X-Message-Number: 5101
From: (David Stodolsky)
Subject: Fwd: Put Democracy Into R&D (Loka Alert 2-7, from _Christian Sci.
Monitor_)
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 95 18:57:43 +0100
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Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 21:29:02 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Put Democracy Into R&D (Loka Alert 2-7, from _Christian Sci. Monitor_)
To:
Loka Alert 2-7 (Oct. 30, 1995)
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>From _The Christian Science Monitor_:
PUT DEMOCRACY INTO R&D
Friends and Colleagues:
This is one in an occasional series of electronic postings
on democratic politics of science and technology, issued by the
Loka Institute. If you would like to be added to, or removed
from, the Loka list, please send an e-mail message to that effect
to <>. The following opinion essay is reprinted
from _The Christian Science Monitor_, Oct. 30, 1995, p. 19.
Dick Sclove
Executive Director, The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355,
Amherst, MA 01004-0355, USA
Tel 413 253-2828; Fax 413 253-4942; Email:
World Wide Web: http://www.amherst.edu/~loka/
*****************************************************************
PUT DEMOCRACY INTO R&D
All citizens, not just corporations and
generals, should have a say in federal
science and technology decisions.
By Richard E. Sclove
Recently we celebrated America's newest Noble laureate
scientists, among them two chemists who pioneered research into
depletion of the earth's ozone layer. Yet the day the awards
were announced, Congress resumed its systematic bid to deplete
federal funding for nonmilitary research and development,
including punching a 32% hole in the budget for studies on ozone
destruction and other global environmental change. This season's
R&D budget battles and congressional votes forecast an alarming
shift in America's science and technology climate.
Imagine a future in which funds for vital civilian research
are depleted 35% over the next five years, canceled out by
heedless spending on B-2 bombers and Star Wars boondoggles.
Energy conservation, renewable energy development, and
environmental research suffer the most severe damage, while the
EPA is prohibited from enforcing environmental laws. In an
increasingly hostile climate, the Office of Technology Assessment
(OTA) burns up, and attempts to make science and technology
policy responsive to the public are driven underground.
The information superhighway opens express lanes for
advertizing and exporting jobs to low-wage countries, but no on-
ramps for the poor. Workplace hazards go uninvestigated;
corporations are licensed to sell defective products; student
loans are undermined; the unemployed are discouraged from
learning new skills.
Unfortunately, like ozone destruction itself, this isn't
just a doomsday scenario. It represents Congress' real-world
science and technology policy in bills now working their way
towards the president's desk. OTA has closed its doors already,
but the rest of these outcomes are not yet a _fait accompli_.
The administration has threatened to veto the House budget
proposal to cut next year's civilian-oriented research 7.9
percent (compared to the Pentagon's 5.9 percent R&D hike).
But even if Mr. Clinton vetoes, the underlying problem will
remain. The current crisis over R&D priorities and funding would
never have developed had there been an ongoing, inclusive
national debate on science and technology policy. Recent
decisions in Congress reflect the traditional lack of such
debate. Any rational science and technology policy would require
allowing people from all walks of life a role in science and
technology decisions that profoundly affect them.
Sound absurd? Think citizens who can't even program their
VCRs couldn't possibly engage complex scientific issues? In
other industrialized countries they already do. Lay people
dominate Sweden's respected Council for Planning and Coordination
of Research. British, Danish, and Dutch citizens cross-examine
experts, deliberate among themselves, and then report their
findings on science and technology policies at national press
conferences. In Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia workers and
consumers help develop new technologies and consumer products.
Many European universities have "science shops" conducting pro
bono research on science's social and environmental impacts for
non-profit organizations and citizens' groups.
But in the U.S. the tendency to disempower citizens and
decree science and technology decisions from on high runs deep.
Today's Congress may have surpassed its predecessors in welcoming
corporate lobbyists as de facto committee members, but the truth
is both Democrats and Republicans customarily exclude all but
three elite groups from science and technology policymaking:
business leaders, military brass, and expert researchers.
It's time to democratize science and technology in America,
to build public consensus on what to do about ozone depletion and
other pressing environmental and socio-technological issues.
Otherwise we cede the control of technology to short-term
corporate interests and politicized defense agendas, at the
expense of wider scientific interests, environment, education,
employment, and living standards. Here are some practical first
steps Washington can take right now:
o End the exclusion of public-interest groups, worker and
community representatives from federal science and
technology advisory boards and congressional hearings.
o Empanel groups of everyday citizens to attend background
briefings and evaluate alternative science and technology
policies, as is done in other industrialized countries.
o Use existing corporate R&D tax credits to reward
employers that involve workers, public-interest groups
and community representatives in their R&D and strategic
planning decisions.
o Help fill the vacuum left when OTA was abolished by
allocating a small portion of next year's federal R&D
expenditure to new community-based technology assessment
programs.
The current budget endgame and other partisan struggles
between the president and Congress should not preclude such
revenue-neutral measures for advancing the common good. "Change"
was the campaign slogan for both the Clinton Administration and
the Gingrich Congress. But fiddling with science policy while
the environment burns and our economic and social future darkens
is hardly the change voters had in mind. We can improve the
climate in our democracy by giving citizens a say in fundamental
science and technology decisions that shape their lives.
_____________________________
Richard E. Sclove, executive director of the Loka Institute
in Amherst, Massachusetts, is the author of _Democracy and
Technology_ (New York: Guilford Press, 1995)
_Democracy and Technology_ can be ordered from your local
bookseller, or it is available in paperback for U.S. $18.95 (plus
shipping cost) from Guilford Press, 72 Spring St., New York, NY
10012, USA. Within the U.S. call toll free (800) 365-7006.
Contact Guilford Press also for information on distributors
outside the U.S.: Tel. +(212) 431-9800; Fax +(212) 966-6708; E-
mail <>.
*****************************************************************
WHAT YOU CAN DO
To encourage President Clinton to resist Congress's skewed
R&D priorities and to take steps to democratize science and
technology decisionmaking, contact:
Leon Panetta Don Baer
Chief of Staff Director of Communication
The White House and/or The White House
Tel. (202) 456-6797 Tel. (202) 456-2640
Fax (202) 456-2883 Fax (202) 456-1213
*****************************************************************
This Loka Alert will be followed shortly by a longer alert
("Losing the Peace...Forever," Loka Alert 2-8), which explains in
greater detail emerging Congressional science and technology
policies.
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####
David S. Stodolsky Euromath Center University of Copenhagen
Tel.: +45 38 33 03 30 Fax: +45 38 33 88 80 (C)
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