Engineers within a Local and Global Society (Synthesis Lectures on Engineers, Technology, and Society)

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Copyright © 2006 by Morgan & Claypool All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Engineers within a Local and Global Society Caroline Baillie www.morganclaypool.com ISBN: 159829136x paperback ISBN: 9781598291360 paperback ISBN: 1598291378 ebook ISBN: 9781598291377 ebook

DOI 10.2200/S00059ED1V01Y200609ETS002 A Publication in the Morgan & Claypool Publishers series SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY #2 Lecture #2 Series Editor: Caroline Baillie, Queens University First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Engineers within a Local and Global Society Caroline Baillie Queens University Kingston, Ontario Canada

SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY #2

M &C

Mor gan

& Cl aypool

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ABSTRACT Engineers, Technology and Society presents topics intended to aid the practicing engineer in reflecting upon the nature and purpose of their own practice within the engineering profession and how that is related to and implicated in social, economic and political issues. The series will include external relations between engineering, economic systems and social and political practices, as well as power structures and working conditions within the organisation. In an increasingly competitive and hostile environment in which practicing engineers are forced to spend their lives fighting for higher profit margins, many engineers become despondent and often leave the profession just a few years after graduation. They do not feel they are engineering for those in need in the world but for a small minority who can pay. There are an increasing number of engineers in the workplace who feel dissatisfied with these issues but do not know where to begin to address them. It is hoped that these books will start a conversation in many parts of the world where diverse engineers are working. This introductory book of the series presents an overview of the key issues at stake. I consider how, as engineers, we might decide what is the right thing to do by exploring rights and notions of freedom and what these might mean in a world where we are, according to some, ‘training for compliance’. I consider engineering in the past and how it been used to contribute to social contexts in the Western world as well as in developing countries. I look at our responsibility as engineers to learn from the past to enhance our understanding and take appropriate action related to contemporary industrial development and globalization. Finally, I present a case study of my own engineering for others to critique. Practicing what you preach is never easy and living as a just engineer presents many challenges. As Ursula Franklin states clearly in her Massey lectures which I discuss in chapter 1, engineers have choices; it is up to us to ensure that we are aware of the way in which our engineering practice contributes to global social, economic and political issues so that we are able to make response – able choices.

KEYWORDS engineering and social justice; globalization; development; industrial revolution

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Contents 1.

Choices as an Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 How to Decide What’s Right? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.2.1 Ethics, the Law and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.2.2 Rights and Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.3 A Culture of Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4 How to Ensure Just and Sustainable Technological Practice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.4.1 The Impact of Technology on the Way We Think and Act . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.4.2 The Impact of Technology on the Way We Communicate . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4.3 Who Benefits from Our Engineering? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4.4 Making Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.

How Responsible Is Engineering? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.

Engineering and Society in the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.1 The Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.2 The Making of the Third World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.3 Back to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4.

The Contemporary Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 4.1 What is Development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 4.2 What is Globalization? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 4.2.1 Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 4.2.2 What Is Globalization? – Focus on Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4.2.3 What Is Globalization? Focus on Issues Other than Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 4.3 Lenses to View Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.

Global Economic Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

6.

Public Understanding of Science and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

7.

Alternative Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 7.1 Alternative Economic Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

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7.2 7.3

Alternative Organization Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Alternative Systems of Needs Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

8.

Case Study: Developing Waste Plastic/Agave Fibre Ceiling Panels in Lesotho, Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 8.2 The First Trip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 8.3 Lesotho – An Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 8.4 The Second Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 8.5 The Emerging Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

9.

Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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CHAPTER 1

Choices as an Engineer 1.1

INTRODUCTION

This series of books, on the topic ‘Engineers, Technology and Society’ addresses many varied issues related to how we as engineers work within and for our local and global societies. We will draw from history and lessons learnt from engineers of the past, by looking at the impact they had on the worlds in which they lived, intended or otherwise; we will consider the political and economic systems in which we operate and how engineering interacts with and contributes to major global forces; we will address equity issues, both in working conditions as well as in considering who it is we engineer for. We will look at the networks of engineering knowledge and the relationship to power, considering more democratic ways of empowering the public to address real needs. We will discuss ways in which engineering is organized, who makes the decisions and how these decisions affect what we engineer. And we will consider the latest work on public participation in technology, appropriate technology for developing countries as well as focusing on environmental and ethical responsibilities of engineers. In this introductory book, I present a range of issues on which the other books build. I have tried to demonstrate the ways in which these historical, political, social and economic structures and systems are linked to engineering practice. None of these will be dealt with in depth but references are given for further reading. We have often learned the subject of engineering as if it were in a vacuum – we study the technical and practical aspects and if we are at a progressive institution we might study teamwork skills and communication. However, in many countries it is rare to find an engineering graduate who is educated in the context, whether local or global, in which they might find themselves doing the engineering. Even though the Professional Engineering accreditation boards ask for educators to help students understand the impact of technology, students are rarely given more than one or two courses on related topics. Often students are asked to consider the likely health and safety issues related to a technology, or understand their liability, should an engineering project cause harm. Suddenly being faced with a decision which may have huge social consequences will not only be daunting, it will be impossible to make a rational, responsible and ethical response without a lot of study, expert advice and time – all of which are scarce resources. This series of books is developed in an attempt to address this problem – so that the engineer has a heads up

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regarding some of the major issues at stake that may face them in the future. If procedures are in place, if lines of communication are open between the disciplines, between engineers and the public and between local and national communities and organizations, between policy makers and practitioners, we might start to avoid some of the larger social problems to which we may be currently contributing. Being ignorant of the impact of our work on the lives of individuals and communities is easily as irresponsible as working in awareness of the problems but taking no contrary action.

1.2

HOW TO DECIDE WHAT’S RIGHT?

1.2.1

Ethics, the Law and Responsibility

How do we decide on our values and moral frameworks – what value judgements are we making and why? Do we consider aesthetic values, religious values, knowledge values, market values? Do we consider moral rights or human rights, personal or business ethics and what about our ‘duty’ to the public? What is the relationship between Ethics and the Law? When is something legally right but ethically wrong? Often we conflate ethics with the law and study our ‘liability’ – these are not the same thing. The origins of ethical thought and the particular relation to Engineering have been studied from ancient philosophers to contemporary thinkers in many texts in the area (Whitbeck, 1998; Goreman et al., 2000; Fledderman, 2004; Martin and Schrizinger, 2005). In the first book of this series, George Catalano presents us with his views on ‘Engineering Ethics, Peace, Justice and the Earth’ (Catalano, 2006). We often hear discussions about our ‘responsibility’ as an engineer and we enter into a variety of rituals to declare our intent to take responsibility as a Professional (a sort of informal hippocratic oath). We have responsibilities to ourselves, to our workplace, to the society in which we work and those whom we work for (the ‘users’). As with ethics, the word ‘responsibility’ takes on different meanings depending on the context. Recent developments in the area of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ bring together groups who wish to lobby for more ethical business practices and worker conditions. They are concerned with everything from child labour to the Kyoto Protocol and work to ensure that companies whose main focus is on profit, do not benefit from the oppression of or exploitation of others. They usually promote working within the current economic system and are not challenging the logic of the profit motive. They in fact use it to drive the changes they are interested in. We might also look to studies on personal responsibility from a psychology perspective where we discuss personal response – ability or the ability to understand and make an appropriate response to a given situation (Oldham et al., 1978). This is based on the premise that we cannot respond if we are not free to choose or if we are ignorant of certain knowledge. We might also question notions of ‘appropriate’ – to whom or for what are they appropriate?

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1.2.2

Rights and Freedom

Once we have considered our own moral framework we need to know how to apply this to our engineering and society context. How will our engineering effect social conditions in different communities? How do we decide what is right about this impact? Are we in fact in a position to decide this or should the people who will be affected be the ones making this decision? What rights do these people have? How do we define rights? A right is something that one can justifiably demand in certain ways. Legal rights are recognized by a legal body and human rights may coincide (hopefully) but are those that we ought to have because we are human beings and not because we are part of a particular society (Gensler, 1998). Liberty rights allow for an individual’s liberty to be exercised and welfare rights allow benefits to be afforded those that cannot earn the benefits (Martin and Schrizinger, 2005). Utilitarians argue that ‘a given amount of wealth will produce more total happiness if its spread out more evenly’ (Gensler, 1998, p. 165) and for those already rich a little extra does not make as much difference as for the poor. Non-consequentialists, on the other hand, question whether if one family gets more pleasure out of a given amount of money that it should get more money. Rawls argues for equal liberty and the difference principle – that society should promote distribution of wealth except for inequalities that serve as incentives that benefit everyone. Nozick counters this and proposed the entitlement view – that whatever you earn should be yours. There are many basic definitions of rights and we can see that they quickly become related to political views. An alternative model that we explore further in Section 7.1 considers the notion of freedom as the goal for all individuals within a society. In his book ‘Development as Freedom’ (Sen, 1999), Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize winning economist) introduces us to the notion of ‘capabilities’ of persons to lead the kind of lives they value and have reason to value. These capabilities can be enhanced by public policy but also the direction of public policy can be influenced by the effective use of participatory capabilities by the public. Having greater freedom to do the things one has reason to value is significant in itself for the person’s overall freedom and important in fostering the person’s opportunity to have valuable outcomes. Not only can we use this basis to evaluate freedom in a society but it is also a determinant in social effectiveness of an individual. Greater freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and to influence the world. Sen provides evidence that African Americans living in the United States have a lower life expectancy than people living in many developing countries. In ‘The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier’ Richard Wilkinson (2005) – expert on public health shows that the United States is the richest and the most unequal country with the lowest life expectancy for some in the developed world. He goes on to explain that when you take out drugs and violence two thirds of the reason is heart disease and not bad diet as might be expected. This heart disease is caused by the stress of living at the bottom of the pecking order of disrespect and lack of esteem.

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How is it that arguably the most developed country in the world is the most unequal? Technological development or progress is often assumed to be necessary and a good thing. But David Noble (1984) asks us of technological progress ‘for what or for whom?’ He believes that technological developments are often made in the name of patriotism and competitiveness with the twin aims of control and domination. Winner (1986) frames well the question we might ask here: ‘If we examine social patterns that characterize the environments of technical systems, we find certain devices and systems almost invariably linked to specific ways of organizing power and authority. The important question is: Does this state of affairs derive from an unavoidable social response to intractable properties in the things themselves, or is it instead a pattern imposed independently by a governing body, ruling class or some social or cultural institution to further its own purposes?’ In this book series, we will explore different views of development to try to understand how to frame this question better, and start to consider some potential ways to respond. We will furthermore consider ways in which engineering is implicated in this social reality and how we might think differently about what we do, so that we ensure that we are not contributing to an increasingly unequal world.

1.3

A CULTURE OF COMPLIANCE

In Sen’s use of the term freedom, we are not free if we are ignorant. Neither are we responsible if we are ignorant. But how do we make sure that we are aware enough of the issues at stake with our engineering designs so that we can question them? Heather Menzies (1996) in ‘Whose Brave New World’ is concerned that we are through our educational programmes ‘training for compliance’. She says that ‘once people are totally closed off inside a fully programmed work environment, once they are wired in through computer monitoring and performance measurement, they will have little choice but to comply: to willingly participate in fine-tuning the new work model’. Menzies ‘new world’ finds its way into our consciousness in subtle ways. It is when we are at the boundary, that we can see things clearly. When we are immersed into the ‘thought collectives’ (Fleck, 1981) or the common sense view of the discipline or the culture, we find it more difficult to keep our eyes open, to look around us and question everything, like children. We become acclimatized and accustomed to the rituals, still aware of them but no longer surprised. Menzies warns us about the prevailing language that pervades the way we think and subsequently act. ‘I walk the walk, talk the talk . . . I could debate “redundancies, downsizing and deskilling . . . ” and this she suggests reminds us of Orwell’s “Newspeak”. It had a double purpose. Firstly it was to bypass the need for personally grounded meanings through which people could check the authenticity or relevance of words e.g. “double-good” and “double-plus good” instead of “beautiful” and “just”. Secondly it was to eradicate traditional and personal meanings – so that you couldn’t and didn’t think for yourself . . . ’. Language holds within it the values of the

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culture. Her disturbing suggestion is that our language today is becoming more enmeshed with the common sense view of the profit motive. ‘New investment and everything that contributes to it are good, double-good or double-plus good; and whatever detracts from this . . . nursing the sick, caring for the young and old – are negative burdens, coded as bad or double-bad to be dealt with through spending cuts and privatisation . . . ’. It is in fact very easy to lose sight of the questions you have as a newcomer. ‘I don’t understand why it needs to be this way’ will often call for the response ‘you will learn once you have been here for a while’. The newcomer is made to feel ignorant and what is common sense to the old timers does in fact eventually become common sense to the neophytes as well. The problem with this is that everyone eventually forgets to question the basis of the original decisions. One of the main purposes of this book series is to question our common sense view of the world around us so that we make the right decisions about our engineering work.

1.4

HOW TO ENSURE JUST AND SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGICAL PRACTICE?

‘The values of technology have so permeated the public mind that all too frequently what is efficient is seen as the right thing to do’ (Franklin, 1990, p. 123).

1.4.1

The Impact of Technology on the Way We Think and Act

One engineer who never assumed a common sense view is Ursula Franklin, metallurgist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. She has spent (and still does, although she is now in her eighties) much of her life speaking on the topic of technology and its social impact. In her Massey lectures (Franklin, 1990), Franklin addresses many issues of relevance to our current concerns and it is worth dwelling on some key issues here. She is concerned that the impact of technology is much more pervasive in our everyday life than we might imagine. Her work frames ways in which we might consider taking action if we think our engineering practice is contributing to the problems we see in the world. ‘Holistic’ technologies are usually associated with the notion of craft where the doer is in control of the whole process. ‘Prescriptive’ technologies, on the other hand, are based on division of labour. Making something requires it to be broken into steps, each step carried out by a separate worker or group of workers and the control over the work moves to the organizer or the boss. External control and internal compliance are seen as necessary – Franklin believes this is design for compliance. She explains that although this form of working has created products in numbers and qualities it has not been best for the workers. This form of organization has to a certain extent been replaced in recent years by more progressive organizations. Alternative models for more participatory forms of worker organization are given in Section 7.2. Franklin is concerned, however, that the acculturation to compliance and conformity has had far broader

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consequences and that this way of working has developed over years of practice so that the use of prescribed technologies in administration, Government and social services, has ‘diminished resistance to the programming of people’ (p. 25). She defines bureaucracy as the ‘acculturation into a culture of compliance built on the willing adherence to prescription and the acceptance as normal of external control and management’ (p. 116).

1.4.2

The Impact of Technology on the Way We Communicate

A major concern with current engineering practice is that it is far removed from the user. How do we really know what people need? Marketing departments are more focused on finding out how to motivate individuals to purchase their product rather than to determine people’s needs (unless the needs are perceived to draw a large market). When designing for developing countries we would ideally negotiate the needs of locals before attempting a design (appropriate technology) so that we do not impose a Western value system. However, in Western countries rarely does such negotiation takes place. Franklin shows that there is a separation of expertise from direct experience and a need to evaluate the experiences of those at the receiving end of the technology. ‘Communications’ technologies, for example, have become ‘non-communication technologies’ – the absence of reciprocity is developed. We cannot feed back to the television when we don’t agree – as we could in a live talk or debate.

1.4.3

Who Benefits from Our Engineering?

Public engineering, paid for by the public, for the public use, should benefit first and foremost the public. However, Franklin points out that since the Industrial revolution, publicly financed infrastructures were created to support new technologies. The public provide the space, permission and finances for much of the research regardless of who owns the railways or transmission lines. However, infrastructures that are publicly funded have become ‘divisible benefits’ to the private sector. ‘Indivisible benefits’, on the other hand, such as clean air and uncontaminated water are less and less safe guarded. Bill Vanderburg (1985, 2000) who has also clearly been influenced by Franklin as well as his former teacher Ellul (1964) suggests a solution of ‘preventative engineering’. He uses a cost – balance approach to social issues in the workplace. He asks us to question how expensive it is to have health care as one of the major expenses of a company – if we look after the worker we will pay out less. He claims that it is possible for companies to make a profit by taking care of the environment and social impact – and that in the long run this will be a financial gain for them. If companies plan for impact then they will prevent the costs of health problems, liability and environmental implications. Franklin believes that we need to develop the idea of bookkeeping with three sets of books: one for the economy, one for people and social impacts and one for environmental accounting.

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1.4.4

Making Choices

I began this section with a quotation from Franklin that disturbs our complacency. She would like to see public discourse break away from this mindset to one that ‘focuses on justice, fairness and equality in the global sense’. She believes that nothing is inevitable and that it is possible to make choices in our private and in our professional lives. She has made various choices in her own career, such as not to work on projects related to atomic energy because she finds it ‘unforgiving’ and ‘unforgivable’. She would work on nuclear waste disposal but only after Canada has agreed to discontinue building nuclear reactors. Franklin asks us, when deciding upon a particular project, not to simply consider benefits and costs but to ask ‘whose benefits and whose costs?’ (p. 124). She makes a series of recommendations to do this – to ask the questions of a particular project. Does it 1) promote justice 2) restore reciprocity 3) confer divisible or indivisible benefits 4) favour people over machines 5) minimize or maximize disaster 6) promote conservation over waste 7) favour reversible over irreversible.

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CHAPTER 2

How Responsible Is Engineering? In our first book of the series, ‘Engineering, Ethics and Peace’ George Catalano asks us to consider how engineering might form part of the solution to social and environmental issues. He also demonstrates how engineering might be part of the problem. But how much can we blame engineering for the increase in poverty, for environmental disasters, for increasing gaps between rich and poor? Many scholars have written about the huge contribution that engineering makes to the way that we live and therefore to issues of social justice and equity. Brawley (2003) suggests that technology plays an important role in promoting changes in economic activities by altering the costs of various choices. He suggests that technology is a key factor in competitiveness between states and that technical education is what makes the difference. As Johnston states – it is quite clear that engineering ‘has been central to the economic growth characterising the rise of industrial capitalism’ and yet engineers ‘have generally ignored questions of the distribution of the resulting benefits and often even questions of the social character of production processes’ ( Johnston et al., 2000, p. 534). Johnston goes on to quote from Goldman (1990, p. 133) ‘. . . the constraints they (engineers) must satisfy come from outside engineering: from managerial interpretations of the marketplace, of institutional needs, of political objectives, or of corporate agendas’. Not all engineering is driven by profit. There has always been a social strand to engineering practice, civil engineering or engineering for the people, geological engineering and more recently environmental engineering can be seen as developing the systems and infrastructures needed by communities. These industries have been affected by the profit motive, but they were not driven by it in quite the same way as the manufacturing industries, aeronautical, mechanical and chemical process engineering, electrical engineering and materials engineering. Regardless of our own politics and whether we agree that profit is a necessary evil, engineering corporations, amongst other large corporations are often the target of press articles on global warming and exploitation through globalization. George Monbiot (Guardian Weekly, 15th–21st July 2005), when writing about the G8 conference claimed that ‘the history of corporate involvement in Africa is one of forced labour, tax evasion, and collusion with dictators. Nothing in either the Investment Climate Facility or the Growth and Opportunity Act imposes mandatory constraints on corporations. While their power and profits in Africa will be enhanced with the help of our

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foreign-aid budgets, they will be bound only by voluntary commitments. . . ’. Furthermore, the Oil industry is blamed for the US Govt’s ‘determination to cover up evidence about climate change’ (New York Times and Guardian Weekly, July 2005) and accused of striking out results and investigating scientists who find positive evidence. Whilst engineering as a profession or an activity becomes increasingly equated with corporations whose profit motive limits their ability to act on behalf of the broader social and environmental issues we cannot expect to rediscover an engineering practice whose aims are noble and just. Many engineers and academics entered the profession to do good for the world. However, the more engineering becomes disassociated with social good, the more likely we are to attract an increasingly selfish student into the profession whose main aim is to get power, money and status as quickly as possible, whatever the cost to family, and to the broader society. We will also have difficulties obtaining a gender balance in the profession. It has been shown that female engineering students are more interested in the social relevance of engineering than the majority of their male colleagues (Baillie, 2006). One way of addressing the recent concerns about corporate engineering practice is to make sure that the public are consulted. A new phase of ‘public participation’ has arisen. Graham (1998) tells us how US projects are increasingly ‘participatory’ with the public, however, it is made clear that this can lead to a ‘new type of engineer, one who is as skilled at manipulating the public with public relations. Today engineers speak of “managing the public which tends to get obstreperous with large construction projects” (p. 122). This new type of engineer has learned the language of public hearings, of the courts and of community relations’. We need to make sure that the public feel, and are in fact, listened to, and that the consultation is not simply a PR exercise. We will explore this further in Chapter 6 on Public Understanding of Science and in Section 7.2 on Participatory Design. Where we see problems occurring is when an industry will attempt to persuade people that there are no dangers to society from a particular technological development when it is obvious to the intelligent public that risk is inevitable. A case study of such persuasion is given by Capra (2002) and he is quoted here at some length to demonstrate the gist of his argument. He tells us that ‘The Biotech ads portray a brave new world in which nature will be brought under control. Its plants will be genetically engineered commodities, tailored to customer’s needs. . . . Agriculture will no longer be dependant on chemicals and hence will no longer damage the environment. Food will be better and safer than ever before, and world hunger will disappear . . . . many of us remember vividly that very similar language was used by the same agrochemical corporations when they promoted a new era of chemical farming, hailed as the “Green Revolution”. . . . It is well known today that the Green Revolution has helped neither farmers nor the land nor the consumers. The massive use of fertilizers and pesticides changed the whole fabric of agriculture and farming, as the agrochemical industry persuaded farmers

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that they could make money by planting larger fields with a single highly profitable crop and by controlling weeds and pests with chemicals. . . . With the new chemicals, farming became mechanized and energy intensive favouring large corporate farmers with sufficient capital . . . all over the world, large numbers of people have left the rural areas and joined the masses of urban unemployed as victims of the Green Revolution . . . The long term effects of excessive chemical farming have been disastrous for the health of the soil and for human health for our social relations and for the entire natural environment . . . The simple truth is that most innovations in food biotechnology have been profit – driven rather than need – driven. For example, soybeans were engineered by Monsanto to be resistant specifically to the company’s herbicide Roundup so as to increase the sales of that product. Monsanto also produced cotton seeds containing an insecticide gene in order to boost seed sales. . . Numerous side effects have been observed in genetically modified plant and animal species. . . Monsanto is now facing an increasing number of lawsuits from farmers who had to cope with these unexpected side-effects . . . canola seeds had to be pulled off the Canadian market because of contamination with a hazardous gene . . . (Furthermore) recent experimental trials have shown that GM seeds do not increase crop yields significantly. Moreover there are strong indications that the widespread use of GM crops will not only fail to solve the problem of hunger, but on the contrary may perpetuate and even aggravate it. If transgenic genes continue to be developed and promoted by private corporations, poor farmers will not be able to afford them, and if the biotech industry continues to protect its products by patents that prevent farmers from storing and trading seeds, the poor will become further dependant and marginalized . . . according to a recent report . . . “GM crops are . . . creating classic preconditions for hunger and famine” (pp. 158–206). An engineering practice which is profit driven at the cost of workers’ livelihoods, increasing global poverty and the destruction of the environment sounds extreme, however there is mounting evidence that this kind of engineering practice does exist. This book series is written to help engineers become aware of the factors that may cause practices of this kind, and begin to find alternative solutions to satisfy the needs of society and the environment. In order to fully understand the situation in which we find ourselves, and try to understand how to move forward in a positive way, we must look to the past and understand how some of these negative forces came into being.

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CHAPTER 3

Engineering and Society in the Past 3.1

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Our first trip into the past will deal with engineering as it developed in England in the eighteenth century and was the beginning of automation, of industrialization as we know it today. The industrial revolution involved not only a technical but a major socio-economic, and cultural change in England during the years 1760–1830. Marx, tells us in ‘Capital’ (p. 494) that ‘it is this . . . machinery, the tool or working machine, with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century began’. Polanyi tells us, however, ‘there was an almost miraculous improvement in the tools of production, which was accompanied by a catastrophic dislocation of the lives of the common people’ (p. 35). In his book ‘The Great Transformation: The Political Economic Origins of Our Time’ he attempts to determine the factors that caused this transformation. He suggests (p. 77) that ‘as long as the machine was an inexpensive and unspecific tool there was no change’ (in the position that) ‘industrial production was an accessory to commerce’. ‘The mere fact that cottagers could produce larger amounts than before within the same time might induce him to use the machine to increase earnings but this fact in itself did not necessarily affect the organization of production . . . It was not the coming of the machine as such but the invention of elaborate and therefore specific machinery and plant which completely changed the relationship of merchant to production. . . . the use of elaborate machinery and plant involved the development of the factory system and therewith a decisive shift in the relative importance of commerce and industry in favour of the latter. Industrial production ceased to be an accessory of commerce organized by the merchant as a buying and selling proposition: it now involved long term investment with corresponding risks’. ‘But’, he goes on to say (p. 78), ‘the more complicated industrial production became, the more numerous were the elements of industry, the supply of which had to be safe guarded. Three of these, of course, were of outstanding importance: labour, land and money. In a commercial society their supply could be organized in one way only: by being made available for purchase. Hence they would have to be organized for sale on the market – in other words as commodities. The extension of the market mechanism to the elements of industry – labour, land and money, was the inevitable consequences of the introduction of the factory system in a commercial society. . . . labour is the technical term used for human beings, insofar as they are not employers

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but employed . . . . all along the line human society had become an accessory of the economic system’. Marx describes very carefully the creation of capital from the excess labour of employees and further reading is well recommended to understand this issue fully (Marx et al., 2004). The effect on the lifestyle of the people of England was tremendous. The factory developed and increasing numbers moved to the cities to become workers. Housing in the cities was entirely inadequate, there was an increase in child labour and increasing definition of gender roles as men would work away from home more and more. Engels, who lived and worked amongst the workers of his father’s factory in Manchester, England, described in incredible detail ‘The Conditions of the Working Class in England’ during 1844 (Engels, 1984). He tells us that ‘the history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the steam-engine and of machinery for working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well known, to an industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society’. The following passages give a tiny taste of the depth of his study and the horror of the tale. ‘It is a curious fact that the production of precisely those articles which serve the personal adornment of the ladies of the bourgeoisie involve the saddest consequences for the health of the workers. . . . They employ (the dress makers) a mass of young girls – there are said to be 15,000 of them in all – who sleep and eat on the premises, come usually from the country and are therefore absolutely the slaves of their employers. During the fashionable season, which lasts sometimes four months, working hours even in the best establishments are fifteen, and in very pressing cases, eighteen a day; but in most shops work goes on at these times without any set regulation, so that girls never have more than six, often not more than three or four, sometimes even, indeed, not more than two hours in the twenty-four, for rest and sleep, working nineteen to twenty hours, if not the whole night through, as frequently happens! The only limit set to their work is the absolute physical inability to hold the needle another minute. Cases have occurred in which helpless creatures did not undress during nine consequent days and nights and could rest only a moment or two here and there upon a mattress, where food was served them ready to cut up in order to require the least possible time for swallowing. . . . Enervation, exhaustion, debility, loss of appetite, pains in the shoulders, backs and hips, but especially the spine, high deformed shoulders, leanness, swelled, weeping, and smarting eyes which soon become short sighted, coughs, narrow chests and shortness of breath . . . all the medical men interrogated by the commissioner agreed that no method of life could be invented better calculated to destroy health and induce early death . . . what crowns this shameful barbarism is the fact that the women must give a money deposit for a part of the materials entrusted to them, which they naturally cannot do unless they pawn a part of them redeeming them at a loss, or if they cannot redeem the materials, they must appear before a Justice of the Peace’. Often this resulted in suicide. We can see therefore that in the name of ‘progress’, what is often reported in engineering texts to be a wonderful time of invention and discovery, became a period of social disaster for

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many workers. It is possible at this point for some readers to be glad of ‘progress’, that child labour, terrible working conditions and long working hours are things of the past. We should learn from the lessons of our past in order to prevent the same from occurring in contemporary society. However, in many ways we are repeating the same pattern today but on a global scale. We know of the existence today of ‘sweat shops’ by which much of our cheap clothing is still fabricated and these may be found even in Western countries, often served by illegal immigrants who have no protection against labour law infringements by employers. Many exist more openly in developing countries. We have simply shifted the problem so it is out of sight. Cheap labour becomes a very interesting prospect to the global corporation who may not always consider that they should abide by the same standards of welfare in another country, that we afford our own residents. Globalization will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 4.

3.2

THE MAKING OF THE THIRD WORLD

In the last section, we saw how technological developments can actually be the cause of huge shifts in social structures. We also saw how engineering practice today can be made more profitable by ignoring the lessons that should have been learnt from social disasters of the past. Our next trip back in time takes us to a period 100 years later in British India. Here, we see engineering not directly causing the problems but supporting and enabling the driving forces that facilitated the social disaster that occurred. Mike Davis’s important book (Davis, 2002) ‘Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World’ shows us how poor management and explicit selfishness of imperialist societies caused natural disasters to become national holocausts. In British India for instance, ‘Millions died, not outside the “modern world system” but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures’. Polanyi (1944/2001) was one of the only historians to see that ‘the actual source of famines in the last fifty years was the free marketing of grain combined with the local failures of incomes’ (p. 9). ‘Failure of crops, of course, was part of the picture, but dispatch of grain by rail made it possible to send relief to the threatened areas; the trouble was that the people were unable to buy the corn at rocketing prices, which on a free but incompletely organized market were bound to be a reaction to a shortage. In former times small local stores had been held against harvest failure, but these has been discontinued or swept away into the big market . . . . Under the monopolists the situation had been fairly kept in hand with the help of the archaic organization of the countryside, including free distribution of corn, while under free and equal exchange Indians perished by the millions’ (Polanyi, 1944/2001, p. 160). In 1876, the life giving monsoon failed to arrive in Madras – the fate of millions hung on the arrival of the winter rains. ‘Although rice and wheat production in the rest of India had been above average for the past three years, much of the surplus had been exported to England’

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(British Parliamentary papers in Davis, p. 26). ‘Londoners’, Davis tells us, ‘were in effect eating India’s bread’ (p. 26). He also mentions other ‘anomalies’. ‘The newly constructed railroads, lauded as institutional safeguards against famine, were instead used by merchants to ship grain inventories from outlying drought stricken districts to central depots for hoarding . . . likewise the telegraph ensured the price hikes were coordinated in a thousand towns at once, regardless of local supply trends’. As a result of the price hike – the poor began to starve to death even in areas that were well watered. Again in 1878 in the North of India, 1.25 million people died as a result of famine. ‘As Indian historians have emphasized, this staggering death toll was the foreseeable and avoidable result of deliberate policy choices. In contrast to the South, the northern harvests were abundant in 1874–1876 and ordinarily would have provided ample reserves to deal with the kharif (monsoon season crops) deficit in 1878. But subsistence farming in many parts of the North Western Provinces had been recently converted into a captive export sector to stabilize British grain prices. Poor harvests and high prices in England during 1876–77 generated a demand that absorbed most of the region’s wheat supplies . . . ’ (p. 51). Davis’s main point is that ‘drought was consciously made into famine by the decisions taken in palaces of rajas and viceroys. . . . but with equal justice the same criminal charges could be (and were) lodged against the British administration. . . ’. . . ‘Early and energetic organization of relief and above all, the deferment of the collection of land tax might have held mortality to a minimum’ (p. 51). The Lieutenant Governor ordered his district officers to ‘discourage relief works in every possible way . . . mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work’. ‘The point was’, Davis tells us, ‘to force the peasants to give money to the government, not the other way round. The starving peasants fought back (there were 150 grain riots in August and September of 1877 alone) and the jails were filled’ (Osborne in Davis, p. 52). Davis quotes Lieutenant-Col Ronald Osborne, writing in the Contemporary Review But the Government of India having decreed the collection of the land revenue were now compelled to justify their rapacity, by pretending there was no famine calling for a remission. The dearth and the frightful mortality throughout the North-West Provinces were to be preserved as a State secret . . . Davis describes the situation in the most gruesome detail the worst of which I will not report in this document. ‘During all that dreary winter famine was busy devouring its victims by thousands . . . In the desperate endeavour to keep their cattle alive, the wretched peasantry fed them on the straw which thatched their huts, and which provided them with bedding. The winter was abnormally severe and without a roof above them or bedding beneath them, scantily clad and poorly fed, multitudes perished of cold. . . . Mothers sold their children for a single scanty meal. Husbands flung their wives into ponds to escape the torment of seeing them perish

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by the lingering agonies of hunger. Amid these scenes of death the government of India kept its serenity and cheerfulness unimpaired. The journals of the North West were persuaded into silence. Strict orders were given to civilians under no circumstances to countenance the pretence of the natives that they were dying of hunger. One civilian, a Mr MacMinn, unable to endure the misery around him, opened up a relief work at his own expense. He was severely reprimanded, threatened with degradation and ordered to close the work immediately’ (Osborne in Davis, p. 53). The Great Drought of the 1870s was followed by the global El Nino droughts in 1888–91 and 1896–1902. Millions died in the famines that resulted from this drought also. However, the question that Davis seeks to answer is – how much of this was caused by the climate and was inevitable and how much by poor management – and what is worse – the arrogance of the Empire. An 1878 study published in the prestigious Journal of the Statistical Society (p. 287) contrasted 31 serious famines in 120 years of British rule against only 17 recorded famines in the entire previous two millennia. ‘India and China did not, in other words, enter modern history as the helpless “lands of famine”, so universally enshrined in the western imagination’ (Davis, p. 278). . . . Climate risk . . . is not given by nature but . . . by ‘negotiated settlement’ since each society has institutional and technical means for coping with risk . . . Famines thus are social crises that represent the failures of particular economic and political systems (Watts in Davis, p. 288). Several factors are evident (Davis, p. 289): 1. Traditional food security was undermined due to forcible incorporation of smallholder production into commodity and financial circuits with control from overseas. 2. Tropical farming was undervalued compared with temperate farming. 3. Local investments in irrigation or water conservancy were impeded by the international financial controls as export earnings did not return as usable social capital. ‘A colonial budget largely financed by taxes on farm land returned less than 2% to agriculture and education, and barely 4% to public worlds of all kinds while devoting a full third to the army and police’ (p. 323). Common land became state owned and resources were claimed by the rulers. Water rights went along with land titles as private property. Local irrigation was not supported by the state. Furthermore (Davis quotes Marcello de Cecco in his study of the Victorian Gold standard, p. 298) ‘British rulers deliberately prevented Indians from becoming skilled mechanics, refused contracts to Indian firms which produced materials that could be got from England and generally hindered the formation of an autonomous industrial structure in India’. Alongside this – the export of grain was huge – between 1875 and 1900 enough grain for 25 million people was exported from a country suffering the worst famines in Indian history. As was pointed out by

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Sir Willaim Wederburn, ‘Indian peasants in general had three safeguards against famine: a) domestic hoards of grain, b) family ornaments and c) credit with the village money lender, who was also the grain dealer’ (Badyopadyhay, in Davis, p. 304). We can see that the first and third were effectively lost to the peasants and the ornaments which were usually silver, lost value with the change from silver to gold standard. One of the key economists who has had a tremendously powerful influence on current thinking about the third world crisis is Malthus. ‘Princeton’s W. Arthur Lewis, one of the leading authorities on the nineteenth-century world economy, assumed as a matter of course in an influential 1978 study that the underlying cause of famine in Victorian India was not the ‘drain of wealth’ to England as alleged by contemporary critics but ‘a large population that continued to live at subsistence level on inadequately watered marginal lands, without a profitable cash crop’ (p. 306). More recently these views have been questioned and a more complex picture emerges. Davis argues that ‘ecological poverty – defined as the depletion or loss of entitlement to the natural resource base of traditional agriculture – constituted a causal triangle with increasing household poverty and state decapitation in explaining both the emergence of a third world and its vulnerability to extreme climate events’ (p. 310). Recent research clearly demolishes any residual doubt that poverty and overpopulation is the natural precondition to these nineteenth century famines. If we look in more detail at the modernization of India we see should start with a simple fact of British rule – that there was no per capita increase between 1757 and 1947. Modernization – thousands of miles of railroad track and canal had done nothing. ‘Modernization and commercialization were accompanied by pauperization’ (Davis, p. 312). ‘. . . Although massive sums of capital were sunk into the (Cotton Supply) Association’s export infrastructure, including railroad spurs, cotton yards and metalled feeder roads, none of it percolated to the village level where degraded sanitary conditions, especially the contamination of drinking water by human waste, spread cholera and gastrointestinal disease as well as tuberculosis’. We see also that the canals that replaced well irrigation were an ecological disaster. Short-term wheat growth benefited but without proper underground drainage the capillary action of the irrigation brought toxic alkali salts to the surface, which caused extreme ‘saline efflorescence’. Canal embankments blocked natural drainage and created ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes thereby proliferating malaria. ‘British Army engineers generally marveled at the skill with which previous generations had configured water conservation to the needs of the semi-arid India’ (The Times, 1877, in Davis, p. 335). As we delve deeper into the question of famine we see again and again the failings of the engineers to solve the crises at hand, or indeed we see that they inadvertently or directly caused them. Whether or not we can blame the engineers themselves at this point is not relevant.

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The issue is whether engineering is responsible for these devastations and clearly it shares the responsibility with the economic and political drivers. ‘The British constantly complained about the “inertia” of India, but when it came to potentially life saving local public works, they themselves were the embodiment of decisive inaction’. One district officer described his attempts to get his superiors to finance a small reservoir dam. For some reason he could never get a straight answer from any of the engineers that were assigned to survey the spot. ‘About this time I came to the conclusion that the next famine would be on us before I should have dragged an opinion on my pattern from our professional experts, and I reluctantly abandoned this form of relief work. . . ’ (Carstairs in Davis, p. 338).

3.3

BACK TO THE FUTURE

It is important to reiterate that the purpose of this book series is not to present engineers in a negative light and to refute all positive work that engineering has done. In many senses, engineering is apolitical in that it can support any political system in power at the time. As such however, it becomes a very political tool. The purpose here is to raise awareness amongst engineers such that we have the ‘ability’ to ‘respond’ appropriately to the society that we are serving and to know what appropriate means in the context of social justice that we would like to promote. In many ways we have seen that this has not always been the case. The engineers in the Industrial Revolution and in British India may not have been aware of the social problems that they were causing by developing technology in the name of progress. We do not have that excuse today – we have the capability to become knowledgeable about the impact of our technologies and the ways in which they are being used by different agents. We have the choice to work on alternative programmes if we do not agree with the impact that our own work will have on the lives of others. We are currently in a rapid phase of development all over the world. Much of our engineering practice will affect directly or indirectly the lives of citizens of countries far from our own. The development that we see in many countries is hastened by industrialization and so the economic, political and social issues become very unmeshed with the technological facilitation of such issues. The next chapter will deal with development as it is today – the contemporary ‘industrial revolution’ of the third world and the Global march forward that we call ‘Globalization’.

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CHAPTER 4

The Contemporary Industrial Revolution 4.1

WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?

Development is not a straightforward issue. ‘Development seems to defy definition, although not for a want of definitions on offer. . . . development is construed as “a process of enlarging people’s choices”, of enhancing “participatory democratic processes” and the “ability of people to have a say in the decisions that shape their lives” . . . simultaneously, however, development is defined as the means to “carry out a nation’s development goals” and of promoting “economic growth”. Given that there is scarcely a “Third World” dictatorship which does not at least in part attempt to legitimize its mandate to rule in the name of development . . . it is little wonder that we are thoroughly confused by development studies texts as to what development means’ (Cowen and Shenton, 1996, p. 3). There are many definitions and many meanings of the word as used today and in the past. For this section we will draw largely on Leftwich’s useful book ‘States of Development’ (Leftwich, 2000). Leftwich suggests that they may all be represented within one or more of the following (p. 17): i) Development as historical progress. This is the belief that development is about improvement in material circumstances, scientific understanding and increasingly, individual freedom, quality and autonomy – progressive changes in political relations and social structure of societies. Largely Eurocentric (post-Renaissance) and secular – this notion concerns development as processes of progress brought about by humans. Adam Smith was a strong proponent of this view. ii) Development as the exploitation of natural resources. This mostly came about during the colonial times whereby natural resources of the colonies were to be exploited. Often claims were made that this was in the interest of the locals but primarily it was to serve the home countries. Leftwich points out three features worth noting about this idea of development: it was something that had to be brought to backward colonies, that

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the colonies could not have done it on their own, and it was perceived to be of mutual benefit to colonized and colonizer. iii) Development as the planned promotion of economic and (sometimes)social and political advancement. This is a position discussed very fully by Cowen and Shenton (1996). The intent to develop, as opposed to immanent (happening over a long period of time) development is distinguished here. ‘The remedy for the disorder of the critical epoch was clear to the Saint-Simonians. Only those who had the capacity to utilize land, labour and capital in the interests of society as a whole should be “entrusted” with them’ (Cowan and Shenton, p. 25). Auguste Comte, the most famous of the SaintSimonians, attempted to provide the science upon which progress should be based. Progress was based on the eighteenth century period of ‘Enlightenment’. Comte’s position was that capitalists, informed by positivism, should act as the trustees for the wealth of society. The idea of development ‘took as its immediate aim the amelioration of the social crisis that had accompanied the rapid movement of population towards urban centres of industrial production. Given their concept of crisis and disorder, the positivists argued that progress could only be sustained through the intentional constructive activity of development. Industrial production and organisation was accepted by positivists to be a historically given part of the movement towards an organic, positive or natural stage of society in Europe. To develop, then, was to ameliorate the social misery which arose out of the immanent process of capitalist growth. However, the positivists’ faith in the potential contained within industrial society for the reconciliation of progress and order was only to be actualized, or so they believed, through trusteeship . . . Thus the trusteeship of the few who possessed the knowledge to understand why development could be constructive, and were accepted as trustees because they were understood to be already developed, became integral to the intention to develop those who remained undeveloped’ (Cowan and Shenton, pp. 116, 117). This understanding of development, Leftwich tells us, actually became more popular after the Second World War. Truman for instance declared that the ‘task and responsibility of the USA was to extend the benefits of its science and industrial experience to the “underdeveloped” world’ (Leftwich, p. 22). iv) Development as a condition. This view of development refers to the stage or level of socioeconomic and possibly political achievement that societies have attained. It is considered an end state such that societies may be ranked according to their position along a continuum. The obvious problem with this view is that once a society is ‘developed’ the developmental process ceases.

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v) Development as a process. In this view, contrary to the last, development is considered to be a constant process of progressive change. Development is therefore a relative concept and is a process. Countries do not get judged as to their developed status. vi) Development as economic growth. The idea of development as economic growth is very common. Beginning with Adam Smith, it is assumed by proponents of this view that economic growth would benefit society by bringing about ‘improvement in the productive powers of labour. . . so that more and more people could enjoy a greater share of the necessities and conveniences of life’ (Smith, 1776, pp. 104–5; Leftwich, p. 27). Few economists see development simply as economic growth, but they, together with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) believe it to be fundamental. Development is therefore considered in terms of GNP (Gross National Product or income per capita). Sen has much to say about this and we will return to it in Section 7.1. vii) Development as structural change. This view suggests that development is a shift in the structure of an economy for example agricultural to industrial – a structural change related to industrialization. Further structural change might occur as we move from heavy industry to services. Stalin believed strongly in the importance of structural change through industrialization for the building of socialism. Change in structure is usually measured by the changing share of GDP (gross domestic product) by different sectors for example agriculture or industry. viii) Development as modernization. Modernization may be seen as the structures and processes by which societies move from traditionalism to modernity. Modernity is used to describe the condition of being Modern. As the term Modern could be applied to whole range of eras, in this context we mean as applied to the Modern age – post-Renaissance. Giddens (1991) defines Modernity approximately as ‘modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence’. It is often referred to in relation to the pre-modern or the post-modern. Giddens compares pre-modern and modern in detail. One example he gives is within the ‘environment of trust’ for the pre-modern ‘the local community as place, providing a familiar milieu’, whereas for the modern, ‘abstract systems as a means of stabilizing relations across indefinite spans of time-space’. Development as modernization, then, is a whole vision of a change in the structure of a society, with transformation in social, economic, legal, political and ideological arenas. Modern societies have control over their natural and social environment because of new technical and scientific knowledge. Karl Marx was dedicated to modernization although he had a very particular view of it, where he believed that the only way

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forward was through industrialization. However, many have criticized modernization as Westernization – bringing all societies into a vision of progress that we have created in the West, especially in the United States. ix) Marxism and development as an increase in the forces of production. A Marxist view of development is best described as ‘one that combines a view of development as involving economic growth, structural change and progress towards an end-point. Progress, for Marx, meant progress or development in the characteristic structures and potentials of societies through a series of stages, each defined by its mode of production’ (Leftwich, p. 37). Technology was extremely important to Marx. ‘Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers . . . what earlier century has even presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour. . . ’ (Marx and Engels, 1888/1958, p. 38; Leftwich, p. 38). Without the technical and productive base of capitalism, Marx believed, socialism would not develop. He believed that socialism would rise out of the social and political contradictions and struggles within capitalist society. Socialism therefore represented the most developed society ‘both because it would be based on the most advanced capitalist order, and because revolutionary political change would have abolished private ownership of the means of production and hence class differences, thus providing the basis for “true democracy” (Leftwich, p. 38). Whatever our chosen definition of development is, and it is likely to be more than one of the above, we can see that engineering will facilitate the process. Who wants development, what it is for and whether it is a good thing for a particular community is rarely questioned. One of the contested reasons for development is to expand the Global market and in the next section we will explore the controversial ‘Globalization’ in which we find ourselves key actors.

4.2

WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

4.2.1

Globalization

‘During the last decade of the twentieth century, a recognition grew among entrepreneurs, politicians, social scientists, community leaders, grass roots activists, artists, cultural historians and ordinary women and men from all walks of life that a new world was emerging – a world shaped by new technologies, new social structures, a new economy and a new culture. . . “Globalisation”. With the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the mid-1990s, economic globalization, characterized by “free trade” was hailed by corporate leaders and politicians as a new

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order that would benefit all nations, providing worldwide expansion whose wealth would trickle down to all. However it soon became apparent to increasing numbers of environmentalists and grassroots activists that the new economic rules established by the WTO were manifestly unsustainable and were producing a multitude of interconnected fatal consequences and extensive deterioration of the environment, the spread of new diseases and increasing poverty and alienation. . . . in addition to its economic instability, the current form of global capitalism is ecologically and socially unsustainable and hence not viable in the long run’ (Capra, 2002, pp. 130–157). Globalization has become a strongly debated topic in recent years and it is worth exploring the different views in order to understand why this is the case. Brawley (2003) does a good job of describing these perspectives and I attempt to summarize these below.

4.2.2

What Is Globalization? – Focus on Economics (pp. 13–15)

i) Changing volume of trade across borders – ‘Markets and production in different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services and then flows of capital and technology’ (OECD – Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development definition). ii) The nature of goods across borders – more intermediate goods cross borders due to outsourcing (Ronald Jones). iii) The movement of the factors of production from one economy to another (Richard Rosecrance). iv) The flow of international capital and integrated financial markets (Louis Pauly). v) Globalization of capital compared with trade is noted as the recent distinguishing mark – and the reason for greater corporate wealth, higher unemployment and decline in working standards and environmental standards ( Jeremy Brecher and Tom Costello). vi) High levels of cross-border flows – labour migration, trade, communication – ‘a new social architecture of cross-border human interactions. It breaks down the old international division of labour and the associated hierarchy of rich and poor countries. In the process the integrity of the national territorial state as more or less coherent political economy is eroded, and the function of the state become re-organised to adjust domestic economic and social policies to fit the exigencies of the global market and global capitalist accumulation’ (Ankie Hoogvelt quoted in Brawley, p. 15). vii) The process of increasing international economic activities – measured by ‘increasing liberalization of international trade for goods and services and of international capital

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movement while cross border labour movement is still strictly restricted’ (Chen, Hule, Stocker).

4.2.3

What Is Globalization? Focus on Issues Other than Economics (pp. 17–19)

i) A state of mind (Kofman and Youngs). ii) Decreasing the importance of distance – ‘Advances in technology affecting production and dissemination of cultural products are at the root of cultural globalization. Homogenisation is happening – a virtual annihilation of space through time (Giddens, 1991). iii) Technological changes and changing spatial relations (Sassen). iv) Changing role of nation state – The world becoming larger in some senses and smaller in others (Teune and Mlinar). Brawley points out that the perspectives above describe a similar chain reaction that comes from a single source – ‘Changes in underlying technology create the opportunity to increase ties across national-political boundaries’. Not all definitions see political causes or may focus on only technological or only economic. Those that focus on advances in technology are of obvious interest to us here. Brawley tells us Improvements in communications and transportation in particular have allowed economic actors to escape governmental control. When the costs of communication and transportation decline we should see more actors taking advantage of opportunities to conduct business at greater distances. Importantly, specific traits of the new technologies make it harder for governments to monitor and regulate these activities. In these views, globalization is the result of deterministic processes and will be next to impossible to reverse. (p. 21) Brawley goes on to tell us that ‘advances in technology affecting the production and dissemination of cultural products are at the root of most arguments about cultural globalization’ (p. 28). He suggests that ‘the culture being spread around the globe is generated by corporate products and corporate decisions’ and he quotes Benjamin Barber ‘a culture of advertising, software, Hollywood movies, MTV, theme parks and shopping malls hooped together by the virtual nexus of the information superhighway closes down free spaces, such a culture is unquestionably in the process of forging a global something: but whatever it is, that something is not democratic’ (p. 29). He sees technological change as altering public consciousness. Furthermore, technology is known to be a key factor in promoting changes in economic activities by altering the costs of various choices. Manufacturing and more efficient production

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methods will speed up processes and change labour forces. Digitization will affect the transfer of cultural goods such as music and film. Advances in technology will reduce transportation costs that affects speed of delivery and which goods may be transported, also goods may be lighter and smaller. It is not easy to predict when a technology will become pivotal or how. Some take it even further by suggesting that international competition will be reduced to technical educational differences.

4.3

LENSES TO VIEW GLOBALIZATION

Alongside different ideas about what globalization is (i.e. what we focus on) we also notice that there are many different lenses (as Brawley puts it) through which we can focus on these issues. That will of course also change what we see. The lenses depend on differing theoretical and political perspectives. These might be summarized as follows (more detail is given in Brawley, Chapter 2). i) Globalization as progress: a classical liberal’s view of markets. The key idea here is that opening up a country to international competition gives it the opportunity of political and economic benefits. This is based on the theory of comparative advantage but some say that absolute advantage holds instead – the effect of market is to bring price down, and in turn labour price. The discussion here centres around state versus private sector control. How much control should there be for corporations? How much do they realize their responsibility in the care of a society? The United States especially has been very concerned about what they call ‘freedom’ from Government restrictions. However, it is clear that today global networks have the power and Rosalind Williams states that the market is not capable of sustaining itself over long periods of time because of the need for the structures of regulation (Williams, 2002). ii) Markets as a source of instability – the Keynesian view. John Maynard Keynes justified a role for the government in managing macroeconomy from the 1930s to the 1970s. Policies were established which aimed to attain certain levels of employment and growth. His views have lost popularity since the 1970s as government expenditure has increased and since Globalization has been developing. iii) Globalization as creative destruction – a Marxist view. Although Marx was focused entirely on domestic political economy his views on the British in India described well what his current views of Globalization might be. A detailed analysis of current Marxist views are available in ‘Empire’ (Hardt and Negri, 2000). The authors discuss that ‘Marx analyses capital’s constant need for expansion first by focusing on the process of realisation and thus on the unequal quantitative relationship between the worker as producer and the worker as consumer of commodities. The problem of realization is one

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of the factors that drives capital beyond its boundaries and poses the tendency toward the world market. . . capital expands not only to meet the needs of realization and find new markets but also to satisfy the requirements of the subsequent moment in the cycle of accumulation, that is, the process of capitalization. . . The capitalization of realized surplus value requires that for the subsequent cycle of production the capitalist will have to secure for purchase additional supplies of constant capital (raw materials, machinery etc) and variable capital (labour power) and in turn this will require . . . greater expansion.. . . The search for additional constant capital (in particular, more and newer materials) drives capital toward a kind of imperialism characterized by pillage and theft. Capital, Rosa Luxembourg asserts “ransacks the whole world, it procures its means of production from all corners of the earth, seizing them if necessary by force from all levels of civilization and from all forms of society. . . ” (pp. 222–225). Capital they tell us ‘must therefore not only have open exchange with noncapitalist societies or only appropriate their wealth; it must also actually transform them into capitalist societies themselves. Rudolf Hilferding calls this the “export of capital” (p. 226). iv) Nothing’s really changed – the realist view. This view stems from the assumption that the state is the key player in international relations. Realists believe that if globalization is taking place, it ‘remains a consequence of policy choices’ (Brawley, p. 48). v) Globalization as co-operation and interdependence; institutionalism. Institutionalism does not presume, as realists do, that the state wants above all, security and power, it also allows for states to interact and benefit mutually. vi) Globalization and a green perspective. The green view reflects concerns about global acts that affect local issues. They concern themselves not only with environmental issues but workers’ rights as well. vii) Globalization and democracy. Concerns are large amongst many that an increasing number of decisions are made through intergovernmental organizations such as the WTO or the European Union and are not democratically decided. viii) Social constructivism. The social constructivists study the way that states change as they see their situation in a different context. This view stems from the notion that actors change the way they think of themselves and their desires, and therefore their behaviour changes, as a result of the social context in which they find themselves. States think of themselves differently today than before globalization. We now have a multitude of perspectives on development and on globalization on which to draw. It is clear that like engineering, they are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but must be understood

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properly before actions are taken. Engineering is clearly implicated in both development and globalization and it is imperative that we have at least a rudimentary understanding of the way we are affecting people’s live in our own country as well as in countries far from our own. To have a deeper appreciation of the current forces controlling Globalization it is necessary to make a small detour into the world of Economics. Stiglitz (2003) who worked inside the US Government for many years tells us that he has observed first hand the ‘level of pain in developing countries in the process of globalization’. We will focus on Stiglitz’s work in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 5

Global Economic Issues Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Economic Advisor to Bill Clinton and Chief Economist and Senior Vice president of the World Bank is a good source of evidence about the role of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO in Globalization. He writes in the preface to his book ‘Globalisation and Its Discontents’ (2003), ‘I have written this book because while I was at the World Bank, I saw firsthand the devastating effect that globalization can have on developing countries and especially the poor within those countries’ (p. ix). . . ‘A growing divide between the haves and the have-nots has left increasing numbers in the Third World in dire poverty, living on less than a dollar a day’ (p. 5). His book provides us with an invaluable examination of the current shortcomings in economic policy and the practices of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Before we go on to explore Stiglitz’s views on these organizations and their role in Globalization, it is worth describing their intended functions and structures. The World Bank represents five international organizations who provide advice to countries for economic development and poverty reduction: •

the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), established in 1945,

•

the International Finance Corporation (IFC), established in 1956,

•

the International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960,

•

the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), established in 1988 and

•

the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), established in 1966.

Governments can choose which of the above to sign up to. The IBRD has 184 members, whilst the others have between 140 and 176 member governments. The World Bank is part of the United Nations system. Its governance structure is different, however, as each institution in the World Bank Group is owned by its member governments. Each one subscribes to its basic share capital, with votes proportional to shareholding – Membership giving voting rights that are the same for all countries. However, there are additional votes which depend on financial contributions to the organization and as a result, the World

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Bank is controlled primarily by developed countries, while clients have almost exclusively been developing countries. The IMF describes itself as ‘an organization of 184 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty’. With the exception of North Korea, Cuba, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, Tuvalu and Nauru, all UN member states either participate directly in the IMF or are represented by other member states. The IMF monitors exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering technical and financial assistance. The WTO is an international, multilateral organization, which sets the rules for global trading. It resolves disputes between member states. WTO formed out of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades). The WTO has 150 members (76 members at its foundation with 74 members joining over the next ten years). The 25 states of the European Union are represented also as the European Communities. All three of the above organizations were formed at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, on 22 July 1944. Stiglitz’s account is such an interesting firsthand description of events that it is worth quoting verbatim his words throughout the book. I will attempt here to summarize some of the thoughts most relevant to our current focus. His main concern is that decisions were made on ideology and politics and ‘as a result many wrong-headed actions were taken, ones that did not solve the problem at hand but that fit with the interests or beliefs of the people in power’ (p. xi). He claims that the ‘IMF’s policies, in part based on the outworn presumption that markets, by themselves, lead to efficient outcomes, failed to allow for desirable government interventions in the market, measures that can guide economic growth and make everyone better off ’ (p. xii) ‘. . . it was not just that they (the attitudes) produced poor results: they were antidemocratic. In our personal lives we would never follow ideas blindly without seeking alternative advice. Yet countries all over the world were instructed to do just that’ (p. xiv) ‘. . . while no-one was happy about the suffering that often accompanied the IMF programmes, inside the IMF it was simply assumed that whatever suffering occurred was a necessary part of the pain countries had to experience on the way to becoming a successful market economy. . . ’ (p. xii). The current backlash against globalization, Stiglitz tells us, ‘draws its force not only from the perceived damage done to developing countries by policies driven by ideology but also from the inequities in the global trading system’ (p. xv). ‘If globalization has not succeeded in reducing poverty, neither has it succeeded in ensuring stability. Crises in Asia and Latin America have threatened the economies and stability of all developing countries’. Furthermore ‘globalization and the introduction of a market economy has not produced the promised result in Russia and most of the other economies making the transition from communism to the market’ (p. 6).

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One example Stiglitz refers to is the eighth agreement emanating from the ‘Uruguay Round’ 1993 when 117 counties signed a trade liberalization agreement. One of the agreements concerned transforming the GATT into the WTO that formed in1995. After the last trade agreement in 1995 (the eighth) the ‘net effect was to lower the prices some of the poorest countries in the world received relative to what they paid for their imports. The result was that some of the poorest countries in the world were actually made worse off ’ (p. 7). The Uruguay Round also strengthened intellectual property rights. ‘American and other Western drug companies could now stop drug companies in India and Brazil from “stealing” their intellectual property. But these drug companies were making these life saving drugs available to their citizens at a fraction of the price at which drugs were sold by the Western drug companies’. This was supposed to enhance profit so that innovation could prosper but net profit from developing countries was small as few could afford the drugs now. On the other hand, many thousands who could not afford the drug would die. Huge international outrage ensued, in the case of AIDS and the drug companies had to back down. The problem remains that intellectual property rights regulations as established in the Uruguay Round benefit the interests of the sellers and not the users of products. Stiglitz has systematically studied what went wrong with the economic aspects of globalization and looks at the role of the three main organizations that control it – World Bank, IMF and WTO but focuses mostly on the first two. ‘In its initial conception, the IMF was based on a recognition that markets often did not work well – that they could result in massive unemployment and might fail to make needed funds available to countries to help them restore their economies. The IMF was founded on the belief that there was a need for collective action at the global level for political stability. The IMF is a public institution established with money provided by taxpayers around the world. This is important to remember because it does not report directly to either the citizens who finance it or those whose lives it affects. Rather it reports to the ministries of finance and the central banks of the governments of the world’. However, as Stiglitz now points out ‘the IMF has changed markedly. Founded on the belief that markets often worked badly, it now champions market supremacy with ideological fervour’. He suggests that the original Keynesian orientation was replaced by the free market mantra of the 1980s, part of the new ‘Washington consensus’ – ‘a consensus between the IMF, World Bank and the US treasury about the “right” policies for developing countries – that signaled a radically different approach to economic development and stabilization’ (p. 16). It was these policies that lead to the current state of affairs. ‘In many cases, the Washington Consensus policies, even if they had been appropriate in Latin America, were ill-suited for countries in the early stages of development or transition. Most of the advanced

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industrial countries – including the United States and Japan – had built up their economies by widely and selectively protecting some of their industries until they were strong enough to compete with foreign companies. . . . Forcing a developing country to open itself up to imported products that would compete with those produced by certain of its industries . . . can have disastrous consequences – socially and economically. Jobs have systematically been destroyed – poor farmers in developing countries simply couldn’t compete with the highly subsidized goods from Europe and America – before the countries’ industrial and agricultural sectors were able to grow strong and create new jobs. Even worse, the IMF’s insistence on developing countries maintaining tight monetary policies has led to interest rates that would make job creation impossible even in the best of circumstances. And because trade liberalization occurred before safety nets were put into place, those who lost their jobs were forced into poverty’ (p. 17). Stiglitz gives us an analogy to stress his point ‘Small developing countries are like small boats. Rapid capital market liberalization, in the manner pushed by the IMF, amounted to setting them off on a voyage on a rough sea, before the holes in their hulls have been repaired, before the captain has received training, before life vests have been put on board. Even in the best of circumstances, there was a likelihood that they would be overturned’ (p. 17). We can see from this statement much about Stiglitz’s perspective on the position of the IMF, without seeming to question what we were referring to earlier as ‘trusteeship’ – the idea that those with more ability and understanding of the issues involved can help the weaker, by telling them how to live their lives. However, he goes on ‘underlying the problem of the IMF and the other international economic institutions is the problem of governance: who decides what they do. The institutions are dominated not just by the wealthiest countries but by commercial and financial interests in those countries, and the policies of the institutions naturally reflects this . . . the problem arises from who speaks for the country. At the IMF it is the finance ministers and central bank governors. At the WTO it is the trade ministers. Each of these ministers is closely aligned with particular constituencies within their countries. The trade ministries reflect the concerns of the business community. . . ’ (p. 19). And so in consequence ‘left with no alternatives, no way to express their concern, to press for change, people riot. . . ’ (p. 20). Ethiopia is an example of a country that tried to resist the IMF demand to open its banking system – to allow interest rates to be freely determined by the market. It had seen the effect on Kenya of taking the IMF advice. Fourteen bank failures happened between 1993 and 1994 and interest rates increased instead of decreasing. But Stiglitz tells us ‘faced with Ethiopian reluctance to accede to its demands, the IMF suggested the government was not serious about reform and suspended its programme (of loans). Stiglitz himself was one of the key figures that lobbied to get the assistance restored and his experience worried him greatly “whether it made sense for Ethiopia to repay the loan was less important than the fact that it failed to consult

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the IMF” ( p. 33). . . . ‘the IMF of course claims that it never dictates but always negotiates the terms of any loan agreement with the borrowing country. But these are one-sided negotiations in which all of the power is in the hands of the IMF, largely because many countries seeking IMF help are in desperate need of funds’ (p. 42). Stiglitz is furthermore worried about education. ‘In some of the universities from which the IMF hires regularly, the core curricula involve models in which there is never any unemployment. After all in the standard competition model – the model that underlies the IMF market fundamentalism – demand always equals supply. If the demand for labour equals supply, there is never any involuntary unemployment. Someone who is not working is evidently choosing not to work’ (p. 35). Furthermore, in industrialized countries ‘the pain of layoffs is acknowledged and somewhat ameliorated by the safety net of unemployment insurance, in less developed countries, the unemployed workers typically do not become a public charge, since there are seldom unemployment insurance schemes. There can be a large social cost nonetheless – manifested, in its worst forms, by urban violence, increased crime and social and political unrest’ (p. 57). The IMF argue that it is important to privatize quickly but this can have a devastating effect on workers who can be dismissed by the company with no sensitivity to social cost. Privatization often destroys jobs rather than creating them. An extreme example of the move to a market economy is of course the recent changes in Russia. But this is not a happy story. ‘In 1989, only 2% of those living in Russia were in poverty. By late 1998, that number had soared to 23.8%, using the $2 a day standard. More than 40% of the country had less than $4 a day according to a survey conducted by the World Bank. . . . When I raised my concerns about these matters, an economist at the Bank who had played a key role in the privatization responded heavily. He cited traffic jams of cars, many of them Mercedes, leaving Moscow on a summer weekend and the stores filled with luxury goods. . . . a traffic jam of Mercedes in a country with a per capita income of $4,730 (as it was in 1997) is a sign of sickness not health. It is a clear sign of a society that concentrates its wealth among the few rather than distributing it among the many. . . . the Communist system, while it did not make for an easy life, avoided the extremes of poverty, and kept living standards relatively equal, by providing a high common denominator of quality for education, housing, health care and child care services. With a switch to market economy, those who worked hard and produced well would reap the rewards for their efforts, so some increase in inequality was inevitable. However it was expected that Russia would be spared the inequality arising from inherited wealth. Without this legacy of inherited inequality, there was the promise of a more egalitarian market economy. How differently matters turned out’ (p. 154). The IMF told Russia to privatize as fast as possible. Stiglitz believes that the decline in incomes and increase in inequality are connected to this mistake. Stigltiz also discusses the notion of social capital – ‘the glue that holds society together’ he considers that the way the transition occurred caused

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the social contract which bound citizens together to be broken. Suddenly, pensioners saw that they had no pensions. In fact, Stiglitz considers that the recent transition was no less forced and abrupt than the Bolshevik imposition of communism in 1917. The book does offer us hope and Stiglitz is determined that we do not write globalization off. ‘Globalisation itself is neither good nor bad. It has the power to do enormous good and for countries of East Asia, who have embraced globalization under their own terms, at their own pace, it has been an enormous benefit, . . . But in much of the world it has not brought comparable benefits. . . ’ (p. 21). We have no World government to oversee the process and therefore we have ‘global governance without global government’ (p. 22). Stiglitz believes that globalization can be reshaped with all countries having a voice in policies affecting them, to develop a more sustainable global economy. He does offer a way ahead. ‘The most fundamental change that is required to make globalization work in the way that it should is a change in governance’ (p. 226). He shows that ‘by looking at the policies as if the organisation was pursuing the interests of the financial markets, rather than simply fulfilling its original mission of helping countries in crises and furthering global economic stability, one could make sense of what otherwise seemed to be a set of intellectually incoherent and inconsistent policies. . . . (however) they genuinely believe the agenda that they are pursuing is in the general interest . . . the greatest challenge is not just in the institutions themselves but in mind-sets: caring about the environment, making sure the poor have a say in decisions that affect them, promoting democracy and fair trade are necessary if the potential benefits of globalization are to be achieved’ (p. 216). . . . Stglitz believes that Government can and has played an essential role not only in mitigating market failures but also in ensuring social justice. In his afterword of the 2003 edition of the book, Stiglitz talks about the reception of his ideas at the IMF. Most disappointing but least surprising was the response from the IMF. I had not expected the officials there to like the book, but I thought it might provoke them into a debate on the many issues that I raised. After promising to engage in a discussion on the substantive issues at a launch of the book at the World Bank on June 28, 2002, a discussion I had tried to generate unsuccessfully in my years working there – they decided to engage in an ad hominen attack . . . The attack gave those who were there a chance to see firsthand the IMF’s arrogance and disdain for people who disagree with its perspectives. . . . There were several upsides to the IMF ambush. . . . the IMF helped me achieve what I had wanted: to draw attention to the issues of globalization and the problems of the international economic institutions. (p. 25) We now see that engineering is a large part of development and of Globalization and that it cannot be examined without understanding the economic and political drivers of the

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context in which it functions. It is important at this point to realize that washing our hands of the issues at stake because the problem is too large and complex is not responsible. We have shown earlier that in many cases engineering is not just a tool for the political and economic engines but can be one of the main drivers. The need to facilitate more democratic involvement of the people who will be affected by the technical, social and economic changes is paramount. In the next chapter we begin to explore the way in which the public might involve themselves in technological decision making.

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CHAPTER 6

Public Understanding of Science and Technology We are interested in what engineering provides for all people, how needs are identified and how decisions are made. This not only involves the forces at work described above but also on the interaction with the people for whom we do the engineering. In this chapter we will look at current work on what is known as ‘public dialogue’. A recent report from the British Association of Science in the UK ‘Connecting Science: A Review of Recent Literature on Science and Society’ (Whitmarsh et al., 2005) summarizes recent work in the area of public dialogue with science. In 1985, the Royal Society produced a report entitle ‘Public Understanding of Science’ – discussing what was seen as the transfer of scientific expertise to a largely ignorant public. In 2000, a report by the House of Lords on Science and Society maintained that we have moved beyond the deficit model of science communication to one which tries to embody ‘dialogue’. The 2005 BA report attempts to summarize key areas of work and tries to be objective. It states up front that ‘it is not the purpose of dialogue to intrude upon discussion amongst the science community about scientific knowledge. There is no suggestion that the progress of scientific ideas should be democratically decided’ even though they state that one of the key aims of dialogue is ‘increasing democracy by promoting open and transparent decision making’. So what is dialogue really about? Sir Aaron Klug, president of the UK Royal Society tells us that we need ‘input from non experts to make us sure that we are aware of the boundaries of our licence’. There is of course a major belief that the public will hinder scientific development due to uncertainty and inconsistency and much of the concern is less about empowering than it is about making sure that the public don’t cause problems. It is stated for example that ‘risk and ethics are often conflated; it is not always clear whether objections are on moral grounds or on grounds of possible consequences or both. . . ’ (p. 10). It is assumed that we live in a ‘need to know’ world and therefore it is necessary to understand better what governs this principle in different contexts. Issues relating to personal values versus in judging scientific developments are also considered. Questions are posed about ‘who’ is the expert, how relevant this is and how credible they are. Furthermore, the message of scientific ‘truth’ which is still sent to school children is considered a barrier to dialogue. However, as stated earlier it is clear than non-scientists are

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not meant to influence the actual generation of scientific knowledge. There is still an absolutist attitude in this – the inevitability of scientific discovery and the factual objective representation of the discovered ‘truth’. Many science communicators do not ever talk to scientists as they believe they will learn no more than the documented reports. The report states that the British public think scientists will provide facts but distrust them to communicate the ethical and social implications. Scientists believe the implications should be relayed to the public but do not often engage in dialogue with them. The report also questions the balance between ‘Individual wants and social consequences’ with regard to the Human genetics Commission or where nuclear power is a direct threat. It is considered that most of the ‘public’ will only act when it directly concerns them – this is called the (NIMBY ) ‘not in my back yard’ phenomenon. Much has been written about ‘upstream dialogue’ – intervening in the decision-making process at an early stage, as well as concerns about how the dialogue is embedded in the cultural debate and how it influences it. Can dialogue really affect Government policy? Here we see much discussion on citizenship – ‘dialogue is part of good citizenship’ (p. 18, see also Irwin, 1995). However, they own – ‘what we do not know is on what issues and for what reasons, the “average” person would consider taking action . . . there is little data on the general question “what would you march for?” The study does not take into account class as a variable and very little reference is made except where it is acknowledged that ‘men, middle class people and broadsheet readers tend to be more knowledgeable about science’ (p. 27). They also state that ‘girls and young women are more willing to accept ambiguity than boys and young men’ (p. 28). In issues relating to social justice we see very little – however it does state that half of 11–21 year olds agree that ‘science cannot solve the basic human problems like poverty and unhappiness’ (p. 31). It is interesting that it is not questioned whether or not science could cause it however. They also report that ‘Scientists for Global Responsibility’ have pointed out that closer links between industry and Universities causes public distrust in scientists. What is clear from this report is that we need to consider better ways of negotiating with the public to assess needs before a new technology is created. Community groups do not need to understand the technology itself before they can consider its potential. They may not, as is often the declared reason for non-action, be in a position to understand the technical details. However, they are in a position to understand their needs. Needs analysis (trying to find out what people ‘need’ to live a good life) rather than market research (trying to find out how to persuade a group to ‘want’ or buy a product) must be the focus of socially aware engineering organizations. In the next chapter we consider alternative ways of negotiating with the public, as well as thoughts on alternative economic models and organizational structures which might lead towards more socially just engineering practice.

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CHAPTER 7

Alternative Systems 7.1

ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

Many people will declare that there are no alternatives to the current economic drives so we may as well work within the system rather than try to fight against the inevitable. Often we seem to believe that markets are ‘natural’ and that the competitive nature of humans would always create markets. Actually, Polanyi tells us ‘the behaviour of man both in his primitive state and right through the course of history has been almost the opposite of that implied in this view’. As demonstrated above ‘Economic history reveals that . . . market has been the outcome of a conscious and often violent intervention on the part of government which imposed market organization on society. . . ’ (p. 258). Polanyi had hope in the early part of last century for an economic system that was not market driven. ‘The passing of market economy can become the beginning of an era of unprecedented freedom . . . Juridicial and actual freedom can be made wider and more general than ever before: regulation and control can achieve freedom not only for the few, but for all. Freedom not as an appurtenance of privilege, tainted at the source, but as a prescriptive right extending far beyond the narrow confines of the political sphere into the intimate organisation of society itself. Thus will old freedoms and civil rights be added to the fund of new freedom generate by the leisure and security that industrial society offers to all. Such a society can afford to be both just and free’ (p. 265). The utopian dreams of socialism was that the socialists resign themselves to the reality of society (planning, regulation and control) whilst upholding the claim to freedom in spite of it. ‘As long as he is true to his task of creating more abundant freedom for all, he need not fear that either power or planning will turn against him and destroy the freedom he is building’ (p. 268). Unfortunately, as discussed in the foreword and in the introduction to the 2001 edition of Polanyi’s 1944 manuscript, these final words of his books have not been born out by experience. Stiglitz, in his foreword to the book tells us ‘unfortunately, the myth of the self-regulating economy, . . . does not represent a balancing of those freedoms, for the poor face a greater sense of insecurity than everyone else’ (p. xvi). Furthermore, in his introduction, Block discusses the fact that Polanyi’s optimism was immediate post-war and that the coming of the Cold War meant that the New Deal was the end of reform not the beginning in the United States. However, social democrat movements particularly in Sweden showed us that Polanyi’s vision could be real.

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Block has new optimism that post-Cold War, there might be a possible alternative whereby ordinary people rebuild the economy on the basis of international cooperation. Block believes that the emergence of transnational networks of ‘counter hegemonic globalization’ that is groups that are against the common sense logic of the current economic globalization mechanisms, groups that work against the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, are an indication of the ‘continuing vitality and practicality of Polanyi’s vision’ (p. xxxviii). He goes on, ‘For Polanyi, the deepest flaw in market liberalism is that it subordinates human purposes to the logic of an impersonal market mechanism. He argues instead that human beings should use the instruments of democratic governance to control and direct the economy to meet our individual and collective needs’. Macewan (1999) also claims that there are economic alternatives that are practical and which could be implemented within the existing socio-economic framework and bring about change in social organization and power. He believes that it is possible, without revolution, to challenge existing relations of power and authority and move towards a democratic structure by structural reorganization. Sen (1999), whom we discussed earlier, introduces us to the notion of freedom – ‘capabilities’ of persons to lead the kind of lives they value and have reason to value. His approach differentiates itself from traditional practical ethics and economic policy analysis, such as an economic concentration on income and wealth (rather than on characteristics of human lives and substantive freedoms), a utilitarian focus on mental satisfaction (rather than on creative discontent and constructive dissatisfaction) and the libertarian focus on procedures for liberty (with neglect of consequences of those procedures). There are of course connections to low income but this needs to be integrated into a bigger picture. Poverty then can be seen as deprivation of basic capabilities rather than just low income, for example, premature mortality, significant undernourishment, persistent morbidity and illiteracy. Sen points out that the extent of deprivation for particular groups in very rich countries can be comparable to that in the so-called third world. In the United States, African Americans have a lower longevity than citizens in very poor countries such as China, Sri Lanka or states such as Kerala. Life expectancy is not enhanced by the growth of GNP per head but it is indicated that the connection tends to work particularly through the success of poverty removal. His basic issue is that the impact of economic growth depends much on how the fruits of the economic growth are used. Two types of successes in rapid reduction of mortality are described: •

Growth mediated – through fast economic growth – and involves the utilization of enhanced economic prosperity to expand the relevant social services.

•

Support led process works through a programme of skillful social support of health care, education etc. rapid reductions in mortality without much economic growth.

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Sen stresses that as much as it is desired to have both longevity and economic growth, it is not necessary to wait until the country is much richer before embarking on rapid expansion of basic education and health care (these services are based on labour which is cheap). In turn education and health are productive in raising economic growth.

7.2

ALTERNATIVE ORGANIZATION SYSTEMS

There is a good deal of work done in Participatory Design as an organizational principle (Emery, 1993; Kraft and Bansler, 1994; Ackerman, 2000). Emery (1993) discusses the Three Landmarks Leading to Participative Design (p. 11)throughout a historywhich converged in the early seventies into a ‘coherent strategy and tool kit for restoring dignity in organisational and community settings by re-involving people in the decision making that affects their lives. The emphasis is clearly that of effective participation and the goal is a participative democracy’. The first landmark was a set of leadership experiments that were carried out in the 30s and it was in this time period that the term ‘Action Research’ was coined to describe methods of research and development that involved action and change. The second landmark formed in the English coalfields when it was discovered that industrialization destroyed the old team structure with an increase in absenteeism and accidents so social scientists were brought in to try to understand what was happening. This was the advent of socio-technical analysis. The third landmark was the work done in the 50s and 60s by Fred Emery – the Norwegian Industrial Democracy project. An important side effect of this work was what is now known as ‘paradoxical inhibition’. This is where one of the consequences of treating structural change as an ‘experiment’ is that the people closest to the changes feel most threatened and develop a resistance to them while others at a safer distance adopt the changes. Participative Design might be considered the fourth landmark – when Fred Emery returned to Australia in 1969 and worked hard to democratize Australia. The main breakthrough was to work with the workers to speed up the process. The idea is that the people who work in the organization have just as much knowledge as any social scientist who studies a place of work. They themselves can redesign the workplace. Since then Participative Design has been exported to India, Sweden, Canada, Holland, UK, USA and NZ. Merrelyn Emery’s recent publication which reports much of Fred Emery’s work (Emery, 1993), discusses the processes for democratizing an organization and the educational paradigms which must underlie any democratized system. The basic design principle that underlies their scheme is contrasted with a more traditional approach. The more traditional approach builds in redundancy by adding redundant parts (or people). The democratic organizational model adds redundant functions. Jobs may be redistributed (X, Y, Z jobs amongst A, B, C people) and requirements for control and coordination of task related activities are shared and allocated amongst themselves. When organizations

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are interested in working with the new model, Participative Design workshops are held which involve workers and managers in the process of the redesign of their workplace. Further details may be found in Emery’s text (Emery, 1993).

7.3

ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS OF NEEDS ANALYSIS

Most participatory needs analysis appears to be carried out in developing countries relating to community participation and technological development, participatory research and the implementation of technology, methods of community organizing (see pria.org) and participatory research and community empowerment. There have also been processes like ‘Open Space Technology’ that seek to encourage participatory research and community control over technological development (Owen, 1997). Jonathan Barker (1999) has studied how people create and use local political settings or collective public actions close to where they live and work. He defines and characterizes ‘activity settings’ which refers to ‘an episode of human activity, often collective activity but it includes more than that, it includes the physical environment that surrounds the activity and the material objects that connect with the activity’ (p. 252). Barker concludes that there are many healthy and effective groups that engage in their own collective action, ‘but the reach of the impulse and the impact of the practice will be overwhelmed and undermined all too often unless those acting nationally and internationally learn how to construct their own institutions and shape their own actions in ways that engage productively with street-level democrats and the political settings they create’. Perhaps engineering organizations could interact with such local groups to consider technical needs to address many social and environmental issues. Conversations could be framed around needs, such a transport and energy, rather than on technical developments. In this way scientists and engineers could discuss with the public their needs by way of ‘problem definition’. Engineers can then help to solve this problem. Currently, it is more usual for scientists and engineers to discuss potential technical solutions with the public. They focus on problem solving not problem definition. Contrary to the British Association report described in the last section I believe it is ‘the purpose of dialogue to intrude upon discussion amongst the science community about scientific knowledge’.

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CHAPTER 8

Case Study: Developing Waste Plastic/Agave Fibre Ceiling Panels in Lesotho, Africa

Traditional housing in Lesotho is decreasing

8.1

INTRODUCTION

The case presented below attempts to bring together some of the issues we have considered in the previous sections. I have attempted for several years to live as I preach and this case is presented to demonstrate this attempt to be an engineer who works for social justice. My research could be driven by and or exploited by industry – large corporations or the military who would offer large sums of money to my lab. Choosing to donate my skills to make a more just world is not easy or obvious and many of the quandaries faced will be addressed in what follows. First, we need to consider who will drive the research, what needs will I be fulfilling,

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who will fund the research, what do they want from it, will it contribute to a better world, and in whose sense? What form of development will it contribute to and how will it affect globalization? Having a background in composite materials (reinforced plastics) I started with the idea that I would work with natural fibre composites, replacing glass fibres with more sustainable natural fibres such as hemp, flax and jute. This was not an original idea, many researchers had been working in this area but most of the work was confined to the automotive industry and I was interested in building materials. Furthermore, the ‘matrix’ or the plastic was often thermosetting plastic, hence rendering the advantage of the natural fibres to a limited one as the material itself could not be recycled at the end of use. Using thermoplastic materials was the first step to improving the life cycle impact of these materials, it is also possible to use plant-based polymers such as starch, which are biodegradable (Green composites). The next logical step was to replace virgin plastic by already used waste plastic. I began to think about low cost building applications, particularly for developing countries. Materials researchers can develop materials for a given application or they could develop a material and then decide what it might be useful for. Whilst considering the idea of utilizing waste plastics for building projects in developing countries I recalled a visit I had made to a waste disposal site in Mokattam, Cairo. Apparently about 90% of the city’s waste was recycled by people living in Mokattam. Familes would take on a particular product to recycle, such as a plastic bottle. They might buy themselves a small extruder and collect one type of plastic such as PE (Polyethylene) for recycling. It occurred to me then that if they added fibres to the material they could make composites and create their own building materials instead of selling the plastic pellets. My graduate student Thimothy Thamae decided that this would be a perfect project for his country, Lesotho. We started to work on the project, gained a small amount of funding and planned two trips to his country. During the first visit he would scope out the possibilities and during the second we would both follow up to make more concrete plans.

8.2

THE FIRST TRIP

This included visits to the following: The Ministry of the Environment to gain statistics about waste recycling, statistics on the number of iron roofs, thatched roofs and the amount of wheat produced The only recycling company (Chinese owned) in Lesotho dealing with plastic waste The Cooperative College – a Government created establishment to train co-ops in new technologies

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A business development corporation A plastics production company Thimothy established that industry was interested in pursuing the idea as a moneymaking venture also that the Government Ministries were keen on the idea. He found out that there were no public recycling/collection mechanisms, but that the plastic was most commonly burnt in a public place.

Waste plastic burnt in the open on a dump site

He also found a local source of fibre, Agave plants, that were used by the co-op groups to make what they called ‘aloe’ gel. Many of the cooperative groups were making this gel from Agave plants and wasting the fibre. Furthermore, he discovered that in earlier times the fibre had been used to process mats and some old women still knew how to remove the fibre from the leaves. Thimothy asked villagers from his home village to prepare the Agave fibre. They sent it to him in Canada where he processed it into a sheet of composite materials using local waste plastic shopping bags from the supermarket. He used a hot press and a simple mould to manufacture the materials that had reasonable properties with no additives, as we wanted to keep them as cheap as possible. Higher quality materials could be made with the addition of an extruder. Before the return trip to Lesotho we had many conversations about the project we might pursue. Bearing in mind all the horrors of development trusteeship – the clever Western scientist taking their knowledge to the ignorant villager, we thought better of a direct development approach.

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Thimothy with ‘Maseru Aloe’ Cooperative collective

Concerning ourselves with globalization and the idea of a foreign company using this technology to exploit cheap and readily available local labour only to create money for their own country we decided against working with the industries that had been keen to work with us. Distressed by promoting in any way a new industrial revolution – taking the women from their villages to central factories in the main city of Lesotho, Maseru, we decided against one central facility designed to make money. Worried about the World Bank and the millions of unsuccessful pounds poured into Lesotho from especially British pockets, to no avail, we decided against going directly to the Government with this project. The only way forward was to find out a little more about the country and its needs. We therefore planned a second visit based around a ‘needs analysis’ using participatory design principles and community action of the womens’ cooperatives and villagers. Before going any further it is therefore necessary to consider some of the socio-political – economic and cultural context in Lesotho.

8.3

LESOTHO – AN OVERVIEW

Lesotho is a tiny landlocked country in the middle of Southern Africa – the former (until 1966) British protectorate of Basutoland. During the Gun War of 1880, the Basuto people successfully resisted the Cape Government’s attempt to disarm them and Britain stepped in to assume direct responsibility for Basutoland. It has a King and a Paramount Chief as well as two administrative pyramids – one is a National parliament made up of an elected National Assembly and Senate. Administration is through Ministries and in ten districts. Elected district Councils have jurisdiction over selected matters. The second pyramid is indirect rule – the hereditary

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chieftainship – each village has a headman who is subordinate to an area chief. There are also 22 Principal and Ward Chiefs. After Lesotho became independent in 1966, it went through a series of extreme political unrest and in 1976 when Lesotho turned away from South Africa, a huge pipeline of Western donors rushed in to pledge their aid in unprecedented amounts. Ferguson (1990) tells us that from 1974–5 to 1979–80 annual foreign aid commitments to Lesotho rose from about 17 million Rand to 95.5 million Rand. Ferguson specifically chose one development project to study in an attempt to understand why they failed to achieve ‘development’ (Ferguson, p. 107). Life is very simple, many still existing on subsistence farming. Few families in country villages have running water or any form of plumbing, the usual means of transport is the donkey or carrying on the head. Often it is the youngest that has to fetch water from the well that can be a mile away.

Thimothy’s sister, Makwena, at her home in Mamathe – the usual mode of carrying produce in her village

Relations with South Africa have driven much of the current situation in Lesotho. Estimates of the numbers of migrant workers in 1978–1985 out of a total of 1.2 million is about 120,000 most of which were employed in the mines. This is about half of the adult male population (Ferguson, p. 112). This had many profound effects. The earnings of migrant labourers dominated the local economy. In 1977, 118 million came home in remittances

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compared with a GDP of 176 million (Ferguson, p. 112). Class, as such, Ferguson tells us, did not exist as much as divisions between workers (high paid migrant versus low paid local) and unemployed, workers and dependants, dependants with remittances and dependants without remittances. Restrictions meant that migrant workers may not take their wives or children with them, they had to return home periodically and had to retire at a certain age and also labour contracts were not available to women. Lesotho has been described as ‘an impoverished labour reserve’ and ‘a country with political autonomy combined with acute economic independence’ (Murray, 1980). It was described by Cobbe (1982) as ‘a sort of rural dormitory suburb for South Africa, (it) consumes a great deal but produces very little (Cobbe, p. 4). Increased mechanization and automation in recent years has meant that unskilled labour was increasingly not needed. Furthermore, many accidents caused mines to be closed and there were many lay offs in the 90s due to the depression in the price of gold (Foulo, 1991). Since 1995, permanent residency status can be awarded to mineworkers and a large number of workers have taken this option. Hence, the working population is on the move to South Africa leaving the country with even less in terms of remittances (Foulo, 1996). The emergence of AIDS in the 80s has had a second massive impact on the country. There are various potential causes of the epidemic but it is clearly spread more due to the culture of secrecy and shame surrounding the disease as well as the economic conditions and dependencies that this brings. Women are mostly dependant on men for their income and remittances. They complain that men do not bring home enough money and are rarely told their husbands salary. If men buy cattle with their money this is not considered ‘household property’ in the ‘domain of contestation’ in the way that ‘household money’ is (which women have a legal right to). As a result cattle are often bought as status symbols but also as a way of securing finances whilst the men are away from home. They are still the main currency for the bride wealth (huge sums of money given by the groom to the bride’s parents often causing them to be in debt for years) although nowadays this is most commonly translated into money. Women therefore need cash and rarely have access to it. One activity of great importance in the 80s was the taking of lovers – ‘bonyatsi’. This is not prostitution but involves the gifts from a man to his ‘nyatsi’ or lover. ‘This economic edge to love affairs in Lesotho’, Ferguson wrote before AIDS came into common knowledge, ‘should be viewed in a larger perspective as part of the pervasive and extremely important economic context which suffuses virtually all relations between the sexes under the conditions of the labour reserve’ (Ferguson, p. 128). Furthermore, the result of the men working in the South African mines being forced to work on lengthy contracts (one to two years), not being allowed to take wives or families and not being allowed to become residents of South Africa was in all likelihood that men were also taking lovers whilst working away at the mines.

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These factors combined with the lack of knowledge about AIDS at this time and the secrecy and shame surrounding the disease even in current times has meant that it frequently spreads to young married couples and their children. The economic burden of AIDS is now clear with the working age population diminishing and the number of dependants increasing. Apart from the economic burden of losing the breadwinner, the financial cost of funerals is not low and families are often unable to ship their loved ones back from South Africa for burial if that is where death occurred. The most common community event is the funeral and one of the current businesses, the hiring of chairs and cooking equipment for the funeral gathering. The other aspect of Basuto life that we needed to understand is the huge amount of development funding that had been poured into the country to no avail. Ferguson in 1982 wrote about the failure of a rural livestock management programme (Ferguson, 1990). ‘Through all the (Thaba-Tseka) projects various phases, the idea of commercializing and rationalizing livestock production remained at the heart of the planners designs for development of the region’ (Ferguson, p. 35). However, as Ferguson points out in his chapter ‘The Bovine Mystique: A study of power, property and livestock in Lesotho’ the role of livestock in the socio-economic system is not as obvious as one might think. As explained earlier, many traditions and beliefs underlie the fact that villagers would rather keep their cattle than sell it. They would rather take cash worth less than the value of the ox itself because, as one villager stated to Ferguson ‘I will never sell it if I already own it. I will never sell it’ (Ferguson, p. 146). Respect is due a man (it is mostly men who own cattle) with livestock because livestock help the whole community. Cattle also become a sort of retirement fund for migrant workers. Further failures have been explored in other areas as demonstrated by Makoa’s work on rural development (Makoa, 1999). ‘The decision by the colonial administration to embark on some form of rural development was pragmatic rather than altruistic . . . subsistence agriculture guaranteed labour reproduction essential to the continued supply of labourers to the South African mines. Thus Britain believed that the territory’s development must ultimately be of economic value to South Africa and the British captitalist class’ (Makoa, p. 44). After independence rural development became part of a national development programme with huge funding between 1974/75 and 1979/80 (Wellings in Makoa, 1999). However, Makoa points out that ‘like their colonial counterparts those projects had to contend with a number of problems’ (Makoa, p. 45). He goes on to tell us ‘Lesotho’s rural development policy has not led to rural development. The rural economy has not improved. Agricultural production has been falling, a trend that has proceeded along with atrophying land resources as a result of unabating soil erosion and land degradation . . . not more than 5% of those supposedly living on agriculture are able to be self-sustaining from agricultural production alone . . . The twin forces dominating Lesotho’s political economy – dependency and foreign aid-worked in tandem with

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politics, the land tenure system, rural poverty and inadequate planning in undermining the policy’ (Makoa, p. 55). Foreign aid was used to encourage participation using new technologies that increased the cost of farming. Also, nationals of donor countries were guaranteed managerial positions thus preventing transfer of skills. Furthermore, the system of land tenure meant that communal grazing was (and is) the standard way of life. The land dispossession system that was being offered meant that land would instead be concentrated in the hands of a few rich individuals, thereby taking away the only social security for 80% of the population (Makoa, p. 50). ‘It is na¨ıve to believe that land reform measures leading to viable farming units will be supported universally because the process involves dispossession of land’ (Ministry of Agriculture, Makoa, p. 47). People did not want to be told what to do and lost interest in Government-funded schemes. They were not even consulted. The ‘supposed beneficiaries and their socio-political organizations were excluded from the policy formulation process. The corollary of this is the absence of communication without which there cannot be a common agenda or understanding between partners. Secondly, no serious studies were made regarding the role of the land tenure system in development and how people viewed it (Makoa, p. 56). Makoa explains that the 1979 land reforms addressed only the concerns of the donors and foreigners and not the problem of rural development and more importantly people did not understand the rationale behind them for they did not enhance the value of rural land. David Turkon (2003) presents a more recent view and critical analysis of Ferguson’s work. He says ‘I critique Ferguson’s Bovine Mystique as an example of an interpretation of the ways that property is conceived of and used that relies too heavily on cultural ideologies whilst neglecting materials constraints’ (Turkon, p. 147). He concludes that the ‘capitalist constructions of property and the rationalization of social life are, in effect demystifying all forms of property including bovines’ (Turkon, p. 164). However, he goes on to say that ‘because people who are bound to each other interact in institutionalized ways, capitalist modernization does not simply take over. Nor does capitalist modernization add a distinct sphere to compete with indigenous ways. Rather capitalist ideologies imbue indigenous institutions with new options, rules and values which while having the potential to liberate individuals from the structures of ascribed status and community responsibility, nonetheless restrict what they can meaningfully pursue . . . capitalism theorized, promoted and imposed by Government and business interests constitutes a form of social engineering cloaked in the language of free enterprise and individual rights’ (Turkon, pp. 161, 162). He points out that Lesotho has won praise from the IMF for following structural procedures and he states an unbelievable statistic – that it is within the top 5% of African nations in terms of GDP. Yet, as is evident when you spend time in Lesotho, ‘the majority of Basuto remain amongst the poorest people in the world’ (Turkon, p. 161). A recent

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development has been the Mohale Dam that forms part of a network of dams to be constructed across Lesotho. Currently, over 22 million Rand are given to Lesotho by South Africa in return for water, water that they themselves desperately need. It is very hard to see where that money is going and no clear answers. The Basuto people I met claim that the Government keep it and spend it on expensive Mercedes cars etc. Many people have a deep distrust of their Government. In order to create the dams, many people were asked to move their traditional homes. They have moved into specially constructed villages and given financial compensation but their traditional way of life and all their communal land has been taken away. They have both personal and communal funds to tap into so long as they present projects, which are deemed worthy.

Mohale Dam – a flooded valley which displaced many people

8.4

THE SECOND VISIT

Always concerned that perhaps we should not get involved and continue to mess around with this beautiful people, we decided to make a second visit – intended to be a series of conversations with the different people who would be affected/interested in this project. We wanted to do a ‘needs analysis’ in a collaborative, participatory way. This included the following (details in Tables 8.1 and 8.2): 1. Interviews with: Cooperative college President, 6 workshops with different co-ops 2. Interviews with: Villagers in remote, city and town locations, farmers 3. Observation of the traditional way of extracting the fibres from the Agave plant.

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TABLE 8.1: Interviews

AREA/GROUP

INTERVIEWEES

NO

Rural areas

Householders Farmers

60 60

Urban areas

Householders Farmers

54 10

Agave groups

Representatives of groups Members of groups

11 25

TABLE 8.2: Agave groups workshops

PLACE

GROUP NAME

Semphetenyane

Boiketlong multipurpose

11

Motimposo

Ithabeleng multipurpose

20

Ha Tsosane

Boiketlong multipurpose

9

Roma

NO OF ATTENDEES

10

Stadium area

Hlabollanang multipurpose

9

Maseru down town

Lechabile multipurpose

1

The results from this visit are to be analysed and presented in a separate forthcoming publication but will be summarized at this point. 1. Interviews and workshops with co-ops: We observed the process of manufacturing what the locals call ‘aloe gel’ from Agave fibre. They harvested the leaves, chopped them up, added them to a large vat and extracted the valuable healing juices, adding mineral oil and petroleum jelly to form the gel. They also produce a cream version. All the representatives and workers of the co-ops, interviewed individually and in the workshops agreed that the Agave plastic materials would be an excellent additional product to create within their group. They have established that they could run a small business in which they all gained a salary. They had access to waste plastic and Agave fibre and they could learn the technique and perhaps house the necessary equipment at the co-op training centre. This is where they have learnt the aloe gel process and where they go once a week, bringing their materials with them, to process their lot of gel or

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Harvesting Agave fibre from the local village

Chopping up the Agave leaves

cream. There is some feeing of competition between the 14 groups of Maseru aloe but generally they work as a large interlinked cooperative. The same process could work for our project, if they were to gain access to funds to buy the basic processing equipment – hot press and extruder.

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Fetching the petroleum jelly

Collecting the final product

2. Interviews with villagers and farmers: The interviews with villagers mostly doubled up as interviews with farmers as the predominant mode of farming is subsistence. We asked farmers to tell us what crops they grew and would be prepared to grow and in all cases they liked the idea of growing more Agave. Other forms of fibre could also be used such as wheat and corn.

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One of the co-op workshops – this group was formed in support of their mentally handicapped children

A typical scene in a small village – Agave growing abundantly

Conversations with villagers explored the materials that houses were made from and potential uses for our new material. We showed a small sample and asked what they thought it could be used for. Most villagers were living in houses with corrugated roofs and the unanimous response was that the roofs meant that houses were too hot in summer and too cold in winter with the additional problem of condensation from cooking causing it to ‘rain’ inside the house. The favourite potential use

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Internal view of corrugated iron roof showing the damp patches

External view of the corrugated iron roof

of the material was considered to be ceilings for houses made with these types of roofs. Very few villagers could think of ways of making the materials. We had hoped that they might have some form of hot press or heating and pressing source but they did not seem to be able to come up with anything – apart from one co-op who between our first and second visit extracted some fibre from Agave plants and used a hamburger grill to try to create a sample, with a plastic bag. It didn’t work but

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Thimothy showing the material sample to a villager during an interview

Traditional way of cutting the Agave leaves

it was an amazing demonstration of the depth of interest, need and belief in this project. 3. Observation of the traditional way of extracting the fibres from the Agave plant: The traditional methods were known by the older women, who taught the younger women

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The separated Agave leaves

Cooking the Agave leaves

how to do it for our demonstration. They cut the leaves, boiled them for an hour or more and when they were very pulpy, they scraped them with a rock at the local washing area, where clothes are normally scrubbed.

8.5

THE EMERGING PLAN

Although this project is in its infancy at the time of writing, a plan is beginning to emerge which takes into consideration all of the issues relating to the current and past socio-political

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Scraping the Agave leaves after boiling

context as well as all of the data collected during the first and second visits to Lesotho. This can be summarized as follows: 1. Agave fibre is a waste product from the ‘aloe gel’ formation and can be a good source of reinforcing fibre. 2. Waste plastic bags are found everywhere and are an environmental hazard as they are often thrown onto the side of the road and burned. 3. Women’s cooperatives already exist with a central training facility to make aloe gel, and this can allow for hosting the equipment and training in the new techniques of composite manufacture. 4. Many villagers are in need of an occupation that can also provide an income and they could process the fibres into materials given the training. Women in particular need an independent source of income. 5. Collecting waste plastic and harvesting Agave could provide an additional activity and source of income. 6. The homes constructed with corrugated iron roofs could benefit from a ceiling made from reinforced plastic so as to moderate internal temperatures and prevent condensation build up. In order to accomplish this project funding is needed to support the purchase of a hot press and an extruder. It is possible that these may be manufactured through Lerotholi Polytechnic in Maseru who expressed interest, which would create additional jobs and income as well as

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reducing the price of equipment. Training is additionally needed at the local co-op training centre that can be done as a train the trainer course. Research will furthermore be conducted on the implications of the sustainability of growing Agave and of marketing and pricing the ceiling tiles. We also need to understand the intellectual property rights of the co-ops in Lesotho and protect the groups from larger companies trying to create patents to exclude them from their own work. The story continues . . .

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CHAPTER 9

Summing Up The case study in the previous chapter provides an example of a real engineering project whose aim is to promote social justice and sustainable livelihoods. The socio-political context was presented in some detail in order to understand the constraints facing development and the issues of globalization of capitalism as it affects the local Basuto people. It provides an example of the questions we need to ask ourselves before embarking on any project. Who benefits and who pays? Who needs what and when? How will the project survive after the planners have gone? Who contributed to its planning and execution? Who decided what was needed? Who paid for it and why? What do they stand to gain? Are proceeds distributed equitably? Does it provide fair compensation for those affected? Are people treated ethically and justly both within and as a result of the project – workers, those affected but not involved and those who are ‘users’? Who gets the jobs? Who makes decisions about pay and conditions? Do workers have to relocate? What effect does this have on their lives, their family’s lives and those of their community? Is the engineering project contributing in any way to the increasing gap between the rich and the poor? How do you know? How do you find out? Do you feel you are in a position to do the right thing in your current job? Too many questions? Not as many as we ask in the course of any well-designed engineering project. These should just be a few more. Engineering forms part of a complex mix of social, political and economic developments. We are involved with serious problems at a local and Global level that affect our society and the environment. The book series ‘Engineers, Technology and Society’ will attempt to address issues pertinent to these problems. Perhaps if engineers could study more about the social, economic and political context of their profession they might apply their creativity to employ what the scholars and practitioners in other fields have been discovering. This overview book of the series has attempted to introduce the reader to key texts that outline contemporary issues in these areas with an attempt to indicate their relationship to engineering practice. We hope that engineers might then work together with the future graduates of sociology and political economics and with the broader communities in order to redefine engineering practice. Understanding the ‘social impact’ of our engineering is not as simple as exploring the potential health and safety risks, or ensuring that we are legally

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covered for liability. In whatever way is possible, we need to ensure that procedures are in place to critically examine our own engineering practices and study the implications of such practices on local and global societies. This book series remains a very small introduction to the issues at stake and we hope that readers will be inspired to take further action and keep asking questions.

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Oldham, J., Key, T., and Starak, Y. (1978). Risking Being Alive. PIT Publishing. Queensland, Australia. Owen, H. (1997). Open Space Technology: A Users Guide. San Francisco: Berret–Koehler Press. Polanyi, K. (1944/2001). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Beacon Press. Boston, MA, USA. Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Anchor Books. New York, NY, USA. Stiglitz, J. (2003). Globalisation and Its Discontents. Norton and Company. New York, NY. Turkon, D. (2003). ‘Modernity, tradition and the demystification of cattle in Lesotho’. African Studies, 62(2), 147–168.doi:10.1080/0002018032000148731 Vanderburg, W. (1985). The Development of Minds and Cultures. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. Vanderburg, W. (2000). The Labyrinth of Technology. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. Whitbeck, C. (1998). Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitmarsh, L., Kean, S., Russell, C., and Peacock, M. (2005). Connecting Science: What We Know and What We Don’t Know About Science in Society. British Association for the Advancement of Science. London, UK. Wilkinson, R. (2005). The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier. New Press, New York. Williams, R. C. (2002). Retooling: A historian comforts technological change MIT press US. Winner, L. (1986). The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago, IL: University Chicago Press.

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Biography Caroline Baillie is a Professor of Engineering Education and Materials Engineering at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. Her role is to enhance the learning experience of engineering students across the Faculty whilst maintaining her research and teaching interests in materials science and engineering. Her research interests in materials science have developed from a background in composite materials (reinforced plastics) to a focus on natural sustainable composites and biomimicry (learning from nature). She is particularly interested in ways in which science and engineering can help to create solutions for the environment as well as social problems. Her most recent work focuses on ‘Engineering for Social Justice’ and together with George Catalano of Binghamton University she is developing a growing network of individuals who are concerned to place social justice at the centre of engineering practice, instead of profit. She tries to live through the processes involved in such a transformation, in her own technical work. She has over 100 publications, papers and books in materials science and education. Her most recent books include a Woodhead publication, ‘Green Composites’, a Routledge publication ‘Effective learning and teaching in engineering’ and an edited Campus volume ‘Travelling facts: the social construction, distribution and accumulation of knowledge’.

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