In practice, the process of innovation is usually complex. It involves market incentives, new ideas coming out of basic research, economic and psychological commitments to current systems, and the particular agendas of interest groups such as politicians, government bureaucracies, corporate elites, and various pressure groups. Nevertheless, the usual models of innovation focus on several key players: government and the market and their relation to R&D. The “market” is constituted by those who buy and sell the product in question.
For weapons, the market has only a partial relevance, since a large fraction of production is carried out by governments for their own use. In most capitalist economies, corporations are heavily involved in weapons production, in which case the major purchasers are governments. Technology policy for military defence is therefore primarily concerned with government funding, regulation and promotion of the process of innovation.
Technology policy for nonviolent struggle is different in a fundamental way, aside from the obvious difference between nonviolence and violence. As outlined in the previous chapter, the very method of doing R&D for nonviolent struggle needs to involve all interested members of the community, since they are the ones who will be on the “front line” in carrying out nonviolent action. The immediate implication is that the highest priority should be put on measures that involve as many people as possible and minimise dependence on groups with special skills or resources. Accordingly, I now outline four ways of promoting technology for nonviolent struggle, in order of priority.
This includes things such as expanding access to computer networks, teaching workers how to shut down and start up factory equipment, promoting use of self-reliant energy systems, and running simulation exercises in neighbourhoods and workplaces. Such measures do not require any new technologies, much less any research. However, they would have a strong indirect influence on R&D. When people learn how to use existing technology, they often have ideas about how it could be improved, adapted or replaced. The key point here is to link the use of the technology to the goal of nonviolent struggle.
For example, when users of computer networks think about how to communicate in an emergency, they are likely to ask “what if?” questions. What if an aggressor coerces the system administrator? What if messages are intercepted and read? This is likely to lead to pressure for better security, such as standard use of encryption, and contingency measures for an emergency. This in turn could readily stimulate research in particular directions.
When workers think about how to resist a takeover of their factory, initially they may want to know how to protect themselves or how to make sure the aggressor can be resisted with the least risk to anyone’s life. Once they learn more about how the factory operates, they may have ideas about reorganising production, accounting systems, work arrangements and the like, all of which could make the workers better able to resist an attack. This in turn would likely lead to a number of puzzles for engineers.
Thus, to set top priority on implementing currently available technologies is likely to lead directly to demands for finding and implementing different technologies. The biggest advantage of this approach, though, is that it can generate support for further measures. Rather than do research in isolation from the application and hope that people find it relevant to technology, this approach uses implementation as a way to mobilise knowledge and skills.
The fundamental assumption is that since popular involvement is the foundation for successful nonviolent struggle, popular involvement is also the foundation for the promotion of science and technology for nonviolent struggle.
Examples here include radios operating on very low power, medical techniques for diagnosing the use of torture, and plants that can be readily grown locally for food. These are areas in which technologies or techniques are available but not widely known. There are lots of radios available that operate using mains electricity or conventional batteries, and there are factories to produce such radios. By contrast, there are few micropower radios available and relatively few people who know how to build them. Similarly, some researchers have developed techniques for diagnosing particular types of torture, but very few medical practitioners or others know about these techniques, much less how to apply them.
From the point of view of any group promoting nonviolent struggle, it is first necessary to search out these sorts of ideas. Then they need to be tested. Assuming they are useful ideas, they need to be publicised in the right quarters. Testing and publicity are interactive. The results of testing can be the basis for publicity, whereas publicity can lead to testing by others, or to awareness that others have already developed the same technique.
The next stage is to begin to implement these technologies. That takes us back to priority 1.
This includes modifying factory design so that workers can control production more easily (shutting it down or gearing it up), developing short-wave radio sets so that they can be used as public phones, and designing dams and power plants so they are less susceptible to sabotage. The basic idea here is to use existing technology but to modify it to better serve the purposes of nonviolent struggle.
In the case of factory design, this might mean introducing a crucial piece of equipment — such as a special computer chip — that can be easily destroyed, thereby rendering the factory useless for a period of time until a replacement could be reconstructed. Depending on the factory, this might be straightforward or difficult, but in either case it means a modification of the existing design rather than redesigning the factory from scratch.
In the case of short-wave radio, existing sets would need modification for use as public phones, to make them simpler to use, relatively resistant to weather and mishandling, etc. Again, the aim is to adapt the technology for nonviolent purposes.
Adaptation of this sort is not necessarily easy. It can pose difficult technical challenges. It also must involve prospective users. The workers must be involved in the factory redesign process, otherwise the new system may turn out to be useless or even counterproductive. A public short-wave radio system has to be tried out by the sort of people who would actually use it. In the testing that is an essential part of the adaptation of the technology, many suggestions for improvement and new ideas are likely to arise. The whole process should be an interactive and iterative one.
If a modification of technology turns out to be effective, then it becomes worthwhile to tell others about it. It becomes an “available” technology that others may want to use. This takes the process back to approach 2, searching and disseminating existing ideas.
In reality, there is a lot of overlap between these two approaches. An existing technology can seldom be transplanted directly from one situation to another. Adaptation is usually required. Even factories producing the same product using the same method are designed in somewhat different ways. The workers have different skills and experiences. This means that equipment designed for one factory is likely to need modifications in order to work effectively in another. Similarly for short-wave radio. From one community there may be differences in climate, language, common knowledge, treatment of public facilities and so forth. Factors such as these need to be taken into account in designing and implementing any system.
Examples here include new varieties of crops that do not rely on artificial pesticides or fertilisers, new
