This piece was written at the request of The Progress Project, an initiative of the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington and the Glaser Family Foundation.

It originally appeared (in a slightly modified form) in The Seattle Times on February 15, 2000.

Progress is Not a Product

"Progress is our most important product!" claimed the chemical industry in the 1950s. Although there is more skepticism today about technological progress, the link between progress and products continues to permeate our thinking about technology.

In non-technical arenas, progress is defined using abstract concepts such as a better quality of life. But when it comes to technology, progress is typically identified with tangible objects: computers, SUVs, and cellular phones.

So strong is this link between technological progress and concrete objects, that it requires a special effort to realize that progress is not a product, but a process. Progress is not a thing to hold or a place to reach, but rather the particular path we take towards our goal.

Once we see progress as a process, we can start to concentrate on the social aspects of technologies rather than their physical forms. A computer is not progress—a computer is a computer. As a society, we decide what progress is. We might decide that creating, promoting and using computers supports progress. We might decide that destroying all computers supports progress. The point is that it's up to us to decide.

Including social issues in the discussion of technological progress broadens the debate. When progress is equated with technical objects, the discussion about them is restricted to technical experts and the organizations that produce the technologies. When broader issues are included, everyone is capable of being an expert about progress.

Because progress is typically viewed as something positive, when technical objects are equated with progress, they are also typically viewed as positive. By defining progress as something to be debated, we can then also question technologies and their contributions towards our goals.

Looking at technologies with social goals in mind lets us ask questions such as:
"Who benefits most from this technology, and who loses? Does it widen the economic or social gaps between groups of people?"
"Does this technology support our ideas of progress? If not, should we eliminate this technology and create a different one?"

Progress for Whom?
When evaluating a technology's contribution to progress, we have to ask "Who benefits most from this technology?" Computers—particularly now that they are connected via the Internet—are nearly universally acclaimed as positive for all. But technologies can have benefits for nearly everyone, and still not be progressive. This is because some groups typically benefit more from a technology than others.

In the case of information technology, the disparities are especially severe, but not in the way we typically hear about them. The Digital Divide is popularly seen as a division between individuals: those who have access to computer technology and those who don't. However, that gap is dwarfed by the real Digital Divide between large, multinational organizations, which use computer technology to centralize wealth and control access to resources on a global scale, and small-scale organizations and individuals trying to counteract those activities.

Yes, I am using a word processor to compose this article. Yes, activist organizations can use e-mail and web sites to mobilize grassroots support for their campaigns, as was seen at the WTO protests. However, large organizations have access to all those same tools, plus more advanced ones, to amplify their already considerable advantages. Although there are benefits for individuals and grassroots groups, large organizations take far greater advantage of information technology than labor unions, environmental activists, or the Direct Action Network ever will.

If we believe that progress means eliminating both Digital Divides, we must start pondering difficult questions: Even though computers and communication technologies provide benefits, do we get rid of them because on balance they increase the power of large organizations over communities and individuals? Do we keep the technical objects, but restrict their use by some groups and promote their use by others? These are currently unthinkable options, but imagining how the world would look in each case could lead to real progress.

Pick and Choose
Standard wisdom says "You can't put the genie back in the bottle," implying that once a technology has been released into the world, it's impossible to get rid of it. But there's nothing that says we can't define progress as eliminating a harmful technology. In fact, we have done so regularly in the past.

This happens most commonly when one technology supersedes another. For example, leaded gasoline and paint have been supplanted by unleaded versions, to reduce the damaging effects of lead on children's development. Occasionally, technologies are banned outright, including the pesticide DDT and chemical weapons.

Despite our ability to control technology, we still find the idea of restricting everyday technologies unimaginable. To fully consider progress we need to open our thinking to the possibility of substantial change.

Imagining radically different worlds can help us develop new ways to approach our current one. What would the world look like if we eliminated computers? Who would gain power and who would lose power? How would our daily lives be different?

If we decide that progress does not include increased control by large organizations, which social forces and technologies do we need to change? Can we design new technologies to support those social changes and the type of progress that we desire?

Progress is not something you hold in your hand or park in your driveway—it's a social process that moves us towards the goals that we value. And it's only when we look at the social underpinnings of technology that we can grapple with what progress means and which technologies support it.