Technology policy

There are several approaches to defining the substance and scope of technology policy. There are several approaches to defining the substance and scope of technology policy. According to the American scientist and policy advisor Lewis M. Branscomb, technology policy concerns the 'public means for nurturing those capabilities and optimizing their applications in the service of national goals and interests'. Branscomb defines technology in this context as 'the aggregation of capabilities, facilities, skills, knowledge, and organization required to successfully create a useful service or product'. Other scholars differentiate between technology policy and science policy, suggesting that the former is about 'the support, enhancement and development of technology', while the latter focuses on 'the development of science and the training of scientists'. Rigas Arvanitis, at the Institut de Recherche pour le développement (IRD) in France, suggests that 'science and technology policy covers all the public sector measures designed for the creation, funding, support and mobilisation of scientific and technological resources'. Technology policy is a form of 'active industrial policy', and effectively argues, based on the empirical facts of technological development as observed across various societies, industries and time periods, that markets rarely decide industrial fortunes in and of their own and state-intervention or support is required to overcome standard cases of market-failure (which may include, for example, under-funding of Research & Development in highly competitive markets). Technology policy may be more broadly defined. Michael G. Pollitt offers a multidisciplinary approach with social science and humanities perspective on 'Good' policy. Technological determinism presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have been coined by Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism. Viewed through the lens of Science policy, public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives, direct funding or indirect support to those organizations who fund, and conduct, research. Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the U.S. government in July 1945, wrote 'Science is a proper concern of government' Vannevar Bush directed the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, and his writings directly inspired researchers to invent the hyperlink and the computer mouse. The DARPA initiative to support computing was the impetus for the Internet Protocol stack. In the same way that scientific consortiums like CERN for high-energy physics have a commitment to public knowledge, access to this public knowledge in physics led directly to CERN's sponsorship of development of the World Wide Web and standard Internet access for all. The first major elaboration of a technological determinist view of socioeconomic development came from the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx, whose theoretical framework was grounded in the perspective that changes in technology, and specifically productive technology, are the primary influence on human social relations and organizational structure, and that social relations and cultural practices ultimately revolve around the technological and economic base of a given society. Marx's position has become embedded in contemporary society, where the idea that fast-changing technologies alter human lives is all-pervasive. Although many authors attribute a technologically determined view of human history to Marx's insights, not all Marxists are technological determinists, and some authors question the extent to which Marx himself was a determinist. Furthermore, there are multiple forms of technological determinism. On the subject of technology as a means to liberation or enslavement, a question arising from a technological determinist perspective, David E. Cooper wrote in the Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 38:7-18 (1995), 'people myopically impressed by the world as an object of beauty or worship die out. Those who are myopically impressed by it as a source of energy do not: they even prosper.' Technology policy takes an 'evolutionary approach' to technical change, and hereby relates to evolutionary growth theory, developed by Luigi Pasinetti, J.S. Metcalfe, Pier Paolo Saviotti, and Koen Frenken and others, building on the early work of David Ricardo. J.S. Metcalfe noted in 1995 that 'much of the traditional economic theory of technology policy is concerned with so-called 'market failures' which prevent the attainment of Pareto equilibria by violating one or other of die conditions for perfect competition'.