Technology has brought us all sorts of transport, all sorts of power sources, more advanced ways of seeing and hearing, computers, better teeth, genetic knowledge, and an enlarged collective memory, but none of these profound changes have altered the human will, human restlessness, the human desire for freedom or for conformity. So it can be said that many of the triumphs of science and technology were really only skin-deep (Stranglers anyone). IOW it is far easier in an era of mass production in the countryside and city, to satisfy the stomach than the mind, easier to tame diseases than to tame human behaviour.
In 1910 all the western physicists and chemists put together amounted to around 10,000 people. By the late 1980s the number of scientists, physicists, chemists and engineers etc. engaged in research and experimental development in the world was estimated at about 5 million. Wars proved the necessity of science and technology - bomb=proof.
After the moral issues raised by the war/bomb stuff abated we had a generation of science and technology that remained ideologically quiescent, enjoying the intellectual triumphs and the vastly expanded resources available. In the 1970's the US government funded 2/3 of the basic research costs in that country, which then ran at around 5 billion a year, and employed about 1 million scientists and engineers. The munificent patronage of governments and the military/industrial complex encouraged much scientific and tech research not to think too hard about the wider implications.
But from the 1970's environmental and social effects began to make it glaringly obvious that science, ie. the pursuit of truth, could not be separated from its conditions and consequences, and must be constrained and directed. At about the same time the global economic boom ended and as fuel and resources became more expensive, budgetary constraints had to also be applied. Thus ‘pure’ research (undefinite priorities and expensive) and ‘applied’ research (employed the most in the advance of knowledge) gave way to the need to achieve certain practical results. Researchers pursued what was socially useful or economically profitable, what was funded.
Two newspaper quotes to sum up the state of play by the 1990’s …
About their system,
Although the earthly ideal of Socialism-Communism has collapsed, the problems it purported to solve remain: the brazen use of social advantage and the inordinate power of money, which often direct the very course of events.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the New York Times (Nov 28 1993)
And about our system,
It remains, however, an imperfect force … About two thirds of the world’s population have gained little or no substantial advantage from rapid economic growth. In the developed world, the lowest quartile of income earners have witnessed trickle-up rather than trickle-down.
Editorial Financial Times (Dec 24 1993)
During the last few decades there have been some suggestions as to things that could be done to try to get a handle on all of this. One example is the Tobin Tax,
The tax could fund a huge increase in anti-poverty programmes. Aid to poor countries stands at around $55 billion per annum and it is falling. Basic education and health care, food security, water and sanitation could all be funded from the Tobin tax. It has been estimated that a tax of 0.1%, even after its calming effect, could raise between $50 and $300 billion a year. Even at the low end this would match existing levels of official aid.
So, almost 40 years later if I asked my father why there are still so many children/people dying of starvation and disease in so many other parts of the world, I think he would have to say that we now have the knowledge/expertise/technology/distribution/money to get the job done but we have don’t have the will. Sad really.