In the book, The Technological Society, Jacques Elull discusses the five elements which encouraged the development of the Industrial Revolution of the 18-19th Centuries in England. He suggests all these need to be present for a culture to make a leap forward into a new technological era.
Previous technological development
Population growth
Growing, stable but adaptive economy
Plasticity of the social milieu (disappearance of social taboos and the natural social groups)
Aim of a clear technical intention
I would also suggest these were present in the 1980s/1990s digital revolution in the West, culminating with the Internet.
So for a significant technological breakthrough to occur, there needs to be a suitable level of technical development. A culture simply doesn’t go from using horses to travelling around in airplanes with jet engines without the intermediary steps. Unless, of course, an outside foreign agent provides it.
Further technical development relies on all the necessary former technologies. It’s similar to the ‘tech tree’ in games like Civilisation. A player can’t discover space flight without previously developing the technologies of rocketry and flight.
The country needs a growing population. This not only increases the number of engineers and technically competent people and increases the chances of a geniuses being born, but also creates the environment for the new technology to be used and experimented with.
The economy plays a vital role in the development of a new technology. A growing economy creates excess finance to invest in experimental technologies. An adaptive economy can move money easily from one area to another. An over indebted country will struggle to free up economic resources to help develop a new technology.
Like in the 1700s, we see a degradation in the social taboos and similarly in the 1960-90s. In this latter time period, the taboos around homosexuality, single parenting, civil rights and recreational drug use all gradually liberalised.
The final one on the list is ‘intention’. We see this in the 1967 Moon landings. There was a strong drive to get into outer space and reach the moon. In the pre-Victorian period, it was the desire to spread the British Empire as a ‘moral good’. And in the 1990s, it was the drive to improve communications, and therefore improve innovation through the connectivity of the Internet.
I’m not fully convinced by Ellul’s arguments, and I believe there are other factors which contributed to the Industrial and Digital Revolutions. However, the list can act as a useful guide.
How does the Modern Western societies measure up and are we on the cusp of another technological revolution?
Majority of the nations in the World are seeing their fertility rates dropping, especially in Western cultures. It appears the main reason Anglo countries are growing is due to a high influx of immigrants. This might mean the second criteria is reached, but we need to be aware that these new arrivals may not all share the same cultural values and priorities as the indigenous people, which in some circumstances may create a fiscal drag on society.
Western economies are not growing as much as they were in the pre-Credit Crisis of 2007/8. This is likely due to the ever increasing debt load. Entrepreneurship is being stifled by Western economies, which instead privilege the wants and needs of corporations. Investment finance tends to be pushed into inefficient areas of development, sometimes to line the pockets of a few or relieve social guilt. This takes away funding from risky ventures with potentially new innovative technologies
We are seeing Moore’s Law (computer speed doubles every 2 years) is becoming accompanied by Eroom’s Law, where the cost of developing new drugs doubles every nine years. A phenomenon which has been noticed since the 1970/80s. I wonder if this law is now infiltrating other industries, as price of regulations are increasing the cost of bringing a new product to market.
The social taboos of the 1950s have now been reversed in the 2020s. What once was thought of as socially unthinkable in the past, is now common place or at least becoming more acceptable. And if someone expressed those ‘old time’ views online, then they’d either be shunned by the cultural elites or, in some countries, even arrested.
According to the list above, having a society with strict social taboos slows down technological development.
The final entry in the list says there needs to be an intentional aim. At the moment, I can’t think of a technological aim which inspires the West. Maybe Artificial Intelligence or Trans-Humanism, but these aren’t embraced by the common person, and the benefits tend to be solely part of the discussion amongst the elites.
This seems to suggest that Western cultures are not in a position to kick off another technological revolution. There are some corporations and people, like Elon Musk, who are driving to develop new technologies, but without the other areas, it is unlikely to result in a new technological era.
In Anglo-Futurism, we have the intentional focus on space travel and off-world colonisation. As we aren’t a nationalist or ethnic movement, we can grow based upon people aligning with the values of Anglo-Futurism.
It encourages returning manufacturing back to the West, away from our competitors in the East. Thereby, improving the financial health of local economies.
We encourage the growth of nuclear families within a high-trust, resilient local communities, which can build into an Anglo-Network.
And of course, we already have the required technological pre-requisites to build towards the intention of going ‘To The Stars’.
An interesting piece. I believe some degree of ethnic homogeneity would be essential in providing the trust levels necessary for Anglofuturism to be realised. This is not to say that people should be excluded on race grounds etc.