Affiliations: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Science and Technology, Troy, NY 12181, USA
Note: [*] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third Hemisphere Colloquium, Florida State University, March 14–15, 1983. I am grateful to William Benzen, Rob Kling, Charles Sanford and Michael Zenzen for their helpful comments on various drafts of the manuscript.
Note: [**] Current address: Department of Computer Science, The City College of New York, New York, NY 10031, USA.
Abstract: Despite its potential to support fundamental change, computer use reinforces existing social practices and modes of organization. This paper traces the antecedents and consequences of such reinforcement. Decisions on deployment of computer technology are shown to be powerfully conditioned by a technocultural paradigm forged in the industrial revolution. This paradigm fosters obsessive concern with productivity and growth, a concern that is central to the rhetoric of American renewal. Unless tempered by countervailing values, the obsession will lead to increased disparities of wealth, polarization, socially debilitating unemployment, and virulent economic nationalism.
Keywords: Automation, productivity, unemployment, technology assessment, instrumentalism, technocultural paradigms, social control
