Rudi Volti - Technology, Politics, and Society in China

First published 1982 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Volti, Rudi.

Technology, politics, and society in China.

(Westview special studies on China and East Asia)

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Technology and stateChina. 2. Technology
China. I. Title. II. Series.

T27.C5V64 303.4-830951 8123174

AACR2

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28978-2 (hbk)

Many of my colleagues have offered valuable insights and criticisms of specific sections of this book. I cannot begin to list the names of all the people who have been helpful in this regard, but I would like to offer my special thanks to Gene Anderson, Richard Baum, Shannon Brown, Thomas Fingar, Sidney Greenblatt, Hu Yu, Paul Leung, Arthur Rosenbaum, Christopher Salter, and Alex Schulman. Their knowledge and expertise exceed my ability to make complete use of the help they have given me, and they are in no way responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation that may be found in these pages. I am also indebted to four Pitzer College students, Karin Basica, Kaye Foster, Rebecka Lundgren, and Teri Pappas, who provided me with research assistance at various times. The bulk of the manuscript was typed by Sharleen Martenas, Norma Miller, and Stella Vlastos, who handled this task with their usual grace and precision. Financial assistance was provided by the Pitzer College Faculty Research Fund and by the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mervyn Seldon, who suggested this study in the first place and then guided it with a deft editorial hand. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Ann Stromberg; although she has had to attend to her own teaching duties, research projects, and books, she always had time to listen to my complaints about the problems of research and writing. She has been an unfailing source of inspiration and encouragement as I have worked on this book, and at all other times as well.

Rudi Volti

In our era, some of the traditional Western faith in technological progress has turned sour. Anxiety and discomfort accompanied the introduction of new technologies in other times, but in few other periods have the benefits of material progress been offset by such ambivalence about the effects of technological change. For many, the technological threat has grown as alienation, the disruption of patterns of living, and a sense of powerlessness accompanied technological progress. Even the economy of abundance, which technology has helped to generate, appears transitory as resource depletion and environmental degradation often follow the full utilization of many technologies.

Yet, just when the United States and other developed countries find themselves racked by doubts about the world created by continuous technological change, the poor nations are engaged in a desperate effort to lift their economies above subsistence level through the application of modern technologies. The profound yet ill-defined malaise of the West seems but a chimera to peoples beset by poverty and disease and worn down by the toil for survival. Their economic and technological backwardness is all too clearly revealed in statistics on caloric intake, morbidity, child mortality, illiteracy, unemployment, and so on.