Social Engineering
Discussion
Jan Philipp Dapprich:
"The principles of science are also applied by the engineer, when creating novel devices or systems to serve some specified desired purpose. The engineer uses her knowledge of the laws of statics, thermodynamics or electricity to design the device in such a way that she can anticipate it to work in the required manner. While there may be an element of trial and error involved, the established theories and principles the engineer uses in many cases allow for prior knowledge of the design required for a given purpose. When a bridge is built, how it will behave under stress is usually determined before disaster occurs. Structural engineers do this by utilising the well-established principles of statics.
Otto Neurath advocated a scientific utopianism, which he also referred to as ‘social engineering’ (Neurath 2004a, 346). The chief task of the economist, for Neurath, is to determine how various political and economic institutions effect the conditions of life. These are given by the amount and kind of food consumed, quality of housing, germs and health care, entertainment and education, as well as feelings of freedom and social belonging. Neurath refers to this as ‘social Epicureanism’ (Neurath 1973a, 289). The chief interest is, as for Epicurus, that of well-being and a happy life. However, the concern is not with the influence on well-being from individual actions, but rather with the impact of social institutions.
The social engineer then attempts to use theoretical models and social scientific insight to devise a political and economic system which is expected to better the conditions of life of the members of society. The drawing up of such blue prints of a better society is not a purely scholastic exercise, but intended to help bring such a society about. However, in contrast to the ‘utopianism’ criticised by Marx and Engels, Neurath did not appear to view such social engineering as detached from or opposed to the struggle of a labour movement. Rather, it is intended to give such a movement a clear goal for which to struggle, and to demonstrate that this goal is feasible.
As mentioned in the previous section, Robert Owen also did not consider his ideas of a better society to be mere figments of the imagination (Owen 1967, 271; Geoghegan 1987, 13). But, while Neurath emphasised a theoretical methodology, Owen thought that the practical establishment of his society in small communities demonstrated its feasibility. There can be no doubt that such empirical examples have a certain epistemic value. However, there are significant limitations to this value. Whether or not a way of organising society works for a small community may not mean that it is or is not feasible for a society of a larger size. It may be that the principles only work when the number of participants are limited. On the other hand it is also possible that the social system does not work in an island within a larger society that adheres to wholly different principles. Countless other possibilities for why the insight about small communities may not be transferred to larger societies can be imagined. This limits the insight that can be gained from the success or failure of such small-scale experiments.
The underlying problem is one of social science more generally, namely that societies cannot be created and manipulated as to gain empirical data in the way that it is often possible in experiments for the purpose of studying nature. Neurath’s social engineer thus has limited direct empirical evidence to work with. This does not mean such social engineering is doomed to fail. Instead, we can rely on empirically informed fundamental assumptions about human behaviour and society, considerations of logical or technical restrictions, as well as historical observations to make informed predictions about the social consequences of new or altered social institutions. One way that scientists today are investigating states of affairs which are not easily observable or simply have not come about (yet), is through computer modelling. It makes sense to do the same when investigating a socialist economy."
(https://theses.gla.ac.uk/81793/8/2020DapprichPhD.pdf)
Typology
Piecemeal vs Utopian Social Engineering
Jan Philipp Dapprich:
"Opposition to the social engineering of Neurath came from philosopher Karl Popper (Popper 1945, 138-142; Popper 1957, 64-70). Popper was not opposed to the idea of social engineering altogether, but differentiated between piecemeal social engineering, which he deemed desirable, and utopian social engineering, which he rejected. While utopian social engineering, like that of Neurath, aims to remake society as a whole, piecemeal social engineering proposes small changes which might improve society as it is already given. One cannot help but notice a certain parallel to the antagonism between revolution and reform. The revolutionary, utopian social engineer wants to do away with society as we know it and recreate it according to her ideals, while the piecemeal social engineer wants to discover small, practical reforms as fixes for social problems. These minor amendments can only completely transform society over a long period of time, and do not necessarily have a certain end goal in mind. This is where Popper sees a crucial difference of his own approach to what he identifies as the rationale of utopian social engineering:
- Any rational action must have a certain aim. It is rational in the same degree as it pursues its aim consciously and consistently, and as it determines its means according to this end. To choose the end is therefore the first thing we have to do if we wish to act rationally; and we must be careful to determine our real or ultimate ends, from which we must distinguish clearly those intermediate or partial ends which actually are only means, or steps on the way, to the ultimate end. If we neglect this distinction, then we must also neglect to ask whether these partial ends are likely to promote the ultimate end, and accordingly, we must fail to act rationally. These principles, if applied to the realm of political activity, demand that we must determine our ultimate political aim, or the Ideal State, before taking any practical action. Only when this ultimate aim is determined, in rough outlines at least, only when we are in the possession of something like a blueprint of the society at which we aim, only then can we begin to consider the best ways and means of its realization, and to draw up a plan for practical action. These are the necessary preliminaries of any practical political move that can be called rational, and especially of social engineering. This is, in brief, the methodological approach which I call Utopian engineering. (Popper 1945, 138)
It is not clear whether Popper’s description of the reasoning of utopian engineering accurately
captures the motivation of Otto Neurath. Neurath certainly had a kind of instrumental rationality in mind, but the ultimate goal this rationality was aimed at was the improvement of
the conditions of life and the welfare of the members of society. His ‘ideal society’ was not a
goal in and of itself, but only a means for the betterment of the human condition. One reason
Neurath might have given for this necessitating a radical restructuring of society is that the
given economic institutions and principles did such a poor job at providing for the needs of
the majority of people, as these institutions and principles were not rationally devised for that
purpose. In his critique of the society of his time, Neurath frequently draws upon Marxist political economy and in particular stresses the underutilisation of productive resources, which
he thought was inherent to capitalism (Neurath 2004c, 378-379). If social ills are not contingent, but necessitated by the underlying economic principles guiding society, this might
suggest that radical reconstruction is necessary to fix them.
Popper, however, warns of the dangers of such radical reconstruction due to social complexity:
- Social life is so complicated that few men, or none at all, could judge a blueprint for social engineering on the grand scale; whether it be practicable; whether it would result in a real improvement; what kind of suffering it may involve; and what may be the means for its realization. (Popper 1945, 139-140)
Any scientific approach to social change must be based upon experience. But, as mentioned above, such experience is hard to come by for the social engineer. ‘At present’, Popper claims, ‘the sociological knowledge necessary for large-scale engineering is simply non-existent’ (Popper 1945, 142). Without this sociological knowledge, it is impossible to predict the consequences of radical changes to the fabric of society and any such changes will thus be likely to have unintended repercussions. The small amendments of the piecemeal social engineer, on the other hand, can be predicted more easily and if the reforms do not work out as planned, they can be readily reversed.
In essence, Popper’s argument is that piecemeal engineering is the safer route. There are multiple problems with this claim, several of which relate to his omission of any potential costs of not engaging in utopian social engineering. As presented by Popper, both piecemeal and utopian social engineering can potentially fix social problems. But with utopian social engineering there is the added risk of irreversible unintended consequences. Piecemeal engineering is thus preferable. In reality, both utopian engineering and the absence of utopian engineering can have significant negative consequences. First of all, the status quo contains all the social problems which the social engineer intends to address. While the possible unintended consequences of social engineering only constitute potential problems, the status quo can be directly observed, and the problems associated with it are thus known to exist with relative certainty. When weighing the costs and benefits of engaging in social engineering, we should thus give a greater weight to these issues based on the higher epistemic certainty with which we can expect them to occur should these issues not be addressed. Should we not engage in appropriate social engineering, there is substantial risk that social problems will persist. Secondly, Popper’s assessment relies on the implicit assumption that change for the worse can only occur as a result of the careless action of a utopian social engineer. It is, however, just as possible for inaction to lead to such consequences. Societies are dynamic systems within a dynamic environment which do not necessarily require the conscious action of a social engineer or political movement based on social engineering in order to evolve. Resulting changes may well be for the worse and thus have as drastic consequences as the unintended effects of social engineering. This might for example be true if the Marxist claim that capitalism has an inherent tendency towards crisis is correct (Marx 1999b, Chapter 13). A current concern is the emission of greenhouse gases which leads to increased global temperatures, which are in turn expected to negatively affect humanities’ food supply, among other things (IPCC 2014, 69). Preventing these consequences requires significant changes in the world’s energy and transportation systems (IPCC 2014, 98-103) and failure to implement these changes could thus have serious negative consequences.
Clearly, Popper’s outright rejection of utopian social engineering is not warranted. Instead of dismissing utopian social engineering under all possible circumstances, we have to consider the expected consequences of both implementation and absence of implementation of utopian social engineering programs. As with any action, we must consider the possible alternatives to decide whether an option represents a reasonable choice, a theme that I will continue to explore for planning within a socialist society in later chapters. But in order to make such a comparison we must first engage in utopian social engineering — not in practice, but on the drawing board. This way we can explore possibilities, limitations and of course also potential risks before reaching a hasty conclusion on whether utopian social engineering programs should be put into practice or not.
Of course, Popper does not suggest we simply ignore problems with present social systems. He does present his piecemeal engineering as an alternative approach to addressing these issues. But this approach depends entirely on whether a series of small-scale reforms can really be effective in addressing underlying issues. I do not intend to suggest that they are in principle incapable of bringing about improvements, but whether this is the case or not must be investigated on a case by case basis. This might involve both prior deliberation as well as actually putting such measures into practice to test them, as Popper would have us do. But it might well be the case that, after trying several piecemeal changes, we come to the conclusion that an issue simply cannot be fixed by minor reforms, or that fixing the issue in such a way would take too long and would thus unnecessarily elongate social ills and the associated suffering.
There might also be structural reasons that prevent piecemeal engineering from being successful. Piecemeal engineering relies on every step on the way being an improvement over the previous step, since Popper suggests the step should be reversed if it does not lead to an improvement or if it makes things worse. There is a certain parallel to evolution by natural selection here. A trait that occurs in an organism will spread only if it constitutes some improvement, in terms of fitness, over alternate traits. Over time several such changes can accumulate to lead to a very different organism, though there was no force that had foreseen this organism or planned for it to come about. But only organisms or traits that can be reached through such small, improving steps can be reached in this way."