Contrary to commonly held belief, science and technology are not the neutral application and advancement of knowledge and technical capabilities. They are political, primarily designed and developed for the benefit of a society’s ruling class. Powerful military weaponry, advanced surveillance capabilities, job-eliminating automation, increased job precarity through Uber and the like—these are not natural and inevitable progressions of technology, but an intentional program set forth by the class that funds and directs it.
This political analysis of technology is one of the many significant contributions that Science for the People (SftP) made in its original publication run during the ‘70s and ‘80s. Of course, technology has come a long way since that time: the smartphones we carry in our pockets today are a lot more powerful than the supercomputers that used to take up entire rooms. However, many of the political issues surrounding technology that we face today are largely unchanged from those of the past. Science for the People laid a strong ideological foundation providing structural critiques around the impacts of automation on workers’ struggles, the lack of diversity in STEM, the increased capacities of the state to conduct surveillance and repress dissidents, the development of AI and its relation to the military, and contributed many other political analyses that we can and should build off of in our struggles today.
A brief summary of these contributions from the second half of the initial SftP is provided below, along with commentary on their connections to current debates and ideas for our movement’s future direction. Vol. 13, No. 1: Peter Downs’ “Technology and Productivity” (Jan. /Feb. 1981)
There has long been debate regarding the significance of new technology’s ability to increase factory productivity for manufacturing workers. This article examines the effects of numerical control technology on the metal machining industry and its workers. It explains how workplace configurations were altered and workers were de-skilled, focusing on workplace conflicts. Vol. 13, No. 3: “Workers Face Off Automation” by Working Women—National Association of Office Workers (May/June 1981)
Also well documented is the question of what advancements in computers and automation mean for office workers. This piece, written by Working Women, describes the automation trends in the clerical industry at the time. It explains how these developments could make work less boring and more creative. However, because technology is controlled by management rather than workers, it will be used to eliminate jobs, reduce wages, and make work even more boring and repetitive. The piece also details the disproportional impact these trends would have on women workers, who made up the majority of the clerical workforce—and what it would take for them to resist. William F. Laughlin, vice president of IBM, certainly understood whose side he was on when he said, “People will adapt nicely to office systems if their arms are broken, and we’re in the twisting stage now.”
Vol. 13, No. 6: “Wrestling with Automation” Special Issue (Nov. /Dec. 1981)
The entire focus of this issue was on the threats to unions and the working class posed by automation and workplace computerization in general. Science for the People argued that the union establishment’s steadfast focus on the bread-and-butter issues of pay, benefits, and job security led to them paying little to no attention to the growth of these technological threats. The issue contains articles on topics ranging from adoption of computers at the Pentagon, to union responses to automation, to the computerization of mailing lists at several Left publications (a fancy new development at the time). As the introduction to the issue stated:
Machines are designed and built with particular purposes in mind. As long as the profit motive defines social benefit instead of equality and improved working conditions, science and technology will continue to benefit only the few economically advantaged instead of the mass of working people. We feel that the crucial issue of control of workplace computerization is vitally interrelated with all the rest of today’s major labor issues.