In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is
our concept of ?technology? itself a cultural illusion? This book
challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common
development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it
argues that modern technology implies a kind of global ?zero-sum
game? involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for
wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the
expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts.
We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was
detached from the social relations of exchange which make machines
economically and physically possible (in some areas). But even the
steam engine that was the core of the Industrial Revolution in
England was indissolubly linked to slave labour and soil erosion in
distant cotton plantations. And even as seemingly benign a
technology as railways have historically saved time (and accessed
space) primarily for those who can afford them, but at the expense
of labour time and natural space lost for other social groups with
less purchasing power. The existence of technology, in other words,
is not a cornucopia signifying general human progress, but the
unevenly distributed result of unequal resource transfers that the
science of economics is not equipped to perceive. Technology is not
simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but
more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society. From
the very start it has been a global phenomenon, which has
intertwined political, economic and environmental histories in
complex and inequitable ways. This book unravels these complex
connections and rejects the widespread notion that technology will
make the world sustainable. Instead it suggests a radical reform of
money, which would be as useful for achieving sustainability as for
avoiding financial breakdown.
It brings together various perspectives from environmental and
economic anthropology, ecological economics, political ecology,
world-system analysis, fetishism theory, semiotics, environmental
and economic history, and development theory. Its main contribution
is a new understanding of technological development and concerns
about global sustainability as questions of power and uneven
distribution, ultimately deriving from the inherent logic of
general-purpose money. It should be of interest to students and
professionals with a background or current engagement in
anthropology, sustainability studies, environmental history,
economic history, or development studies.
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