Technology determinism

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Technological determinism or technological determinism is a term used in general and industrial sociology to mean that

  • technology induces social, political and cultural adaptations and
  • technical developments result in social and cultural change.

Technological determinism in social theory

Karl Marx is often mistakenly attributed a technical determinism because he conceived the productive forces as the moving moment (movens) of social development. What is overlooked is that his concept of the productive forces cannot be reduced to the technical means of production , but is to be understood much more comprehensively.

In his theory of the cultural phase shift, the sociologist William F. Ogburn conceived inventions and technology (material culture ) as an independent variable that, as a pacemaker of social change , forces immaterial culture ( institutions , values and ideas ) to change at different speeds . He described the phase shift between material and immaterial culture as cultural lag .

Following Jacques Ellul's book on the “technological society”, Helmut Schelsky put forward the thesis that scientific and technical progress produces practical constraints, “which must be followed by a policy that obeys functional needs”.

The technology philosopher Günter Ropohl describes the progress of development inherent in technology as genetic determinism, the adaptation of cultural elements resulting from the progress of development as consequent determinism. This concept is similar to the theory of William F. Ogburn.

Technological determinism in industrial sociology

The thesis of technological determinism can also be found in industrial sociology and the scientific branch of `` industrial relations '' as a theoretical explanatory model for social change in the world of work and work organization . The thesis, mainly advocated in the 1950s and 1960s, was that technology and technical change prescribe their application conditions in the work process, as it were. A prominent proponent of this thesis is the American industrial sociologist Robert Blauner , who in his book “Alienation and Freedom” (1964) describes a phase model of production engineering development with the associated forms of work (manual work, alienated machine work and assembly line production, non-alienated work in automated industry ) has designed.

criticism

Technological determinism is considered a refuted and outdated thesis within the sociology of technology . Nevertheless, it still shapes the popular notion of technical development, as well as, following Marshall McLuhan , large parts of media theory . Whether McLuhan was a technology determinist is controversial. In industrial sociology, the determinism thesis gave way to the understanding that production technology structures the organization of work, but does not determine it. Work organization is understood as a socio-technical system that allows freedom of choice and design, so that different forms of work organization are possible with the same production technology.

bibliography

  • Robert Blauner: Alienation and Freedom. The Factory Worker and His Industry . Chicago 1964.
  • Ruth Schwarz Cowan: More Work for Mother:: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave . , ISBN 0465047327
  • Jacques Ellul : The Technological Society . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1964.
  • David F. Noble : Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation . New York, Oxford University Press 1984.
  • David F. Noble, Maschinenstürmer or The Complicated Relationships of People with Their Machine , Berlin: Interaction-Verl., 1986 - Critique of Technological Determinism
  • Merritt Roe Smith , and Leo Marx , eds .: Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism . MIT Press, Cambridge 1994.
  • Helmut Schelsky : The human being in scientific civilization . Cologne 1961.
  • John M. Staudenmaier, SJ: The Debate over Technological Determinism . In: Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric . The Society for the History of Technology and the MIT Press, Cambridge 1985, pp. 134-148.
  • Langdon Winner : Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought . MIT Press, Cambridge 1977.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marx-Engels-Terminslexikon, CH Beck, Munich 1984, p. 269ff.
  2. ^ Rainer Winter: William F. Ogburn: On Culture and Social Change. In: Dirk Kaesler , Ludgera Vogt (Hrsg.): Major works of sociology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 396). Kröner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-520-39601-7 , p. 326ff.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Habermas : Technology and science as 'ideology'. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 81.
  4. ↑ Walther Müller-Jentsch : Technology as a framework and design option for industrial relationships. In: Ders .: Work and Citizen Status. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 213ff.
  5. ↑ Cf. Nina Degele : Introduction to the sociology of technology. Munich 2002, p. 28ff.

See also