Excerpt from
Chapter 8 of A PEOPLEÕS HISTORY OF SCIENCE
[N.B.: Source notes
have been omitted. For sources of quotations, see the book.]
. . .
the Cold War provided the rationale for the U.S. governmentÕs rapidly growing
role in science after the war. Federal spending on academic research and
development rose from less than $150 million in 1953 to almost $10 billion in
1990.
But the
governmental stewardship of science did not diminish with the end of the Cold
War; the much-anticipated Òpeace dividendÓ never materialized. [Footnote
1]
The stated reason that
federal R&D budgets continued to increase year by year was the need to
remain economically competitive with rival industrial nations, but the permanent
war economy in the United States is difficult to disguise. The portion of the
R&D budget allocated to what is euphemistically called ÒdefenseÓ amounted to
almost exactly half of the total of $75.4 billion in fiscal 2000. Another $8.4
billion went for space research officially categorized as civilian but
ultimately motivated by considerations of its potential military applications.
In the same spirit, Òthe Department of Energy, descended from the Manhattan
Project, provides over $2 billion annually for physics, the nuclear sciences,
and other disciplines in science and engineering.Ó
Because
the form, content, and direction of science have been so strongly influenced by
immense expenditures on war-related research, knowing why those expenditures are
made is essential to understanding the place of science in contemporary America.
It certainly has nothing to do with preparedness to combat a genuine military
threat. When the bugaboo of Òinternational communismÓ evaporated with the
collapse of the Soviet Union, a new specious justification for maintaining the
several-hundred-billion-dollar war budgetÑÒinternational terrorismÓÑwas quickly
conjured up. Random acts of terrorism pose a real (if statistically miniscule)
threat to some urban populations, but to think that the architects of American
imperialism really fear raggedy groups of Islamic radicals is equivalent to
belief in the bogeyman. An observation by Dr. Helen Caldicott renders the deceit
apparent: the U.S. Department of Energy is currently engaged in Òa massive
scientific undertaking costing 5 to 6 billion dollars annually for the next ten
to fifteen years, to design, test, and develop new nuclear weapons,Ó but Òthe
largest nuclear stockpile in the world can accomplish little in the face of
terrorists armed with box cutters.Ó
Nor is
the war spending primarily motivated by a desire for weapons for offensive
purposes. Most of all, it is necessary to keep the wheels of the American
economy from rapidly grinding to a halt. The Great Depression of the 1930s
revealed that the capitalist system, left to its own devices, has become so
productive that it is no longer capable of generating enough purchasing power to
absorb all the products with which it continuously floods the market. John
Maynard Keynes explained to Franklin Roosevelt that to create enough Òaggregate
demandÓ to keep the economy from freezing up, governments would henceforth have
to create new purchasing power (i.e., new jobs) by engaging in massive
deficit spending. [Footnote 2]
It would
not suffice to merely Òprime the pumpÓ and then step back to allow the invisible
hand of supply and demand to reestablish economic equilibrium. Government
deficit spending was destined to become a permanent condition, with deficits continuously
increasing. When
questioned as to what would happen Òin the long runÓ as governments continued
endlessly piling up mountains of debt, KeynesÕs famous riposte was, ÒIn the long
run we are all dead.Ó [Footnote 3]
Not all
deficit spending, it was discovered, is equally effective in preventing economic
gridlock. Using government money to produce useful things such as schools or
housing or highways does not help because it competes with private capital,
which puts downward pressure on the number of jobs in the private sector and on
the purchasing power they represent. The most effective of RooseveltÕs public
works programs were those that produced nothing, most notoriously exemplified by
legions of workers with shovels digging holes and then filling them back in
again. [Footnote 4] As useless as such activity would seem to be, it gave
workers paychecks that allowed them to buy some of the surplus production
without having them create more surplus products. But the apparent wastefulness
was an insult to reason, and it was impossible in the American political context
to explain that the paradox was an inescapable feature of the capitalist
economic system.
In any
event, the deficit spending represented by RooseveltÕs public works programs was
far from adequate to lift the American economy out of the mire. What ended the
Great Depression was the truly massive military expenditure in the run-up to
World War II.
After
the war the rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan eased the problem of
insufficient aggregate demand, but that was a temporary fix. To prevent the
world economy from once again lapsing into a terminal crisis of overproduction,
governments would have to continuously spend enormous amounts on utterly useless
productionÑindustrial output that would not house, feed, clothe, or otherwise
benefit anybody in any way. But how could that be justified? The answer was
found in weapons systems deemed necessary (wink, wink) for national security. Thus was born the
ever-increasing ÒdefenseÓ budget, which has been the primary source of science
funding ever since. It is sad to have to conclude that the major portion of Big
ScienceÕs attention has been and is still being directed toward a vast exercise
in deliberate waste.
The most
egregious example of Big ScienceÕs planned wastefulness is SDI, the Strategic
Defense Initiative, popularly known as ÒStar Wars.Ó The Reagan administrationÕs
1983 announcement of the intention to create a ÒshieldÓ in outer space that
could protect the United States from incoming missiles raised the prospect of
massive federal investment in scientific research. The immense contracts at
stake were a powerful inducement to corporate and university laboratories, but
the rise of significant opposition to the program on the part of scientists was
an unexpected development.
The
Union of Concerned Scientists produced a detailed report entitled The Fallacy
of Star Wars.
ÒNationwide, some 2,300 university researchers were doing the unthinkable,
pledging they would not apply for or accept the bountiful funds that the
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization wished to infuse into academic
research.Ó But the negative findings of independent scientists were no match for
the power of government money. SDI officials Òreported over 3,000 applications
for funds from university scientists willing to do business with the
missile-defense program.Ó
And so
SDI flourished and a great deal of junk science was paid for and produced over
many years in the effort to provide it with credibility. After Reagan and the
first President Bush, the Clinton administration changed the programÕs name to
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, but continued to fund it. ÒFrom the
birth of Star Wars, in 1984, to the end of the century, missile defense consumed
over $60 billion. The enormous expenditures,Ó however, Òhave produced negligible
results.Ó Bush the Younger has continued down the path toward the militarization
of space; his administrationÕs National Missile Defense program has been aptly
nicknamed ÒSon of Star Wars.Ó
FOOTNOTES:
1. Between 1990
and 2000 the total R&D budget rose steadily from $63.8 billion to $75.4
billion.
2. For an early
example of KeynesÕ advice to Roosevelt, see his ÒOpen Letter to President
RooseveltÓ (1933).
3. KeynesÕ first
use of this phrase actually preceded the Great Depression (in his 1923 Tract on Monetary Reform), but he utilized it as an all-purpose response
to deflect any and all questions concerning the Òlong
run.Ó
4. Keynes, in
his most important work, alluded to the benefits of this kind of apparently
absurd economic activity: ÒIf the Treasury were to fill old bottles with
banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then
filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise .
. . to dig the notes up again . . . the real income of the community, and its
capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal larger than it is.Ó
Keynes, The
General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, chapter 10, section
6.