serendipityoucity

the problem of technological determinism - that is, the impact of machines on history - will remain germane until there is forged a degree of public control over technology far greater than anything that now exists (355)

Robert L. Heilbroner, Do Machines Make History,  Technology and Culture, V. 8. No 3, 1967, pp. 335-355

Too tired to go into lots of detail, overall, Heilbroner provides a compelling argument for technological determinism until one gets to the last line.  Then i realized that he was sending out warning signals regarding humans letting the machines - infrastructures - run their course undirected. Not that we are not part of the process, just that we are part of the structure and not reflexive leaders - we are caught in the momentum.

He explicitly asks - if it is possible for the effects of technology to determine the nature of  socioeconomic order? He also proposes that

a given technology imposes a certain social and political characteristics upon the society in which it is found. (340)

and that

the technology of a society imposes a determinate pattern of social relations on that society (340).

If i call organization a technique, and if i accept that certain types of organizations have certain forms (open, closed, etc.) related to what is being produced (product or service), and if i accept that some products, produced at certain scales require a certain structure (hierarchical, flat) for their production, then i can say that the technology related to that production affects technique - social  structure.  But also technique related to the use of a product does not necessarily determine the form of organization but may reduce analytical randomness and provide a set of possible options.  Social order changes with different types of technologies. However, to what

degree to which the technological infrastructure is responsible for some of the sociological features of society (341).

What is the independent social element that enters the picture?  Is there one element? Conjectural complexity? How much does the social structuration of a production process spill out of the factory or the infrastructure? Soft determinism? Local determinism? Comprehensive determinism? Heilbroner indicates, that it is quite possible that we cannot determine exactly, but we can for sure figure out the kind of labour, skills, knowledge, supervisory methods required for a particular sociological characteristic.

Circular - but getting warmer!