Hopes and Prospects: on Technology


Barack Obama: $13B stimulus funds to upgrade rail lines & build new ones

The Wall Street Journal reported that "US transportation chief Ray Lahood is in Spain meeting with high-speed rail suppliers. Europe's engineering and rail companies are lining up for some potentially lucrative US contracts for high-speed rail projects. At stake is $13 billion in stimulus funds that the Obama administration is allocating to upgrade existing rail lines and build new ones that could one day rival Europe's fastest."
Source: Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky, p. 95-96 Jun 1, 2010

Ray LaHood: Seeking high-speed rail suppliers in Europe

Even the Wall Street Journal ran dire warnings about the "climate disaster," urging that none of the options being considered may be sufficient. Many also understand that it will be necessary to reverse the vast state-corporate social engineering programs since World War II, designed to promote an energy-wasting and environmentally destructive fossil fuel-based economy, and that a central element of these changes will have to be development of efficient high-speed rail systems. It is revealing to see how the problem is being addressed.

Spain and other European countries are hoping to get US taxpayer funding for the high-speed rail and related infrastructure that is badly needed in the US. At the same time, Washington is busy dismantling leading sectors of US industry, ruining the lives of workforce and communities. It is difficult to conjure up a more damning indictment of the economic system that has been constructed by state-corporate managers.

Source: Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky, p. 95-96 Jun 1, 2010

Ronald Reagan: Doubled Pentagon MANTECH manufacturing technology program

One major Pentagon program of the 1970s, MANTECH (manufacturing technology), doubled its outlays as Reagan took over. One of its tasks was to design the "factory of the future," integrating computer technology and automation in production and design and developing flexible manufacturing technology and management efficiency, in an effort to catch up with Europe and Japan. The goal was to boost the market share and industrial leadership of US industry in the traditional way, through state initiative and taxpayer funding. There was also a side benefit: the factory of the future could be designed to control the workforce. Automation and computer-controlled machine tools were developed in the public sector for a long period, then finally handed over to private industry. Within the state sector the technology was designed in a specific way: to de-skill workers and enhance management control. That choice was not inherent in the technology and does not appear to have become more profitable.
Source: Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky, p. 88 Jun 1, 2010

  • The above quotations are from Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky.
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Page last updated: Jul 19, 2011