A Critique of Science In Capitalist Society

2011-06-13

I recently read an article by Richard Levins entitled A Left Critique of Organic Agriculture. Levins explains Cuba's approach to agricultural research and technology. Unable to afford most technological commodities for growing crops, such as designer seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery, Cuba has conducted substantial research in order to develop practical, cost effective, non-commodity agricultural technologies. For example, Cuba has experimented with various poly-cultures (growing different kinds of crops together), with using farm animals for weed control, and with using predatory insects such as ants for pest control. This research has been careful and scientific. It has considered ecosystems as a whole and both the long-term and short-term costs and benefits of technologies.

This research contrasts sharply with the commodity based agricultural technology and research in the United States. Agricultural science in the U.S. has been stuck in a very narrow mindset. We insist on over-controlling science such as mono-cultures with no genetic variety, tilled soil, chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and patented cultivars made to our exact specification. Ecological side effects such as soil depletion and increased susceptibility to diseases and pests are rarely considered. These technologies are often uneconomical, inefficient, and harmful to the environment. They also clearly produce low quality and bland food. Our logistical technologies are similarly problematic. These days most food is shipped thousands of miles, which introduces many new problem. To to compensate we've had to develop and employ new technologies such as food irradiation (which does not expose the consumer to radiation, but does significantly reduces the nutritional content of food).

After reading Levins' article, I started thinking about Levins' point in a broader sense. In the United States and other "developed" nations, very little research is done that isn't expected to lead to sellable technology. This is profoundly limiting. Since technology has become so fully commoditized, we've come to believe that technology is equivalent to commodity. We've come to believe that market capitalism produces the best technology and perhaps that market capitalism is the only viable approach to science and technology. We've missed out on the many technologies that can not be made into commodities. Non-commodity technologies, by there very nature, have outstanding benefit to cost ratios, since they are immaterial, and can be passed on from person to person or through word of mouth or media at little cost.

Commodity-based technologies tend to have several expensive and problematic characteristics. By definition, they cost money, and often, a lot of money. They are made lacking and "never good enough" so that they quickly break or become obsolete. They typically fit into the status quo by address symptoms rather than root causes of the problems they are applied to (thus ensuring that consumers will have to continue to spend money). Commodity-based technologies are developed and controlled by private corporations so we don't often get a chance to make them our own or modify them. And since commodities are things, rather than processes that we participate in and experience, we are less likely to think about whether they make sense or whether they are appropriate for what we use them for. Through our patent system, we have even attempted to prevent non-commodity technologies from being shared.

What would happen if the Department of Defense stopped invested in killing machines, and instead invested a tiny fraction of their current budget in understanding conflict, the root causes of conflict, and conflict prevention. Their findings could then be shared with the world for little cost and incorporated into political policy. Likewise, what if the Department of Energy stopped subsidizing "Green" commodities such as photovoltaics, hydrogen fuel cells, corn ethanol, and compact fluorescent lamps, all of which are not green at all. What if instead they conducted careful assessments about how Americans can be less wasteful and which harmful or wasteful corporate practices should be banned?