Subject: "High Tech Gravy Train" (Loka Alert 1:7 -- NY Times op-ed) Loka Alert 1:7 (June 26, 1994) Friends and Colleagues (including many newcomers to the Loka Institute e-mail list): This is one in an occasional series of e-mail postings on democratic politics of science and technology, issued by The Loka Institute. You are welcome to post it anywhere you feel is appropriate. The following essay, by Gary Chapman, is posted for those of you may have missed its original publication in the New York Times. Gary coordinates the 21st Century Project, and is an advisor to the Loka Institute/IPS Public Interest Technology Policy Project (see below). If you wish to contact Gary directly: tel. (512) 448-3539 or e-mail: garycpsr@aol.com --Dick Sclove Executive Director, The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004-0355, USA Tel. 413 253-2828; Fax 413 253-4942 E-mail: loka@amherst.edu ***************************************************************** From: The New York Times, May 31, 1994, p. A17: THE HIGH-TECH GRAVY TRAIN by Gary Chapman, Austin, Tex. The Clinton Administration is planning to spend up to $1 billion to help American firms compete with the Japanese in producing flat-panel displays. These are thin video screens, used primarily in laptop computers, that may be integral to consumer products that will tap into the much-hyped information superhighway. The Administration has portrayed the plan as an economic boost for a potentially lucrative industry and as an essential initiative for U.S. national security. In fact, it is a Government subsidy for a politically well-connected industry whose executives have won over technology-dizzy Federal officials. Yes, the new flat-panel displays will help update some military hardware, but the same could be said of countless other high- and low-tech products that are not being touted as "essential" or singled out for Federal subsidies. The flat-panel is more than just another pork-barrel scheme. It points out larger flaws in the Administration's technology plans. Bill Clinton's campaign mantra--"It's the economy, stupid!"--was transformed after the election into an obsession with American economic competitiveness and generating jobs. But rather than seriously addressing the issue of developing quality jobs at livable wages, the Administration has turned its economic growth agenda over to high-technology executives determined to put their industries on the Federal gravy train. The Commerce Department has been turned into a national Chamber of Commerce for high tech. Technological development, however, continues to displace manufacturing workers. And the high-tech industries favored by the Administration employ a great many fewer workers. Telecommunications companies (which are on the Administration's front burner because of its fascination with the information superhighway) are laying off workers at record rates. Biotechnology, a field often held up as the savior of some local economies, generates very few jobs. It is capital-intensive, and because the product literally grows itself, productivity is tied to how fast it reproduces, not to hiring more and better workers. One Eli Lilly plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., already produces all the recombinant human insulin needed for the U.S. market--it will generate few jobs. Manufacturing industries, including high tech, account for only 16 percent of the national work force, down from 20 percent two decades ago. Nothing the Administration does will seriously alter this shift. Manufacturing is headed in the same direction as agriculture, which was once America's largest employer but now feeds the entire country and much of the world though it employs only 2 to 3 percent of the work force. We are building an economy that has fewer and fewer good jobs, even for talented people with advanced training. A young Ph.D. in physics can expect to compete with a thousand other applicants for an assistant professorship with very little job security. At the same time, we encourage young people to study science, based on the uncritical belief that the nation needs more young scientists and engineers. It's increasingly and unfortunately clear that the economy won't be able to support them. This is not to say that there isn't any meaningful work left in our society. The problem is that few people are willing to pay for what really needs doing: a better educational system, crime-free neighborhoods; a healthy environment; and better roads, public buildings and parks. Governments are supposed to provide these things. But because the Clinton Administration is in thrall to high tech, we're getting flat-panel displays instead. Of course, a robust Federal science and technology policy is needed. But the Administration should figure out what a good science and technology policy, one that is tied to public needs, looks like. What public need does a $1 billion investment in flat-panel displays answer? What societal problems will the information superhighway really solve? Until the Administration thinks long and hard about these sorts of questions, its priorities are more likely to worsen our problems than solve them. _________________________________________________________________ Gary Chapman is coordinator of the 21st Century Project, a public-interest program on science and technology policy. ***************************************************************** If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Loka Institute e-mail list, please send an e-mail message to that effect to: loka@amherst.edu The Loka e-mail list functions as a news distribution service, not an open conference. Please post any comments to loka@amherst.edu; please do _not_ attempt to reply to the entire list (which includes many busy folks who cannot sustain a barrage of unsolicited e-mail). Thank you for respecting this request. 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