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CHAPTER Il l . FOR MULATION OF OBJECTIVES In the introductory chapter of this report, we spoke in terms of "problems" and "needs." Implicit in our use of such terms and in much of the literature in this general field are a number of assumptions about how decisions with respect to technological change ought ideally to be made. It seems appropriate at this point to make those assumptions as explicit as possible and to elaborate the sorts of considerations that might be rele vant to their evaluation. THE GENERAL WELFARE Pervading most discussions of the problems we are con sidering are terms like "the general welfare" or "the public interest" or "net benefit to society as a whole." One hears it said, for example, that a certain technolog ical development is contrary to "the public interest," or that technological change should be made more respon sive to criteria reflecting "the general welfare, " or that alternative technologies should be selected according to which will maximize the "net gain to society." Such phrases, of course, have the merit of brevity and the appearance of obj ectivity, but it is far from clear that they convey any operationally useful meaning. Almost without exception, technological developments will affect some people or interests adversely and others beneficially, and there simply is no agreed-upon algebra by which one can nearly subtract the pains from the pleasu res in order to arrive at a net index of social desirability (Zl) . How are the interests of suburban 29 Digitized by Goog Ie
commuters and central city residents to be balanced in the evaluation of urban transport systems? How should the future needs of radio-astronomy be weighed against the present uses of television in allocating the electro magnetic spectrum? How are the desires of conservation ists and the "aesthetic minority" to be balanced against the economic needs of local industry? As in any problem calling for evaluation of a proposed resource allocation or distribution, the assessment of a contemplated tech nological development raises vexing issues of welfare economics, political theory, and ethics. Economists, philosophers, and lawyers have debated these matters among themselves and with one another for generations. Surely it would be unrealistic to suppose that this report could somehow resolve them. Perhaps the most that the panel can hope to do here is raise a warning against the loose assumptions that have generally characterized discussions of our prob lem-the assumption, for example, that one can speak · intelligibly and unambiguously about maximizing aggre gate welfare, or the assumption that measures that are "inefficient" (presumably in the economic sense that the amounts that prospective gainers would pay to secure their adoption fall short of the amounts that prospective losers would demand as the price of their voluntary acquiescence) are, or should be, perceived as ethically "wrong. " When progressive taxation or public housing is favored, for example, it is not because these are believed to entail an efficient use of available resources but be cause they redistribute those resources in ways approved largely for other reasons .. It cannot be assumed, therefore, that a technological change that costs those whom i t injures more than anyone would be willing to pay for its benefits should for that reason automatically be opposed by public-spirited citizens. 30 oi9,tized by Google
The fact is that, with respect to major technological applications, we lack criteria to guide the choice between efficient resource allocation, ordinarily achieved best through some fo rm of market mechanism (improved as necessary to compensate for external costs and benefits) , and other obj ectives, usually achievable only through non-market mechanisms for expressing value preferences . Because we have a great many values other than eco nomic efficiency, and no transactions in them that confront buyers and sellers, the idea of attempting to compute "net social benefits and costs" makes sense only as a very rough first approach. Ordinarily involved is a complex transfer of welfare from one group to another, or perhaps from one country to another, or even from one time to another-and we evaluate the desirability of such a transfer through various institutionalized forms of collective judgment-political, judicial, or economic . It would, of course, be desirable to have doctrinal guidelines for how such welfare transfers, or utility trade-offs, ought ideally to be judged for various purposes. Much work is now under way to find surrogates for prices established in markets in specific situations indicators that suggest the value imputed by society to a given action or avoidance of action. But pending the development of such guidelines or techniques, the most general statement one can confidently make, it seems, is that technological changes, like other alterations in complex systems, ought not to be made in ways that subordinate every other consideration to the dominant purpose of the immediate project. Some attempt ought to be made to analy.<e the impact qf the project on the full range of other values and interests, and such an analysis should play some role in the determination qf whether and how to undertake the project in the first instance. If a proposed highway would destroy jobs or wilderness or displace people or homes, for example, these detri mental consequences should be considered in deciding 31 oi9,tized by Google
whether to build the highway at all and, if that decision is affirmative, where to put it. Precisely how much weight such consequences should ideally be given in the ultimate decision-how a balance should be struck between costs to some groups and benefits to others-must remain a subject for continuing discussion and research. But it is clear that consequences of this sort deserve some weight-more weight, certainly, than they customarily receive. As one observer has expressed it, "ways must be found to move toward a concept of multi-purpose planning that recognizes the full spectrum of human needs, " (28) and away from the single-purpose plan ning that disregards all but its own narrowly defined obj ectives. What is needed, in short, is to replace tunnel vision with a more holistic view. THE PRESERVATION OF OPTIONS In part because we possess no precise calculus of current costs and benefits ; in part because future alternatives, needs, and values cannot be known with certainty ; and in part because flexibility is among the most widely shared goals, a basic principle of decision-making should be to maintain the greatest practicable latitude for future action. Other things being equal, those tech nological proj ects or developments should be favored that leave maximum room for maneuver in the future. The reversibility of an action should thus be counted as a major benefit ; its irreversibility, a major cost. Policy-making should thus reflect the fact, for example, that pollution of a lake is more difficult to reverse than pollution of a river ; or that disposal of municipal wastes in streams and rivers may create an overload that is hard er to reverse than may disposal on land . The recycling of wastes, which has only begun to be considered on a broad scale, .provides a maj or opportunity for Iowering 32 Digitized byGoogle
the irreversibility of the disposal process . The con struction of dams and reservoirs, which eventually fill up with silt and hence have a finite life, forecloses the possible use of the same sites for water works when water works may be more urgently needed. This is not to say, of course, that dams should not be built. It is to say, however, that in deciding whether, where, and when to build them, the reduction of future options ought to be explicitly regarded as one of the costs incurred by a decision to go ahead. Although this report obviously cannot propose precise ways of ascribing a quantitative value to the preservation of options, it can stress the importance of continued research as the basis for reason able attributions of value to future opportunity and the need for continued effort aimed at enhancing the weight of future concerns in cost-benefit calculations. In a less affluent and technologically sophisticated society than ours, it is occasionally necessary to discount the future rather heavily in order simply to survive in the present. But we in the United States, at least, are under no such compulsion. Because we can afford to pay more attention to tomorrow, we have an obligation to think beyond today. THE BURDEN OF UNCERTAINTY In any situation of imperfect knowledge, when the consequences of a contemplated action can only be surmised and when its costs and benefits cannot con fidently be reduced to a net quantity, it becomes critical to decide where the burden of such uncertainties should fall. Historically, that burden has tended to fall on those who challenge the wisdom of an on-going technological trend . The working presumption has been that such a trend ought to be continued so long as it can be expected to yield a profit for those who have chosen to exploit 33 Digitized by Goog Ie
it, and that any deleterious consequences that might ensue will either be manageable or will in any event not be serious enough to warrant a deliberate decision to interfere with technological momentum. So it was, for example, that drilling rights were leased to oil companies operating in the Santa Barbara channel without sufficient consideration of the possible effects of massive oil leakage near the coast and with inadequate preventive measures to minimize such dangers ; that vast quantities of chemicals have routinely been released into the biosphere with littl e or no timely attention to their potential hazards ; that the number of internal combustion automobiles has been permitted to mount steadily with only sporadic and poorly funded efforts to study alternatives involving mass transit, steam-driven vehicles, or electric batteries ; or that repeated decisions have been made to proceed with the development of a supersonic transport, continually relegating to later research the issues of sonic boom and engine noise at take-off. Why should this be so? Are there not many areas in which the prevailing assumption that the technological status quo can safely be permitted to continue or expand is unwise and should be altered? Should there not be some limits on the extent to which any maj or technology is allowed to proliferate (or, conversely, to stagnate) without the gathering of fairly definite evidence, either by the developers themselves or by some public agency, as to the character and extent of possible harmful effects and the relative merits or dangers of various. technolog ical alternatives? The panel believes that there should be such limits, and that their establishment is one of the most important items on the political agenda. Society simply cannot afford to assume that the harmful con sequences of prevalent technological trends will be negligible or will prove readily correctable when they 34 Digitized by Goog Ie
appear ; waiting until deleterious effects become evident entails too high a risk that vested interests-among both producers and consumers-will by then have be come so entrenched as to make it politically very difficult or economically very costly to suppress or modify an offending technology or to develop an alternative one. Our experience with certain pesticides, for example, suggests that carefully designed experiments in the early days of introduction might have substantially influenced the course of technological evolution before we were so thoroughly cQmrnitted to particular forms of pest control as to make significant alteration extremely difficult. As matters now stand, the widespread dissemination of chemical pesticides, which has undoubtedly prevented countless deaths from malaria, cholera, typhus, and starvation, has also inflicted unintended but widespread losses of fish and wildlife and is increasingly suspected of direct injury to man. The key word is "suspected. " There are growing reasons to suspect carcinogenic effects, complex interactions in the human system with sex hormones and barbiturates, and even long-term genetic damage-but there is little or no positive proof one way or the other. Very little is known about individual idiosyn crasies in human reaction to pesticides or about syn ergistic effects involving drugs and food additives. To extrapolate reliably from experiments with animals is virtually impossible ; and to obtain definitive evidence regarding human effects is extremely difficult. Empirical research in this area seems all but hopeless ; the only possibility of accurately forecasting long-term effects in humans appears to lie in investigating and understanding the underlying biochemical mechanisms-calling for fundamental research that has not been undertaken. The result is something of a dilemma : To prohibit each proposed pesticide use until its benefits are demon strated to outweigh its suspected dangers would prove 35 30-973 �69----4 Digitized by Goog Ie
extremely costly even if it were politically possible ; but to permit continued and proliferating uses until their dangers are convincingly shown to outweigh their bene fits is to take some rather frightening chances with man's future. It is probably not too late even now to seek safer alternatives through research, but how much easier it would have been if someone had undertaken the burden of such research a quarter of a century ago. Now that knowledge has advanced so far that one can study, in anticipation, at least some of the ecological effects of constructing another Aswan Dam or of opening a sea level canal ; or the effects of paving and housing upon the reflectivity of developed regions of the earth's surface ; or the effects of high-altitude aircraft exhaust upon the radiation of the atmosphere ; or the broad systems effects of other massive alterations of our natural or social surroundings, the panel believes that there is an obliga tion to undertake the necessary research and monitoring at the earliest possible stages in the developmental process. But the difficulty of identifying those stages and then of undertaking the needed studies should not be underestimated. The scientific and technical uncertain ties in assessment are often not understood by laymen, and it is too easy to mistake tentative professional judg ment for scientific fact. Generating the needed efforts will at least require attempts to sensitize developers themselves to secondary consequences so as to encourage them to invest in the necessary research and monitoring activities. In this connection, it will become vital to decide how to allocate the costs of such research and the costs of developing functional alternatives to minimize deleterious conse quences or to maximize desired ones. In what situations, for example, will it be reasonable to impose the full costs of such activities upon the developer, permitting him to recover such costs through higher prices to users 36 Digitized by GoogIe
and relying on income and welfare policy to serve such social objectives as might otherwise be frustrated by the resulting price increases? In what situations will it be reasonable instead to cover part or all of the increased costs through public investment in the needed research and development? The first solution is that of the Food and Drug Administration ; the second, that of the Atomic Energy Commission. The panel believes that far more thought must be given to such issues. It may well be that, in particular cases, sensitizing developers to deleterious side-effects will not suffice that, in some areas, it may prove necessary either to extend public funds to stimulate specific alternatives that are deemed preferable to the technological trends supported by the priv,ate sector or, conversely, to extend precise regulatory authority in such a way that particular technological applications cannot be widely introduced in the private sector until their advocates have successfully demonstrated to an appropriate govern mental institution that only acceptably low damage will ensue. Indeed, in several areas-most importantly, drugs and nuclear reactors-congress has either sub sidized new technologies or has resolved that certain kinds of deleterious consequences cannot be relegated to the category of uncertain "side-effects," but must be thoroughly assessed in advance. With respect to such effects, Congress has decided that the proponent of the responsible technology must persuade an appropriate agency at the outset that certain categories of hazards associated with the undertaking fall within limits deter mined by Congress or the agency. But the extension of government subsidy or of regula tory authority in such directions should never, we submit, be undertaken lightly. The panel does not, for example, favor any proposal that would routinely impose upon each manufacturer or producer the burden of proving 37 Digitized by Goog Ie
to some public agency's satisfaction that every new technological application he contemplates will meet a prescribed standard of social or environmental "harm lessness. " Any such scheme would ignore a major un fortunat� prospect-new and socially desirable tech nologies lying fallow because of an excessive presumption in favor of the status quo-and would necessarily be based on the untenable notion that there exists some objective measure by which a sufficiently wise organiza tion can assess the net social utility or toxicity of a given proposal (29). Moreover, any such scheme would entail what the panel regards as a premature rejection of the system of markets, prices, and private enterprise. The many faults of that system should not be allowed to obscure its virtues, and any plan devised to improve our management of technological change should "make maximum feasible use of this ingenious mechanism for allocating resources and calculating effects" (30) . Whenever it is possible, therefore, to induce the pro moter of technology himself to anticipate and reduce deleterious consequences while seeking out and maxi mizing socially useful applications, su�h a course is vastly preferable to one that either harnesses his energies and resources to the achievement of a governmentally prescribed technological plan or compels him to submit the products of his innovative activity to prior clearance by a governmental agency. No mechanism can fully compensate for the delays, the bias, �nd the rigidity that invariably accompany the creation of a governmental bureaucracy devoted to the furtherance or policing of a given technology. How the uncertainties inherent in any major new area of technological development should be resolved ; what sorts of anticipatory research should be undertaken and how such research should be financed ; whether public support should be extended or pre-clearance authority 38 Digitized by GoogIe
established in a particular area ; whether the operation of the free market should be modified less drastically, or perhaps not at all-questions such as these ought to be resolved openly and deliberately by the political process. They should not be resolved by habit or inadvertence, whether in favor of a new technology or against it. THE CREATION oF CoNSTITUENCIES One might review much of what has been said here as reflecting a paucity of constituencies potent enough to inject diffuse and poorly articulated interests into current decision-making processes. So, for example, with respect to the "general welfare, " the failure of existing processes to give adequate weight to "the full spectrum of human needs" can be seen as the absence of sufficiently influential spokesmen for all segments of society or the environment that might be adversely affected by a given project-particularly those that might be affected in large numbers but only tangentially or imperceptibly. Or, with respect to the preservation of options, the failure to assign sufficient cost to the foreclosing of opportunities can be ascribed to how difficult it is for organized voices speaking for the future to penetrate the decision-making process continuously, comprehen sively, and systematically. Finally, with respect to the burden of uncertainty, the habitual tendency to presume technological trends harmless until proven otherwise can be explained by the absence of any group or institution whose function it is to marshal the strongest possible case against a particular trend before it has become en veloped by massive vested interest or political or psy chological commitment. Once the matter is thus perceived, it will readily be seen that the problem involves more than the momentum of the status quo favoring a proposed technological applica- 39 Digitized by Goog Ie
tion. It also involves the many cases in which the align ment of constituencies and vested interests is ranged against a contemplated technological innovation or application. When a new and more flexible teaching device would threaten existing patterns of bureaucratic behavior, for example, one can usually count on the opposition of certain school officials, but not on organized advocacy by parents and children. When a new and less costly building technique would disrupt the con struction industry, one can rely on the opposition of those building interests that would be disadvantaged, but not on organized advocacy by residents of the ghetto who might benefit from cheaper housing. In these and similar situations, a thorough consideration of the relative merits of alternative technologies is rendered difficult if not impossible by the presence of powerful spokesmen for the old technologies, and the absence of effective spokesmen for the new. Thus the problem is not always the weakness of the anti-technological forces. Although such forces are often much too weak, they are sometimes far too strong. The history of the Bodega Bay controversy in California, or of the Storm King project on the Hudson River, or of the federal highway imbroglio in San Francisco and New Orleans clearly shows that conservationists and city dwellers can make themselves powerfully heard in opposition to technological projects that obviously and immediately threaten their interests or values. The difficult cases are those in which the threat is less pressing and tangible-those that lack a clear focus of introduction and affect large, loosely organized groups too remotely or too weakly to overcome widespread apathy and to galvanize opposition. In these circum stances, the need is not so much for conflict resolution as for conflict inspiration. 40 Digitized by Goog Ie
If one could have some assurance that all the potential losers as well as all the potential beneficiaries were adequately represented even in such situations, there would be less reason to fear that decisions would be made on a plainly too-limited basis. Indeed, the very essence of the panel's concern about the narrowness of the criteria that currently dominate technological choices is a conviction that the present system fails to give all affected interests effective representation in the crucial processes o decision. It is premature to discuss here the institutional f arrangements through which such representation might be secured, but it is not too early to note that securing it ought to be a central aim of policy with respect to technological development. THE AcHIEVEMENT OF CoNSISTENCY Consistency in the content and application of policy is a basic requirement. The costs of overcoming uncer tainties with respect to deleterious side-effects and the costs of avoiding or alleviating such effects, for example, ought to be alllocated in such a way tha t similar pos tures are assumed with respect to competing activities. To give one illustration, if we adopt safety standards with respect to the exploitation of oil resources significantly less rigid than our standards for the exploitation of nuclear-energy sources, we might arbitrarily bias in vestment away from nuclear power and accelerate environmental pollution by conventional plants, or un wittingly encourage accidents such as the recent leaking of oil into the Santa Barbara channel. More generally, there is a danger that investment will be shifted away from those selected activities that are compelled to bear more than the usual share of the costs of evaluating and minimizing deleterious side-effects, resulting in fortuitous 41 Digitized by Goog Ie
and often unw1se allocations of resources that do not reflect real cost differentials. Similarly, if a segment of the environment-the sea, for instance-is subject to particularly lax quality stand ards with respect to technological exploitation of its assimilative capacity, the underprotected environmental segment tends naturally to be treated as a prime dumping ground. So, too, standards that differ from one geo graphical region to another may generate shifts in in dustrial location that are, from other perspectives, unde sirable or inappropriate. Such considerations do not argue for standards and criteria that fail to reflect differences among various geographical, environmental, or technological areas. They do argue-and strongly-against accidental varia tions and in favor of a viewpoint that stresses the importance of conducting and enforcing technology assessment on a consistent basis. 42 Digitized by GoogIe
