George Soros reminded us that the business model is inappropriate for some organizations. Recent history shows that model isn’t even good for business!

Arthur Schlesinger stated that there are two forces that democracy has been unable to control: capitalism and technology. Businesses are free to unleash any new technology on the public for which they can create a market ignoring the impact on society and the planet.

Ned Ludd and his followers resisted the march of technology by destroying water-powered looms that threatened their cottage-based industries. They failed. The water-powered looms required more wool so the powerful took over the commons to raise sheep, displacing the people to become the paupers, pickpockets and prostitutes of Dickensian England. Some of these people were exported to penal colonies in Australia and elsewhere. Three of the emerging technologies can have equally revolutionary impacts: climate engineering, genetically modified organisms and nano-tech.

We need an Appropriate Technologies Board. The board would determine whether there is a need for the technology, whether less disruptive means of satisfying the need if possible and whether programs can be devised to minimize the impacts. The final decision on whether to commercialize the technology would be made in societies interest, not in the interest of those who would profit from promoting the technology.

This proposal is not a cure-all: Human foresight is limited and human agencies are corruptible. The board would be an attempt to change society from passively picking up the wreckage left by capitalism’s exploitation of technology to an active role in attempting to define our future.

John Gibson

Blooming Prairie