhat similar. It's worked itself out of a job. You know this is only the beginning of the process. It's far from over. No manufacturing

ever disappear any more than agriculture will disappear. But the trend is in motion. Manufacturing is down more and more recently just as one farmer can feed 20 people in this country. The time may arrive within another generation or two. When one man employed in a factory will produce enough goods to Iraq kinds for for 20 other people not working in factories now. This manipulative rationality has been the cutting edge of change. The source of everything that is different the source of of of the alienation of one generation from another. The fact that children are being born now being brought up in this society are very much like immigrant children in previous generations that is they are in some ways closer to what is happening in the society than their own parents are. And it's not typical

for a middle aged mother to learn from her teenage daughter how to dress you know an unprecedented situation in any kind of traditional society in which parents for a long long time had much to learn and which children that is. That's an interesting split. It was children for a long long time had much to learn from their parents. The Sitch or the Rose have been to some extent reversed. And the reason for it is the rapid pace of social change and the difficulty that only generations have in keeping up with the things that are different and the kind of closer proximity that the adolescence may often seem to have. Many things are destroyed by manipulative rationality as well as produced this very productive process which has worked so well for us. As I also tended to tear down our traditional values or less of doing things things that have some value

utility for people. Let me tell you a little anecdote that illustrates the sort of thing that's involved at Hudson Institute. We are a nonprofit Policy Research Institute. We are the kind of place that's sometimes called a think tank which means that we do lots of studies of policy issues and we do studies for government agencies and for private groups or foreign governments economic development work foreign policy all sorts of things. And typically the problem is something like this. We begin with the fact that the government has a certain program let's say an anti-poverty program and we start with essentially must be something wrong with the way they're doing it. And then the next question is well is there some other way to do it. You know could it be done any better. What are some of the red turning to programs what would be the costs and the benefits of various alternative programs. So we are very much in this manipulative rationality

tradition and we do often systems analysis. We look at some complex system we identify as parameters we try to evaluate them and we try to make recommendations. We had a young fella working with us a systems analyst who became very good at it and had quite a talent for it and began to feel this was really the culmination of man's intellectual evolution this way of looking at problems this way of understanding them analyzing them dealing with them improving matters. Well one night he went home and he was somewhat surprised to notice that the table was set back beautifully. There was champagne and flowers and his wife was wearing her best dress. And he remembered then that it was his wedding anniversary. And they sat down and he said Darling I have a wonderful idea. It's

been my experience at work that when a study is done of any ongoing system that's functioning effectively. The conclusions of that study tend to strengthen and support that system. And she looked at him a little skeptically and he said what I mean is we need to do a systems analysis of our marriage. And she became a little more skeptical. And he said look we can do this very informally. We don't we don't need to quantify it we don't need any computers. Let's simply begin now and we'll each list every aspect of this arrangement that has any importance either positive or negative. Everything we like everything we don't like. Let's make a comprehensive list and then let's put the right weight on each one of these things you know trivial matters leaving the cap off the toothpaste. You know these ought not to be weighted very heavily but the important things will put a heavy weight on and that will give the total marriage some score that represents his performance. And

then of course we want to make systematic comparisons with all the alternatives. Now what this means is well let's see their case one is the one in which we didn't get married at all. But that's not too realistic a better one since we can't go back to that a better one is that when we get divorced right now and we'll evaluate that what would that be like. And then of course we have to look at the alternative marriages and that are now or may in the future become available to us and rate them. And when we done this we'll see how well off we are. And she left the table in tears and he sat there for a long time wondering what had he done wrong. And he thought about it. And after a while he understood something about it and the next day he told us about it. He said after a while I understand what I should have done is I should have done some preliminary feasibility study of doing a study at all.

And then I would have understood that just doing the study had a negative value because what I should have done is put a high value on the commitment that is not question. And if I had done that I would have stayed out of trouble. So he learned something about manipulative rationality and the corrosive skeptical process of questioning and evaluating and comparing. And he learned it going over a counter stick way. That is he learned the commitment had utility and he should have put some value on it and this is the route by which now in a very painful way we are really learning I think in some ways the importance of some of the issues that were not question until manipulative rationality came along and changed matters changed our ability to question. To give you one example. Consider the development of nuclear weapons. During World War 2 there was a very serious short term problem which was that the Germans were

working on the development of a type of an atomic bomb. And it was clear that the Allies had to develop it first. This problem was not solved successfully but as a result of the solution of that problem the world has become more dangerous for human life. The weapons now have increased and destructiveness by three orders of magnitude since World War 2. The size bomb that killed a hundred thousand people in Hiroshima is now considered a tactical weapon and strategic weapons are thousands of times more powerful. The prospect arises within perhaps a decade or two we don't know of a suitcase bomb for example the kind of thing that can be smuggled into any city and left in some central place be detonated from a distance destroying the city. There are people who hold up banks by walking in with sticks of dynamite or hand grenades. It's possible to hold up cities with these things.

It would be fairly frightening threat. Nuclear weapons have already figured in the internal politics of two countries France and China and China during the Cultural Revolution. An Army commander in sync Yang threatened to harm for ransom. In fact the stockpile of bombs the Chinese had there before he could carry out the threat he himself was overthrown in a coup within his army group in France during the revolt of the secret army organization in Algeria. There was a very strange test carried out at the Saharan test site and for a variety of observers around the world were quite puzzled as to why the French test seems seem to have fizzled. And after awhile it became some observers at least concluded all the French and never told us the story. Some observers concluded that what had happened is that the French had detonated

that if they had they had destroyed it with a lower level of yield. The materials that were available at the test site. The reason for this presumably was not that the Algerians could get them because the site was well defended but it may be that the rebel army which wanted to carry on the war against the Algerians would get the bombs. But then again it isn't clear that the secret on who would have wanted to use the bombs to threaten the Algerians that. It was not the main problem at the time the main problem was with Paris. It's quite conceivable that they could have used the bombs to threaten pass since they had already threatened the paratroop invasion of powers. Reilly's are just instances you know it's of some interest that these things have already occurred. Whether or not they did a car it's quite clear that nuclear weapons can play a role in the internal politics of nations in the future. Imagine a world in which Latin American countries perhaps with an unstable

regime subject to careen which military forces play off in a bureaucratic and stabilizing role but in which there are often conflicts among military factions. Imagine such countries in which the nuclear stockpile becomes one of the stakes for which the parties are contending. When I do something now in prospect they would have done perhaps sooner or later at the same time work is going for any chemical and bacteriological weapons. We don't hear very much about this form of research primarily because the weapons are not very good as weapons. That is they lack control ability and they are not competitive on a cost effectiveness basis with nuclear weapons as ways of holding populations hostage. They simply don't do the job as well. However research proceeds and in time chemical and bacteriological weapons will be more effective as

threat becomes more effective if used. This is a road run. You may feel some dismay about it as any one must who considers what prospects are likely. On the other hand there are ways of dealing with these things. Now reach a point where any technically trained person or many technically trained persons have the knowledge necessary to build weapons of mass destruction whether they are chemical and bacteriological or nuclear. And when we reach the point as we will at some point where a modest investment can build such a weapon in a home workshop where for example the Mafia could hire somebody to build such things. You know not unreasonable after all they can put together several hundred thousand dollars for a project of this sort or maybe a million or two and they can hire technical competence. You can be it's been done for other purposes. Why not for this. Well if we reach that point

there will be a solution people will not want to live in a world that dangerous. And the solution probably. It's hard to say will be a very UN mission very effective international very likely police force. Films will be watched very closely. People will not permit their world to be so threatened so easily. Then this police force gives rise to its own problems we have the specter of Big Brother will have a very very cool efficient outfit watching people very very carefully. Someone will have to watch that. This is going to be perhaps a critical political issue nationally and internationally in the 1880s or I'm sorry in the 1980s or 1990s. All right. Last year I said something about the the new problems of affluence also gives rise to a let me just mention this briefly.

There's a long history of concern with the alienation of the worker from his job with the resentment particularly that the industrial wrecker had at the beginning of the industrial revolution for the extremely harsh conditions under which he had to work. It was not uncommon in Germany England a somewhat lesser degree in the United States which came along a little later for people to read 12 hours a day seven days a week at very tough jobs which were dangerous under difficult conditions very hot and often very hard very repetitious very monotonous stringent discipline easy to get fired. The penalty for being fired was often starvation. The penalty for protest was often beating or jail. In some cases murder and on the whole it was a very tough life and people resented it. And a great many people thought that the medieval peasant

was better off. And in many ways one of the people who was concerned. By what he saw was the young Karl Marx who was very much upset by these working conditions and trying to find to analyze the source of difficulty of course a great many other people were doing the same thing. And at first the young Marx was attracted to the ideas of a somewhat older man then living Feuerbach who was one of the young he Gans and Fred Bach had a thesis about calling the word alienation which we now hear very much in connection with Berkeley and Columbia and so forth firebox said that early in that that the alienation of the worker was a result of the harsh conditions under which he worked and of the fact that this unnatural discipline imposed a structure and a regime

and a set of rules which were even to the normal nature of man which was natural impulses. Romantic and discipline crave freedom so far. And so fire Brock said that we know that the remedy for the great unhappiness of the workers was to reduce their working hours and to alleviate their working conditions and the beginning of his career Marx himself agreed with this. Later however he worked out his labor theory of value in which he came to think and to the conclusion which as you know that the problem of the worker was that a portion of what he had of the value that he produced was taken away from him by the capitalist and if he could be permitted to retain the total value of his production with no one making any profit from the risk from the capital that was invested.

The alienation would disappear and he would be content. So I was about working conditions was largely irrelevant. Marx then concluded and he then denounced Feuerbach as a romantic and said he was a follower Fusaro which was not true. I don't think. Right. Friday in 1930. In civilization in this discontent had a somewhat different idea and he noted that work is the area of reality in which is the as that mode in which people are most closely tied to reality and that it has an important function for people in forcing them to address themselves to realistic issues. And the implication of this comment is that if work were to decrease in importance something of this contact with reality

would be lost would be diminished. These are all quite different ideas. The experience of the socialist countries in which there is at least in some loose accounting form some sort of pretense that the worker keeps the produce of his labor has banned that workers are alienated as much as they are in capitalist countries. The form of government seems to have relatively little to do with this alienation of the workers goes on. It also goes on when the working conditions are improved it continues into prosperity and into affluence in some ways. The evolution of people increases with affluence as the importance of work goes down as it becomes easier to earn money enough money to get by with it becomes easier and easier for people to drop out of the labor force. We now have a college

generation in which the percentage of dropouts is much higher than it has been previously and in which the degree of rejection of the economic and political system is much stronger than it was previously. And the rhetoric of the rejection is characteristically running in which there isn't the stature for pre-industrial values. And it is a rhetoric in which what is rejected is in essence manipulative rationality.