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From International Socialism, No.43, April/May 1970, pp.39-40.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Science and Society
Steven and Hilary Rose
Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 50s
This book is wrongly titled. Out of the 13 chapters only the last one deals with the relationships between science and society. The other 12 are concerned with the relationships between science and government, particularly in Britain. This is not to say that the book is a bad one. In fact it is a very informative and readable potted history of the rise of modern science and technology and the institutions which have grown up to encompass this rise.
The history starts very well with an account of the appearance on the scene of the Royal Society in the 17th century and of the growth of science at the time of the industrial revolution. The Roses sketch out the relation between that growth and the growth of capitalism as a social system. As laissez-faire capitalism developed, the necessity for one firm in one industry to keep its share of the market meant that it had to use its labour power more efficiently. Science and technology, as a means of inventing better production techniques, new and improved products was therefore increasingly tied to industry and private profit. But very soon any attempts to reveal such relationships are abandoned so that by the time we get to the Wilsonian ‘white-hot technological revolution’ there is simply an account of it from the point of view of the scientific institutions which were the product of it – MinTech, the Science Research Council, etc. The Roses offer virtually no explanation of the reasons for this rapid growth in and rationalisation of scientific spending from the early 60s onwards. The need for declining British capital to become more competitive if it was to defend itself from the incursions of other capitals (American, Japanese, German, etc.) and the inability of British capitalism to reform itself sufficiently fast to meet this task necessitated the intervention of the Government in State-sponsored mergers and State-directed and financed science and technology research. These underlying economic determinants, ultimately based on the need of the British capitalist class to keep its profit end up, are barely touched on.
The Roses do point out that when Labour came to power in 1965 it did not attempt ‘a radical and structural critique of the problems of harnessing science in a post-imperial capitalist society. Nor did they look for what might be regarded as conspicuously socialist answers to the problems presented by a technological and scientific explosion which had become largely removed from democratic control.’ Instead modifications of the ‘existing social capitalist order’ were recommended, ‘so as to enable it to work more effectively’. And it is phrases such as these which leave one in no doubt that the Roses are perfectly aware of what the economic determinants of the growth of scientific spending are. And when one reads that the inability of the Labour Government to cope adequately with the problems of such growth is ‘the inability of a social democratic government to reform society whilst leaving the base ofsociety intact’, then it is perfectly obvious that the Roses fancy themselves as revolutionary socialists of some kind or other.
If this is the case, why don’t they come clean? When they ask ‘... what sort of science do we want? how much of it do we want? who should do it? how should their activities be controlled? But the fundamental question underlying all these is: what sort of society do we want?’, we surely have a right to hear the Roses’ answers, particularly the ‘fundamental’ one.
I suspect that the Roses are trying the ‘softly softly catchee monkey’ approach – the monkey being fellow members of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) who, apparently, are radical enough to appreciate that Labour’s interpretation of socialism is not quite right but are not quite ready for Marx’s, Lenin’s and Trotsky’s.
So if they don’t tell us what sort of society they would like what do they tell us? First of all, we get a very punchy attack on scientific and technological ‘forecasting’ which for the Roses reaches its ultimate, ludicrous form in the predictions of Professor Denis Gabor who, it appears, lists 105 possible ‘inventions’ (scientific and social) and even numbers them in possible order of solution. Number 93 is the abolition of class war! We also get a very interesting account of what is called the ‘Retreat from Rationality’ which incorporates the swing away from science and the general disillusionment with technological progress as expressed in the works of Marcuse.
But what do they actually advocate? When it comes down to it, surprisingly little.
‘In the short term we argue the need to "open" the decision-making process in science far more to the scrutiny of Parliament, the press and the scientific community itself, and suggest how decisions on the direction of scientific research could be spread more widely and more democratically. Adopting a longer term perspective we attempt to project the current problems and likely trends of science and technology into the future, for it is clear from what has gone before that just as science itself is rapidly evolving so must the role of science within society.’
Increased ‘democracy’ within scientific institutions is something with which no one but an arch-reactionary would disagree but it just isn’t enough. The ‘opening’ of one sector of the decision-making process would only mean that the most important decisions would be made in newer, secret committees. The ability of capitalist society to incorporate and neutralise any structure possibly critical of it in any threatening way is tremendous. Only in a society in which all institutions, scientific or otherwise, are democratic will the problems associated with advancing technology at least have a sporting chance of being solved. Social systems where scientific progress is controlled not by what is desirable for all but by what is profitable for the few will inevitably steer such progress towards ends which are hardly rational. One has only to think of chemical and biological warfare or the space race or the thalidomide tragedy to understand this. Democracy within scientific bodies without democracy in the educational and industrial sectors is meaningless. Such democracy cannot be introduced bit by gradual bit; it will have to grabbed.
Within the crippling limitations of not really showing how the progress of science can only be rationally realised in a socialist society after a socialist revolution the Roses’ book is satisfactory. After all, when it comes down to it there are very few books on social aspects of science written from a left-wing point of view, still less a Marxist one. The Roses’ book is an indication of what can be done and of what there is still left to do.
In particular the Roses discuss two subjects rarely touched upon. Firstly, there is the history of the organisations of scientific workers such as the National Union of Scientific Workers (NUSW) and its descendants – the Association of Scientific Workers (ASW) and the ASTMS. Secondly, there is the role of scientists in the May events of 1968 in France. Both of these subjects will have much to teach us about our approaches to the conducting of campaigns amongst scientists.
In concluding this review I should like to quote another one – of Science, Industry and Industrial Policy, by Kenneth Denbigh. This appeared in International Socialism 15 (Winter 1963) and was written by Hilary Rose. It could be a review of Science and Society.
‘Sheltering behind an impressive title lies a slim volume of rather less than 100 pages, which describes the malaise of industrial society, that work lacks meaning, that social decisions are made for economic reasons; and arguing that we are at a time of change, sets out a few guidelines for the future. These consist of a desire for the rational control of science, a wish to see the activities of the civic trust extended and the hope that through such means society will increasingly fulfil the needs of the whole man.
‘By this time, one is aware, even if the author is not, that he has tripped over a major philosophical and political problem which cannot be resolved by nostrums and good intentions, in lieu of a critique and a locating of the head of steam, the dynamic of social change. It is relevant to note that the book also has the achievement of discussing this subject without mentioning Marx, but it is a pretty sterile achievement.’
According to the Index, Science and Society has three mentions of Marx. Two of them consist basically of the quote, ‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, but the real task is to change it’. This is just the point Crowther makes in his review of the Roses’ book, in New Scientist:
‘In 1939 J.D. Bernal’s Social Function of Science came to me for review. It was a vision of what science might be and a manifesto to work for. Now, in 1969, comes the Roses’ book. How do they compare? Bernal depicted an organised science that did not then exist. He not only sketched its plan, but estimated its quantitative outlines with prophetic insight. In contrast, the Roses set out to "map the growth of science as an institution within society". They have described what is, rather than what ought to be.’
And that’s it, precisely! Bernal, apologist for Stalin though he may have been, was not afraid to say that Socialism was the only way forward for the rational use of science and to see the organisation of science in the light of this idea.
It’s a pity the Roses have not been so honest.
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