definition – Technology Liberation Front

Skeptical Takes on Expansive Industrial Policy Efforts

Adam Thierer — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 17:09:11 +0000

[Last updated 3/25/22]

Industrial Policy is a red-hot topic once again with many policymakers and pundits of different ideological leanings lining up to support ambitious new state planning for various sectors — especially 5G, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors. A remarkably bipartisan array of people and organizations are advocating for government to flex its muscle and begin directing more spending and decision-making in various technological areas. They all suggest some sort of big plan is needed, and it is not uncommon for these industrial policy advocates to suggest that hundreds of billions will need to be spent in pursuit of those plans.

Others disagree, however, and I’ll be using this post to catalog some of their concerns on an ongoing basis. Some of the criticisms listed here are portions of longer essays, many of which highlight other types of steps that governments can take to spur innovative activities. Industrial policy is an amorphous term with many definitions of a broad spectrum of possible proposals. Almost everyone believes in some form of industrial policy if you define the term broadly enough. But, as I argued in a September 2020 essay “On Defining ‘Industrial Policy‘,” I believe it is important to narrow the focus of the term such that we can continue to use the term in a rational way. Toward that end, I believe a proper understanding of industrial policy refers to targeted and directed efforts to plan for specific future industrial outputs and outcomes.

The collection of essays below is merely an attempt to highlight some of the general concerns about the most ambitious calls for expansive industrial policy, many of which harken back to debates I was covering in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I first started a career in policy analysis. During that time, Japan and South Korea were the primary countries of concern cited by industrial policy advocates. Today, it is China’s growing economic standing that is fueling calls for ambitious state-led targeted investments in “strategic” sectors and technologies. To a lesser extent, grandiose European industrial policy proposals are also prompting new US counter-proposals.

All this activity is what has given rise to many of the critiques listed below. If you have suggestions for other essays I might add to this list, please feel free to pass them along. FYI: There’s no particular order here.

Scott Lincicome and Huan Zhu, “Questioning Industrial Policy: Why Government Manufacturing Plans Are Ineffective and Unnecessary,” Cato Institute Working Paper, June 16, 2021.

[I]ndustrial policy – properly defined – has an extensive and underwhelming history in the United States, featuring high costs (seen and unseen), failed objectives, and political manipulation. Surely, not every U.S. industrial policy effort has ended in disaster, but facts here and abroad argue strongly against new government efforts to boost “critical” industries and workers and thereby fix alleged market failures. Such efforts warrant intense skepticism – skepticism that today is unfortunately in short supply.

Adam Thierer, “Industrial Policy as Casino Economics,” The Hill, July 12, 2021.

While some government investments will always be necessary, policymakers engaging in casino economics means bad industrial policy bets and taxpayer money squandered on risky ventures best made by private actors. We need to keep Uncle Sam’s gambling habits in check.

Adam Thierer, “Thoughts on the America COMPETES Act: The Most Corporatist & Wasteful Industrial Policy Ever,” Technology Liberation Front, January 26, 2022.

As far as industrial policy measures go, the COMPETES Act is one of the most ambitious and expensive central planning efforts in American history. It represents the triumph of top-down, corporatist, techno-mercantilist thinking over a more sensible innovation policy rooted in bottom-up competition, entrepreneurialism, private investment, and free trade.

Adam Thierer & Connor Haaland, “Does the US Need a More Targeted Industrial Policy for AI & High-Tech?” Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Special Study, November 2021.

This paper considers how both the recent history of high-tech industrial policy efforts at the national and international level—as well as some state and local economic development efforts in the United States—might better inform the wisdom of proposed efforts for AI or other high-tech sectors. That history is spotted with some limited successes alongside a long string of costly failures. We explore the reasons for those failures and recommend that the US refocus on the policy prerequisites that helped give rise to the computing and internet revolutions: a more generalized approach to economic development rooted in light-touch regulation and taxation of emerging technology.

Samuel Gregg, “Can America Build A Broad-Based Economy?” Law & Liberty, March 1, 2022

Of course, if a government decides to put enough money and resources behind a given industrial policy, it will likely produce some results. Yet the same is true of the gambler. If she stays in the casino long enough and spends enough money, she will win a few hands of cards. But the odds are that she will also lose a great deal of money, especially if she is as inept a gambler as the government is maladroit at identifying industry trends or entrepreneurial opportunities. Moreover, just as a compulsive gambler’s behavior will have numerous negative effects on her family’s well-being, so too does industrial policy risk inflicting wider damage upon a nation’s economy and political system. The harms range from gross misallocations of resources to the rampant cronyism and rent-seeking that seems inseparable from industrial policy (which, I again note, its advocates studiously avoid discussing), to name just a few.

Phil Gramm & Mike Solon, “Peace Through Strength Requires Economic Freedom,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2022.

The America Competes Act is the House’s effort to outdo the Chinese Communist Party’s latest five-year plan. The 2,900-page bill would make an old Soviet commissar blush. [. . . ] America’s success in the world economy has never depended on industrial policy or government subsidies. It has come from the relative absence of government planning and subsidies. This is hardly news. The U.S. government provided support for the efforts of Samuel Langley, the greatest aviation expert of the 1890s, in his effort to make America first in powered flight. His manned Aerodrome flopped into the Potomac River. It was the Wright brothers, two unsubsidized but determined bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, who flew at Kitty Hawk, N.C., and changed the world.

Scott Lincicome, “Moving Fast and Breaking Things,” Capitolism, February 2, 2022.

Adam Thierer, “The Coming Industrial Policy Hangover,” The Hill, February 16, 2022.

In the rush to pass legislation, we’ve barely heard a peep about the $250-$350 billion price tag. This follows a massive splurge of recent government borrowing, which led to the U.S. national debt hitting another lamentable new record: $30 trillion. China already owns over $1 trillion of that debt, making one wonder if we’re really countering China by adopting a massive, new and unfunded industrial policy that they will end up financing indirectly.

Podcast: “What’s Wrong with Industrial Policy,” Hold These Truths with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, February 16, 2022.

Tad DeHaven and Adam Thierer, “ The Military-Industrial Complex Offers a Cautionary Tale for Industrial Policy Planning,” Discourse, March 25, 2022.

Wayne Crews, “What To Do Instead Of The America COMPETES Act,” Forbes, February 2, 2022.

All this spending and expansion of the federal government, atop which our leaders would lay the America COMPETES Act and doubtless its own accompanying guidebook, has massive, ignored regulatory effects. Trillions in government spending (”investment”) have altered and will alter the entire trajectory and competitive environment of industries engaged in large-scale enterprises and transactions. This removes vast swaths of business activity from free competitive enterprise altogether, and creates displacements and distortions such that the restoration of free enterprise becomes a near-impossible disentanglement. The result is, after 100 years of big government and seduction of and fusion with big business, the greatest endeavors—from infrastructure to artificial intelligence, from smart cities to space—now consist of “partnerships” with governments rather than free enterprise, at scales and at costs so gigantic they can only be ignored.

Adam Thierer, “‘Japan Inc.’ and Other Tales of Industrial Policy Apocalypse,” Discourse, June 28, 2021.

Perhaps the most ironic indictment of industrial policy punditry lies in the way all the earlier books and essays about Japanese planning not only failed to forecast the many flops associated with it, but also did not foresee China as a potential future economic juggernaut. [. . .] What might that tell us about the ability of experts to predict the future course of countries and economies?

Adam Thierer, “Can Government Reproduce Silicon Valley Everywhere?” Technology Liberation Front, September 12, 2021.

government efforts to artificially try to create regional innovation hubs in a top-down, technocratic fashion will almost certainly persist. As they do, some will argue that this time will be different! Perhaps, but it is more likely that the past is prologue; these new hubs will likely cause federal politicians to jockey for position to have their regions named one of the winners and get a big cut of all the new high-tech pork being served up by Washington.

Weifeng Zhong, “Beijing Can’t Make Sense of Biden’s China Strategy. Can Biden?” Washington Examiner, July 01, 2021.

America is not China, and it would be a fatal mistake to equate competing with China with imitating what China does. Doing so would risk the advantageous U.S. position as the world’s chief innovator, whose ideas are turned into products by vibrant private sectors both domestically and internationally.

Mike Watson, “Industrial Policy in the Real World,” National Affairs, Summer 2021.

Given the nature of industrial policymaking in the United States, there’s little reason to believe future attempts at industrial planning will result in a more coherent, rational, or strategic allocation of resources than they have in the past. [. . .] In short, industrial policy in the United States cannot be steered by a small group of enlightened individuals, because a small group of enlightened individuals will never be at the helm. Indeed, in some sense, there is no single “helm” to speak of.

Samuel Gregg, “Industrial Policy Mythology Confronts Economic Reality,” Law & Liberty, September 3, 2021.

If prizes in policy debates were given out for persistence, those advocating for more widespread use of industrial policy in America would be first in line. No matter how many times it is pointed out that they don’t understand the nature and workings of comparative advantage; or avoid acknowledging how industrial policy fosters rampant cronyism and corruption; or highlight what they consider examples of countries in which industrial policy has been employed successfully (only to have it demonstrated that it didn’t quite work out the way they suggested), they don’t give up.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown, “If This Is How America COMPETES, We’re Going to Lose,” Reason, January 26, 2022.

the bill can’t simply address one main issue or a few critical needs. Instead, it tries to insert the government into every aspect of all sorts of industries and markets and pretend that bureaucrats can solve complex social and cultural issues.

Chang-Tai Hsieh, “Countering Chinese Industrial Policy Is Counterproductive,” Project Syndicate, September 15, 2021.

US political leaders have long tried to counter Chinese industrial policy. And now they seem to have decided that the best way to do that is to emulate it. But their agenda betrays a profound lack of understanding of the unique challenge posed by China’s coupling of an authoritarian political regime with a dynamic market economy.

Adam Thierer, “Industrial Policy Advocates Should Learn from Don Lavoie,” Discourse, November 5, 2021.

“In light of the inherent deficiencies of central planning,” Lavoie said, “it might be argued that the U.S. should instead try to reduce current government interference with the competitive process to the absolute minimum consistent with other political goals.” It remains wise advice for today’s policymakers.

Anne O. Krueger, “America’s Muddled Industrial Policy,” CGTN, June 25, 2021.

Governments have a poor track record of identifying “winners” – be it a company or a category of technology – whereas private companies have proved better at transforming new discoveries into new products or cost savings. That is why the U.S. state traditionally has stuck to funding basic research.

Eric Boehm, “Massive Subsidies Won’t Solve the Semiconductor Supply Chain Crisis,” Reason, January 28, 2022.

Tracy C. Miller, “The Case for Limiting Government Semiconductor Subsidies,” The Hill, June 26, 2021.

Without the subsidies, firms would be more cautious about building or expanding foundries. If long-term production capacity is truly insufficient, high prices and anticipated profits give firms the right incentives to build or expand and satisfy demand at cost-covering prices.

Scott Lincicome, “The ‘Endless Frontier’ and American Industrial Policy,” Cato Institute Blog, May 26, 2021.

U.S. industrial policy has a long history of struggling to overcome political pressures, just as public choice predicts, and the EFA is no different. None of this means that all legislating is bad, or that politicians don’t at least occasionally vote in the national interest. Instead, the public choice framework simply adds another hurdle—along with things like the “knowledge problem,” seen and unseen costs, and misaligned incentives—to designing and implementing commercial policies specifically intended to beat the admittedly messy and imperfect situation that the market generates. It’s imperative that we understand these risks before supporting policies that, while they might look good on paper, could easily morph into a counterproductive boondoggle—one we’ve seen countless times with respect to U.S. industrial policy.

Daniel W. Drezner, “Is the United States capable of industrial policy in 2021?” Washington Post, June 14, 2021.

To believe that the United States can pursue a high-caliber industrial policy, however, requires assuming a more competent state than I have seen in the past decade.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “The Nicest Thing I Can Write About Supply Chain Policy,” The Daily Dish, June 10, 2021.

Nevertheless, the Senate just passed a provision for $50 billion to subsidize chip fabrication – something the president had requested – and the House will doubtlessly concur. That might seem like an industry victory, but wait until it realizes that the administration will assume it gives it the right to insist on union jobs, micromanage the design of chips, and dictate the pricing and distribution of the products. Good luck with that. As the definitive volume on policy analysis (Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack) put it, “He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.”

Lipton Matthews, “Industrial Policy—a.k.a. Central Planning—Won’t Make America Great,” Mises Wire, November 5, 2021.

Although industrial policy is in vogue, the evidence suggests that it is not necessary for long-term development. Moreover, despite the popularity of industrial policy in China, America remains the world’s economic power, and by following China, it may lose this vaunted position.

Richard Beason, “Japanese Industrial Policy: An Economic Assessment,” National Foundation for American Policy, November 2021.

There is no evidence to support the claim that Japanese industrial policy during the 1955-1990 period enhanced growth rates by sector, industries with economies of scale (greater efficiency when produced in increased amounts), productivity growth or “competitiveness.” The reality of the political process and government spending priorities makes it very difficult for such policies to be effective. Furthermore, even if political pressures had not intervened, it seems questionable to suggest that government policymakers would be better than actual market participants in determining the most efficient allocation of resources to produce the best economic outcomes.

Douglas Irwin, “ Memo to the Biden administration on how to rethink industrial policy,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, October 2020.

The challenge for policymakers is to identify such industries without succumbing to the notion that every industry is vital to some public objective. For example, the goal of “economic security” is so broadly defined and open-ended that virtually every domestic producer could claim the need for government support on that basis. The risk is that ill-conceived government programs will encourage corrupt behavior in which industries benefit themselves without contributing to national welfare.

Jim Pethokoukis, “Will Biden’s embrace of industrial policy pay off?” AEI Blog, January 15, 2021.

The history of such efforts in advanced capitalist economies gives ample reason for skepticism about the effectiveness of such top-down government planning, from Japanese economic stagnation to the now-mothballed Concorde supersonic jet to France’s failed attempt to create a thriving tech sector. The Internet might seem like the exception that negates the rule, but what turned out to be a successful partnership of government and entrepreneurs didn’t arise out of some master plan from Washington. And what do even the smartest plans look like when filtered through the dodgy quality of American governance? Maybe as an excuse for cronyism and protectionism.

Adam Thierer & Connor Haaland, “Should the U.S. Copy China’s Industrial Policy?” Discourse, March 11, 2021.

America needs to embrace its already vibrant venture capital market, the benefits of basic science and prize competitions, and a light-touch regulatory approach instead of gambling taxpayer dollars on grandiose industrial policy schemes that would likely become boondoggles.

Connor Haaland & Adam Thierer, “Can European-Style Industrial Policies Create Tech Supremacy?” Discourse, February 11, 2021.

Thus far, however, the Europeans don’t have much to show for their attempts to produce home-grown tech champions. Despite highly targeted and expensive efforts to foster a domestic tech base, the EU has instead generated a string of industrial policy failures that should serve as a cautionary tale for U.S. pundits and policymakers, who seem increasingly open to more government-steered innovation efforts.

Phil Levy & Christine McDaniel, “ Does the U.S. Need a Vigorous Industrial Policy?” Discourse, February 16, 2021.

we are certainly hearing new enthusiasm these days about industrial policy. It seems to have proponents or converts on both sides of the aisle. This either means that a new consensus has emerged, or it means that the term is being used so loosely that it has lost its original meaning. I’ll go with the latter; it now means different things to different people.

Wall Street Journal columnist Greg Ip discussing why “ The traditional skepticism toward industrial policy is well deserved.”

The traditional skepticism toward industrial policy is well deserved. Once Washington starts writing checks for semiconductors, other industries may get in line with the outcome determined more by political clout than economic merit. As in shipbuilding, the targeted companies may end up in perpetual need of federal protection and unable to compete internationally

David Ignatius, “The U.S. is quietly mobilizing its economy against China,” Washington Post, March 4, 2021.

The industrial policy the AI commission recommends could unlock talent and innovation. But if officials aren’t careful, government intervention could also afflict our best companies with the dead weight and dysfunction of our broken political system. We need government to spawn brainpower, not bureaucracy.

Veronique de Rugy, “Support for Industrial Policy is Growing,” AIER, January 18, 2020.

Looking at the federal government today tells me that the problems surrounding R&D programs in the past continue today, and will continue tomorrow, because they are simply a consequence of the normal functioning of government. It is hard to wish these problems away, even in the face of the private sector’s “imperfections.” Those arguing for more funding in R&D should proceed with caution.

Ben Reinhardt on concerns about The Endless Frontier Act

This bill is proposing to give money with risk-averse restrictions to a risk-averse organization (the NSF) to be dispersed among other risk-averse organizations (Universities) into a system with increasingly risk-averse incentives. Note that I’m not saying “it’s all fubar’d lets burn it to the ground!” but I am suggesting that instead of slamming on the accelerator, we should be asking “what would a tune-up and an oil change look like instead?”

Ryan Bourne, “Do Oren Cass’s Justifications for Industrial Policy Stack Up?” Cato Commentary, August 15, 2019.

Oren Cass asserts that markets cannot generally allocate resources efficiently by industry. Yet he provides no meaningful metrics to show this is the case, nor shows why his policies would deliver better outcomes. His two main claims about the benefits of a manufacturing sector — “stable employment” and “strong productivity growth” — are directly contradictory. A plethora of evidence suggests as countries’ get richer due to automation and technological improvements, they demand relatively more services, and so the industrial sector declines in employment terms.

Scott Lincicome, “ Manufactured Crisis: ‘Deindustrialization, Free Markets, and National Security,” Cato Policy Analysis No. 907, January 27, 2021.

This skepticism—mostly absent from Washington—is indeed warranted: analyses of the U.S. manufacturing sector and the relationship between trade and national security, as well as the United States’ long and checkered history of security‐related protectionism, undermine the theoretical justifications for imposing protectionism and industrial policy in the name of national defense. Instead, open trade, freer markets, and global interdependence will in almost all cases produce better outcomes in terms of national security and, most importantly, preventing wars and other forms of armed conflict.

Matthew Lau, “Trudeau government’s ‘industrial policy’ creates all the wrong incentives,” Toronto Sun, March 16, 2021.

Defining “Technology”

Adam Thierer — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:53:07 +0000

[Last updated July 2021.]

I spend a lot of time reading books and essays about technology; more specifically, books and essays about technology history and criticism. Yet, I am often struck by how few of the authors of these works even bother defining what they mean by “technology.” I find that frustrating because, if you are going to make an attempt to either study or critique a particular technology or technological practice or development, then you probably should take the time to tell us how broadly or narrowly you are defining the term “technology” or “technological process.”

Of course, it’s not easy. “In fact, technology is a word we use all of the time, and ordinarily it seems to work well enough as a shorthand, catch-all sort of word,” notes the always-insightful Michael Sacasas in his essay “Traditions of Technological Criticism.” “That same sometimes useful quality, however, makes it inadequate and counter-productive in situations that call for more precise terminology,” he says.

Quite right, and for a more detailed and critical discussion of how earlier scholars, historians, and intellectuals have defined or thought about the term “technology,” you’ll want to check out Michael’s other recent essay, “What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Technology?” which preceded the one cited above. We don’t always agree on things — in fact, I am quite certain that most of my comparatively amateurish work must make his blood boil at times! — but you won’t find a more thoughtful technology scholar alive today than Michael Sacasas. If you’re serious about studying technology history and criticism, you should follow his blog and check out his book, The Tourist and The Pilgrim: Essays on Life and Technology in the Digital Age, which is a collection of some of his finest essays.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, I figured I would create this post to list some of the more interesting definitions of “technology” that I have uncovered in my own research. I suspect I will add to it in coming months and years, so please feel free to suggest other additions since I would like this to be a useful resource to others.

I figure the easiest thing to do is to just list the definitions by author. There’s no particular order here, although that might change in the future since I could arrange this chronologically and push the inquiry all the way back to how the Greeks thought about the term (the root term “techne,” that is). But for now this collection is a bit random and incorporates mostly modern conceptions of “technology” since the term didn’t really gain traction until relatively recent times.

Also, I’ve not bothered critiquing any particular definition or conception of the term, although that may change in the future, too. (I did, however, go after a few modern tech critics briefly in my recent booklet, “Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom.” So, you might want to check that out for more on how I feel, as well as my old essays, “What Does It Mean to ‘Have a Conversation’ about a New Technology?” and, “On the Line between Technology Ethics vs. Technology Policy.”)

So, I’ll begin with two straight-forward definitions from the Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries and then bring in the definitions from various historians and critics.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Technology (noun):

1) (a): the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area; (b): a capability given by the practical application of knowledge

2) a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge.

3) the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor.

Oxford Dictionary

Technology (noun):

1) The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.

2) Machinery and devices developed from scientific knowledge.

3) The branch of knowledge dealing with engineering or applied sciences.

Emmanuel Mesthene

My personal favorite definition of the term comes from Emmanuel G. Mesthene’s terrific little 1970 book, Technological Change: Its Impact on Man and Society:

“we define technology as the organization of knowledge for the achievement of practical purposes.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

A very similar definition to Mesthene’s was employed by Galbraith in his 1967 book The New Industrial State:

“Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks.”

Thomas P. Hughes

I have always loved the opening passage from Thomas Hughes’s 2004 book, Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture:

“Technology is messy and complex. It is difficult to define and to understand. In its variety, it is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occasional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences.” (p. 1) “Defining technology in its complexity,” he continued, “is as difficult as grasping the essence of politics.” (p. 2)

So true! Nonetheless, Hughes went on to offer his own definition of technology as:

“a creativity process involving human ingenuity.” (p. 3)

Interestingly, in another book, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970, he offered a somewhat different definition:

“Technology is the effort to organize the world for problem solving so that goods and services can be invented, developed, produced, and used.” (p. 6, 2004 ed., emphasis in original.)

W. Brian Arthur

In his 2009 book, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, W. Brian Arthur sketched out three conceptions of technology.

1) “The first and most basic one is a technology is a means to fulfill a human purpose. … As a means, a technology may be a method or process or device… Or it may be complicated… Or it may be material… Or it may be nonmaterial. Whichever it is, it is always a means to carry out a human purpose.” 2) “The second definition is a plural one: technology as an assemblage of practices and components.” 3) “I will also allow a third meaning. This technology as the entire collection of devices and engineering practices available to a culture.” (p. 28, emphasis in original.)

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation / Richard Rhodes

In his 1999 book, Visions of Technology: A Century Of Vital Debate About Machines Systems And The Human World, Pulitizer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes assembled a wonderful collection of essays about technology that spanned the entire 20^th century. It’s a terrific volume to have on your bookshelf if want a quick overview of how over a hundred leading scholars, critics, historians, scientists, and authors thought about technology and technological advances.

The collection kicked off with a brief preface from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (no specific Foundation author was listed) that included one of the most succinct definitions of the term you’ll ever read:

“Technology is the application of science, engineering and industrial organization to create a human-build world.” (p. 19)

Just a few pages later, however, Rhodes notes that is probably too simplistic:

“Ask a friend today to define technology and you might hear words like ‘machines,’ ‘engineering,’ ‘science.’ Most of us aren’t even sure where science leaves off and technology begins. Neither are the experts.”

Again, so true!

Joel Mokyr

Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress(1990) by Joel Mokyr is one of the most readable and enjoyable histories of technology you’ll ever come across. I highly recommend it. [My thanks to my friend William Rinehart for bringing the book to my attention.] In Lever of Riches, Mokyr defines “technological progress” as follows:

“By technological progress I mean any change in the application of information to the production process in such a way as to increase efficiency, resulting either in the production of a given output with fewer resources (i.e., lower costs), or the production of better or new products.” (p. 6)

Edwin Mansfield

You’ll find definitions of both “technology” and “technological change” in Edwin Mansfield’s Technological Change: An Introduction to a Vital Area of Modern Economics (1968, 1971):

“Technology is society’s pool of knowledge regarding the industrial arts. It consists of knowledge used by industry regarding the principles of physical and social phenomena… knowledge regarding the application of these principles to production… and knowledge regarding the day-to-day operations of production…” “Technological change is the advance of technology, such advance often taking the form of new methods of producing existing products, new designs which enable the production of products with important new characteristics, and new techniques of organization, marketing, and management.” (p. 9-10)

Read Bain

In his December 1937 essay in Vol. 2, Issue No. 6 of the American Sociological Review, “Technology and State Government,” Read Bain said:

“technology includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which we produce and use them.” (p. 860)

[My thanks to Jasmine McNealy for bringing this one to my attention.]

David M. Kaplan

Found this one thanks to Sacasas. It’s from David M. Kaplan, Ricoeur’s Critical Theory (2003), which I have not yet had the chance to read:

“Technologies are best seen as systems that combine technique and activities with implements and artifacts, within a social context of organization in which the technologies are developed, employed, and administered. They alter patterns of human activity and institutions by making worlds that shape our culture and our environment. If technology consists of not only tools, implements, and artifacts, but also whole networks of social relations that structure, limit, and enable social life, then we can say that a circle exists between humanity and technology, each shaping and affecting the other. Technologies are fashioned to reflect and extend human interests, activities, and social arrangements, which are, in turn, conditioned, structured, and transformed by technological systems.”

I liked Michael’s comment on this beefy definition: “This definitional bloat is a symptom of the technological complexity of modern societies. It is also a consequence of our growing awareness of the significance of what we make.”

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul, a French theologian and sociologist, penned a massive, 440-plus page work of technological criticism in 1954, La Technique ou L’enjeu du Siècle (1954), which was later translated in English as, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1964). In setting forth his critique of modern technological society, he used the term “technique” repeatedly and contrasted with “technology.” He defined technique as follows:

“The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given state of development) in every field of human activity. […] Technique is not an isolated fact in society (as the term technology would lead us to believe) but is related to every factor in the life of modern man; it affects social facts as well as all others. Thus technique itself is a sociological phenomenon…” (p. xxvi, emphasis in original.)

Bernard Stiegler

In La technique et le temps, 1: La faute d’Épiméthée, or translated, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (1998), French philosopher Bernard Stiegler defines technology as:

“the pursuit of life by means other than life”

[I found that one here.]

Peter Thiel

In Zero to One: Notes on How to Build the Future (2014), Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel says,

“Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.”

Marc Andressen

Marc Andreessen is interviewed in June 2020 by Sriram Krishan in his newsletter, The Observer Effect, and asked what motivates him to support technological innovation. He closes by defining technology as follows:

“Technology is quite literally the lever for being able to take natural resources and able to make something better out of them.”

Frederick Ferré

Frederick Ferré’s Philosophy Of Technology (1988) is a wonderful introduction to the study of this subject and has become a widely assigned textbook used in many college courses. In Chapter 2, “Defining Technology,” Ferré provided a remarkably concise definition of “technologies” as:

“practical implementations of intelligence” (with the caveat that “‘Practical’ requires that they not be wholly ends in themselves; ‘implementations’ entails that a technology be somehow concretely embodied, normally in implements or artifacts, sometimes simply in social organization…”)

Importantly, Ferré arrived at this definition by carefully detailing what should and should not be considered “technological.” In an attempt to avoid excessive breadth when defining the term, Ferré made four important stipulations:

Technology is implemented, not ’empty-handed’: “[I]t would be wise to resist a definition of technology that includes empty hands as technological implements. The totally naked human body, interacting face-to-face with the environment, unmediated by any artifact, contrivance, invention, or tool, would seem to stand as a paradigm case of the non-technological.”
Technology is practical, not ‘for its own sake’: Where “the notion of the ‘practical’. . . [means] supporting such ends as survival, health, comfort, and material well-being.”
Technology is embodied, non ‘in the head’ alone: “[I]t would be wise to guard against the absorption of all methods and techniques, including wholly mental ones, into the concept of technology.” He uses the examples of natural language and mathematics.
Technology is intelligent, not ‘blind’: “[T]he concept of technology will not usefully be extended to behavior that, among humans, is merely accidental or, among other species, is entirely instinctive. . . . Put positively, it suggests our definition will need to stipulate that technology involves (i) implements used as (ii) means to practical ends that are somehow (iii) manifested in the material world as (iv) expressions of intelligence.”

John Fernald

Compared to philosophers, historians, and social critics, economists tend to define technology in a somewhat more dry fashion. (No surprise there, right?!) That being said, it is surprising how few economists bother defining the term in their articles and textbooks. But here’s a concise definition of the term that I recently heard John Fernald, an economist and Senior Research Adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, articulate at a policy conference. In an October 2014 presentation entitled, “Technology and the American Economy: Or, What’s the New Normal?,” Fernald defined technology as the:

“Ability to convert society’s resources (labor and capital) into output (goods and services that we value).”

Ian Barbour

In Chapter 1 of his 1993 book, Ethics in an Age of Technology, Ian Barbour discussed three conflicting views of technology: “Technology as Liberator,” “Technology as Threat,” and “Technology as Instrument of Power.” Before discussing each, he defined technology as follows:

“Technology may be defined as the application of organized knowledge to practical tasks by ordered systems of people and machines.” (p. 3)

He continued on to note that:

“There are several advantages to such a broad definition. ‘Organized knowledge’ allows us to include technologies based on practical experience and invention as well as those based on scientific theories. The ‘practical tasks’ can include both the production of material goods (in industry and agriculture, for instance) and the provision of services (by computers, communications media, and biotechnologies, among others). Reference to ‘ordered systems of people and machines’ directs attention to social institutions as well as to the hardware of technology. The breadth of the definition also reminds us that there are major differences among technologies.” (p. 3-4)

Robert Friedel

In his 2007 book, A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium, University of Maryland historian Robert Friedel offers a formal definition of technology to kick off the book and then ends with a less formal one:

“By technology we typically mean the knowledge and instruments that humans use to accomplish the purposes of life.” (p. 1)

He also clarifies the definition by explaining what it does not include, namely: “processes that completely mental or biological;” “knowledge of the world … that is purely in the realm of ideas and description;” and “nature.” He then closes the book by noting that:

“Technology can, indeed, be defined as a pursuit of power over nature.” (p. 543).

Again, please feel free to suggest additions to this compendium that future students and scholars might find useful. I hope that this can become a resource to them.

Additional Reading:

Frederick Ferré – Philosophy Of Technology (1988)
Carl Mitcham, “From Philosophy to Technology, ” Ch. 6 in Thinking Through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 137-160.
Eric Schatzberg – “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology,” Technology and Culture (2006)

Entry for Antitrust Policy Blog Symposium on “Competition in Online Search”

Adam Thierer — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:54:29 +0000

It’s my great pleasure this week to be participating in a 2-day symposium on “Competition in Online Search” that is being hosted by the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog. Daniel Sokol, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, was kind enough to invite me to join the fun. Professor Sokol is the editor of the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog. Others participating in this symposium include: James Grimmelman (NY Law); Eugene Volokh (UCLA); Marvin Ammori (Stanford Law); Mark Jamison (Univ. of Florida); Eric Clemons (Wharton School); Dan Crane (Michigan Law); and both Marina Lao and Frank Pasquale (Seton Hall); and more.

My entry is now live. In it, I focus on how dynamically competitive and innovative the digital economy has been over the past 15 years and question to need for intervention at this time, especially of the “public utility” variety. I’ve re-posted my entry below, but make sure to head over to the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog to read all the contributions to this excellent symposium.

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If you blink your eyes in the Information Age you can miss revolutions. Let’s take a quick walk back through our turbulent recent history:

Just five years ago, MySpace dominated social networking and had The Guardian wondering, “Will MySpace Ever Lose Its Monopoly?” A short time later, MySpace lost its early lead and became a major liability for owner Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch paid $580 million for MySpace in 2005 only to sell it for $35 million in June 2011.
Just six to eight years ago, the mobile landscape was ruled by Palm, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Motorola. Palm is now all but dead and BlackBerry is trying to stay afloat while Nokia and Motorola had to cut deals with Microsoft and Google respectively in order to survive.
Just 10 years ago, AOL’s hegemony in online services was thought to be unassailable, especially after its merger with Time Warner. But the merger quickly went off the rails and AOL’s online “dominance” quickly evaporated. Losses grew to over $100 billion and the entire deal unraveled within just a few years as AOL’s old dial-up, walled-garden business model had been completely superseded by broadband and the new Web 2.0 world.
Just 12 years ago, Yahoo! and AltaVista were the go-to companies for online search. No one turns to them first today when they go looking for information online.
And just 15 years ago, Microsoft was on everyone’s mind. Today, the firm is struggling to remain part of cocktail party chatter when the topic of modern Tech Titans is discussed. For example, a recent Fast Company cover story on “The Great Tech War of 2012” only mentioned Microsoft in passing. The rise of search, social media, and cloud computing represented disruptive shifts that Microsoft wasn’t prepared for.

The graveyard of tech titans is littered with the names of many other once-mighty giants. Schumpeter’s “gales of creative destruction” have rarely blown harder through any sector of our modern economy. And so now we come to the question of Google’s dominance in the field of search. Should we be worried? Some say yes, and the rhetoric of public utilities and essential facilities is increasingly creeping into policy discussions about the Internet, including the search layer. A growing cabal of cyberlaw experts—Tim Wu, Dawn Nunziato, Frank Pasquale, among many others—argue that some sort of regulation is needed.

But the recent history I recounted above makes it clear that patience and humility are the more sensible policy prescriptions. Calls for regulation or public utility classification are particularly premature and problematic. As I argued in my recent white paper, “The Perils of Classifying Social Media Platforms as Public Utilities,” search and social media platforms do not resemble traditional public utilities and there are good reasons why policymakers should avoid a rush to regulate them as such.

First, there has not been any serious showing of monopoly power in the search or social media sectors in which Google operates. It’s also impossible to find any way in which consumer welfare is currently being harmed by Google. All their products are free and constantly evolving. New technologies and rivals continue to emerge. DuckDuckGo, for example, differentiates itself in search by stressing privacy above all else. Meanwhile, the contours of these markets are constantly evolving in a dynamic way, making market definition challenging. Is Facebook a search company? Signs are good that it soon could soon become a formidable one.

These market-definition considerations are especially important because of how long it takes to formulate regulations or impose antitrust remedies. In a market that changes this rapidly, taking several months or even years to complete rulemakings or litigate remedies will almost certainly mean that most rules will be completely out of date by the time they are implemented. And once implemented, there will be very little incentive to rework them as rapidly as the market contours change. Regulation could retard innovation in search and social media markets by denying firms the ability to evolve or innovate across pre-established, artificial market boundaries. Second, treating these digital services as regulated utilities would harm consumer welfare because public utility regulation has traditionally been the archenemy of innovation and competition. Public utility regulation has a long, lamentable history that has been well-documented by economists and political scientists. That’s why it is usually considered the last resort, not the first option. Moreover, the traditional goals of public utility regulation — universal service, price competition, and quality service — are already being achieved without intervention. And as Marvin Ammori and Luke Pelican outline in a new study, all the proposed antitrust remedies to deal with Google in particular also have serious downsides. Almost all the cures would be worse than whatever disease it is critics hope to solve with antitrust intervention.

Third, treating today’s leading search and social media providers as digital essential facilities threatens to convert “natural monopoly” or “essential facility” claims into self-fulfilling prophecies. The very act of imposing utility obligations on a particular platform or company tends to lock it in as the preferred or only choice in its sector. Public utility regulation also shelters a utility from competition once it is enshrined as such. Also, by forcing standardization or a common platform, regulation can erect de jure or de facto barriers to entry that restrict beneficial innovation and the disruption of market leaders.

Fourth, because social media are fundamentally tied up with the production and dissemination of speech and expression, First Amendment values are at stake, warranting heightened constitutional scrutiny of proposals for regulation. As Eugene Volokh noted in a recent white paper, social media providers should possess the editorial discretion to determine how their platforms are configured and what can appear on them.

Will Google meet the same fate as earlier Tech Titans? It’s impossible to know. But with the wrecking ball of creative digital destruction doing such a fine job of keeping competition and innovation thriving, we’d be smart to reject heavy-handed, top-down regulation of such a dynamic segment of our economy at this time.

Net Neutrality Regulation => Online Product/Service Definitions => Online Taxation

Berin Szoka — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:23:41 +0000

Adam Thierer and I have warned that neutrality regulation, once imposed on broadband providers, will extend to other Internet services wherever “gatekeepers” are alleged to control access to a platform used by others. In short, the slippery slope of creeping common carriage is real and we’re already heading down it, with cyber-collectivist “luminaries” like Jonathan Zittrain and Frank Pasquale demanding neutrality regulation for devices, application platforms like iTunes and Facebook, and search!

TLF Reader Jim Reardon made a particularly astute observation on my post asking whether Americans really want net neutrality regulation:

Regulation of any service, product or industry is preceded by definition. Once defined, it is subject to taxation. [Net Neutrality regulation] is a prelude to taxation of Internet products and services. It will likely start with telephony services and proceed accordingly to financial services, and continue from there. As such, the activity is essentially neutral insofar as technology innovation is concerned — so long as applicable taxes are paid the government will ensure that the service is not disfavored by the network operators.

Absolutely right! One of the greatest barriers to government regulation and taxation of the Internet today is the lack of clear definitions: The FCC rules will tell you precisely what “cable television” or “commercial radio” mean, but the concepts of “social networking,” “Internet video,” “blogging,” and even “search” are indeterminate and constantly evolving.

Ronald Reagan once quipped:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Fortunately, government’s ability to implement this view depends—to paraphrase President Clinton—”on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ ‘it’ is”: Allowing “it” to remain beautifully amorphous may be the best way to keep government at bay.

What “Internet” Means to the Feds

Berin Szoka — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:40:34 +0000

Ever wonder about this? In researching COPPA, I noticed the following definition of “Internet”

collectively the myriad of computer and telecommunications facilities, including equipment and operating software, which comprise the interconnected world-wide network of networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol, to communicate information of all kinds by wire, radio, or other methods of transmission.

16 CFR § 312.2 (added in 1999). This definition comes from the COPPA law itself.

My quick and by no means exhaustive research (looked for the term “Internet means” in the CFR and U.S. Code) suggests that this is one of two definitions used, with slight variations, in Federal law (in less than a dozen places total).

The earliest reference I can find to this definition is from the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 (the sales tax moratorium), which differed only slightly: “comprise” instead of “constitute” and omitting the “or other methods of transmission” part. This definition appears again in the child pornography rules issued in 2005 (28 CFR § 75.1).

The other definition I see is appears in the bankruptcy code (15 USCS § 163) and in the 2005 Internet gambling ban (31 CFR § 132.2 and 12 CFR § 233.2): “the international computer network of both Federal and non-Federal interoperable packet switched data networks.”

So which definition is better? Do both suck? Should we care? “Discuss amongst yourselves!”

But no kvetching about the use of the word “myriad.” Someone already beat you to the punch—and got smacked down:

[A] commenter objected to the proposed rule’s use of the phrase “myriad of” in the definition of the term Internet in § 75.1(f). The Department declines to adopt this comment. According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed., 2003), “Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective * * *. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 821 (11th ed., 2003).

(70 FR 29607). Milton alone leading a federal agency in the use of language might well be the “Blind leading the blind” (at least in the most literal sense—Milton being blind and federal agencies, well…), but who are we to argue with both Milton and Thoreau?