1999 THE WORLD OF TOMORROW SELECTIONS FROM THE FUTURIST: A JOURNAL OF FORECASTS, TRENDS, AND IDEAS ABOUT THE FUTURE

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1999
THE WORLD OF
TOMORROW
Selections from THE FUTURIST:
A Journal of Forecasts, Trends, and
Ideas about the Future
Edited by Edward Cornish
scu
VORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
4916 St. Elmo Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20014 ? U.S.A.
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Published by
World Future Society
4916 St. Elmo Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20014 ? U.S.A.
Copyright ? 1978 by
World Future Society
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor trans-
lated into machine language without the written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
1999: the world of tomorrow
(The Futurist library; no. 1)
Bibliography: p.
1. Twentieth century?Forecasts?Addresses, essays, lecture. I. Cornish,
Edward, 1927- II. The Futurist.
CB161.N56 909.82'9 78-17612
Library of Congress Catalog Number 78-17612
International Standard Book Number 0-930242-04-1
Design: Diane Smirnow
Production Manager: Peter Zuckerman
Editorial Coordinator: Hugh Myers
Cover Art: (taken from covers of THE FUTURIST): 1. "Future Work" by Richard
Fanelli; 2. "Transformation" by Sister Jessica; 3. "College Education" by Gerard C.
Pilachowski; 4. "Floating City" by Robert McCall; 5. "Lunar Landing" by Robert
McCall; 6. "Garden Earth" by Stowmar Enterprises; 7. "Voluntary Simplicity" by
Diane Smirnow and Steven M. Johnson; 8. "Fantastic Megastructure" by Glen
Small; 9. "Space Colony" by NASA; 10. "Appropriate Technology" by Diane
Schatz and Marcia Johnson; 11. "Visions of the Future" by Sister Jessica; 12. "The
Automated Office" by Diane Smirnow with photographer Aboud Dweck;
13. "Bureaucratic Complexity" by Steven M. Johnson and Diane Smirnow
2
34
5
6
7
8
10
11
13
12
Price $4.95
$4.45 to members of the World Future Society
Please inquire for reduced multiple copy price for classroom use.
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CONTENTS
5 Introduction?Welcome to the Future!
Part 1: The Future as History
The past can illuminate the future.
9 Smith, Marx, and Malthus: Ghosts Who Haunt Our Future
by James H. Weaver and Jon D. Wisman
Three economic visions of tomorrow's world.
20 You Will Think This a Dream
by Charles P. Steinmetz
A 1915 vision of the future.
24 On Charles P. Steinmetz as a Prophet
by Joseph P. Martino
A modern forecaster rates his predecessor.
25 The Future in Retrospect
bY Robert W. Prehoda
A review of a Nobel prize winner's 1955 forecasts.
Part 2: The Future as Progress
Technology continues to advance on all fronts. Here are some reports
he years ahead.
ay ?e in store
r 30 The Automated Office
by Hollis Vail
S eeding up office work and making it possible to work at home.
34 Architecture Beyon
by Roy Mason
New materials and techniques may result in buildings that are al-
most beyond imagining today.
46 The Oceans in Our Future
by Larry Booda
The "wet frontier" is beckoning people everywhere.
57 Tomorrow's Aviation: The Sky Won't Be the Only Limit
by Jerry Richardson
Air officials have begun a major effort to forecast possible devel-
opments in aviation.
66 Space Colonies: The High Frontier
by Gerard K. O'Neill
Human beings may start living in space colonies.
75 The Preventive Psychiatry of the Future
by Stanley Lesse, M.D.
81 Medicine in the Post-Physician Era
Two doctors look at the way medicine may be practiced in the
coming years.
Part 3: The Future as Challenge
If we face emerging problems squarely, we may be able to solve them
or at least soften their impact.
86
The Coming Energy Transition
by Denis Hayes
Exhaustion of petroleum and natural gas supplies will force man-
kind to turn to other sources of energy.
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93 Population and Education
by Joseph F. Coates
ow demogra hic trends will shape the U.S.
99 Wor in e Year 20
by William Abbott
The nature of work is changing rapidly due to a variety of inter-
ac f. rends.
105 America's Educational Futures: 1976-2001
by Harold Shane
Distinguished citizens and educators view the years ahead.
111 Prolongevity: The Extension of the Human Life Span
by Albert Rosenfeld
Some scientists are optimistic that the human life span can be ex-
tended to 200 or more years.
116 The Pleasure Bond: Reversing the Anti-Sex Ethic
by Robert T. Francoeur and Anna K. Francoeur
Sex in the future may be governed by a new ethic emphasizing
pleasure, caring, and mutual growth.
Part 4: The Future as Invention
"Inventing the future" has become a popular phrase among futurist.
They do not see the future as something that just happens to people;
instead, people create the future by deciding what they want and then
working to achieve it.
122 Recycling People
by Fred Best
Education now comes at the beginning of a person's life, work dur-
ing the middle years, and leisure at the end. Distributing them
more evenly through a lifetime might make more sense in today's
fast-changing world.
134 Appropriate Technology: What It Is and Where It's Going
by Rowan A. Wakefield and Patricia Stafford
The current "appropriate technology" movement is challenging
traditional concepts of economic development.
139 Social Inventions
by D. Stuart Conger
Social inventions can solve social problems just as mechanical
inventions can solve technological problems.
149 Hawaii's Lessons for the Future
by Bob Krauss
Future shock? Limits to growth? An island people long ago found
ways to deal with them.
Conclusion
156 Towards a Philosophy of Futurism
by Edward S. Cornish
Futurists are developing a unique perspective on the world.
159 For Further Reading
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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Future!
The most exciting period of history is right now.
Never before have human lives changed faster or in so
many fascinating ways. No one can know for certain
what may happen in the years ahead, but some people
are now thinking very seriously about the future and
can give us at least an inkling of what we may witness
in the years to come. Even more important, they can
help us to decide what we should do today to make the
world a better place to live in tomorrow. We must not
forget that we jointly create the future by what we do?
or fail to do?in our daily lives.
The rapid change that we are experiencing means that
the future will probably be more different for us than it
was for any previous generation of human beings. The
world of tomorrow will seem a strange place unless we
prepare ourselves for it, and to do that we must look for
glimmerings of what may happen in the years ahead.
We cannot know what the future holds, due to the in-
herent uncertainty of events, but we can identify some
of the possibilities, so that we can decide more wisely
what we should do today to create a better future
world.
We have inherited a great deal from our ancestors
whose contributions through the centuries created the
civilization that we enjoy today. But we ourselves must
carry forward the human enterprise in the face of many
new challenges. We may be nearing the climax of the
human drama that began over two million years ago
with the emergence of man on this planet. Although we
cannot know the final outcome of the momentous per-
iod in which we are living, we can clearly see that we
have entered a period of fantastic possibilities for good
as well as for evil. Some scholars gloomily predict
that civilization is about to self-destruct. But others
are confident that we have entered a new era in which
human beings will not only be happier than ever before
but will also create a great and wondrous new civiliza-
tion that will outshine all the civilizations of the past.
We may be entering a Golden Age more lustrous than
any that has come before.
Whether we are on the threshold of a Golden Age
or on the brink of a global cataclysm that will extinguish
our civilization is, I believe, not only unknown and un-
knowable, but also undecided. The decision will emerge
through what we do in the years ahead, for each of us
will create a little piece of the common future of all
mankind.
To help us carry out more wisely our responsibility
for the future, the World Future Society was formed on
October 12, 1966, in Washington, D.C. The Society is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of people who
share a deep interest in our common future. The Society
does not take stands on what the world will be like or
should be like in the years ahead, but serves instead as a
neutral clearinghouse or forum for a wide variety of
viewpoints. The Society's membership has grown each
year since its founding and in 1978 included more than
40,000 people in some 80 countries around the world.
Shortly after its founding, the Society began publish-
ing a regular newsletter, later a magazine, called THE
FUTURIST. Since its first regular issue (February 1967),
THE FUTURIST has published hundreds of articles on
all aspects of the future. The articles in this book are
drawn from THE FUTURIST and reflect the great di-
versity of subjects dealt with in the magazine. This an-
thology was not designed to offer the "best" of THE
FUTURIST but rather to present a selection of recent
articles that seem likely to interest newcomers to the fu-
ture as a field of study.
The first group of articles, "The Future as History,"
reflects the great interest of futurists in the past: Futur-
ists want to use the past to build a better future. Futuris-
tics has even been called "applied history."
The second section, "The Future as Progress," focuses
on the continuing story of man's technological achieve-
ments. Despite widespread pessimism, progress contin-
ues today on almost all fronts, and these articles suggest
a few?a very few?of the many fields in which new
wonders are being achieved.
The third section, "The Future as Challenge," de-
scribes some of the problems that humanity now faces,
but also suggests means of solving those problems or
at least softening their impact.
The fourth and final section offers "The Future as In-
vention." Futurists emphasize that we ourselves deter-
mine what the future will be like. If we are to mold a
better future, we must be inventive and come up with
creative new ways to meet problems.
This volume can offer only a tiny sampling of what
may happen in the years ahead.* Since the future is the
realm of infinite possibilities, we can never know all
the things that might come to pass within its domain;
all we can do is to make a few forays into that awesome-
ly vast and incomparably fascinating territory.
*Readers who wish to move further into the field should
turn to The Study of the Future: An Introduction to the Art
and Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow's
World by Edward Cornish and members and staff of the
World Future Society. World Future Society, 4916 St. Elmo
Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20014. U.S.A. 308 pages. Paper-
back. $9.50 ($8.50 to Society members).
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Part 1
THE FUTURE AS HISTORY
The past can illuminate the future.
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Smith, Marx, and Malthus
Ghosts Who Haunt Our Future
Three Economic Visions of Tomorrow's World
by James H. Weaver and Jon D. Wisman
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and
Thomas Malthus presented the
world with compelling?though
mutually contradictory?visions
of the future. Today the disciples
of each of the three great econo-
mists can argue that his vision is
alive and well and still foretells
the shape of things to come.
One way of exploring the future alter-
natives of our economic life is by pro-
jecting into the future the ideas of the
great economists. The rationale for this
approach is that, while ideas spring
forth from the unfolding' of history, they
are also exceedingly important in deter-
mining the future.
Three economists whose ideas have
had a powerful influence on the past and
promise to influence the future very pro-
foundly are Adam Smith, Karl Marx,
and Thomas Malthus. The systems that
they developed represent the most acute
awareness of the history of their times?
the same history in which our own pre-
sent and future are rooted.
Adam Smith was an astute student of
18th-century economic conditions. His
observations and his Scottish Enlighten-
ment values led him to believe that it
was no accident that in 1776 the richest
country, England, was also the country
in which individuals were left freest to
pursue their own self-interest. However,
English economic life was? still exceed-
ingly fettered by government regulation
and intervention in the economic
sphere. In consequence, Smith wrote his
famous anti-mercantilist treatise, An In-
quiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of the Nations, which outlined
his vision of a good society. A good so-
ciety would result, Smith argued, if gov-
ernment would leave individuals free to
pursue their own specific interests. In-
dividuals know best their own interests,
and the competitive social interaction of
the selfishly-motivated economic activi-
ties Of individuals would result in a so-
cial harmony, as if guided by an "invisi-
ble hand." With competition as the reg-
ulator, a "simple and obvious system of
natural liberty"?aside from being good
in and of itself?would promise the
greatest possible material well-being. To
be operative, Adam Smith's vision re-
quired two basic economic institutions:
private ownership of the means of pro-
duction; and markets through which
goods, services, and the factors of pro-
duction could be allocated.
Karl Marx was equally optimistic, al-
though he had a very different vision of
the future. Born almost a century after
Smith, Marx observed the seamy side of
capitalism as it matured, and he longed
for the demise of this system which,
through exploitation, created extremes
of wealth and poverty. Smith had
viewed people primarily as self-interest-
ed individuals and thus saw a need for
private property and marketplaces to
adjudicate between them, but Marx saw
people primarily as social beings and
thus emphasized cooperation and equal-
ity. Humans' exploitation of humans
would end as capitalism gave birth to a
higher form of social organization. The
economic institutions necessary to post-
capitalist society were social ownership
of the means of production and alloca-
tion of goods, services, and factors of
production according to the principle of
"from each according to his ability, to
each according to his need." However,
before the latter principle could become
effective, "socialist consciousness" must
be created and during this transition
period the institution of planning and
central government control would be es-
sential. Marx's ultimate vision, then,
was the possibility of achieving?
through socialism?ultimate abundance
and the end of alienation?an end to
status distinctions between mental work
and manual work, between town and
country, and between men and women.
In contrast to the optimism of Smith
and Marx, the Reverend Thomas Mal-
thus painted a grim scenario of what
awaited humanity. Malthus was repre-
sentative of the reactionary English re-
sponse to the values of the French Revo-
lution and the growing power of the
commercial and industrial class. Unlike
Smith and Marx, his fonder sentiments
were attached to the past. Believing in
original sin, he viewed people as profli-
gate, selfish, and unable to restrain their
own appetites. Consequently, they will
breed until there is no longer enough
food to go around; society is unable to
regulate itself, except through the un-
willed mechanisms of famine, pesti-
lence, plague, disease, and war. Thus,
the Malthusian vision of the future was
of a nightmare come true.
Let us now look at how each of these
visions is faring in today's world and
what it may suggest about the future of
humanity.
Prospects for Adam Smith's Vision
According to the Smithian vision, so-
cial harmony and economic progress re-
sult when economic power is widely dis-
persed among competing economic act-
ors: The means of production are pri-
vately owned and the value of every-
thing?from an hour's labor to an ice
cream cone?is determined in competi-
tive markets by the "natural" forces of
supply and demand. Of course, the
ideal Smithian economy does not exist
Adam Smith's followers have produced
great wealth for capitalist nations, but his
vision of limitless economic growth creates
environmental hazards that threaten man's
existence. Illustration: Kathy Sanderson
Copyright 1978 by World Future Society
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today?nor has it ever existed. And the
degree to which specific economies ap-
proximate the Smithian ideal is a source
of perennial debate. We are all aware
that monopolies, oligopolies, and car-
tels exist; that labor unions exist; and
that governments everywhere are in-
volved with the workings of economies.
Still, the Smithian vision continues to
act as a powerful guiding philosophy for
capitalist countries. Their dominant
faith is that the Smithian vision has cru-
cial itnportance to the well-being of hu-
manity. However poor the fit between
the Smithian ideal and specific capitalist
economies, it is with and through cap-
italism that the Smithian vision lives
' and exerts its influence.
When we look at capitalist econo-
mies, we are struck by the fact that in
the past 30 years, capitalism has been in
one of its most vibrant, vital, dynamic,
and expansionist phases. The impact of
this expansion has been visible on three
groups of countries: the advanced cap-
italist countries, the less developed
countries, and the so-called socialist
countries of Eastern Europe.
The developed capitalist countries of
Western Europe and Japan recovered
with unexpected rapidity from the rav-
ages of World War II, and are now ex-
porting goods and capital to all corners
of the globe. The growth rate of the U.S.
economy during the 1960s was truly
phenomenal: a? 3% per capita average
annual increase in GNP during the per-
iod 19604971. This growth came on top
of a very high income base at the begin-
ning of that period. Furthermore, cap-
italism's post-World War II successes
have given birth to a dynamic mecha-
nism for spreading capitalist institutions
and values throughout the globe: the
multinational corporations. These cor-
porations have expanded their opera-
tions not only to every part of the un-
derdeveloped. world but into the econo-
mies of Many socialist countries as well.
The less developed countries that are
most explicitly following a capitalist
path of development?especially those
that have opened their doors widest to
the multinational corporations?are ex-
periencing a rapid process of industriali-
zation. Brazil now exports manufac-
tured goods of greater value than its cof-
fee. Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Malay-
sia, and Mexico are experiencing specta-
cular gains in industrialization. If we
judge these economies on the basis of
their governments' goals?that of rapid-
ly increasing the gross national prod-
uct?they have been remarkably suc-
cessful.
International capitalism is also
launching an expansion in Eastern Eu-
rope. In the recent past the countries of
Eastern Europe have opened their econ-
omies to capitalist institutions such as
the market and multinational corpora-
New York Stock Exchange carries on the tradition of Adam Smith.
Photos: New York Stock Exchange
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tions. For instance, the Rockefellers'
Chase Manhattan Bank has opened an
office in Moscow (on Karl Marx Square,
no less!). U.S. energy firms plan to pur-
chase natural gas worth billions of dol-
lars from the Soviet Union. Representa-
tives of the USSR and Wall Street are
considering raising capital to be invest-
ed in Russia. Multinational firms plan to
establish operations in Russia, Poland,
Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, follow-
ing several such developments in Yugo-
slavia.
Thus the socialist countries seem to
have succumbed to the lure of consum-
erism, which is capitalism's mainstay.
These countries appear to be gradually
accepting Adam Smith's adage that
"Consumption is the sole end and pur-
pose of all production." In spite of the
fact that the multinational corporation
is perhaps the most advanced instru-
ment of capitalism, these giants are be-
ing invited in to invigorate the econo-
mies of Eastern Europe.
The expansion of the multinational
corporations may make the Smithian
vision the most likely alternative for fu-
ture human history but, if so, we should
not expect the globalization of capital-
ism to occur smoothly. At issue is a
world-shaking bid for power between
the nation-state and the multinational
corporation. Ironically, the rise of the
multinational corporation has coincided
with the development of scores of new
nation-states. As increasing nationalist
pressures have led to decolonization and
to greater national political indepen-
dence (at least in form), the multination-
al corporations have grown apace. And
these newest repositories of power are
mounting an evcr greater challenge to
the sovereignty, stability, and even the
raison d'etre of the nation-state.
The multinationals have been able to
amass enormous power through their
control of four aspects of economic life:
1. Through their control of modern
technology, they exert powerful influ-
ence over the nature of the process of
production and the types of goods and
services produced.
2. Their command over long-term fi-
nance capital enables them to control
somewhere between 300 and 350 billion
dollars of liquid assets?one and one-
half to two times all the reserves held by
governments.
3. Multinational corporations are?at
least allegedly?capable of thwarting
the countervailing power of national la-
bor unions by threatening to move pro-
duction to other countries rather than
yield to labor's demands.
4. The multinational corporations
purportedly wield increasing control
over their product markets by psycho-
logically bombarding their clients with
the ideology of consumerism?the no-
tion that the good life comes from the
consumption of the things they produce.
They spend billions on advertising to
convince people around the globe that
the good life is derived primarily from
consumption of goods and services.
The multinationals have in the last
few years helped to create domestic and
international instability among the de-
veloped capitalist countries. For in-
stance, just before the devaluation of the
dollar in August 1971, the MNCs helped
bring about an enormous flight from the
dollar into deutschemarks, gold, and
other assets thought to be more devalu-
ation-proof than the dollar. The global
giants were instrumental in triggering a
balance of payments crisis for the
United States that rocked the interna-
tional monetary system to its founda-
tion.
The MNCs have also posed difficul-
ties for central banks which attempt to
use monetary policy to maintain domes-
tic economic stability. In the past, a cen-
tral bank could affect spending in the
economy by changing the supply of
money and thereby changing the cost
and availability of credit. Central banks
could heat up or cool off the domestic
economy by intervening in the domestic
capital markets. However, large corpor-
ations?specifically multinational cor-
porations?have become increasingly
independent of domestic credit condi-
tions in their investment decisions. The
greatest part of their investment needs
is being met from their large stocks of
internally generated funds (depreciation
allowances and undistributed profits).
And if these funds should be insuffi-
cient, the multinational corporations
can move funds from abroad to meet
their investment needs. Thus, as multi-
national corporations and banks ac-
count for an increasing percentage of to-
tal economic activity, they increasingly
abort the attempts of monetary authori-
ties to stabilize domestic economies. Yet
a third area of instability is alleged to be
the structural unemployment resulting
from the MNCs' practice of moving pro-
duction facilities away from the indus-
trially advanced countries?where
wages are high and unions are strong?
to industrially backward countries
where unions are virtually non-existent
and wages are very low.
Thanks in part to the multinational
corporations, the economic system es-
tablished after World War II on the
principles of John Maynard Keynes has
changed radically from the 19th-century
laissez-faire economy. Today's most
distinguished economists, with their
panoply of Keynesian tools, don't seem
to understand exactly how this new
post-Keynesian economy operates, just
as economists schooled in classical eco-
nomic theory failed to understand the
Keynesian economy of 1929. The result
back then was a terrible depression that
lasted for 10 years?a very high price
for not understanding the economic sys-
tem!
Keynes taught us that there is unem-
ployment when there is too little total
spending in the economy. The solution
is for government to intervene by in-
creasing total spending until everyone is
put to work. That worked rather well in
World War II, and during the 1950s and
1960s. Keynesian economics also taught
us that inflation resulted from too much
total spending when we were at full em-
ployment, meaning no more could be
produced. The role of government was
to reduce total spending so as to elimi-
nate the upward pressures on wages and
prices.
Thus, we all learned that unemploy-
ment and inflation were opposite prob-
lems and had opposite policy require-
ments. At a time of unemployment, the
government increased total spending; at
times of inflation, the government de-
creased total spending. In any case, in
the Keynesian system, unemployment
and inflation could not exist at the same
time.
But during the early 1970s the U.S.
has experienced unemployment of over
9% (over 8,000,000 people officially
without jobs?this is as large as the total
work force of Sweden, Denmark, and
Norway combined!), concomitant with
an inflation rate of 12 % .
And what do the Keynesians or neo-
Keynesians instruct us to do? Distilling
the arcane jargon into lay language, the
prescription is: increase total spending
to reduce unemployment and decrease
total spending to reduce inflation. Such
a contradiction reveals the virtual ir-
revelance of the Keynesian model for
current economic ills.
About
the
Authors Weaver
James Weaver, Professor of Economics at
American University in Washington, D.C.,
specializes in economic growth and devel-
opment. He is currently working on a study
of the impact of multinational banks on the
poor.
Jon Wisman is Assistant Professor of
Economics at American University. A spe-
cialist in economic thought and method-
ology, he founded and ran American Univer-
sity's Washington Economic Policy Semi-
nar. In addition, he prepared a study for the
White House Conference on Youth, for
which he projected the American economy
into the future.
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. . . the ideas of economists and poli-
tical philosophers, both when they are
right and when they are wrong, are
more powerful than is commonly un-
derstood. Indeed, the world is ruled by
little else. Practical men, who believe
themselves to be quite exempt from any
intellectual influences, are usually the
slaves of some defunct economist.
?John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment,
Interest, and Money, 1936.
British economist John Maynard Keynes explained the causes for capitalist problems of
the first half of the 20th century, and offered cures that seemed fairly effective. But changes
in the world economy have made Keynesian theory obsolete. Today capitalist economists
are struggling to understand the present economy before the world plunges into another
war or great depression. Photo: Library of Congress
So far, no new Keynes has appeared
on the horizon to set forth a model
which suggests politically viable solu-
tions for our current economic woes.
We can only hope that a new Keynes
doesn't wait 10 years to come up with
the needed theory. None of us relishes
the idea of living through another Great
Depression and world war.
There are three causes making the
Keynesian model obsolete for our econ-
omy:
First, in the last 25 years there has
been a significant increase in monopoly
power over practically all markets. The
result is that prices and wages have be-
come increasingly resistant to down-
ward pressure. Monopoly power in the
more recent past has progressed to the
point where prices not only do not fall
in response to a decrease in demand?
they very often actually rise.
Second, the Employment Act of 1946
committed the U.S. government to
maintaining a high level of employ-
ment. This commitment seems so politi-
cally entrenched that it is unlikely that
politicians could permit a recession of
the depth or length necessary to squeeze
inflation out of the economy. More
probably they will ensure a significant
amount of aggregate demand, regard-
less of the inflationary costs.
The MNC is responsible for the third
underlying reason why the Keynesian
model no longer works. Due to the in-
creasing economic importance of multi-
nationals, U.S. policy-makers increas-
ingly are forced to give more weight to
international stability than to domestic
unemployment.
Shifting our attention to the problems
of international stability, we note that
the institutional and power relations
which promised to regulate and control
the international economy have broken
down. The system which developed af-
ter World War II was based upon the
U.S. playing three roles in the world
economy: First, it was the largest trad-
ing nation. The U.S. and the other in-
dustrialized capitalist nations agreed on
a set of rules for trading that were out-
lined in GATT (The General Agree-
ments on Tariffs and Trade). These
rules were, obviously and not surpris-
ingly, beneficial to the people who drew
them up?the industrialized capitalist
countries. But the OPEC countries have
demonstrated the fragility of these rules
by using trade both as an instrument of
war and as an instrument for bringing
about a massive redistribution of in-
come, wealth, and power from the in-
dustrialized capitalist countries to the
oil-producing countries. It is likely that
other raw materials producers will even-
tually follow suit. Even the U.S. itself
has put export controls on soybeans.
Thus, de facto, GATT has largely brok-
en down and there are no generally ac-
cepted rules for international trade.
The second role for the U.S. was that
of the world's major banker. The inter-
national monetary system established at
the end of World War II was based on
fixed exchange rates managed in large
part by the U.S. and other industrialized
capitalist countries. The dollar came to
be the principal world currency, and the
need for an expanding world currency
was met in part by deficits in the U.S.
balance of payments. The U.S. spent
more abroad than it took in, and other
countries kept the dollars and used them
as reserves for their own currency. The
funds held in this completely unregulat-
ed Eurodollar market now exceed $300
billion and pose a great threat to the sta-
bility of the international economy.
When President Nixon dropped the in-
ternational gold backing for the dollar
in 1971, the U.S. dollar ceased to play
its former role as the primary interna-
tional currency. The U.S. is no longer
able to call the shots as the world's
banker, but no new system has emerged
and no agreed-upon rules of the game
exist.
The third role played by the U.S. was
that of the world's largest investor. The
U.S. made the rules for its MNCs and
multinational banks; other capitalist
countries, lacking adequate capital, gen-
erally accepted U.S. investments on
U.S. terms. But now Western European
and Japanese MNCs are increasingly in-
vesting abroad, even in the U.S., and
the OPEC countries have joined in. The
U.S. has become uneasy at the prospect
of foreigners owning key American
firms, but its diminished leadership role
makes it difficult to do much to stop for-
eigners from buying up America. If the
U.S. restricted the realm in which for-
eigners might invest in the U.S., foreign
countries would surely retaliate againsZ
American investments abroad.
What are the potential options for
dealing with the problems presented by
the globalization of capitalism under the
driving force of the multinational cor-
poration? The present system seems so
unstable that it may provoke invest-
ment wars. How can capitalism avoid
the seemingly inevitable chaos? Among
the options that have been proposed
are:
1. Give the MNCs sovereignty. They
would join the nation-states as equal
partners. The President of Dow Chemi-
cal went far along this line of reasoning
when he argued that his company
should buy and locate its corporate
headquarters on an unclaimed island?
so that it would not be responsible to
any nation-state.
2. Regulate the MNCs through world
government. Some proponents of this
approach are encouraged by the recent
U.N. conference on control of the sea and
its resources as a step in this direction.
Some MNCs have themselves expressed
the need for some form of world govern-
ment regulation. They realize that the
present international capitalist system
requires some type of agreed-upon rules
and regulations and governmental inter-
vention from an international body.
Some corporate leaders would point to
the experience of the 1930s when capi-
talism broke down in the U.S. and
Western Europe and was only revived
and sustained by massive governmental
intervention. They see the same need on
an international scale today.
3. Regulate the MNCs through re-
gional or special interest groups or blocs
of nations. One could think of the Or-
ganization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) as one such attempt,
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IQ
although it is not yet clear that the
OPEC countries are regulating the oil
companies so much as they are joining
them in, plundering the consumers of oil
around the world. Another example of
this approach is the Andean Pact na-
tions of South America which have been
trying to come up with a common posi-
tion in their relationships vis-a-vis the
MNCs.
4. Regulate the MNCs through an in-
ternational condominium, i.e., joint
sovereignty by two or more nations.
Perhaps the nations of Western Europe
and Japan will get together with the
United States to establish policies which
the MNCs must follow. The OECD
Committee on Investment and Multina-
tional Enterprise is striving for this sort
of solution.
5. Develop countervailing power
through the growth of multinational un-
ions. These unions would represent all
the workers employed by the MNC
worldwide and would be able to block
efforts to shift production from one
country to another to minimize wage
costs, break strikes, etc. In Denmark
and Sweden, there seems to be a move-
ment toward worker self-management.
There are discussions of using the assets
of the pension funds in Sweden to buy
out the Swedish capitalists, to pay them
off with interest-bearing bonds and to
turn over management of Swedish in-
dustry to the workers in those indus-
tries. The workers would then elect
workers' councils which would elect
management. Since 1973, the member-
ship of boards of all Swedish corpora-
tions must, by law, include two repre-
sentatives elected by the workers. It is
hard to know how this will affect the
Swedish economy and the Swedish
MNCs. But since Sweden has so often
been the pace-setter for other capitalist
countries, this is a development to be
studied very carefully.
6. Attempt to re-establish U.S. hege-
mony and control of the mechanism of
the international economy. Discussions
are being held on the possibility of
breaking the oil cartel, of re-establishing
fixed exchange rates and of re-establish-
ing U.S. competitive advantage vis-a-
vis the West European and Japanese
MNCs. However, it is unclear as to
what might be done in terms of concrete
measures to strengthen the U.S. posi-
tion.
Of course, many question the wisdom
of any regulation at all. They deny that
the world's present course will lead to
chaos, and thus they favor a status quo
or "do nothing" policy. They argue that
there are two kinds of dominant and
powerful institutions at work in? the
world today?the nation-states and the
multinational corporations. They ask
which is the more dynamic institution?
Which is more creative? Which is doing
more to enhance human welfare? With
which would you wish to identify? It is
not clear to many observers that the
multinationals come off second best in
this comparison.
The technological dynamism of the
MNCs is indeed something to be reck-
oned with, and if technological change
is the catalyst for social change, then the
MNC promises to be the transforming
vehicle of the age. Some proponents of
leaving the MNCs unfettered argue that
. the anti-capitalist, anti-growth, and
anti-technology groups today can be
compared to the utopian dreamers of
the 19th century who established the
Brook Farm and Oneida utopian com-
munities. These experiments failed and
had little if any influence on the techno-
logical dynamism of the capitalist firms
that transformed North America in the
19th century.
An analogy can be drawn between the
MNCs of today and the large capitalist
firms of the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies, such as Standard Oil, American
Can, U.S. Steel, and American Tobac-
co. At the end of the 19th century, many
people and interests opposed the growth
and expansion of these large firms. Leg-
islation was passed in the United States
to regulate them?the Interstate Com-
merce Act, the Sherman Act, the Clay-
ton Act, etc. European countries gener-
ally did not pass such anti-trust legisla-
tion, yet there is little difference in the
way capitalist firms developed in West-
ern Europe and the United States.
The giant corporations transformed
the U.S. economy just as they trans-
formed the economies of Western Eur-
ope and, later, Japan. Proponents of an
essentially laissez-faire position argue
that the multinationals will similarly
transform the economies of the underde-
veloped countries as well, and perhaps
even the socialist countries. Some ob-
servers argue that the Soviet model of
development is essentially a state capi-
talist model, adapted to purposes of
rapid development. Another way of
putting this would be to view the Soviet
Union as going through a stage compar-
able to mercantilism in Europe; now
nearing the end of that stage, the Soviet
Union stands poised and ready to take
the last steps necessary to join the capi-
talist countries. In this view, the Soviet
Union is ready to learn the lessons of
Adam Smith concerning the virtues of
private property and competitive mar-
kets.
Viewed from this vantage point, the
Smithian vision appears alive and well,
vigorous and dynamic. The alleged
problems are merely bumps in the road
of capitalist progress. Capitalism, rath-
er than declining, is actually gaining
speed in its conquest of the world. And
those who anticipate the death-knell of
capitalism merely fail to see the road
continuing on the other side of the
bumps.
Prospects for Marx's Vision
Karl Marx thought that capitalism
was merely a necessary stage in the pro-
gress of history and that the demise of
capitalism was imminent. Although the
international capitalist system appears
quite dynamic, many Marxist observers
remain convinced that it is emitting its
last gasps. In the Marxian view, the 19th
century was the heyday for capitalism,
but the 20th century belongs to social-
ism.
The ineptitude of the capitalist coun-
tries in getting themselves involved in
World War I paved the way for the tri-
umph of socialism in Russia. The still
greater chaos generated by World War
II made it possible to establish socialism
in China. And, in the eyes of many ob-
servers, the momentum gained by the
establishment of socialism in these two
giant countries has made socialism in
the Third World seem inevitable.
In particular, the development of
China presents a very attractive alterna-
tive to many in underdeveloped coun-
tries. For centuries, Westerners had
thought that there would always be the
pathetic and hopelessly poor in China.
Yet in a short 25 years China seems to
have transcended its historical plight.
Karl Marx envisioned a society in which
man does meaningful work and lives in har-
mony with his neighbors. But his disciples
have often created large and repressive bu-
reaucracies. Illustration: Kathy Sanderson
Copyright 1978 by World Future Society
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With a very modest level of per capita
income, China has been able to over-
come problems of unemployment, hun-
ger, poverty, illiteracy, and inadequate
or nonexistent medical care and housing
for its 800 million people. None of these
problems has been solved or is even
very far on its way to solution in any of
the underdeveloped countries following
a capitalist path. The Chinese experi-
ment has attracted many admirers.
What is unique about the Chinese
model? First, unlike the capitalist and
Soviet experiences, development in
China does not favor the cities over the
rural areas. That is, agriculture is not
being bled to subsidize urban industrial-
ization. Instead, there is an attempt to
bring about development so as to mini-
mize rather than maximize city-country
distinctions. Services and amenities
such as the "bare-foot" doctors, teach-
ers, and cultural events are spread
throughout the countryside. The decen-
tralized pattern of development has en-
abled China to avoid the social and psy-
chological tensions which normally ac-
company rapid urbanization.
A second important characteristic of
the Chinese approach is its emphasis on
intermediate technology. The history of
Western development has taught that a
country must develop by utilizing the
most advanced, sophisticated, and
large-scale technology available. This
has normally meant that development
must initially result in a high rate of un-
employment, exploitative wage rates,
and an increasingly skewed distribution
of income. China, on the other hand,
has implemented only those forms of
technology which promise to take maxi-
mum advantage of present resources,
while simultaneously promoting desired
social goals. In addition to some heavy.
industry, China has developed a small-
scale and labor-intensive technology
which has yielded full employment and
a more equally distributed income.
A third characteristic of the Chinese
development model is that it seems to be
less threatening to the environment than
the development models pursued in the
West. There are several reasons for this:
First, the wide geographical dispersion
of development effort means that strains
on the environment are widely dis-
persed. Second, small-scale, labor-in-
tensive technology also means that de-
mands on the environment are less con-
centrated. Third, by de-emphasizing the
importance of markets, all costs?
including those to the environment?are
more likely to be given attention. Final-
ly, by emphasizing social rather than in-
dividual consumption, relatively more
importance is given to such public
goods as clean air, clean rivers and
lakes, etc.
The fourth characteristic of the Chi-
nese development model is its great suc-
Farm commune in mainland China is run by people striving to realize the vision of Karl
Marx. These rice paddies are part of the model commune at Tachai in the Shansi province.
Photo: H. Henle, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
cess in inspiring and mobilizing the peo-
ple. Studies abound on the positive rela-
tionship 'between motivation and pro-
ductivity, and this is by far the most
striking characteristic of the Chinese ex-
perience. Bureaucrats and intellectuals
are thought to serve the people. "Elite"
? cadres work side-by-side with workers
? and peasants for periods of time. In ad-
? dition, positions of responsibility and
admission to universities are obtained
more on the bases of work dedication
and peer-group selection than on the
bases of class background and purely in-
tellectual endowments. The result is to
encourage work diligence and coopera-
tion. People are encouraged to be self-
reliant and to share. Evidence indicates
that everyone is fed, clothed, housed
and medically cared for. Although
China is a poor country, there is no
poverty.
But aside from the Chinese experi-
ence, there are many other reasons why
the Marxist vision might be the best
guide for our future history. For in-
stance, the ability of the Vietcong and
the Khmer Rouge (with the aid of the
U.S.S.R., North Vietnam, and China)
to resist the largest and the most power-
ful military machine in all history has
given great encouragement to socialists
around the world. Furthermore, the so-
cialist vision has come to be shared by
many of the world's intellectuals, both
in the developed and underdeveloped
countries. Marx, Lenin, Mao, Fanon,
Sartre, and Che Guevara have devel-
oped a significant body of socialist liter-
ature to inspire revolutionaries every-
where.
The mass movements which have
sprung up around the world in this cen-
tury are socialist in nature. For the most
'part, the causes for which people have
been mobilized and for which they have
given their blood have been socialist
causes. No mass movement of which
we're aware has as its slogan "Build
Capitalism!" This is not to say that there
aren't people who are fighting in defense
of capitalism?but not as a mass move-
ment of people.
These mass movements seem to thrive
on the economic woes of the capitalist
world. As the capitalist economies be-
come increasingly interdependent, inter-
national economic instability comes
more and more to affect individual capi-
talist economies, and hence the power
structures within individual countries.
The recent socialist triumphs in Angola,
Mozambique, Portugal, and Ethiopia
may have been triggered in some part
by The international economic instabili-
ties of the past few years. Socialist par-
ties are gaining influence in France,
Italy, and other capitalist nations be-
cause the socialist countries are not ex-
periencing the unemployment, infla-
tion, and balance of payments problems
that are plaguing the capitalist coun-
tries.
The Marxist vision is one of unalien-
ated people working and living together
in egalitarian harmony, not just with
each other, but with nature as well. Yet
in many respects the trend in many so-
called socialist countries?especially
those in Eastern Europe?works against
this vision. This can be seen most clear-
ly in the extent to which these societies
have become hierarchical. In the politi-
cal sphere, this has meant government
by hierarchic rather than democratic
principles. Instead of decentralized, par-
ticipatory decision-making, large cen-
tralized bureaucracies wield ultimate
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power. Striving to legitimate this
power, ruling elites have found it neces-
sary to resort to totalitarian techniques
for quashing any challenge to their au-
thority. This has been translated into
the repression of political, religious, ar-
tistic, and intellectual freedoms.
Hierarchical tendencies have meant
that work in the socialist societies differs
little from that in capitalist countries.
As material incentives have become in-
creasingly important, the process of
work itself has declined in importance.
Workers become alienated from their
jobs as they are provided with incomes
but not the means with which to express
their creativity. Rather than working
harmoniously together, workers com-
pete for greater material rewards and
higher positions in the hierarchy. And
the movement towards hierarchy and
the increasing emphasis on material in-
centives enhances, and is enhanced by,
consumerism. The capitalist contention
that "consumption is the sole end and
purpose of all production" seems to be
gaining ground in many of the so-called
socialist societies. This increasingly con-
sumerist attitude gives the economy a
goal of limitless growth which bodes ill
for the environment.
Nevertheless, in spite of the tendency
for socialist societies to become some-
thing other than what was hoped for,
the Marxist vision is alive and well. The
socialists have identified themselves
with those who are calling for a redistri-
bution of income, wealth, and power in
the world. They have supported the call
for a new and more just international
economic system and this continues to
win them many supporters in the world.
The socialist impulse is strong in the
world today, and there appear to be
many more Russias, Chinas, Cubas,
and Vietnams on the horizon.
Prospects for Malthus's Vision
The third vision?that of Thomas
Malthus?suggests that the future will
be far grimmer than either Smith or
Marx ever dreamed. Malthus presents a
cruel future, dominated by the spectres
of famine, pestilence, plague, disease,
and war.
While both the Smithian and Marxian
visions express faith in humanity's abil-
ity to control its own fate, The Reverend
Thomas Malthus envisioned a world
driven by uncontrollable forces. Mal-
thus offered a theory of human failure,
with two rather distinct reasons given
for the failure: The first is that people
are simply wicked and therefore it
would be preposterous to expect a posi-
tive outcome from their interaction. The
second is the "Frankensteinian Monster
Thesis"?humanity is at the mercy of
forces which it has set into motion; peo-
ple simply do not possess sufficient
awareness and strength to control their
own creations.
Malthus's pessimism concerning tech-
nology now is widely shared, because
technological advances have caused sev-
eral crises which some say will dominate
the future. The most ironic of these ad-
vances is found in the technological
breakthroughs in medicine. Recent ad-
vances in medicine have allowed an un-
precedented number of people to sur-
vive infancy and live longer than ever
before. But providing an adequate food
supply to the rising world population
seems impossible within the existing in-
ternational economy.
A second technological crisis arises
from improvements in communications
and transportation. Radios have been
introduced into almost every village in
the world. Television is being developed
in many poor countries, and films are
shown widely. This explosion in com-
munications is having a radicalizing ef-
fect, because the poor are becoming
painfully aware of the discrepancy in
life-styles among rich and poor nations.
Marx once wrote that a cottage doesn't
seem small until a great castle is built
beside it. The peasant comes home day
after day and rejoices in his cottage.
When a castle arises, the peasant says,
"Why should I live like a pig when it's
Thomas Malthus predicted that humanity
will breed until its teeming millions die off
from war, disease, and hunger. The rapid in-
crease of world population in the 20th cen-
tury has given great credibility ?to his
gloomy vision.
Illustration: Kathy Sanderson
Copyright 1978 by World Future Society
possible to live so much better?" Thus
one of the new elements in the world?
an element which differentiates it from
the relatively stable world of the past?
is the awareness that the poor now have
of their poverty. Contributing to this
new consciousness is the direct exposure
to rich Americans which has been
brought about by the technological ad-
vances in transportation. Jets have per-
mitted American tourists to visit every
corner of the globe, demonstrating how
incredibly rich Americans are?even to
the point of vulgarity.
A third crisis is the result of the tech-
nological change that has occurred in
weapons. Nuclear bombs are becoming
accessible even to relatively poor coun-
tries, and are likely to be in the hands of
some 30 countries by the year 2000. In-
tercontinental ballistic missiles are being
developed by some relatively poor
countries. Breakthroughs in chemical
and biological warfare make it possible
to wreak widespread havoc on whole
nations at very little cost. New weapons
technology will provide terrorist groups
with increasing potential to challenge
state power. Thus, the new weapons not
only democratize power between na-
tions; they also appear to be making the
nation-state less defensible and there-
fore less viable as a political unit.
The fourth crisis arises from the enor-
mous expansion in the use of modern in-
dustrial technology, which has greatly
increased the need for energy. The re-
sulting energy crisis has pointed the way
for the oil-producing countries to in-
crease their bargaining power and to
force fundamental realignments in the
international economic system. It is
highly probable that such tactics will be
emulated by other raw material-produc-
ing countries, but it is doubtful that the
developed capitalist countries will allow
such policies to continue. If the crisis
worsens, industrial nations might be
pressured to use force to take over the
raw materials they need. If a worldwide
depression comes, there will be an enor-
mous push to seize the oil?through
some pretext, of course: an Arab-Israeli
war, an Arab-Iranian war, an Arab-
Arab war, a coup in Libya, etc. As scar-
city increases, nations are likely to be-
come more selfish and nationalistic.
The sixth crisis?the technologically-
induced ecological crisis?has four as-
pects which are important for assessing
the future of the world economy:
1. Food. Many demographers argue
that world population is going to double
and re-double within the next century,
even if the most optimistic projections
on family planning and birthrate reduc-
tion are met. The present population of
the earth is four billion; doubling that
gives us eight billion; another doubling
gives us 16 billion. It is questionable
whether we can even feed that many
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Children at a day care center in Bangladesh.
people, much less increase their level of
consumption of other goods. Optimists
point out that we can count on more
green revolutions, hydroponics, and
synthetic foods to feed us. However,
even if we do manage to feed ourselves,
the cost in lost liberty may be exceeding-
ly high. India's actions in implementing
forced sterilization may only hint at
what lies ahead.
2. Energy. Events of recent years have
also heightened our awareness of the
scarcity of energy. There is serious con-
cern as to whether we will continue to
have sufficient fuel to propel industrial
growth. Projections for petroleum show
demand increasing at the rate of 10%
per year. Experts project that at the
present rate of industrial growth,
known and foreseeable oil reserves will
be exhausted by the end of this century.
We can assume that the estimates of re-
serves are low; perhaps we really have
four times as much oil in the ground as
the experts project. But even that would
only allow us to keep on using oil for an
additional 14 years at present rates of
Photo: United Nations
growth. Again the technocrats argue
that we will find alternative energy
sources. They cite the disappearance of
wood and its replacement by coal,
which was in turn replaced by oil, and
now they confidently predict oil will be
replaced by atomic, thermal, solar or
yet unknown forms of energy.
However, even if they are right, there
are still the very serious problems of
heat and wastes to be dealt with before
such happy solutions really become via-
ble.
3. Metals. Experts tell us that a vast
number of essential metals are simply
not going to be available to support
continued industrial growth. Some pro-
jections suggest that many of these met-
als (silver, gold, copper, lead, platinum,
tin and zinc) will simply be unavailable
within 20 years, if present rates of use
continue. Of course, there are optimists
who contend that we will be capable of
adjusting to such shortages. Techno-
crats assure us that technology will de-
vise synthetics for these scarce re-
sources, citing the case of synthetic rub-
ber in World War II. And market econ-
omists argue that as scarcity pushes the
prices of resources up, producers will
substitute other materials for those that
are scarce, while consumers will shift
their consumption from resource-using
goods to services?more plays, concerts
and psychiatrists, fewer cars and planes
(indeed, we can already observe a shift
to services in American consumption
patterns). Nevertheless, it is difficult to
imagine such adjustments occurring
without substantial social disruptions.
4. Waste disposal. The fourth aspect
of the ecological crisis concerns our ca-
pacity to dispose of the wastes which
are by-products of our continued eco-
nomic growth. The earth, air, and water
are heavily polluted now and we have
no way of knowing when the level of
pollution may make future human life
on the planet impossible. For instance,
there is growing evidence that pollution
is causing irrevocable damage to our
seas; that we are destroying our atmos-
phere's ability to shield us from carcino-
genic ultraviolet rays; and that we
might be changing the earth's climatic
conditions. Of course, the technocrats
optimistically respond that non-pollut-
ing technologies will be developed and
re-cycling can take care of our prob-
lems.
When we turn our attention from the
relationship between technology and the
ecological crisis to the institutions avail-
able for dealing with the crisis, it is diffi-
cult to be optimistic. Western institu-
tions have been built on the attitude that
nature is an adversary to be tamed and
dominated. Indeed, the spread of this at-
titude was undoubtedly a key factor in
the phenomenal growth and develop-
ment of the West in the past four or five
centuries. Yet, ironically, we seem to
have reached a juncture where the per-
sistence of this attitude threatens our
very survival. Our institutions operate
as if nature's bounty were boundless.
Hierarchy, inequality, and alienating
work are made socially palatable by the
promise of more material wealth for
everyone. Indeed, Adam Smith's fam-
ous dictum that "Consumption is the
sole end and purpose of production" ap-
pears to have been changed to: "Con-
sumption is the sole end and purpose of
life." Hierarchy, inequality, and boring
jobs are tolerated because practically
everyone can have more income with
which to buy "the good things in life."
Non-material values such as a sense of
community, political participation and
clean and safe neighborhoods are also
tossed into the trade. For a sense of
identity, purpose, or life goal, all that
many people have left is consumption.
Understandably, they now believe that
their societies can only be kept going by
creating an ever-increasing flow of
goods and services. If, for ecological
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reasons, economic growth were halted
or drastically slowed, political turmoil
would likely follow. Therefore, for rea-
sons of domestic social stability, it
seems unlikely that politicians will be
capable of implementing significant
measures to avert further ecological de-
terioration.
On an international plane, the exist-
ing institutional framework offers little
hope for dealing successfully with the
ecology problem. In their suspicious
and hostile international environment,
nations can ill afford to limit technologi-
cal change and economic growth. The
technologically and economically weak-
er nations are vulnerable to military
conquest and domination by the strong-
er nations. Consequently, for mere sur-
vival, nations see themselves with no
choice but to forge ahead at full speed.
International agreements to limit eco-
logically destructive activities, would
likely be honored only in the breach.
And the poorer nations have yet an addi-
tional reason to resist international ac-
cords to save the environment. The rich
countries greatly benefited by being able
to pollute freely during their industrial-
ization. Understandably, the poor na-
tions believe that without the same ad-
vantage their potential for joining the
industrialized countries would be se-
verely restricted. Even if international
ecological accords can be agreed upon,
the problem of effectively enforcing
them seems virtually insurmountable.
Consequently, world ecological bal-
ance seems to require an end to the na-
Indian woman toils to grow the rice she
needs to survive. The gloomy vision of
Thomas Malthus is alive and well in most
Third World countries.
Photo: Carl Purcell,
Agency for International Development
tion-state system as we know it. We are
now coming to realize that we have only
one worldwide energy supply, only one
worldwide food supply, and only one
biosphere in which to dump our wastes.
Our very survival requires that we think
in global terms rather than in terms of
nation-states. Just as the invention of
gunpowder and artillery made the city-
state indefensible in an early age, so has
technological change today made the
nation-state an anachronism, ready to
be dumped into the dustbin of history.
But recent history gives us little reason
to expect an end to the nation-state. If
anything, nationalism is on the upsurge;
around the globe, nations strive to as-
sert their independence and sovereignty.
Perhaps just as the city-state was ended
through violence, only violence can
bring an end to the nation-state. But an
unleashing of today's weapons might
end all human life as well as nation-
states! We may be trapped between an
ecological apocalypse on the one hand
and nuclear holocaust on the other.
So perhaps the most likely alternative
for the future is the Malthusian spectre.
The forces which humanity has set into
motion seem beyond control. We ap-
pear to be incapable of limiting our pop-
ulation growth or of providing for even
the basic needs of our population. We
appear to be transforming the earth so
that it is becoming hostile to human life.
We threaten ourselves with total annihi-
lation. The most materially privileged
among us appear to suffer increasingly
from a lack of purpose?a collapse of
spiritual values. We are haunted by the
prospect that should humanity survive,
it will do so in a sterile and regimented
world. Understandably then, to many,
the Malthusian spectre seems perhaps
the most likely alternative future of all.
Toward a New Vision
In reflecting on these three alternative
futures, one cannot help feeling that yet
undefined alternatives might be lurking
on the horizon. The three alternatives
which we have outlined evolved out of
an essentially Western historical con-
text, and were formulated during the
progress-tinged rationality of the En-
lightenment. (Malthus did not stand
outside of this context, rather he reacted
against an aspect of it.) But conscious-
ness, like institutions, is in constant flux.
We now recognize that human con-
sciousness reflects the prevailing institu-
tions and material conditions. We also
admit to the power of human conscious-
ness to transform our institutions and
material conditions. In the past, institu-
tions and material conditions seem to
have been dominant in determining the
course of history, but social conscious-
ness might possibly take over that role
in the future. Such a hope has always
motivated the more optimistic visionar-
ies.
History offers few instances in which
a new social consciousness has sprung
not from changing material conditions,
but rather from a central human or so-
cial purpose. But one instance is the
Chinese revolution. The Chinese appear
to be engaged in the most massive social
experiment ever. They are attempting to
elevate social consciousness into com-
mand of their society's future. The Chi-
nese experiment represents a new di-
mension in social freedom: the ability of
one-quarter of humanity to transcend?
through cultural revolutions?the dic-
tates of their socio-economic institu-
tions. Whether such social freedom can
be made consonant with the individual
freedom which Westerners have sought
and cherished remains an open ques-
tion. But if the Chinese experiment suc-
ceeds, we will have seen the force of so-
cial consciousness in changing the
course of history.
But even if social consciousness suc-
ceeds in transforming societies, there
seems to be no compelling reason to ex-
pect it to function for greater human
welfare. Using rational social organiza-
tion, humanity may be on the techno-
logical brink of solving the problem of
insecurity caused by the niggardliness of
nature, but that same technology threat-
ens to abet ever more complete forms of
human enslavement. If current tech-
nology were ever to fall into the hands
of truly demonic forces, then night-
mares far surpassing those envisioned
by George Orwell could await human-
ity. Even without such demons, increas-
ing population and technological so-
phistication require ever greater social
control. Such control must be carried
out through the proliferation of rules
and other organizational mechanisms
that constrain individual freedom.
But we can also look at our prospects
more optimistically, from yet another
perspective. People are becoming in-
creasingly aware of our planet's small-
ness. Unlike the progress of the past,
which has been based on looking out-
ward to new external frontiers, the prog-
ress of the future might be based on
looking inward?to creating social insti-
tutions which provide an environment
supportive of self and social realization.
As individuals, rather than striving for
knowledge with which to exert ever
greater control over the world about us,
perhaps we will progressively redirect
our attentions inward toward discovery
and mastery of ourselves.
The world today differs dramatically
from the world that moulded the visions
of our three great economists. Yet their
visions remain surprisingly powerful
and still haN're the power to shape our
thinking about the future. In the years
to come, however, perhaps new vision-
aries will appear that will offer more ap-
pealing and realistic concepts to help us
interpret our future prospects. 0
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You Will Think This a Dream
A 1915 vision of tomorrow
by Charles P. Steinmetz
Forecasts of things to come have sometimes been startlingly correct?
and sometimes ludicrously wrong. THE FUTURIST here reproduces a
forecast made in the September 1915 issue of The Ladies' Home Journal,
by Charles P. Steinmetz, one of the greatest scientists and inventors of
his time.
Following Steinmetz's article is a commentary by Joseph Martino, Tech-
nological Forecasting Editor of THE FUTURIST, who finds the 1915 effort
"a remarkable piece of forecasting."
rr HE time is coming when the cost of electricity will
be infinitely lower than now, and when that time
comes it will revolutionize all our domestic life.
First of all, when electricity becomes universally
used, it will be against the law to have a fire of any kind
within the city limits. The Government will not allow
fires because they are dangerous, dirty and insanitary:
dangerous because of conflagrations, dirty because of
handling the coal and ashes, and insanitary because
Charles P. Steinmetz (1865-1923) served as Chief Consulting
Engineer of the General Electric Company for many years.
He is considered, along with Thomas Edison, to be one of
the fathers of the technology used by modern electric
utilities.
of the smoke and gases in the air. No fires will mean
no cellar furnaces, no kitchen ranges, no illumination
by gas, no steam-power plants, no gas engines.
When we use nothing but electrical power for heat-
ing as well as for other purposes the supply will come
through transmission lines from big central stations of
many million horse power. These stations will be lo-
cated wherever power is available, such as at water-
falls, coal mines and oil and gas wells. This will do
away with the wasteful process of hauling coal from
the mines to the relatively small power houses scattered
all over the country.
It may be that at the coal mines, instead of taking
out the coal and burning it in the way we do now, steam
power will be generated in the mine itself by setting
the coal in the veins on fire. No?this is not beyond the
dream of possibility. It has already been seriously pro-
posed by an eminent English scientist.
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Startling will be the changes effected by such a sup-
ply of electricity. At present, when we wish to keep
warm in cold weather, we use a furnace fire, steam
heat, stoves, open fireplaces and other unsatisfactory
and insanitary methods. At other times in the year,
when the temperature is above normal, we are helpless
and have to suffer.
As a matter of fact, when the weathei is very cold
our extremely crude method of heating does not give
us a desirable and uniform temperature; and, besides,
we are bothered by dirt and ashes and by gases and
the nuisance of taking care of fires.
Nothing could be of more trouble than a furnace fire,
because the heat energy from coal is very difficult to
control. It takes much time and attention to keep the
fires regulated.
Heating and Cooling Our Houses at Will
WHEN heating is done electrically, if I want
seventy degrees in my home I shall set the ther-
mostat at seventy and the temperature will not rise
above that point. This temperature will be maintained
Living room of the future: A 1911 conception. Four years before Charles Steinmetz's article was published, artist Harry
Grant Dart offered this view of things to come. The gentleman in the drawing pushes a button on his Observiscope to see his
son Willie (revealed in an amorous pose). A wind-up mechanical butler on wheels waits with a decanter and glass. Other
amenities include air from Pike's Peak, Newport, and Atlantic City as well as stored sunlight. This drawing, from the New
York Public Library, appears in the PERPETUAL CALENDAR OF THE FUTURE (1975-2001) prepared by Future Re-
search Associates. The calendar, which can be used up to the year 2001, is available for $2.95 from the World Future
Society's book service.
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uniformly without regard to the temperature outside.
If it is very cold electric heaters will hold the tem-
perature at seventy. If it should be ninety or one hun-
dred degrees outside, the same electrical apparatus
will cool the air inside. In this way we shall have a
uniform temperature in our homes throughout the year.
Besides temperature, we have to suffer from humid-
ity, or from dryness of the air. This is especially true
with the present-day furnace. With electric equipment
we shall be able to control this and have the humidity
normal at all times. This electric equipment will have
an absolutely automatic control of both temperature
and humidity.
Ventilation doesn't exist in the average home to-
day. At present we have to depend upon the windows
and doorways, or we turn on an electric fan to blow
the bad air out. When electricity is developed we shall
have apparatus that will destroy the bad air, bring fresh
air into the home, and, when the air outside is not suf-
ficiently invigorating, automatically arrange a distribu-
tion of ozone. We shall constantly have good, fresh,
pure air indoors.
When We Shall Cook on the Table
OF COURSE there will be no more coal or gas
kitchen ranges. All cooking will be done by elec-
tricity. A great deal of our food will be cooked on the
table, so that with the elimination of the coal stove the
kitchen will be very small, compact and efficient.
Cooking by electricity will be very much more satis-
factory and under perfect control. By adjusting the
regulator the food will be perfectly cooked automati-
cally.
For example, should the directions for baking a cake
call for heat at a temperature of two hundred and eighty
degrees for forty-five minutes, you would simply ad-
just your regulator to "280-45," and automatically the
heat would rise to the temperature indicated and auto-
matically turn off at the expiration of the time.
Hearing Concerts in Our Homes
THE telephone will be improved. If we want to hear
a concert we shall not have to go out in the crowd
and sit in an unventilated room. By means of the im-
proved loudspeaking phones, we may listen to the con-
cert in our homes. That will mean that unlimited num-
bers can listen to such concerts, even if they are living
many miles away in small cities and villages.
With wireless telephones, if a great singer should be
singing in an opera in some European capital, we
should be able to listen to this opera in our own libraries
in America. The new telephones will make it possible
for millions of persons in moderate circumstances to
hear the finest concerts in the world without crossing
their thresholds.
With the motion picture and the talking machine
perfectly synchronized, as they will be, it will not be
necessary to go to the theater for our amusement. These
machines will be made for use in the home. We can
have the best and finest productions in this way. Both
the films and records will be greatly improved.
Automobiles in Cellars
FOR local transportation the majority of people are
now dependent upon rapid-transit systems or trolley
cars. These require subways, elevated structures in the
heart of the city, rails in most of our streets and almost
an endless amount of noise. The automobile is very
convenient. When fires are not allowed within city
limits electric automobiles, bicycles and tricycles will
be developed, and, on account of the low price, will
be available to almost everyone.
These electric cars will be kept in our cellars or base-
ments, where now we keep the furnace and the coal
and ashes. We shall have a driveway going right under
the house, and this will make a convenient place to
store our cars in, from the big family or touring car
to the small bicycle or tricycle. This will eliminate the
need for garages. While the cars are in the basement
they will have their batteries charged.
Evergreen Trees Will Grow in Our Cities
ALL these changes in our domestic life will revolu-
tionize the appearance of our cities. In the first
place, cities will become sanitary?no dirt, dust or
smoke will be possible. The streets will be beautifully
clean. There will be no reason for dust or dirt. Without
fires, and with no animals for tractional labor, there
will be no dust and dirt.
The atmosphere will be perfectly clear. Today it is
bad enough in the city when only anthracite coal is
burned, but in places where soft coal is used the people
cannot see the sky on account of the smoke and gases
in the air.
With clean, pure air we shall be able to raise ever-
green pine trees in the city, and it is healthful to have
pine trees where you live. There are no pine trees in
cities now; all trees are deciduous. The reason for this
is that trees and all plant life need air the same as human
beings. With an evergreen tree the needles are the
leaves or lungs. The dirt, gases and smoke that we now
have in the air of our cities clog the breathing spaces
in the needles, and in a few years the tree dies from
suffocation. Evergreens have only one set of needles.
The deciduous trees have a chance to live in cities be-
cause their leaves or lungs drop off each autumn and
they get a fresh set each spring. That is their only sal-
vation.
The industries in the city, of course, will be operated
by electrical power, which means no dirt and smoke.
The tendency will be to move all industries as near the
source of supply of raw material as possible, the same
as the power houses will be moved to the various
sources of power.
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The Cost of Living Will Be Less
xTATURALLY, the question arises: "How will all
these changes affect the cost of living?" In the
first place, today the farmers are almost entirely de-
pendent upon manual labor. With electrical energy
available and with the application of scientific methods
and the production of quantities of nitrogen fertilizer
from the air?the same as is now being done in Swe-
den and Germany?the cost of raising food supplies
will be very materially decreased. This should result
in a corresponding decrease in the cost to the consumer.
The use of electricity will so facilitate labor that the
hours of labor will be shorter. This means that workers
will have more time to carry out their hobbies. Vege-
table gardens and raising chickens are the outdoor hob-
bies of many men. These occupations bring returns to
the home, and, as the work under these conditions is
pleasant, the cost of food will be reduced.
Of course there will be many other hobbies that men
will be following, and all kinds of articles will be pro-
duced as a result of this work. One man may enjoy
making brass lamps by hand. After he has supplied his
own home with lamps he may make some for his neigh-
bors, who, in return, will furnish him with vegetables
from their gardens, with eggs or with some articles
which have been made as a result of their hobbies.
In some respects this will return us to the days of
barter and trade, and it will be a good thing, because
the articles will be produced very cheaply.
Turning Our Hobbies Into Money
WE OFTEN lose sight of the fact that when a man
has a hobby and produces something as the result
of that hobby the labor does not cost anything. Hobby
labor is the cheapest labor in the world. It is also pleas-
ure and recreation.
You will frequently see a man who has developed a
hobby for raising chickens. He takes a lot of pleasure
and pride in looking after all the work himself. He
finds that raising chickens on a small scale is profit-
able. This is true, but the profit lies in the fact that the
labor is cheap; it does not cost him anything. But he
doesn't figure on this, and, thinking that the business
itself is profitable, he invests in a larger plant, employs
his labor?for which he has to pay?and then loses his
money.
The production of a great many things by people
carrying out their hobbies will greatly affect our eco-
nomic life.
Another effect in the cost of living will be that, as
the result of clean, pure air and even temperature in our
homes, materials will have a very much longer life.
Curtains and carpets will not have to be cleaned so
frequently. This means less wear and tear.
Furniture will last almost indefinitely because of the
even temperature and no excess humidity or very dry
air to warp and crack the woodwork. The cost of re-
newals will be very greatly reduced and we can afford
to pay more for our household goods in the first place.
The standard in our homes will be raised.
Electricity Cost by Tax, Like Water
LECTRICAL power will be used so generally that
Edit is very likely the cost will be on the basis of a tax,
like our water tax. For example, so much a plug, as we
are now charged so much a faucet. It will be very cheap
and it will not pay to install meters and have them read
and keep the accounts in the offices of the electric com-
panies, or in the Government building if the power is
being generated by the municipality or the Govern-
ment.
Today water is used universally and no one would
think of making a charge to a friend or even a stranger
for any amount of it. It will be the same with electricity.
If you make a call in your electric vehicle the vehicle
will be run into the friend's basement and the batteries
will be charged while you are making your call. It
won't make any difference whether you get your elec-
tric current from your friend's plug or from the plug in
your own home?the tax will remain the same.
We Shall Live Easier but Better
WHILE making life very much more pleasant, easy
and worth living, naturally the question will be
raised: "Will not the human race degenerate because of
the removal of so many means of resistance?" I think
the contrary will be true. In the first place, human
nature will always demand a change, and for recrea-
tion we shall go out into the wilderness and live like
our ancestors, the same as many of us do now when
we enjoy camp life; but even in camp now we have
very many modern conveniences to make the life
easier.
It does not reduce the physical ability and endurance
of man to have him take the best possible care of him-
self. We have a splendid example of that today in the
European war. Look at the physical power and endur-
ance of the men who are spending and have spent so
much time in the trenches. This sort of thing calls for
far more endurance than any of the labors put upon the
soldiers in Napoleon's army; and many of these men
are clerks, industrial workers, college professors and
professional men who are unaccustomed to the rigors
of outdoor life.
Another example we have is the contrast between
the street urchin and the boy of well-to-do parents.
When it comes to a test of endurance, as in an athletic
contest, the rich boy is almost always superior, be-
cause he has been well taken care of all his life.
The means for all these things are here now. No dif-
ficult scientific or engineering problems are presented.
Of course, no one can predict exactly what is going to
happen, because of new devices that may be invented.
What I have said is based on what we have today.
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On Charles P. Steinmetz as a Prophet
by Joseph P. Martino
The Technological Forecasting Editor of THE FUTURIST finds
much to praise in the 1915 forecast.
Steinmetz's 1915 prophecy must certainly
be given high marks for boldness. However,
Steinmetz, a towering genius in the electrical
engineering field, made a career of bold in-
novation. Indeed, in this prophecy, he is sim-
ply applying his bold vision of the potential
of electricity to the mundane needs of the
household. How well did he do, with his
combination of knowledge and boldness?
His opening prophecies seem to be grossly
in error. We still have fires in cities, and
power plants are located near the consumer,
not near the source of fuel. It turns out that
electricity is one of the most expensive forms
of energy to transport. Not only are the fa-
cilities (high-tension lines) expensive, but the
losses are high. From the overall economic
standpoint, it is cheaper to transport energy
in the form of coal or oil from the source to
city, than to transport energy in the form of
electricity the same distance. Moreover,
Steinmetz did not foresee natural gas whose
price was artificially held down by govern-
ment action, thus providing a clean and low-
Charles P. Steinmetz, who ranks with Thomas Edison as one of the greatest inventors of
his time, envisioned future cities powered almost entirely by electricity. He predicted that
air conditioning and electric cars would become commonplace, and that city dwellers
would enjoy pure, clean air.
direct-cost alternative to electrical heating
(as well as leading inevitably to today's
shortages of natural gas).
From there on, however, his performance
improves dramatically. While not all houses
are electrically air-conditioned, we are well
on our way to that stage. Cooking at the
table is already a possibility, with electric
hotplates, etc. Ovens are too big and bulky
to be portable, because of the necessary in-
sulation, hence the electric (or gas) range
has not vanished. Such ranges, however,
have for years had automatic controls of
varying degrees of sophistication. We do in-
deed have concerts in the home. While
operas and orchestra performances have
been broadcast "live" by radio, it turns out
that the recordings are more convenient
and permit listening at will. The electric car
is still awaiting adequate battery tech-
nology, but that now seems to be only a
matter of time. Overall, the cost of living
has declined as a result of cheap energy,
including electricity.
Steinmetz's final forecast?that hobbies
would be converted to useful production
through barter?again misses the mark
widely. Here he evidently overlooked the
fact that money was invented simply be-
cause barter was so inconvenient and unde-
sirable. Society is not now going to go back
and "uninvent" it.
Overall, Steinmetz can be given credit for
accuracy where his prophecies depended
largely on technological feasibility. Where
economics entered the picture, however, he
seems to have gone badly astray. Perhaps
this is simply one more illustration that tech-
nology is driven by economics, not vice
versa, and the would-be technological fore-
caster must take economic feasibility and
competition among technical approaches
into account.
COL. JOSEPH P. MARTINO, TECHNOLOGICAL
FORECASTING EDITOR OF THE FUTURIST, IS
DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING STANDARDIZATION, DE-
FENSE SUPPLY AGENCY, DEFENSE ELECTRONICS
SUPPLY CENTER, DAYTON, OHIO 45444.
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The Future in Retrospect
The Foreseeable Future Revisited
Sir George Paget Thomson, author of
The Foreseeable Future, died in Sep-
tember at the age of 83. Sir George won
the Nobel prize in physics in 1937 for
his work on the diffraction of
electronics in crystals. He was the son
of another Nobel laureate, Sir J. J.
Thomson, the discoverer of the
electron.
Photo by Edward, Leigh
by Robert W. Prehoda
In 1955 the Nobel prize-winning British physicist Sir George
Thomson published a book forecasting future technological
developments. Recently, another technological forecaster,
Robert W. Prehoda, examined the book to see how Thomson's
forecasts are faring. In the following review, Prehoda reports
that the Briton's decades-old forecasts have generally turned
out to be remarkably accurate, with a few noteworthy excep-
tions.
Those of us engaged in the broad
arena of futures studies are basically
trying to refine more accurate means of
projecting critical trends and delineat-
ing the desirable options that can be
tomorrow's reality if the requisite
changes in policy and priorities are
made today. There is no sure guide to
enduring value except time and
hindsight, and this dictum is absolute in
evaluating forecasting methodologies.
Consequently, a review of past
forecasts provides unique insights that
may allow the emerging art of futures
studies to evolve into a more precise
discipline.
A book that can be classified as the
first systematic approach to technologi-
cal forecasting was published in 1955.
After 20 years, Sir George Thomson's
The Foreseeable Future remains a work
of stunning brilliance offering insight
into the favorable options open to
humanity through selective refinement
made possible by science. He began
with the assumption that "technology is
governed by scientific principles, some
of which are understood, and there is
accordingly a basis for prediction... I
have supposed that developments which
do not contradict known principles and
which have an obvious utility will in fact
be made, probably in the next hundred
years. No doubt there will be discov-
eries which will transcend what now ap-
pear major impossibilities, but these are
unpredictable, and so are the practical
developments which will follow from
them."
The reason Sir George restricted his
forecast chiefly to the future of tech-
nology was his conclusion that
"sociology has still to find its Newton,
let alone its Planck, and prediction is
guesswork." Remarkably accurate pro-
jections of the social consequences of
technology, however, are included in
the book.
Erred on Population
In revisiting The Foreseeable Future,
and carefully analyzing each forecast,
the reader finds only one area where
contemporary reality represents a sig-
nificant departure from what the book
anticipated: "Careful estimates suggest
that the population may be expected to
rise from its present 2.5 billion to 6 or
even 8 billion by 2050." We now know
that the global population has exploded,
reaching 4 billion in 1975, and it will ex-
pand to the 6 billion level by 1994 if pre-
sent trends are not changed by birthr-
ate reduction or famine. However, Sir
George also wrote: "One of the hardest
things possible to predict is the course
of population." After analyzing the
failure of demographic projections
made in the decades prior to 1955, he
concluded that "scientific prediction
becomes impossible" in the population
area.
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Space exploration has occurred much more rapidly than Sir
George Thomson forecast in 1955, reviewer Prehoda reports.
Except for timing, however, Thomson's astronautics
forecast was quite accurate. Rock from the moon was dis-
In fairness to Thomson, it must be
pointed out that he simply summarized
population data believed to be correct in
1955. Demographers then said that
world population was "increasing by
about 25 million a year." The rate of in-
crease was probably much higher at
that time, and such uncertainty is
reflected in the fact that authoritative
estimates for global population increase
in 1975 range between 70 and 90 million.
I have reviewed countless demographic
forecasts, and every one written before
1960 has been in error on the low side,
usually by a considerable margin.
Breakthroughs in plant genetics were
foreseen, and what is now called the
Green Revolution has developed in the
precise form anticipated by Sir George.
He also recognized the Malthusian im-
plications of population growth and
warned that the citizens of India, In-
donesia, China, and Africa "probably
soon will be pressing hard on the im-
mediately available food supplies."
The remarkable accuracy of Thom-
son's technological forecasts can be ex-
plained by the fact that he devised a
systematic approach to replace, or at
least improve, the "educated guess" in-
tuition of traditional prognostication. In
making future projections, he observed:
"It is because major discoveries are likely
to be based on scientific principles rather
than on mechanical ingenuity, and because
these principles have limitations, that it is
reasonable to hope to be able to predict in a
played at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.,
in 1970, far sooner than Thomson imagined. Still in the
future are large space bases like the orbiting laboratory
shown in an artist's conception at right. Photo: NASA
general way the trend which these discov-
eries will have. For this reason, it may not be
too rash to regard certain kinds of technical
progress as foreseeable, though one will cer-
tainly miss a great deal."
"Principles of Impotence" Offer
Key
Sir George points out that scientific
principles are frequently "principles of
impotence." They say that certain
things cannot be done, but they do not
say that everything else can, for that
would imply that there are no more fun-
damental principles to discover. From
the discoveries of the past 300 years, he
identified eight principles based on our
current understanding of the laws of
nature which can aptly be called "prin-
ciples of impotence." They include
restrictions such as the speed-of-light
barrier, the second law of ther-
modynamics, and the conservation of
mass and energy.
The validity of this forecasting
methodology is demonstrated by the
fact that only one of these eight princi-
ples of impotence has been modified
since 1955. This year's discovery of the
magnetic monopole means that mag-
netic charges need not be inseparable
north and south poles on the same body.
The monopole is the magnetic
equivalent to the positive proton or
negative electron that exist indepen-
dently in nature.
If any principle of impotence is added
or discarded, or even radically changed,
the unforeseen?and a new scientific
era?will be upon us. For example, the
discovery of the monopole could revolu-
tionize the field of electronics, allowing
new medical therapies in the fight
against cancer, new sources of energy,
extremely small and efficient motors
and generators, and new particle ac-
celerators of much higher energy than
any yet built.
Foresaw Today's Energy Crisis
Our present energy crisis is one of Sir
George's fulfilled prophesies, since he
expected restricted oil supplies within
25 years. His overall review of
foreseeable energy options was
especially accurate, as well as his pre-
view of the energy conservation dilem-
ma: "The power needed for a given
standard of living is by no means a fixed
quantity." He defined the promise and
restrictions of solar energy, and
forecast?perhaps for the first time in a
popular book?that thermonuclear fu-
sion could eventually provide an inex-
haustible source of clean, low-cost
energy.
Sir George expressed high hopes for
the automated future, but his hope was
tinged with judicious regard for the
limitations of science and society. He
realized that technology's appetite for
industrial materials?copper, lead, zinc,
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etc.?would lead to the shortages which
are now beginning to appear, and made
highly imaginative suggestions con-
cerning substitution and new sources of
supply.
As the sources of industrial materials
change, so will their form, Sir George
predicted. They will become remarka-
bly light and flexible. Designers of
buildings may copy the structure of
butterflies and other insects: "The
world of the future may be expected to
look more ethereal, more like fairy-
land ... "
Predicted Computer's Triumph
The book includes accurate forecasts
of computerized weather forecasting,
advanced materials including
ultrastrong composites, automation in
factories, forms of synthetic food re-
cently added to our market shelves,
supersonic aircraft, advances in surface
transportation along with various
systems presently emerging from the
laboratory. Thomson also foresaw in
vivid detail the all-encompassing role of
the computer throughout commerce,
admillikttraX4631, and research. He ex-
pressed hope that a better understand-
ing of cybernetic systems would shed
light on some of the mysteries of the
human mind.
Before his death, Sir George told' me
that the advance of space exploration
occurred at a much faster rate than he
expected in 1955. Except for timing,
however, his astronautics forecast was
accurate. He was correct in believing
that "space travel will be an outlet for
communal effort," allowing vicarious
participation on the part of the general
public. A hope was expressed that as-
tronautics would be a "safety valve for
man's war-breeding cravings for ad-
venture," which can be expected to
mount as the world becomes more
mechanized.
The Foreseeable Future stated that
no species of animal had been tamed
since Hannibal and the Carthaginians
domesticated the African elephant and
suggested that "other species could be
usefully domesticated." This suggestion
has since been fulfilled by the successful
domestication of the Arctic musk ox and
the use of cetacea (dolphins and killer
wItUles) to engage in useful underwater
tasks. Thomson also anticipated African
game ranches, which are now stocked
with recently domesticated eland and
oryx.
Forecasts must have intellectual
coherence and scientific plausibility, as
well as societal acceptability. Thom-
son's remarkable 1955 book fulfills each
of these requirements, and expresses a
sincere concern for the welfare of in-
dividual men and women ? a rare
Struggle for power today was ac-
curately anticipated in The Foreseeable
Future. Writing in 1955, Sir George
Thomson accurately forecast restricted
oil supplies within 25 years.
UGI Corporation
degree of compassion in a technological
forecast.
Writing years before Sir Charles
Snow published Two Cultures and the
Scientific Revolution in 1959, Sir
George said: "People's minds tend to
fall into one of two classes, the
humanistic?interested mostly in peo-
ple and words?and the scientific and
engineering?interested mostly in
things and ideas." But Thomson himself
was a modern Renaissance man who
Sir George Paget Thomson, one of
the preeminent scientists of the 20th
century, died on September 10, 1975,
at the age of 83 (after the accom-
panying article had been written).
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in
physics in 1937 for work on the
diffraction of electrons in crystals?
experiments which are fundamental
to the quantum theory. He was the
son of another Nobel laureate, Sir J.
J. Thomson, the discoverer of the
electron. In World War II, Sir
George was Chairman of the First
British Committee on Atomic
Energy, which defined the theoreti-
cal foundations which culminated in
the success of the Manhattan Project
in 1945. The recipient of many
awards in science, he served on the
British delegation to the U.N. and
was master of Corpus Christi Col-
lege, Cambridge, for many years. He
was the author of a diverse variety
of technical monographs and popular
books.
bridged the two cultures. He was both a
scientist and a humanist. Consequently,
The Foreseeable Future possesses a
timeless quality which will cause it to be
as stimulating and thought provoking in
the decades to come as it was 20 years
ago.
Many of Thomson's humanistic vi-
sions are not yet part of our contempor-
ary world, but now seem much closer to
realization than they did in 1955. He
cautiously suggested that the parap-
sychologists' research in extrasensory
perception may prove vitally important,
and "if true, it will produce a revolution
in thought." Concern for the
dehumanizing effects of commuter
traffic in large cities was answered with
the hope that the videophone and other
communications breakthroughs would
allow us to break up our large cities into
livable urban units of about 50,000 peo-
ple?an optimum size allowing one to
walk or cycle to his workplace.
Sir George's approach was analyti-
cal; by seeking the deepest and simplest
underlying principle, he makes the
familiar seem strange and the strange
appear acceptable. More sober than
science fiction, his book remains just as
exotic and exciting. Judged as a work of
popularized science, it has yet to be ex-
celled.
The concluding paragraph of the book
reflects the fundamental optimism of its
author and deserves careful considera-
tion in a time dominated by the
apocalyptic mood in futures studies:
"There is no reason to anticipate that
anything irreparable will go wrong with
the earth physically for many millions
of years, and are there not other planets
and other stars? It is difficult to exter-
minate a species once well established,
and man's best efforts to kill himself are
unlikely to be more successful than
those of the plague bacillus or the in-
fluenza virus. Even with the present
brains of intelligent people Man may
expect a glorious future. Who will dare
to set limits to what he may reach as his
brain improves? This future is not
foreseeable!"
Reviewer Robert Prehoda is one of the
pioneers in technological forecasting and the
author of Designing the Future: The Role of
Technological Forecasting (Chilton, Phila-
delphia, 1967). His address is P.O. Box 2402,
Toluca Lake Station, North Hollywood,
California 91602. Sir George died September
10 at his home, Little Howe, Mount Pleasant,
Cambridge, England.
The Foreseeable Future by Sir George
Thomson. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, England. 1955. Out of print.
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Part 2
THE FUTURE AS PROGRESS
Technology continues to advance on all
fronts. Here are some reports on what may be
in store for us in the years ahead.
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The Automated Office
by Hollis Vail
Automation has already
revolutionized the factory. Now
it is about to revolutionize the
office?freeing workers from rigid
schedules, busy work, and the
aggravations of commuting.
In Washington, D.C., the represen-
tatives of 10 government agencies take
a few minutes once a week to check in
with each other. They discuss the tim-
ing of upcoming meetings, comment on
drafts of proposed documents, report
what they are doing, and even vote on
issues. Yet, they do it all without ever
leaving their own offices, and at what-
ever hour of the day or night seems
most convenient.
The weekly "meeting" of 10 people
is made possible by a typewriter-like
terminal that connects each office to a
central computer. A message typed
into the terminal travels by telephone
wire to the computer where itis stored,
together with the messages sent in from
the other terminals. Any member of the
group can use his terminal to call up the
computer and ask for messages. The
computer will then respond by activat-
ing the keys of the caller's terminal,
causing them to type out any' messages
the computer has received up to that
time.
Here is what such a sequence of mes-
sages might look like after one of these
representatives?let's call him "Bob
MacAbee"?starts the ball rolling:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
MacAbee-12/9178?Please let me
know if Jan. 25, 1979 is OK for a
meeting at the Alfry Building, Rm 309
at 9:30 am. Also, please comment on
the following agenda items:
a. Progress report for year
b. Establishment of divisions
c. New business (suggest items)
?end?
Henry 12/13/78?Date OK Suggest
we discuss meaning of voluntary
metric conversion in all our agencies.
?end?
Allen 12/13/78?Date NOT OK. Will
be out of town. Can meet any other
day that week or following week.
Agenda OK.
?end?
Using this method, the date and
agenda can be agreed on, draft docu-
ments reviewed in advance, and possi-
ble problems identified so that each rep-
resentative will be prepared to get maxi-
mum benefit from the actual meeting.
And, all of this can be done at each rep-
resentative's convenience in whatever
spare minutes may be available during a
busy day.
Telephone Provides Key Link
This use of the computer in the office
is made possible by another electronic
device?the telephone?which has been
around for so many years and is so com-
mon that we seldom think of it as an
electronic instrument. The telephone
now is speeding the development of the
electronic office.
Today's worldwide telephone net-
work means that portable computer
terminals can be carried and used al-
most anywhere. For instance, a man-
agement consultant located in Washing-
ton, D.C., can use a telephone-plus-
computer system to keep in touch with
his employers thousands of miles away
in Menlo Park, California, just as easily
as Bob MacAbee did to contact his col-
leagues located in different buildings
around Washington, D.C.
Bob could have arranged his meeting
by telephone without the computer, but
someone would have had to call each
person separately. Many calls would
have been needed to reach a group of
busy individuals, get their ideas, and
pass them along to others. By contrast,
a single call to the computer enabled
each person to review all previous mes-
sages and to give unhurried thought to
the issues before responding with com-
ments or questions.
Besides telephones and computers, an
electronic office may use copying equip-
ment, facsimile transmission devices,
television, tape recorders, and countless
other electronic devices. New electronic
technology offers so many opportuni-
ties for startling and productive innova-
tions that it is safe to forecast that the
many innovative experiments taking
place now will multiply in 'the months
and years ahead.
To understand what tomorrow's elec-
tronic office may be like, let's look at
how an office functions and at current
trends in office automation. First of all,
typewriters are being integrated with
small computers to create "word-pro-
cessing" equipment that is revolutioniz-
ing the way in which letters and other
documents are written, corrected, and
reproduced. With the new equipment, a
typist can dash off a rough draft, pass it
back to the boss for approval, retype
only the specific words that need correc-
tion, then hit a button and watch the
word-processing machine automatically
type out a flawless final copy at 400 or
more words per minute. The secret? As
the rough draft was typed, the letter was
also recorded and stored in the compu-
ter; when corrections are typed over the
original, the computer record of the let-
ter is also corrected. The computer then
can print out a perfect copy of the letter
as fast as the machine's typing element
can move.
Word-processing equipment is an im-
portant transition step toward the elec-
tronic office. Besides speeding up and
simplifying the job of typing, the auto-
matic editing features of these machines
enable writers to "cut and paste" their
drafts electronically. A manuscript can
be revised and rearranged many times
without becoming an unreadable mess
of penciled notes and sticky scraps. In-
stead of typing directly onto paper, a
word processing machine can display
the text as it is written on a TV-like
viewing screen called a CRT or Cathode
Ray Terminal. At the same time, the
text is being recorded in the machine's
computer memory. Later the changes
and additions are also stored in the com-
puter, replacing the former text. When
all the desired changes have been made,
the author can have the machine type on
paper a neat, clean, corrected draft.
Automatic typewriters do more than
speed up the drafting and finalizing of
textual material. They also open the
way to a new era in the transmission,
storage, and retrieval of information.
Already, a growing number of offices
are beginning to tie automatic typing
equipment at many locations into a cen-
tral computer. The typist goes through a
simple routine to get on-line with the
computer, then types the material just
as oh any typewriter. The difference is
that the text is now being recorded and
stored in a central location and can be
"called up" by anyone else tied in to the
same computer.
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The advantages of such an arrange-
ment are shown in the following scenar-
io, describing how a government office
in the near future might respond to a let-
ter from a congressman. While the
names and agencies in the scenario are
fictional, the incident is based on an act-
ual occurrence.
The Congressman and the Eggs:
A Scenario
Our future scenario begins in the of-
fice of David Brier, chief congressional
liaison officer for the Federal Farm Bu-
reau (FFB). Looking over the morning's
mail, David finds a letter from a con-
gressman transmitting a constituent's
complaint. The constituent is angry be-
cause a local FFB farm is selling eggs in
competition with him.
After reading the complaint, David
turns to his office computer terminal
and queries FILE (a computerized stor-
age and retrieval system) to see if there
has been any previous correspondence
involving the constituent or the FFB
farm on the subject of eggs. It turns out
that this is the first letter from the con-
stituent during the last five years, and
that there is no correspondence involv-
ing eggs and the FFB farm.
David then queries REF (another com-
puter file) to get the name of the FFB
representative stationed nearest to the
site of the FFB farm in question. This
turns out to be Mary Westerly. David
then tags the constituent's letter for fac-
simile transmission to Mary. He also
advises her of the complaint by means
of MESSAGE, the computer's message
routing program.
Mary receives David's communica-
tion that afternoon when she turns to
her computer terminal and queries
MESSAGE to see if there are any mes-
sages for her. Among the messages is the
one from David. She immediately calls
the mailroom and finds that the fac-
simile copy of the constituent's letter has
arrived; so she goes there and picks it
up.
To find out more about the situation,
Mary phones a local government offi-
cial to inquire if the farm is selling eggs,
and if so why. It turns out that the FFB
leases its research farms to local families
who run them as ordinary farms except
when the FFB has a research project for
the farm to participate in. These farm
families sell their produce in the usual
way to pay their lease and earn an
income.
She drafts a reply letter to the com-
plaining constituent using DRAFT, the
central computer's text-editing pro-
About the Author
Hollis Vail is a management consultant for
the. Department of the Interior, Washington,
D.C.
To write this article about the office of the future, Hollis Vail used some of the very equip-
ment he describes. The telephone connector unit pictured here allowed him to type a rough
draft via telephone lines directly into a computer, make revisions and corrections, and then
instruct the typewriter unit to print out a clean final draft. Photo: Elizabeth Vail
gram, and passes this along to David
through MESSAGE.
David receives Mary's draft letter the
next morning when he checks his com-
puter terminal for incoming messages.
He decides to make a few changes in the
text, then refers the revised draft via the
computer to those officials who need to
concur with it. As soon as the con-
currences are recorded in the computer,
the draft letter automatically comes
back to David for his signature.
David's secretary has the computer
run the letter in its final form, David
signs it, and it goes out in the mail. The
secretary than amends the computer re-
cord to indicate that the letter was sign-
ed and the date.
Finally, the constituent's original let-
ter is microfilmed along with many
other pages of material, on a special mi-
crofiche, that is, an index card-sized
piece of microfilm. By entering the ref-
erence to the microfiche in the central
computer's FILE program, it can easily
be retrieved for later reference. Once on
microfiche, the letter requires only a
fraction of the space needed for paper
records.
In the scenario just outlined, David
Brier quickly located the person he
needed to contact by consulting REF?a
private data file which he had set up for
his own use in the computer. He also
queried the general files of the computer
to see if any prior correspondence on the
subject of egg sales by FFB farms
existed.
A large organization needs many dif-
ferent data files. Some may be highly
specialized and confidential, such as ac-
counting records and personnel data
files. Others may be compared to the
reference room or "open stacks" of a
public library?containing massive
quantities of information that must be
accessible to many different kinds of
users for many different purposes.
One example of this kind of data file
is MEDLARS, the computer-based
Medical Literature Analysis and Re-
trieval System at the National Library
of. Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
MEDLARS' vast data base of current
articles from more than 2,200 medical
journals around the world is now avail-
able to physicians and medical libraries
throughout the United States via
MEDLINE (MEDLARS On-Line) for in-
stant retrieval from any compatible
computer terminal.
Data systems of all kinds are now be-
ing adapted so as to be accessible
through long-distance telephone lines.
At the same time, the procedures for
gaining access to these data systems are
being simplified so that people can use
them without the help of professional
computer programmers.
In the past, programmers were need-
ed to prepare even the simplest compu-
ter routines. Today more and more gen-
eral-purpose computer programs are be-
coming available. These computer pro-
grams allow ordinary individuals to
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select the data they want to store, load
the data in the file by themselves, and
later query the computer and have it
print out or display the specific informa-
tion they need.
David Brier, for instance, needed an
easy way to keep track of people he
might often deal with in his work. He
therefore set up a general-purpose com-
puter program that let him file in the
computer the names, addresses, phone
numbers, areas of responsibility and
other work information about his col-
leagues and associates. To locate Mary
Westerly's name, all David had to do
was to enter the location code he had set
up in the file and Mary's record was im-
mediately found and displayed for his
use.
A similar program is being used today
by at least one Washington official (let's
call him Bill Gregg) to help him keep
track of metric conversion activity in his
agency. Bill knew that several bureaus
in his agency were converting various
areas of their work to use the metric sys-
tem. But he did not know which areas;
so, he made up a simple form which was
to be filled out for all conversion pro-
jects. As the forms came in, he entered
them in the computer, where they are
available whenever he needs to query
them. He may, for instance, get a call
from someone in another agency who
wants to know whether Bill's agency is
converting any of its signs to the metric
system. Bill queries the computer for
any information classed under sign and
certain other reference terms. His quer-
ies quickly turn up any reports that
show sign conversion activity.
"Garbage in, garbage out" has long
been a classic axiom in the computer
world. But in the new world of the elec-
tronic office, this axiom is becoming less
applicable. David Brier and Bill Gregg
can live with less than perfect records.
What they need is quick set-up and easy
use, and, with the improvements now
taking place in computer technology,
they can get it.
Bringing the Office into the Home
In recent years, many offices have
moved the job of typing away from the
immediate office area to separate
"word-processing centers" that utilize
remote dictation and automatic type-
writing equipment. Since it is now clear
that the typing function can be per-
formed efficiently at a location physical-
ly removed from the author and from
the site of other office activities, tomor-
row's word-processing centers could
easily be in one's own home. Consider
the following scenario:
Since 1980 (three years ago) Jane
Adams has worked for the Afgar Com-
pany. During this period she became fa-
miliar with the typing and filing rou-
tines of the office. But this spring, after
she had her first child, she decided she
would rather remain at home. Once this
might have meant that she would have
to give up her job. But not any more!
The company simply arranged to
have a remote dictation unit and a com-
puter terminal installed in Jane's home.
To avoid tying up her family's phone
line, Jane's company also had a separate
phone line installed.
Today, Jane attends to her household
chores, mothers her new daughter, and
periodically checks the incoming dicta-
tion unit to see if any typing needs to be
done. When there is some, she sits at her
terminal, transcribes the dictation, and
then registers its location in a computer
file so that her boss can find it.
Everyone likes the new arrangement.
Jane normally works the equivalent of a
40-hour week, but on a very flexible
schedule. The arrangement she has with
her company is that she will get the
work out in a reasonable period of time.
Only occasionally does her boss call to
tell her something is urgent. Thus, if
Jane wants to use a weekday afternoon
for shopping, she can do some of her
work at night. Or she may prefer to
work on Sunday and take Monday off.
One may wonder how Jane's work
gets on paper. The answer is that much
of it never does! Her boss usually re-
views the material that Jane enters into
the computer using the video display
unit (CRT) of his terminal. Using the
terminal keyboard, he can enter any
needed corrections himself, or, where
more extensive changes are called for,
he can phone these in to the remote dic-
tation unit for Jane to type later.
Even when the document has been put
in final form, it may remain in the com-
puter and be "passed along" to others in
the Afgar company via the video dis-
play units of their individual computer
terminals. If paper copies are ever need-
ed, of course, they can be easily pro-
duced by means of an automatic printer
that operates at speeds of 1,500 words
or more per minute. (This is a consider-
able improvement over the "automatic
typewriters" and "hard copy printers"
attached to computers in the 1970's
which turned out a mere 450 words per
minute!) The computer program that
Jane and the others use includes routines
that automatically break the text into
properly numbered page-length sec-
tions.
Of course, none of this paper gets into
Afgar's files. The company shifted to a
magnetic tape/microfiche system of re-
cord storage back in the late 1970s.
Today, in 1983, all Afgar's active re-
cords are maintained in on-line,
random-access computer storage facili-
ties. Certain of these records, such as
the company's product catalogs, are
also produced on microfiche by the
computer. One advantage of this system
is that the entire active file can be quer-
ied from any terminal in the company,
and letters, reports, catalogs and other
records can be located in seconds and
displayed for use.
Jane no longer has an "office" in the
sense of a desk in a room downtown.
But neither does her boss. He travels a
great deal, so he carries his "office" with
him. It fits inside his briefcase and in-
cludes: a portable computer terminal
that can be hooked up by any telephone
to the company's central computer, a
microfiche viewer, and a pocket-sized
dictation machine that he uses on
planes, in cars, and?whenever possi-
ble?alongside hotel swimming pools.
A special attachment to this unit stores
his dictation and can transmit it on com-
mand at high speed by telephone to
Jane's recorder.
Jane and her boss still meet face to
face occasionally to talk over problems,
and, of course, to attend office parties.
Even in this modern age, "electronic
parties" are not yet in sight.
Fast-Talking Machines
So far, we have discussed the linking-
up of offices and office functions via
central computers. We have seen that
the telephone system's ability to connect
one machine to another has become just
as important as its power to carry hu-
man voices back and forth over great
distances. We have also briefly referred
to the microfiche as a convenient way to
compress mounds of paper records into
a size and format that permits easy stor-
age and quick retrieval.
But other technologies will also have
an impact on the office. One interesting
possibility is the speech compressor.
This machine speeds up the rate of re-
corded speech without increasing its
pitch, thus avoiding the "Donald Duck"
sound we commonly hear when a tape-
recording is run fast. With a speech
compressor, the listener hears the per-
son on the tape talking faster but sound-
ing much the same otherwise. Models in
use today can produce speech rates of
300 to 400 words per minute, which is as
fast as many people read. Many blind
persons already are using speech com-
pressors to speed up their "reading" of
voice recordings.
A speech compressor can enable a
busy executive to listen to a tape-record-
ing of a conference in half the time it
would have taken to attend in person.
Recorded telephone messages could be
played back at high-speed to save time.
Many reports and information memos
now put on paper could be recorded and
retained in audio form, since they could
be listened to as rapidly as they could be
read. Also, recorded information could
be played back while traveling, or at
other times and places where reading
might be inconvenient or impossible.
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Television, calculators, photocopying
machines, and other technologies are al-
so finding new uses in the office. At one
U.S. government agency, for instance,
engineers located in Denver can inspect
structures hundreds or even thousands
of miles away without ever leaving their
offices. Cameramen at the site to be in-
spected transmit television images via
satellite to the engineers. The engineers
can tell the cameraman to focus on a
particular .part of the structure, or
switch from a close-up to a long-range
shot as needed. They can also record the
pictures being sent, freeze them on the
screen for a detailed examination, or
store them for later reference.
The physical appearance of tomor-
row's office may be impossible to
predict, but we can feel confident that
it will be electronic. Just as the elec-
tronic devices in common use now?
the electric light, the telephone, the
electric typewriter, and the
photocopier?distinguish the office of
today from the office of a century ago,
so it seems nearly certain that the new
electronic technology?computers,
speech compressors, two-way televi-
sion links via satellite, etc.?will play
key roles in the office of the future.
New Attitudes Will Also Shape
Tomorrow's Office
New attitude's toward work and the
workplace may prove even more im-
portant than new technology in deter-
mining how and where "office work"
will be done in the future. The concept
of the office as a set of connected
rooms with people working in them
owes as much to persistent custom as
it does to efficiency or practical conve-
nience. Afgar Company's decision to
let Jane Adams take her dictation units
and computer home with her would
represent an important change from
today's attitudes as well as a change in
office procedures.
Furthermore, technology itself will
influence attitudes. Computer-
conferencing makes it not only possi-
ble but practical for a hundred or
more people located thousands of
miles apart to work on the same pro-
ject and to be in daily contact with
each other. Computer programs like
MESSAGE can not only shorten the
time it takes to communicate with
others but also encourage informality
in such communications. This may
radically change the traditional ad-
ministrative structure or "chain-of-
command" found in offices today. In
today's large organizations, com-
munications tend to move vertically
between the different hierarchies:
reports and requests move up the
ladder stage by stage until they reach
the top management. Decisions and
orders tend to move downward from
the top managers to the next level
below, and so on. But computer
technology and electronic communica-
tions facilitate "violations" of this step-
by-step routing. David Brier, for in-
stance, knows that he can get a faster
and more complete response to his in-
quiry by dealing with Mary Westerly
directly rather than trying to pass his
Word piocessing equipment connected by telephone to a computer takes the place of a
conventional typewriter. As each word is typed, it appears on the video-display screen and
is simultaneously stored in the computer's memory. Corrections can be made by simply
back-spacing and typing over any misprints; then a perfect copy can be run off. In offices of
the future, letters, memos, and reports will circulate electronically from one display screen
to another via a central computer. Photo: Hollis Vail
message on "through channels." The
central computer, with its information
storage files and remote terminal links,
makes direct contact easy and reliable.
Another possible change in attitude
brought about by changes in office
technology may be that many office
workers will choose to be independent
contractors rather than employees.
Jane Adams might decide to buy her
own computer terminal so she could
work part-time for many different
companies rather than full time for a
single employer. And, when Jane
wasn't working at her computer
terminal, her children could use it for
their school assignments.
The routines of the traditional 9 to 5
office day may disappear completely
as new electronic technology makes it
possible to perform all kinds of "office
work" in one's home or out of a suit-
case anywhere in the world. Office
support services are among the most
likely areas to experience change. Elec-
tronic message transmission will im-
pact heavily on messenger and mail
delivery systems. Written material that
must travel by traditional modes will
be speeded on its way by computer-
controlled mailing equipment that
automatically prints out the address,
stuffs, stamps, and seals the envelope,
and sorts the material by destination
even before the postman comes by to
collect it. More often though, written
messages will be sent electronically
from the company computer to the
computer of the receiving party?
perhaps through an intermediary
satellite-linked message routing service.
The. electronic innnovations in
tomorrow's office will help executives
compose their letters and reports as
well as copy them faster and more
easily. Computers with built-in dic-
tionaries will check spelling
automatically, and search their
encyclopedia-like memory banks to
locate needed statistics and apt quota-
tions.
With all this change, will the office
as we know it now?that is, the room
downtown with desks, filing cabinets
and people?disappear completely?
Perhaps not. People's need for contact
with others May never be fully
satisfied by electronic means, however
sophisticated. Many homes are not
suited to work needs because of inade-
quate space or privacy. Furthermore,
we still lack good measurement
systems for many types of work, and
the traditional office, helps us to watch
how "busy" others are.
It is clearly too soon to write off the
traditional office completely; but, just
as clearly, "office workers" in the
years ahead will be spending more and
more of their time in a variety of new
environments.
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
In the decades ahead, architects will have at their disposal a
wide variety of new materials and techniques that will free
them to create buildings dramatically different from those
known today. In the following article, a future-oriented
architect suggests the possible structures that man will build
on earth, beneath the sea, and in outer space.
Architecture has always been one of
man's primary means of satisfying his
basic needs and expressing his highest
aspirations. Houses, fortresses,
cathedrals, and rocket gantries offer ex-
amples of the many ways in which man
has modified his environment to protect
himself from the harshness of nature
and provide a means of achieving his
aspirations. ?
New technology has freed the
architect from many past limitations.
Hence, the architecture that will
develop in the next few decades may be
excitingly different from the types, of
structures that now are familiar. To get
a glimpse of tomorrow's architecture,
we must look at the possibilities opened
by the new materials and systems and
at people's physical and social needs
during the years ahead.
One enigma of an architectural
forecast is the city. Traditionally, the
city has been the primary context for
architectural expression. But the future
of the city is now heavily clouded. With
world population expected to double in
the next 35 years, cities will likely ex-
perience explosive growth. Skyscrapers
of 100 to 150 stories may become com-
monplace as cities seek to pack more
and more people into the available
space. At the same time, urban sprawl
may continue unabated, yielding sub-
continental megalopolises like
"Boswash" (the urbanized area running
from Boston to Washington) and "San-
san" (the San Francisco-San Diego cor-
ridor). Whether cities grow vertically
or horizontally, there may be
phenomenal increases in all types of
pollution with diminished prospects for
a high quality life.
But the mounting problems within
the 'city raise the question whether the
city will actually continue to grow as
the population and urbanization trends
indicate. There is even a question
whether the city will survive at all, at
least in its present form. Already, many
people view cities as unmanageable and
virtually uninhabitable monstrosities
and are fleeing to the countryside. (See
articles in the August issue of THE
FUTURIST.) At the same time, new
developments in technology eliminate
many of the reasons for maintaining the
physical proximity of large numbers of
people.
Though the continued existence of
cities can no longer be taken for
granted, I believe that cities will sur-
vive, partly because so much of civiliza-
tion is now concentrated in them and
partly because they make it possible for
people to realize deep needs for high
quality personal interaction.
But if the city is to be a truly desira-
ble place to live, its growth must be
guided more effectively than in the past.
by
Roy Mason
Architects must recognize the growing
need to protect people from unpleasant
sights and noises and to provide simpler
and more flexible personal space.
Architects must also consult more fre-
quently with the social scientist, so that
the needs of the user can be more fully
incorporated into the design process.
Impact of Computers and Cable TV
New technologies will have major im-
pact on the cities?and could even make
them obsolete. Just as electric lights,
telephones, automobiles, and elevators
have all had important effects on urban
form, so computers, lasers, and two-
way cable television systems promise
further major changes. The new com-
munications tethnology can bring en-
tertainment, shopping, employment,
education, and medical services into the
home, thus depriving the city of many
of its reasons for existing. But if the
city continues to exist anyway, how will
it change? Will it perhaps decline as a
desirable place to live, and consequently
tend to become increasingly the resi-
dence of the poor and needy? Or will the
city develop important new functions?
Energy production constitutes
another major area of concern for the
city. The United States currently uses
one third of its energy for transporta-
tion and one third for heating and cool-
ing its buildings. Will we continue to
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Author Roy Mason stands in front of
an environmental school he designed
and built in Virginia. An example of
ecological architecture, the structure is
made of urethane foam sprayed onto a
framework of metal laths. Crushed ag-
gregate applied to the surface makes
the building almost indistinguishable,
at a distance, from the surrounding
natural rock formations. A Washing-
ton, D.C., architect, Mason has
designed a variety of homes and apart-
plan to use large nuclear reactors and
coal-fired generators as our primary
future sources of energy?
Among the alternative sources being
discussed are wind, tidal, geothermal,
and solar energy. Solar energy appears
to be the most stable and widely dis-
tributed source of supply. With solar
collectors to provide for heating needs,
a building could become an energy pro-
ducer, rather than just a consumer.
Solar systems can readily be con-
structed in all structures ranging from
the smallest to the largest. Locating
structures underground could reduce
energy demands by virtue of the
superior insulating qualities of earth.
(An underground location might also
alleviate some of the problems of visual
pollution.)
One problem posed by urban and
suburban sprawl is that the land availa-
ble for agricultural use is reduced. But
buildings could produce food as well as
energy. Greenhouses and hydroponic
facilities, in combination with solar
energy, could ultimately produce the
bulk of the inhabitants' food. Com-
puters could supervise the germination
of seed, the distribution of nutrients,
and the harvesting of the fruit as they
do the production of industrial goods. It
is not difficult to imagine that an acre of
apartment complexes may someday
ments, often exploring the possibilities
of innovative materials such as
plastics, recycled materials, and alter-
nate energy systems.
Mason has served as the World
Future Society's Art Director since
1966, when the Society was organized
and he designed its symbol. Recently
named Architecture Editor of THE
FUTURIST, Mason is planning a
series of articles (of which this is the
first) on the various directions that
Solar house in Tucson, Arizona, has
laminated copper roof panels and a
solar collector, which is expected to
provide 75% of the cooling and 100%
of the heating needed for the house.
Silicon solar cells will convert the
sun's energy to low voltage power
for small appliances. Major ap-
pliances will run on conventional
power. This prototype house,
designed by M. Arthur Kotch, is
being built by the Copper Develop-
ment Association.
Illustration from Progressive Architec-
ture
architecture may take in the years
ahead. Readers wishing to contribute
to the architecture series are invited to
write: Roy Mason, Architecture Edi-
tor, World Future Society, 4916 St.
Elmo Avenue, Washington, D.C.
20014. Mason is also Co-founder and
Director of Planning of the Future Op-
tions Room, which seeks to distill and
simplify options in various fields. FOR
is located at 2216 Fortieth Street,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007.
Photo: Peter Vote
In this combined building and life-support system, homegrown fruits and vegeta-
bles nourish the residents. Bioshelter enthusiasts believe that a home can grow
even more food than if the land were devoted to regular agriculture. This domed
structure with an outer membrane that becomes opaque when exposed to direct
sunlight was designed by Sean Wellesley-Miller and Day Charoudi with
Marguerite Villecco.
Drawing from Architecture Plus
Am,1111.-''.-flikA.wIAsNatifirdirrZft. 4010.
41,S4TOVIIIVrallignewilMI1444141k.,Airt. ??irowirelp,
, ..figer,1111rait ,,;11111101E2
- 2 '
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Transportation needs may shape
tomorrow's city. The author, Roy
Mason, prepared this concept of a port
city designed around a transportation
center that brings to a focus the train,
bus, helicopter, and monorail systems
circulating throughout the entire city.
Automobile traffic is completely ex-
cluded from the inner city; all cars are
parked in silos around the perimeter of
the transportation system. Passage into
the inner city is provided by "people
movers."
Drawing by Roy Mason
produce more food than an acre of
farmland!
Another major element determining
the shape and functioning of cities is
transportation. Current projections in-
dicate that the U.S. demand for
transportation services will double in
the next twenty years. Will all U.S.
cities go the way of Los Angeles, where
35% of the land already is devoted to
highways? Alternatives now under dis-
cussion include the building of elevated
highways to free the ground for other
activities of man, or constructing rib-
bon-like apartment complexes with the
roofs serving as highways.
Public transit of the near future will
most likely elaborate on the best of
what already exists, such as the Bay
Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in
San Francisco, Japan's high-speed in-
tercity trains, and the elevated
monorail systems operating at Disney
World and the Montreal Expo site. In
addition, personalized rapid transit
systems (PRTs) may alleviate the im-
mense future demand for mobility.
Numerous demonstration PRT systems
are now under study.
Personalized and mass transit
systems can be integrated into a total
city plan, and linear cities could develop
along transportation corridors. Hubs
for all transport modes can be incorpor-
ated into a single building, thus
facilitating the movement of both peo-
ple and goods within and among urban
centers.
Greenhouse Cities?
Hints of future cities may perhaps be
seen in the greenhouse-like Regency
Hotels of John Portman and the plans
for Battery Park, a proposed "city
within a city" in Manhattan. On a larger
scale, new towns like Reston, Virginia,
may typify the semi-rural development
that some planners see in the future,
even though Reston has failed to
become self-sufficient in employment
and residence, as some planners hoped.
Another totally planned community,
Auroville, near Pondicherry, India, may
foreshadow spiritually based new com-
munities that emphasize aesthetic and
ecological concerns.
The growth of megalopolises can be
controlled, to a certain extent, through
land use codes and regional zoning.
Satellite cities could be developed as ap-
pendages of a central city. The late
planner Constantinos Doxiadis foresaw
the development of a single worldwide
city, which he named Ecumenopolis. A
physically connected network of urban
communities, Ecumenopolis could retain
many of the physical and social charac-
teristics of the small town or village.
Though new communities will be
built, existing urban centers will proba-
bly undergo continued revitalization.
Old buildings, instead of being
Greenhouse-interior of hotel designed by John Portman (above) shows how
sunlight and green plants can be introduced into the center of a building, yet resi-
dents remain protected from rain and cold. Photo: Regency Hyatt Hotel, Chicago
"Living-learning center" gives all residential units a view of the surrounding
woods. This complex (below) is the Xerox Corporation's International Center for
Training and Management, located in Loudoun County, Virginia, near Washing-
ton, D.C. Opened in June 1974, the Center has accommodations for 1,014 students.
Photo: Xerox Corporation
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
"House of the Century" is made of fer-
rocement, a material that gives
architects unusual freedom to shape
buildings any way they want. This
structure, widely known in Texas, was
created by the imaginative architec-
tural group known as the Ant Farm.
Photo: The Ant Farm
destroyed to make way for new struc-
tures, will be recycled, that is,
remodeled for new uses. Housing is
another primary element of the urban
system, but the problems it poses ap-
pear to be the most difficult to resolve.
Man walks on the moon but builds
houses by methods that have changed
little since the days of the guild system.
The conventional single-family dwelling
uses 70,000 nails and 30,000 individual
components, almost all of which are as-
sembled on-site. The high labor costs
associated with this form of construc-
tion are pricing the individual house
beyond reach of the average family.
Future housing needs to combine new
conceptions of living space with the use
of new manufactured components and
construction methods.
New Materials Cause Excitement
Several recently developed materials
foreshadow future construction
possibilities. Among these are:
? Plastics. The strength, light
weight, molding capability, and even
light-transmitting properties of plastics
make possible an almost endless variety
in the design of components and entire
structures.
? New forms of steel. Today's
lighter, stronger steel permits the con-
struction of extremely long spans.
? Filament wound system. Based on
aerospace component technology, the
filament wound system involves the
wrapping of continuous strands of
resin-coated glass filaments around a
collapsible mold to produce on-site
housing shells. In effect, a builder can
"spin" a building at the site.
? Ferrocement. A builder working
with ferrocement first creates a frame-
work of metal reinforcing rods and
chicken wire. He then coats the struc-
ture with cement. The metal supports
and strengthens the cement, making it
possible for the architect to sculpt
buildings according to almost any
design.
? Concrete. An old friend with new
possibilities, concrete can now be
manipulated in an unlimited variety of
expressive and inspiring ways by using
free form steel rod reinforcing systems.
? MASC extrusion process.
Developed by the Midwest Applied
Science Corporation, this process
makes it possible to "spin out" or ex-
trude buildings in one piece by using
plastic foams that rise and harden very
rapidly.
? Urethane foam. Originally
developed as an insulation material with
three times the insulating capacity of
fiberglass, urethane foam can be
sprayed on a variety of molds or forms
to create exciting structures and in-
terior spaces. After the recent earth-
quake disaster in Turkey, a reusable in-
flatable plastic mold was sprayed with
urethane foam to provide instant
shelter for the homeless.
New Systems Liberate Architects
But new materials are not the only
technological developments that will
liberate tomorrow's architects. Recent
developments in building systems will
also play a part. These include:
? Kinetic structures. Usually featur-
ing a combination of inflatable and hy-
draulic components, these collapsible
structures can be transported from site
to site.
? Fiberglass sandwiched component
systems. Precast sections of fiberglass
can be connected by flexible corridors to
permit many design variations. Light-
weight and movable, the structures fold
up like an umbrella for transportation,
or are laid out in all sorts of shapes to
meet specific needs.
? Modular housing. The rising costs
of land, labor, and materials have made
the relatively unattractive and
uninspiring mobile home a potent factor
in the home-building industry. One
Self-erecting multistory building,
designed by students at the University
of Virginia, can be prefabricated and
transported to its site, where it pops up
like a Jack-in-the-Box. The force
needed to erect the building is provided
by wrapping cables connecting the
outer joints of the "scissors" frame
around a shaft located on the ground.
From Kinetic Architecture
alternative to the mobile home is flexi-
ble modular housing. In this system,
prefabricated panels are shipped to
building sites for assembly on the spot.
Modular housing is not yet competitive
with traditional housing, because of
such factors as high transport costs, the
opposition of building trade unions, and
the lack of high volume. But the U.S.
government has attempted to stimulate
the expansion of the modular industry.
Several projects supported by the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development involve the stacking of
prefab living units to form apartment
complexes.
Structural Forms of the Future
The new materials and building
systems help make a wide variety of
structural forms both more possible
and, in some instances, more desirable.
These structures include the following:
Cellular Structures. Single modules,
with the walls serving both as struc-
tural supports and space dividers, can
be aggregated in a variety of ways to
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Prefabricated cellular dwellings, exhibited in Germany in 1971, are now being
used primarily for recreational purposes, but could typify the houses of the future.
Photo: Neuf Magazine
create ever larger systems. Modules
can also be added onto existing conven-
tional structures in order to increase
the available area.
The most noted architect of modular
or cellular structures is Moshe Safdie,
the Israeli who designed the widely
noted Habitat for the 1967 World's Fair
in Montreal. For Habitat, Safdie
stacked 160 residential units, made
from 354 precast sections, into a
visually striking apartment complex.
Modular or cellular construction
allows architects to bring together
modules in a wide variety of ways.
Shown here is Habitat, the megastruc-
ture designed by Israeli architect
Moshe Safdie for the 1967 World's Fair
in Montreal.
Photo: Progressive Architecture
This exciting megastructure houses
hundreds of people but gives them ter-
races where they can enjoy remarkable
privacy. A subsequent project
developed in Puerto Rico consisted of
hexagonal units stacked in various ways
to create large communities on moun-
tain slopes.
Since modules or cells can be mass-
produced in factories, cellular systems
offer a way to house people that is less
expensive than traditional methods.
Clip-on, Plug-in Architecture. A
plug-in structure consists of two parts:
A central stable core and one or more
removable modules. The stable core
provides the structural support for the
system and houses the service facilities.
The individual modules are added or
removed as needs dictate.
One of the first developers of the
plug-in concept was Peter Cook of the
Archigram Group in London. Cook's ob-
jective was to create buildings which
were so basic and adjustable that they
could meet almost any future need for
change. Kisho Kurokawa, a Japanese
businessman, has already constructed a
plug-in tower and is currently market-
ing individual modules through a Tokyo
department store. Sale price includes
the cost of installation.
Bridge Structures. Bridge struc-
tures, as the name implies, are con-
structed of either girder or cable
systems stretching between tower sup-
ports or other combinations. Spanning
long distances, these structures can
function independently of local topogra-
Apartment house in Tokyo features
plug-in living units, which Japanese
can purchase at a local department
store along with all the furnishings. A
crane attaches the living unit to the
central towers which contain elevators
and service facilities. "Capsule liv-
ing" was conceived by Japanese
architect Kisho Kurokawa, who
believes that people will someday buy
capsules and take them from city to
city as they move.
Photo: Architecture Plus
phy and previous development. The
bridge is compatible with clip-on con-
ceptions: individual cells can be added
to girder systems or attached to the pri-
mary support towers.
Japanese architect Kenzo Tange has
developed many bridge designs for the
Tokyo Bay Project. The Hungarian-
born French architect Yona Friedman
has proposed bridge structures that
would span whole cities, but such
facilities would deprive earth dwellers
of air and light.
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Plug-in structures designed by Swiss
architect Daniel Grataloup provide for
separation of the units on the towers,
thus permitting maximum acoustic
isolation?difficult to achieve in tradi-
tional buildings.
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Grataloup
Bridge structure designed by Japanese
architect Kenzo Tange for the
Yamanashi Broadcasting Company
(left) is currently being built in Tokyo.
In this bridge structure, space for of-
fices is provided between the support-
ing towers, which contain service
facilities. Spanning a long distance, a
bridge structure can function indepen-
dently of local topography and earlier
buildings. Photo: Neuf Magazine, Brussels
A container structure, such as this
model (right) developed by the Institute
for Lightweight Structures at the
University of Stuttgart, Germany, per-
mits the development of controlled
microclimates in urban areas. The
director of the Institute is Frei Otto.
Photo: Institute of Lightweight Structures
Transit system is located in the center
of the X-supports of this bridge struc-
ture, designed by the Paris architects
Andre Biro and Jean-Jacques Fernier.
Photo: Neuf Magazine, Brussels
Diagonal Structures. Another in-
novative comprehensive approach to ur-
ban structures makes use of the
diagonal. The diagonal structure is ter-
raced either on a hillside or on level
ground, permitting each living unit to
have its own deck and outdoor garden.
In contrast to bridges and other high
rise structures, the terraces created by
diagonal forms offer much natural light
and spatial variety.
Diagonal structures can be erected in
very different ways with the more com-
plex forms assuming funnel and hyper-
bolic shapes. In the case of pyramidal
forms, terraces can be constructed on
all sides. One example is R.
Buckminster Fuller's tetrahedonal
High-density terraced new town was
designed to fit comfortably into the
natural contours of the mountainous
California terrain. The structure was
planned for Sunset Mountain Park by
Cesar Pelli and A. J. Lumsden.
Photo: Progressive Architecture
macrostructure which can accommo-
date one million people in one enclosure.
Container Structures. Container
structures are very big buildings whose
outer skin or shell encompasses a large
unbroken interior. Current examples of
container structures include the domed
stadiums in Houston and New Orleans
and Cape Canaveral's huge Vehicle As-
sembly Building, the largest unbroken
contained space in the world.
One of the purest examples of con-
tainer architecture is Buckminster
Fuller's spherical geodesic dome, which
has been erected in various forms
throughout the world. Fuller has pro-
posed enclosing sections of the Arctic
and a two-mile diameter area of
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Ecopolis, designed by Guy Rottier, features solar collectors which
funnel sunlight through ducts into the interior of the megastruc-
ture. The exterior of the building closely resembles a terraced
hillside. Photo: Courtesy of Guy Rottier, Damascus
Manhattan Island within dome skins
which would shield people underneath
from the weather and permit the crea-
tion of habitable micro-climates.
Another pioneer of container
architecture is Frei Otto, whose most
famous tensile structure served as the
stadium for the 1972 Olympic Games in
Munich.
Much of today's container research
concentrates on light-weight inflatable
or pneumatic structures which permit
the creation of instant and mobile en-
vironments?even whole cities?within
a matter of hours. The inflatable can
provide an exierior skin for structures
ranging in size from greenhouses to of-
fice towers to stadiums.
Radiolaria Structure
This residence is a biostructure built of
concrete sprayed into a framework
shaped out of steel rods. Swiss
architect Daniel Grataloup developed
this home for a French client.
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Grataloup
Biostructures. Biostructural designs
may emerge in the next twenty years as
the strongest single force in the
architect's repertory. In seeking to
emulate the biological processes of
reproduction, growth, and cyclical
change, the architect can help enhance
man's perception of himself as a natural
organism.
Biological forms and systems supply
an untapped reservoir of ideas for the
design of structures and cities. Fuller's
geodesic dome, for example, was partly
inspired by the radiolarian, a protozoan
whose ribbed shape suggests a basket?
or a geodesic dome.
One variant of the biostructure is the
exoskeleton, or second skin, which can
serve as an extension of the human body
and as a life support system. The space
suit developed for extraterrestrial use
may foreshadow the time when people
on earth may walk around with their
homes on their backs.
Marine Structures. With seven
tenths of the earth's surface covered by
oceans, marine struCtures offer one
possible answer to the urban crisis.
Stemming from the twin pressures of
Tokyo's population explosion and scar-
city of open land, the Tokyo Bay Pro-
ject has developed many ways to use
Tokyo Bay for residential and commer-
cial purposes.
Marine structures may be either
floating or stable. Stable structures are
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Underwater structures such as this village (left) designed by Jacques Rougerie and colleagues in Paris would facilitate research
in marine biology as well as provide vacationers with an exciting locale. Increasing population densities on land may provide a
major impetus for moving underwater in some coastal areas. Photo: Courtesy of Jacques Rogerie
Marine structure (right) proposed by Pierre-Andre Martin of Sete, France, would permit the expansion of urban and port
facilities over adjacent water areas. Photo: Courtesy of Pierre-Andre Martin
usually built on pylons similar to those
used on offshore oil drilling platforms.
Floating structures generally use light-
weight plastics such as fiberglass and
foam to achieve buoyancy. Fuller's
Triton City consists of several terraced
megastructures supported by barges
and connected by floating decks.
The underwater living and research
environments now used by scientists, oil
drilling teams, and others foreshadow
the development of subsurface com-
munities. The lure of an underwater
vacation may provide the major im-
petus in developing these structures.
Large ocean resorts located in the ocean
depths are now envisioned, and con-
struction of submarine environments
for vacationers may be anticipated in
the next decade.
Space Structures. The landing of men
on the moon has made the future col-
onization of space seem inevitable. But
lunar buildings will probably not be the
first major extraterrestrial buildings.
Large orbiting structures will probably
come first. Recent space lab efforts have
enabled scientists and enginners to un-
derstand how human beings can exist in
space for long periods of time and cope
with the problems of weightlessness.
The advent of the reusable space
shuttle will substantially reduce the
costs of space transportation, thereby
reducing the costs of building struc-
tures in space. Service stations for
space vehicles, astronomical observato-
ries, scientific laboratories, and other
manned space facilities will create a
need for space housing and the eventual
creation of orbiting space cities. Space
architecture will have many problems
but will also be free of many of the con-
straints faced by architects on earth
(gravity, weather, building codes, etc.).
Space stations can link together like
Tinker Toys to create a wide variety of
strange-looking structures impossible
to realize on earth.
Future lunar explorers will employ
numerous vehicles and devices for im-
proved observation and study and even-
tually will create permanent lunar
bases. The first lunar buildings may be
structures that can be erected easily on
the moon's surface. But the best en-
vironment for lunar habitation will most
likely lie under the surface. In one un-
derground proposal developed by
University ot Houston students, a space
Floating industrial structure (below, left), made of fiberglass, shows another use of cellular architecture. Additional cells and
central units can be attached as desired and easily moved later as necessary. This design is from Jacques Beufs of Paris.
Photo: Courtesy of Jacques Beufs
Counterpoint (below, right), a lunar colony developed by John Dossey and Guillermo Trotti, includes all facilities necessary
for a self-sufficient research and production community. In the foreground is a low-pressure dome covering an experimental
farm facility. Photo: Courtesy of John Dossey and Guillermo Trotti
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tug would transport prefabricated
modules to the lunar surface. Living
quarters, located below the surface,
would be roofed over with solar panels.
A series of hydroponic farms, set up
both on and below the surface, would
provide all the food.
Gerard O'Neill, a Princeton Univer-
sity physicist, has proposed the
development of orbiting cylindrical
communities. Structures up to 15 miles
long and a mile in diameter would oper-
ate on solar energy and have an ar-
tificial gravity induced by rotation.
(The "gravity" would actually be
centrifugal force, which would press the
inhabitants away from the axis of rota-
tion.) Supporting more than 10,000 peo-
ple, the community would eventually
require no imports from earth except
for carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen.
Other materials could be shipped from
the moon at a relatively low cost. The
community could support itself by ex-
porting industrial materials that can be
manufactured much more easily in a
weightless environment than on earth.
By constructiag duplicates of itself, the
community could facilitate the move-
ment of human populations into space.
(See Space Department.)
Fantasy Structures: Today's
"Impossibles"
Beyond the structures discussed so
far are buildings that today are im-
possible but which could become feasi-
ble when currently unpredicted or un-
foreseen technologies are discovered
and developed.
Aerotectures such as Fuller's Float-
ing Sphere may someday float above the
earth. Fuller suggests that a huge
sphere could be placed in the air above
the earth. The sun would heat the
enclosed air, giving it such buoyancy
that it could float like a balloon. On a
lesser scale, a large dirigible could sup-
port hotels or apartment complexes.
"Agrotecture." Structures could be
made of living plants which would be
shaped by nets, pruning, and careful
fertilizing. In this drawing, a number
of agrotectures appear, with the two in
the foreground sliced through to show
the interior. Root systems nourish the
structure. Inhabitants might enjoy an
unusually fine atmosphere, since the
plants would convert carbon dioxide
into oxygen. Courtesy of Wolf Hilbertz
"Biotecture." Architects have fantasized that increasing biological knowledge
may some day make it possible to grow structures such as the octopus-like creation
shown here. Drawing by Glenn Small
Light-weight structures could also be
held aloft by new, highly efficient (jet?)
propulsion systems, or antigravity
devices, as illustrated on the cover by
the space artist Robert McCall.
Growing structures or biotectures of
all types offer a vast field for architec-
tural inventiveness. If, for example,
biologists come to understand fully how
certain animals can regenerate limbs or
organs, architects may be able, by using
a programmed chemical package, to
grow a giant rib cage that can serve as
the structure for a stadium.
Agritectural structures, as conceived
by Rudolf Dornach, might be created
out of green plants. Living enclosures
could be shaped by nets, careful prun-
ing, judicious use of nutrients, and so
forth. With greater understanding of
plant growth processes, it might even
be possible to develop varieties of plants
that would develop naturally into func-
tional enclosures.
Chemitectures might be formed by
using new liquid materials which could
grow like crystals into structures that
are sufficiently rigid to enclose living
spaces.
The "imaginary architecture," pro-
posed by Friedrich St. Florian, who
uses lasers, best epitomizes the mind-
expanding and body-liberating
possibilities of future structures and en-
vironments. St. Florian suggests that
people will be able to switch spaces on
and off by creating perceptually real,
three-dimensional holographic struc-
tures on open land. People could walk
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through the walls of buildings as if they
were mirages.
Another videotectural possibility is
Wolf Hilbertz' Photo-Fabricated struc-
tures. Hilbertz suggests creating inter-
ference patterns among laser-projected
images which could become solid shapes
by introducing a polymerized plastic. In
effect, the "mirage" or image would
solidify into tangible reality.
Michael Jensen's Thought Forms
may stretch videotecture to its limit.
Jensen would have people visualize
various forms and shapes and record?
in an as yet unknown way?the distinc-
tive brain wave patterns that the
thoughts produced. The patterns could
then be converted to sound waves
which, when projected through direc-
tional antennas, form imaginary struc-
tures.
"Videotecture." (Left) Imaginary architecture is being developed by Friedrich St.
Florian in his studio at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachuset-
ts Institute of Technology. St. Florian uses lasers to create structures that can be
seen but are not made of solid substance. People can walk through the "walls" of
the structures. In this conception, an imaginary museum of architecture rises from
the Arizona desert. Courtesy of Friedrich St. Florian
"Photofabrication." (Above) Single molecules of a liquid plastic are sprayed
toward a surface. Laser-created diffraction patterns force the molecules into ex-
tended chains of polymers which harden as they strike the surface.
Courtesy of Wolf Hilbertz
Mediatectural possibilities include
covering all surfaces of a room with
television screens, creating infinite
possibilities for interior design. In con-
junction with video cameras and record-
ing equipment, a person could live in a
total video environment. With com-
puter access and a video synthesizer, he
could play a keyboard and invent visual
effects beyond imagination, or call up
scenes (e.g., the Grand Canyon or the
Taj Mahal). By attaching the system to
biofeedback devices, one could visually
experience his own biological fluctua-
tions.
Other experimenters are using video,
fiber optics, sound-sensitive light reflec-
tors, and lasers which allow people to
see the optical visions that drug users
experience in altered states of con-
sciousness. The Hans Rucker Company
in New York has designed headset and
body enclosure units that can shut out
normal sensations and create entirely
new sensory, interpersonal, and psychic
experiences.
Sound architecture consists of creat-
ing perceptual space. through sound
equipment. Developments in the study
of the relation of sound to matter and
energy could permit the shaping of
structure by creating a vibration
matrix from which the final form is
"Cryotecture." Structures can be cre-
ated by spraying a fine mist of water
onto various inflatable or shaped mesh
forms to produce buildings. Wolf
Hilbertz of the University of Texas's
Symbiotic Processes Laboratory and
his colleagues created buildings like
this at Fargo, North Dakota, for an
"Ice City." Photo: Fritz Dessler
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Auroville, a new town being built
near Madras, India, seeks to
combine nature and technology
in a concept that features the use
of spiral forms. Funded in part
by UNESCO, the community
will have an international and
spiritual emphasis, as suggested
by the Sanctuary of Truth at the
center of this model. To become
a resident of Auroville, one must
be "convinced of the essential
unity of mankind and have the
will to collaborate in the
material realization of that
unity." Auroville's pioneer resi-
dents dug wells and built bamboo
huts. The town now has about
400 residents, coming from In-
dia, the U.S., Britain, France,
Germany, and elsewhere. No au-
tomobiles are allowed in the city.
Courtesy of Shri Aurobindo Society
solidified. In effect, the sound patterns
would become patterns of a solid
material.
Cybertectures employ computers to
create the most responsive personalized
structures ever developed. On a mun-
dane level, computers can design almost
any kind of structure. At a more inti-
mate level, the computer could be pro-
grammed to respond to human moods
by varying the color, light, sound,
shape, and size of structures. The com-
puter might even be joined with man to
form a man-machine, or cyborg (short
for "cybernetic organism"), extending
man's longevity, physical strength, and
endurance.
Cryotectures are structures which
use water and other liquids to form
enclosed spaces. Though cheap and
abundant, water might not seem to be a
good building material, but Eskimos
have used it for centuries to build their
igloos. The appealing features of water
to some architects is that it is ther-
moplastic; that is, it changes from a
solid to a liquid when heated. In the li-
quid state, it can be molded into all
manner of shapes; frozen, those shapes
retain their form.
Water is the material that architect
William Katavolos of Pratt University
chose for his proposed 270-mile-high
city at the North Pole. The city would
be located at the Pole so that the earth's
centrifugal force would not create a
problem.
Similarly, an Ice City is under study
at the Symbiotic Process Laboratory of
the University of Texas. In this concept,
a fine mist of water would be sprayed
onto various inflatable or shaped mesh
forms to produce buildings.
Three Scenarios for the Future
Perhaps the best way to try to get at
the basic character of tomorrow's
architecture is to consider three
scenarios of architectural development.
These scenarios are oriented around the
twin poles of nature and technology
which are the two fundamental forces
influencing man's design directions.
Scenario!: Nature Dominates
In the first scenario, natural forces
and processes predominate, either
because people have voluntarily chosen
a more natural lifestyle or because
technology has failed. (The energy
"crisis" has suggested how dependent
present technology is on dwindling sup-
plies of fossil fuel.) Structures are built
of locally derived natural materials like
wood, stone, earth, animal skins, and
adobe, clay or ice bricks. Yurts, teepees,
hogans, and igloos exemplify this type
of dwelling. The chief occupations are in
agriculture and animal husbandry, with
excess production available for export.
Little or no energy storage occurs; local
materials, chiefly wood, are used to heat
homes and cook food. In this scenario,
human beings would revert to the pri-
mitive technology of the past.
Scenario II: Nature Merges with
Human Technology
The second scenario involves the in-
tegration of man's tools and structures
with the natural environment. Respect-
ing but not worshiping natural forms
and rhythms, man benefits from tech-
nology but maintains his contact with
nature. He uses a startling variety of
structures and materials: modular com-
ponents, marine structures, natural and
synthetic materials, etc. In general, the
structures may be smaller rather than
larger so as not to overwhelm the
natural surroundings. But humanized
megastructures, perhaps conforming to
the existing terrain, are possible. In this
scenario, people would use fairly
sophisticated technology but would seek
close harmony with natural processes.
Scenario II people might favor solar
energy systems and greenhouse or hy-
droponic facilities because the sophisti-
cated technology could minimize en-
vironmental damage. Current large-
scale attempts to integrate nature and
technology include the new towns of
Reston in Virginia and Auroville in In-
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dia, as well as the arcologies of Paolo
Soleri.
Scenario III: Technology
Dominates
In the third scenario, man creates an
environment that is almost totally
devoid of any connection with nature.
Inhabitants of these totally synthetic
environments, typified by megastruc-
tures placed in urban areas, could spend
their entire lives indoors, if they so
desired. Housing, offices, and shops are
all located within the same structure or
in nearby connected buildings. Massive
production and distribution facilities
provide food, energy, and other goods.
Present structures such as the John
Hancock Center in Chicago and city en-
vironments such as Manhattan (without
Central Park) are examples of what
happens when total technology becomes
dominant in architectural and planning
circles.
In all likelihood, none of the foregoing
scenarios will be fully realized, but they
suggest the broad choices which people
will have.
Today when we think of future com-
munities, many of us think of new towns
like Columbia, Maryland, or Tapiola,
Finland. But our options are much
broader. We can also live in large
megastructures housing thousands of
people or we can carry our homes on our
backs. Our homes can be on the sea as
well as on the land, under the ground, or
in the air. In a few years we will be able
to live in solar-powered apartments on
the moon or in space stations rotating
around the earth.
What we must do now, I believe, is to
explore the various options open to us
and begin a general dialogue concerning
the possibilities of tomorrow's built en-
vironment. Architects must work with
planners, social scientists, and many
other types of people to create the best
sort of habitations for individual needs.
From this general collaboration, which
must include the people who will live,
work, and play in the new structures,
there will emerge, I believe, a consensus
on what sort of built environment will
best meet the needs of the future. We
can then go about creating it.
The author, Roy Mason, was assisted in
preparing this article by Scott Dankman,
Director of Information Systems, Future Op-
tions Room, Washington, D.C., and Texas
A&M professor Peter Jay Zweig, author of a
Megastructure designed by Italian architects Loris Rossi and Donatella Mazzoleni
integrates residential units and transportation systems. Lake is artificial. This con-
cept, by Italian architects Loris Rossi and Donatella Mazzoleni, suggests the
triumphant technology discussed as a third scenario for future architecture.
Courtesy of A. Loris Rossi and Donatella Mazzoleni
For Further Reading
Author Mason suggests the
following volumes for people in-
terested in reading more about the
future of architecture:
Urban Structures for the Future
by Justus Dahinden. Praeger Press,
New York. 1972.
Architecture 2000 by Charles
Jencks. Studio Vista, London. 1971.
Anthropodes by Jim Burn.
Praeger, New York. 1972.
The City in the World of the
Future by Hal Hellman. M. Evans,
New York. 1970.
The Future of the City by Peter
Wolf. Whitney Library of Design,
New York. 1974.
Kinetic Architecture by William
Zuk and Roger Clark. Van Nostrand
Reinhold, New York. 1970.
forthcoming book entitled Alternative
Architecture al: A History of the Future.
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Live under the sea? Mine the ocean floor? Grow salt-water
oysters in Kansas City? All these are real possibilities for
the coming decades. In the following article, a specialist in
ocean affairs reports on what is now happening in the
utilization of the sea, and what can be expected in the future.
Man is a land animal, but is more
closely tied to the sea than most peo-
ple ever realize. Sixty percent of the
world's largest cities are located with-
in less than 30 miles of the ocean, and
an estimated two-thirds of all of the
world's people live within 50 miles of
the coast. This heavy concentration of
people in only 12% of the total land
area comes from the fact that the sea
has, from the earliest times, served a
multitude of human needs. Down
through the millennia, coastal-dwell-
ing people have harvested bountiful
crops of food from the sea, often de-
pending almost entirely on fish and
marine invertebrates for their dietary
protein. In addition, the sea has pro-
vided man with an efficient means of
travel, making worldwide trade very
easy.
Today man is beginning to run out
of resources on land, and is turning
ever more to the sea, which until re-
cently seemed an inexhaustible
storehouse. But he is fast learning
that the sea, though immense, also has
limits. Already he has seriously over-
fished many of its most productive
areas, so that they now produce only a
fraction of their former bounty.
Offshore oil exploration began only
three decades ago, but vast quantities
of oil and natural gas now are being
pumped from beneath the Gulf of
Mexico and the North Sea. Valuable
deposits of manganese and phosph-
ates are known to exist on the ocean
bottom, but are not yet being ex-
ploited. Vast renewable sources of
energy exist in both the motion of the
water and the temperature gradients
of the sea, and engineers believe that
they can tap this energy, if adequate
development funds are provided.
As man's technology to exploit the
resources of the sea advances, the
political climate surrounding the
oceans is becoming heated. Revolu-
tionary changes came after World
Left: OTEC plant proposed by
Lockheed would generate 160
megawatts of power. Plant would
have four power-generating modules,
with warm water discharged from the
upper ports and cold water from the
lower. Central cold-water pipe, made
of concrete, would extend 1,500 feet
down into the ocean.
Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.
War II when more efficient methods
of catching fish and killing whales
were developed. In recent years,
foreign fleets have been literally
"vacuuming" the rich fishing grounds
off U.S. coasts without regard to
species.
However, the situation is now
changing. Law of the Sea conferences
have been held for the past six years in
Geneva, Caracas, and New York, and
one of the few points of agreement is
that every coastal nation should have
control over a zone along its shores ex-
tending out to 200 nautical miles. The
coastal nation would have jurisdiction
over the resources of that zone, though
the zone of total territorial control
would be only 12 miles. (Tradi-
tionally, it was only three miles.)
Many countries have established such
zones, and the United States joined
them last year when Congress passed
a law establishing a 200-mile zone.
Starting last March, foreign fishermen
became subject to licensing and fish-
ing quotas. Several countries dis-
regarded the new ruling at first, but
after the well-publicized seizure of two
Soviet fishing vessels by the U.S.
Coast Guard, compliance improved
markedly.
By the year 2000 there should be
complete international agreement on
fishery quotas so that a maximum sus-
tainable yield of every species will be
maintained. There are partial controls
in effect now through bilateral and
multilateral agreements and through
organizations covering the northwest
Atlantic and the northern Pacific.
These agreements have brought under
control such practices as the Japanese
taking salmon in the deep Pacific
before they could return to spawning
grounds in northwestern U.S. and
Canada, and in the Atlantic where the
Danes have been taking salmon that
would otherwise have spawned in
Scottish streams. International con-
ferences on whales have reduced the
destruction of the magnificent mam-
mals, though the Soviets and the
Japanese still operate whaling fleets.
Oceanographic research scientists
also have a stake in the Law of the Sea
negotiations. In the past, scientific
vessels were free to roam wherever
they pleased. Now they find it in-
creasingly difficult to keep from
violating other countries' zones. Paul
Fye, Director of the Woods Hole
(Massachusetts) Oceanographic In-
stitution, states that his research
vessels spend 38% of the time within
200-mile limits, and that it is becom-
ing increasingly difficult to make ar-
rangements with controlling countries
to conduct research in their zones.
Mineral Wealth Snags
Negotiations
The potential mining of the deep sea
has created an international furor,
threatening to upset all other Law of
the Sea negotiations. The principal
reason is that vast areas of the ocean
floor beyond the 200-mile limit are
covered with black, potato-sized,
mineral-rich nodules that may even-
tually be worth many fortunes to their
takers, whoever they may be. The
nodules carpet the ocean bottom in
many places, lying within inches of
each other at depths of from 15,000 to
18,000 feet. The principal component
of these nodules is manganese?about
29% in the Pacific nodules. Other
metals in the nodules include iron
(6.3% ), nickel (1.28% ), copper
(1.07%), and cobalt (0.25%). It is the
last three metals rather than the
manganese that make mining the
nodules economically attractive.
Some 15 years ago, Deep Sea Ven-
tures, Inc., of Gloucester Point,
Virginia, began to investigate the
nodules in the Pacific at a location
about equidistant from Hawaii, Los
Angeles, and Acapulco, Mexico. They
invested heavily in developing
methods to retrieve the nodules and
refine them, and began test-mining
operations early in 1977. In the mean-
time, three consortia headed by U.S.
firms (Kennecott Copper, Interna-
tional Nickel, and Lockheed) plus
German and French combines, have
entered the field. The Japanese are ac-
tive in several of these groups. The
companies have now advanced to the
point where they have the know-how
and the technology for profitable min-
ing of the nodules.
The realization of the full potential
of the nodules dawned suddenly on
the developing nations participating
in the Law of the Sea Conferences.
This group, the so-called "77,"
gathered their votes together and pro-
posed a radically different approach
for control of deep-sea mineral ex-
ploitation. The developing nations
want control of deep sea mining
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Submarine Nekton Gamma cruises into port after mission. Designed, built, and
operated by General Oceanographics, of San Diego, California, she and her sister
ships Nekton Alpha and Nekton Beta are commercial "workhorse" submarines.
The three have made a total of about 2,000 dives on a wide variety of missions in-
cluding pipeline inspections, environmental studies, fisheries research, dam in-
spections, and search and salvage missions. Nekton submarines are 15 and a half
feet long, carry a crew of two, are powered by lead-acid batteries, cruise at two
knots submerged, have a range of seven miles, and have a maximum operational
depth of 1,000 feet. Photo: General Oceanographics, Inc.
placed in the United Nations, with the
mining operations conducted by a UN
"Enterprise" which would be
launched with financing and tech-
nological know-how from the
developed nations but dominated by
the "77" through their numbers. Some
delegates fear that the Law of the Sea
negotiations will polarize the in-
dustrialized and the developing na-
tions on completely divergent and in-
compatible courses. One delegate has
said that the developed nations will go
ahead with their mining plans regard-
less of whether agreement is reached.
In November 1974, Deep Sea Ven-
tures sent a lengthy legal document to
the U.S. Secretary of State asking for
protection of its investment if the com-
pany began mining, and to allocate a
"claim" in which it would be pro-
tected. The State Department did not
act on this claim, believing that it
would adversely affect the Law of the
Sea talks. Because of Administration
inaction, bills were introduced in Con-
gress that would protect companies
that want to mine in the deep sea.
Hearings were held early in 1977, and
chances of passage of such laws are
good whether the State Department
approves or not.
Besides these jurisdictional
problems, there may be serious en-
vironmental problems to be solved
before large-scale undersea mining
can take place. Over the past two
years, the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
has been conducting a study of deep
ocean mining to determine its en-
vironmental effects. NOAA officials
believe that they should give guidance
to industry on equipment design to
meet environmental standards, and
that this must be done soon, before the
companies commit vast sums of
money for equipment that would be
difficult to change later. If these
jurisdictional and environmental
problems can be solved and mining
companies given the signal to go
ahead, undersea mining operations
could be well under way by 1982 and a
large-scale industry existent by the
year 2000.
Other valuable mineral deposits are
known to exist on the seabed, includ-
ing phosphorite (calcium phosphate),
which is used mainly for fertilizer.
NOAA has identified valuable
deposits along the coasts of California
and Georgia that could be exploited
without developing any new tech-
nology. Present domestic sources will
be nearly exhausted by the 1990s. By
that time these large marine deposits
could relieve pressures on land
sources and ease the necessity of
transporting the mineral over long
distances.
Other hard-rock minerals that exist
on the seabed include barite, copper,
molybdenum, lead, zinc, and possibly
uranium. Coal deposits are known to
exist off Massachusetts and metallic
sulfides off the U.S. Gulf Coast.
California and Alaska are famous for
their alluvial gold deposits; during
glacial periods, when much of the
world's water was frozen in glaciers,
the oceans were lower and streams ex-
tended much farther out than they do
now. The ancient stream beds, now
submerged, are thought to contain
gold and other precious metals. Other
promising submerged stream bed sites
exist in Lake Superior and off the
Atlantic coast between Cape Henry,
Virginia, and Cape Hatteras, North
Carolina.
Aquaculture Promises Abundant
Food
Throughout history, the sea has
served man primarily as a source of
food, and even though we may be
about to witness a great expansion of
man's uses of the sea, food production
will probably remain the most impor-
tant. One of the most economically
promising and environmentally accep-
table ways of exploiting the sea for
human needs is through controlled-
environment fish farming, or
aquaculture. The culture of fish and
shellfish is an ancient skill, practiced
in the past mainly by oriental peoples.
They raised many kinds of fish, clams,
and oysters in primitive ponds and
protected waters. Today's
aquaculturist, in western countries, at
least, is more likely to run a highly
scientific, specialized operation. For
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example, "Domsea Farms" in Puget
Sound, Washington, is raising pan-
sized salmon that never go through
the cycle of leaving the streams where
they were hatched, migrating to the
sea, spending their adult lives there,
and returning finally to their
birthplace to spawn and die. Domsea's
12-ounce beauties are raised in pens
that permit circulation of the natural
waters of Puget Sound, and are fed
scientifically-balanced rations. After
years of trial, the company has now
become a profitable venture.
The outlook for a U.S. national
aquaculture program, supported by
legislation now before Congress, is
good. A special committee of the Na-
tional Research Council of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences is con-
structing a National Aquaculture
Plan. Committee Chairman Don
Walsh, Director of the Institute for
Marine and Coastal Studies, Univer-
sity of Southern California, hopes to
have the plan ready for the second ses-
sion of the 95th Congress. The plan
will take into account not only the role
of government, but also of private in-
dustry and universities. Walsh, inci-
dentally, is co-holder of the world's
depth record of 35,800 feet, set in
January 1960, in the bathyscaphe
Trieste, in the Marianas Trench west
of Guam. It is the task of the Walsh
Committee to determine the extent
that aquaculture can contribute to the
U.S. food supply. Possible roles of
government, industry, and univer-
sities in aquaculture research are
being examined, and the committee
will recommend ways to stimulate a
program.
The United States established a Na-
tional Sea Grant Program in the
mid-1960s, and it is now active in the
universities of all of the coastal states
and one Great Lakes state. It is hoped
that the Sea Grant Program, by fund-
ing research, can lead the way in
marine food production, much as the
Land Grant College Program that was
started in 1865 helped the U.S. to
become the greatest agricultural na-
tion in the world. The Program now
allocates $27 million a year, and is
matched by local and state funds.
Following is a sampling of Sea
Grant-supported research:
? Salmon are being cultured in pens
on both the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts as part of investigations
now under way in the controlled
growing of popular salt-water fish.
? Marine shrimp farming is develop-
ing along the Texas Gulf coast and
on the east coast of Florida and
Georgia.
? Very large fresh-water prawns are
being grown in Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, Georgia, and Florida.
? Lobsters are being grown experi-
mentally in the northeastern states
and at one location on the west
coast.
? The blue, or hardshell crab, is a
subject of investigation from Mary-
land to Miami, while other crabs
are being experimented with in
San Diego and Guam.
A project in Maine uses the heated
effluent of a power plant to speed the
growth of shellfish. In both Maine and
Massachusetts, experimenters are
using "raft" culture in which the
oysters are grown in multiple trays
suspended vertically from rafts in
natural waters rich in algae, the food
of the mollusks.
Oyster culture is currently of very
special interest, and the Woods Hole
(Massachusetts) Oceanographic In-
stitution is a leader in the field. Under
the guidance of biologist John Ryther,
young oysters feed on algae fertilized
with human wastes as part of a project
to develop a way to convert sewage
into food. The cycle begins with
human wastes being mixed with sea
water and held in settling ponds. Dur-
ing the summer, a lush growth of algae
occurs in the ponds, and this water is
then circulated through tanks with
long trays of young oysters. Oysters
are "filter feeders," siphoning tremen-
dous quantities of water through tubes
lined with microscopic projections
called cilia, which extract the algal
cells. In winter, the sewage-enriched
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion:
A Promising Energy Source
The sun heats surface waters in
tropical seas to temperatures of
about 850 F. At the same time,
frigid polar water at temperatures
of around 400 F. flows in beneath
these warm seas. This great
difference in water temperature
can be put to use generating
electricity by utilizing low-boiling
liquids like ammonia to drive tur-
bines in closed systems. To obtain
this power from the sea, large float-
ing power-generating plants would
be moored in warm seas such as the
Gulf of Mexico or the Bay of
Bengal. The electricity generated
by Ocean Thermal Energy Conver-
sion (OTEC), as it is called, could
be economically transmitted via
submarine cable to land that is
within 100 miles. Beyond that dis-
tance, the power could be put to
more efficient use at the generating
site, manufacturing such energy-in-
tensive products as ammonia (used
in fertilizers) or aluminum metal.
Several large corporations are
now working on designs for pro-
totype OTEC plants which may be
operating by the early 1980s. The
first OTEC plants will generate
about 25 megawatts of power, and
engineers hope to have plants in
operation by 1985 that will gener-
ate 100 megawatts or more.
Capital construction costs for the
first OTEC plants are expected to
be around $2,000 per kilowatt
generated, but for later models may
be reduced to as little as $1,100 per
kilowatt, making it very competi-
tive with oil-fired generating
plants.
Environmental impact of the
power generation would be
minimal, and could even enhance
the growth of desirable sea life by
enrichment of the surface waters
with mineral nutrients brought up
from the depths in the cold water.
OTEC plant proposed by TRW
Systems of Redondo Beach,
California, would produce 100
megawatts of power. The 340-foot
diameter floating concrete struc-
ture would bring up cold water
from as deep as 4,000 feet through a
50-foot diameter fiberglass pipe, to
cool the working fluid, probably
ammonia. Manufactured goods
such as aluminum ingots are
shown being loaded onto an
oceangoing vessel.
Diagram: TRW Systems Group
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sea water is bubbled in plastic-sided
tanks where fluorescent lights take the
place of the sun.
This kind of aquaculture can be car-
ried one step further by adding sea
worms, young lobsters, and juvenile
flounders to the mollusk farm. The
worms thrive in the sludge of solid
wastes produced by the oysters, and
are in turn eaten by the lobsters and
bottom-feeding fish.
A similar effort is under way at the
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
at Gloucester Point, Virginia. The In-
stitute has been engaged in oyster
culture for several years, and is now
beginning to process human wastes to
grow algae nearby. Special care is
being taken to prevent toxic chemicals
from nearby industries from entering
the waters.
The College of Marine Studies at
the University of Delaware is now
growing oysters under completely
closed-cycle conditions in its laborato-
ry at Lewes, Delaware. The mature
oysters are placed in trays to spawn,
and the juveniles?so small they look
like pepper specks?siphon the algae-
rich salt water and grow rapidly to
marketable size. The algae are grown
in a plastic-covered quonset building
where sunlight rather than fluorescent
lighting promotes photosynthesis.
After the water flows by the oysters, it
is run through a purifier. This closed-
cycle system is now perfected to the
point where only 10% replacement
water is needed, and that need not be
fresh sea water, but could be artificial
sea water made by dissolving sea salt
in fresh water. William Gaither, Dean
of the College, predicts that future
oysters may be grown far from the sea,
perhaps in Kansas City, using purified
stockyard wastes to feed the algae.
Another method of aquaculture?
confining fish to a portion of the sea
near shore where they can eat small
fish but not be eaten by bigger ones?
is advancing rapidly but is troubled by
problems relating to the rights of
boaters and sport fishermen in the
area. State legislatures may have to
settle this problem with new regula-
tions.
Marine plants, such as kelp, a form
of seaweed, hold promise in
aquaculture. The Japanese have
grown seaweed for centuries, and use
large quantities for food. In the U.S.,
kelp beds off southern California and
Maine furnish algin, an emulsifier
used in many foods such as ice cream
and salad dressing, and in paints.
Scientists are also making progress in
producing protein and biomedicals
from seaweed.
One aquaculture enthusiast is
Robert B. Abel, head of the Sea Grant
Program for its first 10 years, and now
Director of Oceanographic Education
and Research at Texas A&M Univer-
sity. "Although most projects are not
yet breaking even economically," Abel
says, "the beautiful part of
aquaculture is that you don't need a
boat, and the demand is greater than
the supply of oysters, shrimp, and
salmon." The consensus of opinion
among informed members of the
oceanic community is that within the
next 10 years, aquaculture will
become attractive to private capital,
and from that point onward it will
grow rapidly.
Oceans Offer New Energy Sources
The past 15 years have witnessed
great strides in the technology of tap-
ping undersea oil and gas. The conti-
nental shelves off the U.S. Gulf Coast
and beneath Europe's North Sea have
been the sites of some of the most im-
portant new oil strikes made by
western nations, and have helped
greatly to save Great Britain from
economic disaster. By the year 2000,
however, the world's continental shelf
deposits of oil and gas will have been
widely tapped and seriously depleted.
There are hints that deeper ocean
deposits exist, but these would require
tremendously expensive equipment.
With oil and gas deposits being used
up rapidly, many countries are seeking
alternative sources of energy, some of
which exist in the ocean. Possibly the
most promising of these potential
sources would take advantage of the
temperature differential existing bet-
ween water on the ocean's surface and
water at great depths. often as much
as 45? F. That difference in tem-
perature can be put to use in a way
similar to the steam in a steamship.
(The ship's boiler heats water to pro-
duce steam, which turns turbines and
then is condensed by cool sea water for
use once again.) In the case of Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC),
the difference in the temperature bet-
ween water at the surface of the sea
and the water some distance below
would be used to boil and recondense
a volatile liquid (ammonia, for exam-
ple) in a closed system. The OTEC
principle was demonstrated by a
Frenchman, Georges Claude, who ex-
perimented with it in Cuba during
1929 and 1930. More recently, a
demonstration plant was operated in
the U.S. Virgin Islands, pumping cold
sea water through the jacket of a
vapor condenser utilizing a low-boil-
ing liquid. As an added benefit, the
deep-ocean water?rich in dissolved
Living Beneath the Sea
Technology is enabling man to
explore ever deeper into the sea by
overcoming the long-standing
problem of adjusting to changes in
pressure. Changes of pressure in
deep dives place great physiological
strain on the human body and long
periods of time are required for
returning to sea-level pressure
after a deep dive, in order to avoid
the painful and sometimes fatal
condition known as "the bends."
The new undersea technology
eliminates this problem by provid-
ing the diver with diving suits and
undersea chambers that are main-
tained at sea-level pressure (one at-
mosphere). Thus, the problem
becomes one of engineering design,
not human physiology. The
development of strong new
materials has made this develop-
ment possible.
Advanced model of "Jim" diving
suit has more flexible arms than
earlier model. Arms are equipped
with external manipulators that
are hand-controlled from inside
suit. Diver in suit can walk, climb
ladders, and do almost any task
associated with underwater cot,
struction, repair, maintenance, in-
spection, and salvage.
Photo: Oceaneering International, Inc.
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.1 I
Diver is readied for deep dive in "Jim," a rigid metal-and-fiberglass diving suit
that is maintained at one atmosphere of pressure, and will take the diver down
to depths of 1,500 feet Human divers are still considered indispensable for
seafloor oil drilling, and the "Jim" diving suits greatly extend the depths at
which exploratory drilling can take place. "Jim" diving-suit models now on the
drawing boards will take divers down to 3,000 feet.
Photo: Oceaneering International, Inc.
A modern (1976) undersea living habitat is being towed 100 miles out into the
Gulf of Mexico before being sunk in 240 feet of water, where it will be used in the
manned control of production from oil and gas wells on the ocean floor. It is
maintained at one atmosphere of pressure and is designed for use in water down
to depths of 3,000 feet Photo: Shell-Lockheed
An early (1972) undersea living
habitat rests on the bottom beneath 50
feet of water and is maintained at the
pressure of the surrounding water.
Divers live in the subsea environment
for days at a time while going about
their work.
Drawing: NOAA Manned Undersea
Science and Technology Program
Artist's diagram shows progression
from scuba-diving habitats on shallow
continental shelf to manned explora-
tion of the continental slope, and a liv-
ing chamber at one atmosphere of
pressure on the deep-sea bottom.
Engineers are steadily increasing the
depths at which man can work and
live in the sea.
Drawing: NOAA Manned Undersea
Science and Technology Program
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WOODS DOLL
EANOCRAP C
INSIITUTIO
Research submarine Alvin is loaded onto large oceangoing vessel for transport
to site for Mid-Atlantic Ridge study. Alvin is a deep-diving vehicle designed
specifically for oceanographic research and is operated by the Woods Hole
(Massachusetts) Oceanographic Institution. Powered by lead-acid batteries, it
has a submerged cruising speed of one and one fourth knots and a range of 15
miles. It can remain submerged for 24 hours and work at depths down to 6,000
feet. It has a mechanical arm for collecting objects from the sea bottom, and has a
sonar telephone system for voice or code communication with the mother ship.
Photo: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Manipulators Speed Undersea Work
mineral nutrients?provided fertilizer
for algae growing in shallow ponds
and used as food for fish and shellfish.
Future OTEC plants will probably be
large installations moored at sea. If
close enough to land, they could
transmit electrical power directly to
shore via undersea cable. If far from
land, they could be put to such uses as
providing power for manufacturing
ammonia and urea (both used as fer-
tilizer) from air and sea water.
Congress recently gave the U.S.
Energy Research and Development
Administration (ERDA) $25 million
to prove the OTEC concept. ERDA
has taken over the barge used by the
submarine salvage ship Glomar Ex-
plorer, and is converting the barge to
carry an OTEC plant which should be
ready for demonstration runs some-
time during 1978. Eight companies,
including TRW, Inc., General
Electric, and Lockheed, are experi-
menting with designs for possible
large-scale development. By the year
2000, OTEC may be an important
source of electrical power, taking in-
direct advantage of the sun's energy
on an ever-yielding basis.
Ocean currents offer another source
of energy. A conference of engineers
and economists, held in Miami three
years ago, declared that huge, sub-
merged, anchored watermills (the
seagoing equivalent of windmills) in
Manipulators developed for
space technology have entered the
undersea domain. Two U.S. com-
panies, General Electric and
Oceaneering International, are
building a diving capsule equipped
with external arms operated by a
diver sitting in comfort inside the
capsule at one atmosphere of
pressure. The diver looks through
large viewing ports while he oper-
ates the controls to do mechanical
work outside the capsule. The
tethered capsule, called ARMS, for
Atmospheric Roving Manipulator
System, will be able to dive to 3,000
feet and promises to become ex-
tremely useful in the maintenance
of offshore oil wells.
The two companies are also
developing a tethered, unmanned
remote-controlled manipulator
vehicle, with television "eyes."
Since no life-support system will be
needed, the vehicle will have a
much greater range, both in depth
capability and in operating time
duration.
Left: Deep-diving, remote-controlled vehicle has television "eyes" and a force-
feedback manipulator arm. Force-feedback "feeling" will be very important
in cloudy water that blocks television viewing. Unmanned remote-controlled
underwater work systems represent a new capability of infinite value to the
diving industry in terms of economics, reduced personnel hazards, and in-
creased work capability.
Right: View from inside manned ARMS capsule shows diver's hand operating
"master" arm. "Slave" arm manipulator, outside capsule, duplicates motion.
Manipulator holds television camera, wired to TV monitor in foreground, en-
abling diver to make detailed inspection of seabed installation.
Drawings: General Electric
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the Gulf Stream could produce great
quantities of power. So far, however,
the U.S. government has not appropri-
ated any funds to develop this source
of energy.
ERDA is now paying some small at-
tention to wave power, another possi-
ble source of energy, but the funding is
very modest. Two engineers at the
University of Delaware have envi-
sioned a coastline system of moored
floats that, as they moved up and
down, would pump seawater to ele-
vated reservoirs on land, which, in
turn, would produce hydroelectric
power.
Long-Range Weather Forecasts
The science of weather forecasting
has developed rapidly since World
War II. A network of automatic in-
struments on land, sea buoys, ships,
aircraft, and satellites permits almost
real-time analysis of atmospheric con-
ditions. Forecasts of up to five days
can now be made with relative ac-
curacy. When meteorologists venture
beyond that five-day period, however,
their accuracy declines sharply
because the longer-term atmospheric
effects are regulated by the massive
heat sink of the oceans. Water is 800
times as dense as air and moves com-
mensurately slower. It stores great
quantities of heat or cold. The major
currents such as the Gulf Stream in
the North Atlantic, the Kuroshio Cur-
rent off Japan and Alaska, and the
Humboldt Current off the west coast
of South America are relatively stable,
but now and then aberrant eddies spin
off. These eddies may last for several
weeks and markedly alter the weather
patterns over the continental land
masses.
Little has been done as yet to plot
the movements and temperatures of
the deep ocean, where these eddies
mainly occur. NOAA has deployed a
number of big weather buoys in the
Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, and the
Atlantic, but these are limited to read-
ings of the ocean surface and the near-
by atmosphere. What is needed for
long-range weather forecasting is a
network of buoys that will read the
ocean temperatures and currents as
far down as 2,000 feet and transmit
this data constantly to weather com-
puting centers.
The year 2000 should see an ad-
vanced network of automatic weather
stations that will enable
meteorologists to make long-period
forecasts and provide valuable infor-
mation for agriculture, shipping, and
many other human activities.
Pollution: A Growing Problem
Scientists are becoming increasingly
concerned about the oceans as the
ultimate recipient of man's wastes.
The pervasiveness of pollution of the
sea is well-illustrated by the pesticide
DDT. DDT was developed and put in
widespread use as an insecticide in the
U.S. some 30 years ago. Soon the
runoff from agricultural lands dis-
persed this relatively indestructible
compound along coastal zones where
traces began to be found in fish. The
stately pelican became a victim,
because female pelicans that ate fish
contaminated with DDT laid eggs
with shells so thin and fragile that
most broke, killing the embryos and
preventing the bird from reproducing.
The bald eagle, national bird of the
U.S., suffered a similar decimation of
its numbers, as it, too, feeds largely on
fish. But the telling evidence of
widespread pollution came some years
later when Antarctic penguins, also
fish eaters, were found with traces of
DDT in their bodies! Due to such dis-
coveries, the use of DDT has been cut
to nearly zero, but other substances
just as lethal are now being used.
Pollution of the sea is an interna-
tional problem, and it is being taken
up at the Law of the Sea conferences.
Nearly everyone agrees that controls
are needed. But here again the under-
developed nations have offered a
novel plan under which pollution
regulations would be followed by the
developed countries but not by the
emerging nations! If the sea is to be
Diver, inside ARMS capsule, installs blowout preventer component on a sea bot-
tom oil well. External arms can duplicate motion of human arms.
Drawing: General Electric
Operator demonstrates underwater
manipulator in laboratory. "Slave"
arm (foreground) duplicates motion
and amplifies power of "master" arm,
held by operator. Forces exerted by
the slave arm are reflected back to the
master, providing force feedback or
"sense of touch."
Photo: General Electric
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Man Readies Technology for Exploitation of Sea Bottom
The sea will become increasingly
important as a source of energy and
minerals as land deposits dwindle,
according to a report from the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences. Un-
til recently, the submerged riches
were unavailable because the tech-
nology did not exist for finding and
exploiting them. Within the last
two decades, however, the situation
has changed, and man has begun,
with offshore oil drilling, to tap the
riches of the ocean floor.
The Academy's Committee on
Seafloor Engineering, which con-
ducted the study, had two main ob-
jectives: (1) to examine present
capabilities in seafloor engineering
and predict the capabilities re-
quired to meet future national
needs, and (2) to identify the
research necessary to extend pre-
sent techniques and recommend
procedures for implementing
research programs. The report, en-
titled Seafloor Engineering: Na-
tional Needs and Research Re-
quirements, has identified five
areas demanding expertise in
seafloor engineering: energy,
minerals, waste disposal, transpor-
tation and communication, and na-
tional security.
Offshore oilpools are the prin-
cipal seafloor mineral deposits cur-
rently being exploited, but about
two-thirds of the continental shelf
off U.S. shores is still inaccessible
to drilling, the Committee says.
The world's deepest sea-bottom
location of a producing well at this
time is 400 feet beneath the surface
of the North Sea, but oil companies
are preparing for exploratory drill-
ing in 850 feet of water off Califor-
nia and in 1,000 feet of water in the
Gulf of Mexico.
Robot equipment with television
camera "eyes" and mechanical
arms will soon be available,
engineers say. The robots will be
far easier to maintain at great
depths than human divers, who re-
quire complex life-support systems.
Vast, potentially oil-rich conti-
nental shelves exist off the coast of
Alaska in the Bering, Chukchi, and
Beaufort Seas, but the exploration
of these areas awaits the develop-
ment of new undersea technologies
that are not subject to the destruc-
tive force of arctic ice and raging
seas.
Although the sea bottom is
thought to be very rich in minerals,
the deposits have hardly been ex-
ploited at all so far, except for
petroleum, because of the
difficulties of prospecting on the
ocean bottom. Effective technology
for extracting non-petroleum
minerals from the sea bottom is
now becoming available. One un-
solved problem is the clouding of
the water when the seabed is dis-
turbed. Clouding is seriously objec-
tionable not only to environmen-
talists, but also to miners, for
whom visibility is of great impor-
tance.
The sea has long been a dumping
ground for solid waste. This prac-
tice is beginning to create major
problems in some areas such as the
coast of Long Island, New York,
which has become heavily polluted
from sludge and debris washing
ashore. The Academy report states,
however, that there are many
places on the seafloor which are
well-suited to solid waste disposal.
Furthermore, solid wastes could be
useful in the construction of ar-
tificial islands.
The report says that the ocean
holds great advantages for renewa-
ble energy sources such as waves,
tides, and currents. Two of the
most promising technologies in-
volve: (1) the use of differences in
temperature between relatively
WASHINGTON-
OREGON
warm surface waters and the colder
water below to operate electric tur-
bines, and (2) the use of photo-
synthesis to grow seaweed which
could be processed to yield
methane and other fuels. To do
this, the seaweed (kelp) would be
attached to a steel mesh 40 to 80
feet below the surface of the ocean.
The mesh, in turn, would be
anchored to the ocean bottom in
waters up to 1,000 feet deep. The
crop would be fertilized and the
water temperature conditioned by
artificial upwelling of cold water
rich in nutrients from the sea bot-
tom. Periodically, the tops of the
plants would be harvested and
taken to processing facilities lo-
cated either on the ocean surface or
along the coast. Sewage wastes
could be used to fertilize the kelp
beds, and these large "energy
farms," with their high concentra-
tion of nutrients and limitless hid-
ing places, might prove very pro-
ductive of many forms of marine
life including commercially valua-
ble fish.
The sea bottom is already criss-
crossed with many pipelines, ca-
bles, sensors, and transmitters used
for oil transport, communication,
navigation, and national security,
and the amount of such equipment
on the ocean floor is certain to grow
exponentially, the report states.
, NORTH
ATLANTIC
NORTHERN
CALIFORNIA
SANTA
BARBARA
CHANNEL
SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA
CHUKCHI
SEA
HOPE BASIN /
NORTON BASIN
A/ BASINRIN
GEORGES
BANK
MID ATLANTIC
BALTIMORE
CANYON
SOUTH
ATLANTIC
BLAKE PLATEAU
SE GEORGIA
EMBA YMENT
ST. GEORGE ).
BASIN
;1.
1.: -
-%---,,.. AT e? /
/-
N., ... `........^,t
LOWER K) BASINGI A K G 44 / 44 :-Zi
COOK INLET
CENTRAL
GULF
WESTERN EASTERN
GULF GULF
SSSN Continental Margin showing
areas of leasing potential
Map shows continental shelf (white) and continental slope (out to 2,500 meter
contour) off continental U.S. and Alaska. Promising areas for oil exploration
are cross-hatched. Most U.S. offshore oil now comes from the western and
central Gulf of Mexico. Areas of high interest for exploration include the
Baltimore Canyon and the Santa Barbara Channel.
Map: U.S. Geological Survey
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Land
Shelf Edge
Ocean
Coomiburel e.a.!
? to
1
1,404$011
I, Zia I
:?C?Wrosola. logron. Gnaw. dr
Cardlniot.1 merrn Dedy?saiwe
Profile of continental margin illus-
trates concept of continental shelf,
slope, rise, and deep seabed. Conti-
nental shelf extends down to 200
meters. Although oil deposits are
thought to exist beneath waters
more than 2,000 meters deep, most
exploration is still confined to the
continental shelf zone.
Diagram: U.S. Geological Survey
The equipment is frequently
damaged by heavy-duty fishing
trawls, ship's anchors being drag-
ged, and the corrosive action of sea
water. Maintenance is costly and
difficult, and improving the tech-
nology will be a high-priority
assignment for engineers.
The Academy study predicts a
proliferation of large ocean-bottom
structures as well as anchoring
systems for tethered floating is-
lands. For these developments,
knowledge of the character, of the
ocean bottom will become in-
creasingly important. Seafloor
architects will need a thorough
knowledge of the terrain in order to
build their structures. The impor-
tance of sea-bottom soil, sediment,
and bedrock surveys will rival the
importance of similar studies on
land, but few such surveys have
been done so far. Bottom contours
have been fairly well mapped, and
the stratigraphy of potential oil-
bearing formations is being actively
worked on, but no comprehensive
surveys have been made of the
bearing strength of the sea floor.
The environmental impact of
man's exploitation of the sea bot-
tom will figure heavily in any
programs of seafloor development.
The report cautions that seafloor
development must proceed
carefully so that it does not disturb
nature's balance or degrade the
quality of the environment.
The 81-page report, No. PB-254 171,
Seafloor Engineering: National Needs
and Research Requirements, can be
purchased from the National Technical
Information Service, U.S. Department
of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Road,
Springfield, Virginia 22151.
Declassified and Approved
North Sea oil drilling platform on a calm day. Winter gales and 350-foot depths
make oil exploration here hazardous and expensive, but the rewards are high.
The British economy has received a major boost from oil and gas discoveries,
and the Norwegians are now sometimes called the "Arabs of the North" due to
their new-found oil riches. Photo: Exxon Corporation
saved from serious pollution, an
agreement restraining all nations will
have to be worked out.
Ocean transportation will probably
change relatively little in the next 25
years. The oceans will continue to
offer the cheapest avenue for bulk car-
riage of commodities. The hy-
drodynamic design of ships will im-
prove, though no great breakthroughs
are foreseen. Handling of cargo will
also improve, with ships carrying
barges, containers, and roll-on, roll-
off cargo leading the way for further
improvements.
The roll-on, roll-off system already
is revolutionizing the world's
transport system. Barries leave inland
ports on the Rhine River, are towed
down to Europort, loaded aboard
ocean-going ships, carried to New
Orleans, unloaded and towed up the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Truck
trailer-size containers are loaded in
Japan, carried by ship to Vladivostok,
put on flatcars for, shipment across
Siberia and Europe, and reloaded on
ships which ply to numerous North
American ports. More and more ships
are being built to allow truck tractors
direct access for loading and unload-
ing their trailers, thereby eliminating
the use of huge cranes.
Shipping will benefit from more ac-
curate weather forecasts. Vessels will
be controlled much as air traffic is to-
day. International bodies such as the
Intergovernmental Maritime Con-
sultative Organization are seeking to
bring the traditionally independent-
minded ships' masters to accept con-
trol from central points and to be bet-
ter trained.
There has been much speculation
about floating cities, since land will
grow increasingly crowded. Most of
the current research is being done in
universities, with densely-populated
Japan leading the way. (Such a "city"
was constructed in Japan three years
ago for exhibition in a major ocean
conference in Okinawa.) Floating
manufacturing plants could offer an
economic base for floating cities. A
joint study by the Continental Oil
Company and a Tokyo group of Mitsui
companies is currently examining the
feasibility of constructing a floating
methanol plant. The concept was pro-
posed as a means of developing
natural gas in remote areas. By the
year 2000, there will probably be
numerous floating industrial plants
moored near sources of raw materials
or near markets.
Seafloor living is becoming a reality
with an underwater oil-production
system developed by a Lockheed sub-
sidiary in Vancouver, Canada. The
system consists of a steel "house" lo-
cated over a sea ..bottom oil or gas
well, at depths potentially as great as
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17 : CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
3,000 feet, and maintained at sea-level
pressure. Whenever maintenance or
repair work is to be done, men are
lowered from the surface to the
"house" in a transfer chamber. The
men descend quickly at sea-level
pressure, transfer to the "house," and
work there in comfort, still at sea-level
pressure. This isn't a "dream system,"
but one already in production and use.
By the year 2000, oil production
systems utilizing sea-level pressure
chambers will probably be in common
use at 3,000-foot depths.
Military Uses of the Ocean Depths
One shudders when contemplating
the war-making capabilities that will
exist in the oceans by the year 2000.
Today, ballistic missile submarines of
the U.S., the Soviet Union, Great Bri-
tain, and France are lurking beneath
the waves with their deadly loads. At-
tack submarines, fitted from stem to
stern with hydrophones, seek them
out, aided by ships and aircraft. Bot-
tom-mounted hydrophones can detect
ships and submarines across an entire
ocean, and in the future there will be
no privacy anywhere above or beneath
the seas: Every vessel, no matter
whether on the surface, in the depths,
or on the bottom, will be tracked in
real time. Perhaps so many detection
and kill systems will have been per-
fected that all forces will have
neutralized each other!
In closing, I would like to make a
few recommendations for utilization
of the sea as a source of food:
Man should shift from simply har-
vesting the oceans' natural production
of food to actually farming the seas.
The following steps should be taken,
Larry L Booda is the Editor of Sea
Technology. He was an aviator with
the U.S. Navy for 23 years, during and
after World War II, and is a former
Editor of Naval Aviation News and a
past Military Editor of Aviation Week
and Space Technology.
under some international auspices
such as the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO):
? Sponsor research on how much sea
life can be harvested without
harming the ability of the living
things to replenish themselves.
? Provide funds for experiments on
the domestication of sea creatures.
Could the porpoise, for example, be
domesticated?
? Encourage intensive aquaculture
in bays, estuaries, and close-in
shores.
? Offer incentives to private industry
to invest in aquaculture.
Neither public nor private en-
terprise, alone, can initially farm the
seas effectively. With both operating,
competition hopefully would provide
the incentive for developing efficient
management techniques.
Larry L. Booda has been Editor of Sea
Technology magazine (Undersea Tech-
nology before 1974) since 1964, with the ex-
ception of three years, 1969-1972, when he
published the newsletter Seas, now merged
with the Washington Letter of Oceanogra-
phy. Booda's address is do Sea Technology,
Compass Publications, Inc., Suite 1000,
1117 N. 19th Street, Arlington, Virginia
22209.
Ocean Miners
Prepare to
Harvest Seabed
Nodules
Vast expanses of the deep ocean
bottom are covered with potato-
sized nodules rich in manganese,
nickel, copper, cobalt, and iron.
This treasure of the deep has ac-
cumulated for eons of time and
man has not yet exploited it.
Several companies, however, plan
to begin seabed mining operations
to recover the valuable nodules
later this year. The richest known
deposits are in the eastern Pacific
at depths of 15,000 to 20,000 feet,
and this is the area where most of
the companies plan to start mining.
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Tomorrow's Aviation:
The Sky Won't
Be the Only Limit
by Jerry Richardson
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has developed
five scenarios which describe what the United States might
be like in the next 25 years and how the evolution of aviation
might be affected. By identifying events which are common
to most of the scenarios, the FAA has been able to make a
number of conclusions about such concerns as the need for
new airports and new types of airplanes, safety, and in-
creased noise levels over the next few decades.
In the past, growth in air transpor-
tation was largely determined by the
capabilities of available technology.
But recent developments have indi-
cated that, in the future, the aviation
system will be significantly influenced
also by concern for environmental im-
pacts, social legislation, economic
developments, and life-styles, both in
the United States and abroad.
Such recent developments as hijack-
ing and bombing, air-system conges-
tion, and the vehement opposition
from noise-impacted neighborhoods
near airports have convinced aviation
officials that they no longer can plan
in terms of simple "projections of de-
mand," nor base their forecasts on
new technological developments. In-
deed, events of recent years suggest
that socioeconomic change may, for
the foreseeable future, be more
dynamic than technological change.
Recognizing that they frequently
were being caught off guard by gallop-
ing technology, life-style changes, and
new developments in the economy and
the ecology, the U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) created a
multidisciplinary task force a few
years ago to peer into the future and
help the agency anticipate some of the
changes that may take place in com-
mercial aviation by the year 2000. The
agency is now hopeful that anticipato-
ry planning can save a great deal of
money and discomfort in the years
ahead.
"It's impossible to predict with pre-
cision the number of planes, the
volume of passengers, the types of
aircraft, and the frequency of flights
we'll have to cope with 23 years from
now," says Duane Freer, FAA's Act-
ing Associate Administrator for Policy
Development and Review. "But we
can measure how aviation has reacted
historically to variations in
socioeconomic variables such as the
gross national product, birthrates, dis-
posable income, personal spending?
and this is the basis of FAA's Future
Program."
The FAA commissioned The
Futures Group of Glastonbury, Con-
necticut, to do a study of potential
future environments facing the U.S.
aviation system. The study was
directed at constructing five alterna-
tive scenarios describing various con-
ditions which may exist in the U.S.
from now to the year 2000 and would
be important in shaping demand for
air transportation. Each scenario
describes the potential evolution of
various socioeconomic conditions,
along with a projection of the amount
and type of air transportation likely to
exist under those conditions.
The FAA emphasizes that these
scenarios should not be viewed as
forecasts of what will happen. Their
purpose is merely to describe a range
of plausible conditions "so that those
involved with designing and assessing
aviation system policies might have a
framework for policy analysis and syn-
thesis."
The Limited-Growth Scenario
In the first scenario, both the U.S.
population and gross national product
(GNP) show only a slow increase.
Following the energy crisis of the early
1970s, a series of related problems
develop: There are shortages of criti-
cal materials. Prices increase. Capital
is limited. The problems lead to
general economic instability. The
gathering ills seem to validate the
philosophy that growth is intrinsically
wrong and that the economies of all
developed countries must ultimately
stabilize. General acceptance of the
need to limit growth leads to the adop-
tion of government and industrial
policies and personal life-styles
characterized by a degree of constraint
that would have seemed unthinkable
only a few years before.
Limitations placed on economic
growth and the concentration of
population in large urban areas result
in a slowing in the growth in demand
for all forms of transportation. Mass
transit is encouraged by government
subsidy; intercity rail service improves
in the largest high-density corridors.
Telecommunications are used exten-
sively for business conferences and
Aviation Scenarios
at a Glance
The five scenarios prepared for
the FAA are based on the following
basic assumptions:
Limited-Growth Scenario?low
population growth, low economic
growth
Muddling-Through Scenario?
high population growth, low
economic growth
Resource-Allocation Scenario?
low population growth, moderate
economic growth
Individual-Affluence
Scenario?low population growth,
high economic growth
Expansive-Growth Scenario?
high population growth, high
economic growth
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft., using propulsive lift concepts like the
augmentor (extendible) wing shown here, could operate from short runways, in-
creasing capacity of existing airports and bringing into use smaller community
airports to reduce terminal congestion. In the FAA's Resource-Allocation, In-
dividual-Affluence, and Expansive-Growth scenarios, 150-passenger STOL
aircraft begin service in the 1990s. Illustration: NASA
visiting with friends, as well as
leisure-time diversion in the home. By
the year 2000, nearly 7% of the white-
collar labor force can work largely at
home, using terminals to communi-
cate with central offices.
Airlines curtail their flight frequen-
cies to increase seat occupancy rates
and postpone modernization of fleets
as fares are forced upward by as much
as 50% by rising energy-conservation
taxes between 1975 and 2000. General
aviation (non-commercial), air taxi,
and cargo flights expand gingerly. A
new third-generation air traffic con-
trol (ATC) system is installed nation-
wide. The accident rate declines, but
the number of air carrier fatalities
does not decline significantly because
larger planes are in service and there
are fewer empty seats on the average
flight because the airlines have ad-
justed their routes and schedules to
cut costs.
The Muddling-Through Scenario
In the second scenario, the U.S.
population grows at a high rate,
despite low GNP growth, and the state
of the economy declines. The United
States never seems to be able to "get it
all together." When it tries to halt in-
flation, recession follows; when reces-
sion is the target, inflation accelerates.
Muddling Through is the norm:
Cohesive policies which last beyond
one presidential term are rare. A
1930s type depression does not occur
because conditions are different, but
the feeling of depression is inescapa-
ble. This is a modern depression?and
it is long lasting. By the end of the cen-
tury, 90% of the population resides in
urbanized areas and signs of crowding
are evident in almost every aspect of
urban life. Real disposable income
Hypersonic transports capable of
very long ranges, flying at extremely
high altitude and using liquid hy-
drogen fuel, could operate at eight
times the speed of today's transports.
However, such craft are not expected
to be in use in this century.
Illustration: NASA
shows little growth. The threat of an
OPEC oil embargo leads to a system
of energy and resource rationing. As
conditions worsen, the petroleum in-
dustry is nationalized in 1990. Recrea-
tional activities tend to be low cost
and to use less energy.
Air transportation demand climbs
but then declines. Airlines accommo-
date new passengers with somewhat
larger aircraft and increased occupan-
cy rates. User and fuel taxes increase;
fares go up by about 50%, despite
government subsidies. All public in-
terstate transportation is na-
tionalized, and a new independent
regulatory agency sets service stan-
dards for all forms of transportation.
Multi-state regional authorities
assume responsibility for coordinating
inter-modal (train to air to bus, etc.)
transportation. The quality of airline
service is cut back to avoid further
TOTAL REVENUE PASSENGER MILES
(DOMESTIC U.S.)
LIMITED MUDDLING
GROWTH THROUGH
RESOURCE
ALLOCATION
IN
AFFLUENCE
EXPANSIVE
GROWTH
The total number of revenue passenger miles flown in the United States would
exceed 600 billion annually by the year 2000 under the Expansive-Growth
scenario, which assumes a plentiful supply of fuel at reasonable prices will be
available. At the other extreme, the number of passenger miles would decrease
to less than 200 billion under the Muddling-Through scenario, which assumes
deteriorating economic conditions and rising oil prices. Source: FAA
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
fare increases. The only significant
technological advances are energy-
saving aircraft engines. Decreased
flight activity forces the National Air
Transportation Corporation to take
over bankrupt airports and purchase
marginal operations. Many general
aviation airports are closed and con-
verted to other uses. Decreased traffic
volume leads to a decline in conges-
tion delays and accident rates. Moder-
nization of the air traffic control
system ends around 1985, basically for
the same reason.
The Resource-Allocation Scenario
The third scenario offers a "middle
of the road" view of the future. This
scenario assumes a moderate growth
of the GNP and low growth of the U.S.
population. Resources?particularly
energy resources?are in short supply.
Groups of nations, functioning essen-
tially as cartels, unilaterally establish
resource prices and continually
threaten to withhold supplies unless
consuming nations meet their de-
mands. Once a year, one of the cartels
withholds supplies for several weeks,
forcing the importing countries to cope
as best they can. Prices fluctuate. In-
evitably, the response is a determined
move toward self-sufficiency to reduce
the demand for critical imports. The
United States decides that the way to
continue growth is to develop in-
digenous resources, to allocate
stringently, to recycle, and to plan. Ur-
ban mass transit grows, supported by
increased gasoline taxes. Urban cen-
ters are revitalized, and intercity
automobile travel decreases because
of the high degree of economic and
cultural self-sufficiency within the
cities. Ninety percent of the popula-
tion lives in urban areas.
Increasing urbanization and energy
conservation lead to an emphasis on
energy-efficient ground transportation
systems. But increased purchasing
power encourages a substantial
growth of air travel, which increases
150% by the end of the century.
General aviation grows because
businessmen elect that means of
travel, though rising costs discourage
pleasure flying. All-cargo service more
than doubles by the year 2000.
Technological advances in aviation
aim at improving fuel efficiency,
lowering costs, and reducing noise. A
new 150-passenger short takeoff and
landing (STOL) aircraft begins
operating in 1990 and a long-range ex-
tra-large passenger/cargo transport
begins service in 1995. Supersonic
transports are not used domestically
due to environmental and energy con-
servation concerns.
A few new regional airports are con-
structed or converted from military
use in the 1990s, but most of the in-
creased capacity in the system is
achieved by making internal improve-
ments at existing fields and by the
development of new special-purpose
general aviation airports.
An increasingly automated ATC
system and improved instrumentation
in general aviation aircraft reduce the
number of aircraft accidents, but
fatalities increase due to larger
aircraft and fewer empty seats.
The federal government increases
its involvement in the coordination
Aviation Authorities View
Future Trends
FAA officials say that none of the
scenarios mentioned here is viewed
as the most likely to become reality.
But aviation experts have iden-
tified a number of general trends
that they believe may be important
in the future.
First of all, they appear very con-
fident that growth will continue, at
least in the general aviation sector,
which includes all non-commercial
aircraft?from recreational and
small business aircraft to Lear jets
and DC-9s for large corporations.
Business aviation currently is
growing rapidly, because corpora-
tion managements feel that the
value of their executives' time
justifies the cost of flying.
Aviation experts are concerned,
however, about what a future
energy crisis could do to aviation.
During the 1973 energy crisis, the
airlines were faced with both a
shortage of fuel and higher prices
for the amount they were able to
obtain. In a future energy crisis, the
fuel simply may not be available
for aviation at any cost. This con-
cern has sparked increased interest
in alternative aviation fuels. The
growth of fiber optics and other
new telecommunications tech-
nologies may substitute for some
aviation growth, too, the experts
say, but with much less impact.
Short takeoff and landing
(STOL) aircraft are likely to enjoy
great popularity in the future.
Their main function will be to pro-
vide feeder service from small
towns to major airport terminals.
They can handle commuter traffic
in places where it is not
economically feasible for larger
carriers to operate. Superwide-
body planes carrying 1,000
passengers are another likely
development during the next few
decades.
The air traffic control (ATC)
system will probably become more
sophisticated, the experts say, but
the extent of the improvements will
depend on how much extra money
the user is willing to pay. It is also
possible that computer control and
satellite navigation systems may
return more direct control to the
pilot. Sophisticated electronic
equipment on board may tell the
pilot where he is and where other
craft are, and to a high degree of
reliability. There may be less voice
contact between pilot and con-
troller; instead, the pilot will get an
alpha-numeric readout through his
computer. Alternatively, it is still
possible that the emphasis will be
on adding more people to the ATC
system rather than more tech-
nology.
In recent years, the FAA has had
to be responsive to segments of the
public that it did not have to take
into consideration before, a trend
which is expected to continue.
Public concern about the noise,
smells, and highway congestion
caused by airports, along with more
general concerns about the effect of
aviation on the environment (the
ozone layer vs. the SST, for exam-
ple), will mean more consultative
planning in the future with a
broader segment of the public.
Land banking may become a
widespread practice. By setting
aside desirable undeveloped land
for an airport before the need for
the airport arises, many of the
problems encountered today in ob-
taining land for new airports or air-
port expansion can be avoided?
and the cost of the land will almost
surely be lower, too.
Even though the aviation acci-
dent rate is not expected to in-
crease, there is speculation that
aviation safety will be perceived as
a growing problem because there
will be so many more planes in the
air, many of them carrying more
passengers than today's planes.
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and financing of aviation and all other
forms of transportation.
The Individual-Affluence Scenario
In the fourth scenario, low popula-
tion growth combined with high
economic growth leads to a
phenomenal rise in disposable per-
sonal income per capita. Government,
which is highly centralized, puts great
emphasis on the planning and
achievement of explicit goals. Govern-
ment policies are anticipatory, not
reactive. New technology solves
energy supply problems. Business pro-
ductivity reaches an unprecedented
high by the year 2000. Nearly 90% of
the population lives in metropolitan
areas; central cities are revived by
effective federal and state aid
programs. The work week drops to 36
hours and many workers get almost
two months of vacation time per year.
Spending on leisure activities in the
year 2000 is more than three times
what it was in 1973, and much of this
money is spent on luxuries and
cultural pursuits.
The demand for transportation is
greatly stimulated by the rapid in-
creases in business activity and per-
sonal income. However, there is a
great deal of environmental con-
sciousness and regulation. Such en-
vironmental concerns and the growth
of high-speed ground transportation
systems temper the demand for air
transportation somewhat, but avia-
tion growth still continues at a rapid
pace. Commercial airline operations
double between 1975 and 2000, and
general aviation operations grow by
225%. Airline passenger miles grow at
an average rate of over 5% annually.
Air cargo tonnage increases tremen-
dously, with much of it being carried
on all-cargo flights. The length of the
average commercial-airline trip in-
creases because high-speed ground
transportation systems compete
strongly on short-distance runs.
The increased demand leads to the
introduction of extra-large transports
and 150-passenger jet STOL aircraft;
the average aircraft size grows from
120 to 160 seats. To accommodate the
increasing air traffic, several large
regional airports are built to serve ma-
jor hubs, and existing facilities in
those areas are converted to feeder
service and general aviation. A num-
ber of new feeder airports also are
constructed. The government begins
advance "land banking" to insure
that satisfactory land will be available
for future airport construction when it
is needed. New airports are designed
to include all possible noise-impacted
areas within their boundaries.
Fares are kept down by improved
technology and by regulatory action to
increase operating efficiency. Federal
regulations eliminate competing
flights to the same cities at close time
intervals and encourage airlines to
reduce the number of unoccupied
seats.
A fully automated "fourth genera-
tion" ATC system is phased in, begin-
ning in 1990. Aircraft operators are
forced to make large investments in
new avionic equipment in order to
enter most parts of the airspace, but
the effect on the growth of aviation is
minimal due to the strong economic
situation.
The Expansive-Growth Scenario
The last scenario combines high
GNP growth with high population
growth. The United States makes
technological advances that solve the
resource-availability problem, result-
ing in rapid economic growth and a
national mood of vitality. The nation
finds it possible to create images of
what might be and then to adopt
policies to achieve its end. There is
renewed faith in the free enterprise
system, which is given most of the
credit for solving the country's
problems. The federal government
subsidizes research and development,
but otherwise cuts back sharply its in-
tervention in the private sector. The
emphasis is on individualism and on
corporate achievement.
The U.S. population grows to 297
million by the year 2000. The urban
centers do not attain the dominance
found in most of the other scenarios,
mainly due to industrial decentraliza-
tion. As a result of this decentraliza-
tion pattern, population density is
held down and people are able to
maintain a high degree of community
identity.
The increasing abundance of
domestic energy supplies allows a
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
This advanced swing-wing aircraft could be the commercial jet transport of the
future, NASA researchers believe. The angle of the wing can be changed to ob-
tain maximum performance at different flight speeds. At lower speeds, for exam-
ple, the wing would be fixed at right angles to the fuselage, allowing landings and
takeoffs with a minimum of power and noise. Illustration: NASA
MILLIONS OF OPERATIONS
500
480
300
200
100
TOTAL AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS
MI 1973
im 1985
F-1 2000
II
II
II
LIMITED MUHL NG RESOURCE INDIVIDUAL EXPANSIVE
GROWTH THROUGH ALLOCATION AFFLUENCE GROWTH
This graph shows the effect that the scenarios developed for the FAA's futures
study might have on the number of airplane flights. Only in the Muddling-
Through scenario does the number of flights actually decrease. Source: FAA
highly mobile society to develop. Peo-
ple move frequently to find better job
opportunities. Workers have much
more leisure time as a result of a 38-
hour work week and month-long vaca-
tions, and they have much more
money to spend on leisure activities.
Consequently, the demand for
transportation grows tremendously.
With energy no longer a concern,
automobiles and small personal
aircraft are very popular because of
the independence they offer. The high-
way system expands extensively.
Growth of mass transit is inhibited
because the decentralization of indus-
try and commerce requires continued
reliance on the flexibility offered by
the automobile. Within highly popul-
ated urban corridors, however, high-
speed ground transportation becomes
competitive.
Air passenger traffic increases
strongly, both in long- and short-haul
markets. The development of an
STOL airport system stimulates the
growth of short airline trips. General
aviation increases, too, both for busi-
ness and pleasure. Increased air cargo
shipments, spurred by rapidly growing
domestic and foreign trade, lead to the
development of all-cargo airports in
the 1990s. New airports of all types
proliferate after the government
allays citizens' complaints by controll-
ing adjacent land use, by improving
road and rail links to the airports, and
by careful planning to reduce environ-
mental impacts. Airport congestion
causes authorities to charge higher
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landing fees during peak periods in an
effort to redistribute the traffic.
New aircraft introduced during this
period of prosperity include a 150-
passenger jet STOL, a 1000-passenger
jumbo jet, and an advanced super-
sonic transport. The jumbo jet is used
for mass, long-range, low-cost charter
flights, while the SST serves a limited
but lucrative high-speed, high-fare in-
ternational market. Noise levels are
down and fuel efficiency is up.
The ATC system, now highly auto-
mated but highly costly, is operated by
a COMSAT-like quasi-governmental
authority. The FAA's activities con-
centrate increasingly on safety regula-
tion and on safety-related research
and development.
Scenarios Contain Uncertainties
The FAA has not identified any one
of the scenarios as the most likely; in
fact, the FAA believes that elements of
each scenario can and probably will
coexist during the years ahead. In ad-
dition, there are a number of uncer-
tainties. Though most current life-
style trends seem conducive to more
travel by air, the trends could change:
"Increased sophistication of
telecommunications might provide
an acceptable substitute for some
travel. The new ruralism'?the
movement of a relatively small
number of middle-class young peo-
ple to the country in recent years?
may accelerate, resulting in strong
value being placed on staying at
home. Moreover, larger families
could again become an American
Summary of Major Findings* by Scenario
This table briefly notes the most important findings of the
Federal Aviation Administration's recently completed
study, Aviation Futures to the Year 2000. Most of the
scenarios show continuing growth in air carrier opera-
tions, air cargo flights, and general (non-commercial)
aviation. Most of the scenarios also allow for competition
by high-speed ground intercity transit, while several sug-
gest a decline in the use of automobiles for intercity travel.
In the high-growth scenarios, new airplanes such as short
takeoff and landing (STOL) craft and 1,000-passenger
transports are put into service; in the other scenarios, the
emphasis is on improving existing aircraft. Aviation safety
improves in most of the scenarios, but the number of acci-
dents increases in some because of the great increase in
the number of people flying.
Source: FAA
AIR CARRIER
TRENDS
GENERAL AVIATION
TRENDS
FUEL
CONSUMPTION
AIRCRAFT
TECHNOLOGY
LIMITED
GROWTH
?
?
Small increase in operations.
No new aircraft introduced.
?
From 72% (1970) to 84% of
operations at towered airports,
?
Jet: 65% increase to 317 mil-
lion bbls/yr.
?
Low R&D activity except for
fuel efficiency.
?
Enplaned passengers increased
from 208 million (1975) to
?
95% plus of total aircraft.
?
Avgas: 115% increase to 27
million bbls/yr.
?
Stretched versions of existing
aircraft.
406 million.
MUDDLING
THROUGH
?
Decline in operations.
to
From 72% (1970) to 75% of
operations at towered airports.
?
Jet: 17% decrease to 158 mil-
?
Low R&D activity.
lion bbls/yr.
?
High load factors.
?
Only minor changes in exist-
?
Enplaned passengers increased
from 208 million (1975) to
?
Decline in GA ops by 4 mil-
lion,
?
Avgas: 23% decrease to 10
ing types of aircraft.
million bbls/yr.
272 million.
RESOURCE
ALLOCATION
?
?
Small increase in operations.
Enplaned passengers increased
?
From 72% (1970) to 84% of
operations at towered airports,
?
Jet: 65% increase to 317 mil-
lion bbls/yr.
*
Moderate R&D activity,
concentrating on fuel
efficiency and noise
from 208 million (1975) to
one-half billion,
?
95% plus of total aircraft.
?
Avgas: 115% increase to 28
million bbls/yr.
reduction.
JNOIVIDUAL
AFFLUENCE
?
?
100% increase in operations.
Enplaned passengers increased
?
From 72% (1970) to 85% of
operations at towered airports.
?
Jet: 169% increase to 517 mil-
lion bbls/yr.
?
High levels of technology
tempered by environmental
concerns.
?
from 208 million (1975) to
800 million,
STOL and Super turbojets.
?
95% plus of total aircraft.
?
Avgas: 154% increase to 33
million bbls/yr.
?
Fewer Scenario 5new aircraft than
EXPANSIVE
GROWTH
?
300% increase in operations.
?
From 72% (1970) to 85% of
operations at towered airports.
?
Jet: 342% increase to 850 mil-
lion bbls/yr.
?
Rapid development of new
aircraft.
?
Enplaned passengers increased
?
from 208 million (1975) to
1 billion,
Jet STOL, Super large, and
?
95% plus of total aircraft.
?
Avgas: 423% increase to 68
million bbls/yr.
?
Heavy emphasis on R&D.
SST aircraft.
*Unless otherwise stated all figures shown are for the year 2000.
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norm, especially if anti-abortion
legislation passes and/or nursing
home care of the elderly is no longer
available at acceptable prices.
Family enlargement could sharply
reduce demand for air pleasure
travel because of the reduction it
would bring in discretionary in-
come."
The availability of fuel and other
materials in the years ahead is also
uncertain.
Other uncertainties which will have
an effect on the future of aviation in-
clude the availability of capital funds,
the role that "special interest" groups
will play in public decisions affecting
transportation, and the degree of
government regulation and economic
influence in the transportation field.
Aviation Trends Identified
The FAA says it had two objectives
in undertaking the aviation futures
study?to see what might be in store
for itself and for the aviation com-
munity in the next 25 years and "to
develop a systematic, repeatable
method of conducting this broad plan-
ning function." The agency believes
that the study was a success on both
counts.
Although not committing itself to
the likelihood of any particular
scenario becoming reality, the FAA
has drawn some tentative conclusions
from its study. Since almost all of the
scenarios foresee some growth in avia-
tion, the FAA is generally basing its
thinking about the future on the
assumption that growth will continue,
although it may be very modest under
some conditions.
The number of airline passengers
will range from 272 million to over
one billion by the year 2000 (com-
pared to 208 million in 1975), depend-
ing upon the state of the economy and
other factors. The amount of cargo
shipped by air is expected to grow at
least 3% per year for the rest of this
century. General aviation, which cur-
rently accounts for 98% of the aircraft
in use and 75% of total operations at
Wind-tunnel model of an advanced
technology Remotely Piloted Vehicle
(RPV) designed for NASA's Ames
Research Center, Mountain View,
California. The RPV, whose wing can
be yawed at various angles to the
flight path, is thought to have poten-
tial for a wide variety of civil and
military uses. Photo: NASA
AIR TRAFFIC
CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
COMPLEMENTARY AND
COMPETING MODES
AIR CARGO
AVIATION SAFETY
?
UG3rd installation began in
1985.
?
Auto intercity travel declines.
?
Low growth (less than 3%)
due to weak economic
?
Relatively low demand.
?
Shift from auto divided
conditions.
?
Decline in rates and number
?
NAS rate of growth reduced.
,
between air, rail and mass
transit.
of accidents.
?
Little change in NAS from
1970's.
?
Increased telecommunica-
tions substituted for travel,
?
Low growth (+2%) then
decline due to economic
conditions.
?
Demand less than system
capacity, resulting in
?
Fewer accidents.
?
UG3rd in 1985.
?
Auto intercity travel declines.
?
Moderate growth (+4%).
?
Relatively low rate of increase
in demand, and
?
4th generation ground-
based ATCS by 2000.
?
High speed ground intercity
transit.
?
Increased use of technology in
?
NAS, results in,
Decline in rates and number of
accidents.
?
UG3rd by 1980.
?
Auto retains major role.
?
High growth (+9%).
?
Technological and procedural
advances, but
?
4th generation,ground-
based ATCS by 1990.
?
High speed ground intercity
transit.
?
All-cargo flights increased.
?
No decline in numbers of
accidents, because of
?
Heavy increase in aviation
activity.
?
Automated air-based ATCS
by 1990.
?
Auto retains major role.
?
Very high growth (+12%).
?
Improved technology and
operating procedures.
?
High speed ground intercity
transit.
?
All cargo airports in 1990's.
*
Number of accidents and
fatalities do not decline
because of high demand.
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FAA-towered airports, is expected to
remain at approximately that level,
even under the more pessimistic con-
ditions, and could account for an even
greater percentage of aircraft opera-
tions if economic growth is strong.
General aviation is expected to be the
major FAA workload factor and the
primary factor in expansion of the na-
tional aviation system throughout the
remainder of the 20th century.
The FAA foresees few difficulties in
terms of airspace capacity, but the im-
pact of increasing air cargo operations
on airports could be a problem. With
very high real economic growth, a few
large all-cargo airports could be in
operation by the year 2000.
These all-cargo airports would be
comparable in size to today's large
airports. They would have "truck ter-
minal and access facilities of unprece-
dented scale and sophistication, in-
cluding access highways built at least
to present interstate standards, a
sophisticated truck dispatching
system, a complex truck routing
system within the airport perimeter,
and advanced means of maintaining
security."
Airport access is very likely to be
enhanced with further development of
urban transit systems or as an
offshoot of new high-speed ground
transportation systems.
Unconventional aircraft such as
lighter-than-air aircraft probably will
not be introduced for passenger ser-
vice between now and the year 2000,
the FAA study concludes. However,
with moderate to high economic
growth, new conventional aircraft
such as a 1,000-passenger transport
and a 150-passenger jet STOL will
form a small percentage of the air car-
rier fleet by the end of the century.
Only with high growth is a domestic
SST expected to enter international
service.
People will still rely heavily on
airlines for long-distance travel, but
various forms of high-speed ground
transportation are expected to com-
pete with the airlines over shorter dis-
tances. Consequently, the average
length of airplane trips is going to in-
crease.
For the next 25 years, all aircraft
are expected to continue to burn
petroleum-based jet fuel and aviation
How the Scenarios Were Prepared
The FAA based its study on the
assumption that the future of avia-
tion will be based on the interrela-
tionships between new technology
and socioeconomic conditions. The
study group first identified a set of
key variables in the National Avia-
tion System (NAS)?aviation
operations, flight lengths, enplaned
passengers, FAA employees, trust
fund revenues, business produc-
tivity, etc. The study group then
identified the socioeconomic varia-
bles that bear the closest relation-
ship to conditions in the National
Air System, including population,
GNP per capita, wellhead price of
crude oil, price of ferrous and non-
ferrous metal, etc.
After the major relationships
between the two sets of variables
had been identified, the group con-
structed five scenarios based on
various rates of growth of popula-
tion and gross national product.
The group then tried to identify the
changes that each scenario would
bring in FAA policies, air transpor-
tation network structure, competi-
tion from other modes, etc. For
each scenario, projections were
then made for the key NAS varia-
bles (operating costs, cargo ton-
nage, general aviation operations,
etc.), based on past performance,
but adjusted to reflect the new con-
ditions.
All of the data amassed by the
preceding steps was then used to
project the values of internal avia-
tion system variables such as
average seats per aircraft and
aircraft speed.
The final step was calculation of
revenue passenger miles, aircraft
operations, commercial miles
flown, air carrier fleet mix and size,
fuel consumption, accidents, noise,
etc. This was accomplished with
the aid of a series of submodels, or
algorithms.
The entire process was repeated
until internal consistency was
achieved. The validity of the
forecasts made by this method was
checked with the aid of a com-
puterized feedback model.
gasoline; no substitute fuels such as
hydrogen are likely to be in use. Due
to environmental concerns and
energy-saving efforts, existing aircraft
engines will probably be improved for
fuel efficiency and noise reduction.
Airlines likely will operate more
economically by serving specific
market areas with especially suited
and cost-efficient aircraft.
FAA Looks at Its Own Future
The FAA describes its main respon-
sibilities as "the regulation of air com-
merce to promote its development and
safety, and the operation of the air
traffic control system in a manner con-
sistent with those objectives."
One of the key questions facing the
FAA in the future is how the aviation
system shotild respond to increased
demand. Two basic responses are
possible: (1) attempting to meet all
demand and (2) meeting demand
within a selected benefit/cost or cost-
effective range. Outside that range,
limits could be set by imposing ab-
solute quotas or by excluding certain
classes of aircraft or categories of
aviation.
The public's response to increasing
noise levels near airports as air traffic
intensifies has already resulted in air-
port curfews in some areas, reducing
overall airport capacity. In acquiring
land for new airports or expansion of
existing airports, additional acreage
will be required to serve as a noise
buffer, adding to the expense. One
possible solution to the land problem
that the FAA is taking a close look at
is "land banking," which involves set-
ting aside land for future airport sites
well ahead of the time when they may
be needed. Many complications can be
avoided by land banking, the FAA
"The FAA foresees few
difficulties in terms of
airspace capacity, but
the impact of
increasing air-cargo
operations on airports
could be a problem."
believes. Waiting until the demand ex-
ists for an airport means running the
risk that the most desirable land may
be developed in ways incompatible
with airport needs. Also, people living
nearby may oppose the building of an
airport; with land banking, the pro-
perty could be purchased in isolated
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03
areas where there is little inconve-
nience to residents and where suffi-
cient land for a noise buffer exists.
In Atlanta, in the early days of avia-
tion, planes began to land on a race
track in the surrounding countryside;
the property eventually developed
into Atlanta's present airport. Atlan-
ta's air traffic has grown and the air-
port has no room to expand. If
futuristic planning and land banking
had been used in Atlanta in choosing
a site, the problems might have been
avoided.
In terms of safety, the FAA says
that fatality and accident rates will re-
main low, but the growth in activity
could force up the absolute levels of
fatalities and accidents unless
stronger or additional safety programs
are instituted. To keep up with the in-
creasing numbers and variety of
aircraft that will have to be handled,
the FAA is implementing a sophisti-
cated semiautomated air traffic con-
trol system at all large and medium
airports and, near the end of the cen-
tury, a more fully automated system
may be essential as well.
Believing that the challenges of
growth in the aviation system over the
next 25 years will be increasingly com-
plex and require careful planning, the
FAA considers the study described
here to be only a first step in its efforts
to insure as smooth an adjustment to
changing realities as is possible. FAA
officials say that the study has already
pinpointed some important issues for
them. One of the first outgrowths from
the study was an issue paper pointing
out the potential importance of air
cargo in the future?and the accom-
panying problems. The FAA's futures
material is also being used in congres-
sionally requested studies on airport
land banking and the need for new
airports. The agency is updating the
study and expanding it to cover inter-
national aviation. FAA officials say
that they are very interested in getting
feedback from both the aviation com-
munity and the public.
With the help of the ideas and
methodology developed for this study,
the FAA believes that it can reduce
the chances of again being caught
unprepared for new developments in
the aviation field?or in the world at
large.
Author Jerry Richardson is Assistant
Editor of THE FUTURIST.
Copies of the FAA's study report, Avia-
tion Futures to the Year 2000, may be ob-
tained by writing to: Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration, Aviation Futures (AVP-110),
800 Independence Avenue, S W
? .,
Washington, D.C. 20591.
Two proposed designs for advanced supersonic transports. SSTs will be added to
the U.S. domestic fleet only as part of an expansive-growth scenario, according
to a new Federal Aviation Administration report. Illustration: NASA
Commuter Airlines Enjoy
Rapid Growth
Commuter airlines, which pro-
vide air service between small com-
munities and large urban airports,
have expanded rapidly during the
past decade.
The key reasons for this growth
are identified by Jonathan D.
Mayer in the April issue of Traffic
Quarterly. Only one of the four
main factors was a technological
improvement; the others were
favorable changes in the
socioeconomic area. The growth
factors are:
? Since 1965, the commuter
airlines have been allowed to
carry U.S. mail, an operation
that has been very profitable for
them.
? The Civil Aeronautics Board
(CAB), in 1964, began to allow
the larger airlines to discon-
tinue service to some small com-
munities because "small
aircraft in the hands of a com-
muter carrier could provide bet-
ter service to the public at the
small city involved, primarily
by making additional frequen-
cies possible" and because "the
commuter could operate at sig-
nificantly lower cost than could
the certificated carrier with its
larger equipment."
? Small turbo-prop airplanes
have been developed which can
carry more passengers than the
planes previously used by com-
muter airlines, yet can still be
landed at small airports.
? Some major airlines, such as
Allegheny Airlines, have con-
tracted with commuter airlines
to provide service to small com-
munities. In describing the ad-
vantages of such an arrange-
ment, the CAB says that "While
relieving Allegheny of the ex-
penses normally involved in its
obligation to provide service to
a small community at which it
is certificated, the Allegheny
Commuter service nonetheless
preserves for Allegheny much of
the advantage of providing the
service. The tie-in between the
Allegheny Commuters and
Allegheny itself provides
Allegheny with a guaranteed
source of feeder traffic for its
long haul routes, just as if it
served the small points itself."
Mayer also notes that 80% of the
commuter air traffic consists of
people who "take commuter flights
to connect with some form of long-
haul air transport service."
See "Local and Commuter Airlines in
the United States" by Jonathan D.
Mayer, Traffic Quarterly, April 1977.
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U',
Space Colonies:
by Gerard K. O'Neill
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
An earth-like space colony could be orbiting our world by
1990, says a Princeton University physicist. The colony's
10,000 inhabitants would enjoy green plants, animals,
plains, valleys, hills, and streams. The colonists would pay
off the cost of building their extraterrestrial home by
manufacturing satellite solar power stations, which would
supply cheap, virtually inexhaustable power to the earth.
During the past decade, a number of
premises about the basic problems of
the world have become very widely ac-
cepted. The more important of these
accepted ideas are:
1. For the foreseeable future, every
significant human activity must be
confined to the surface of the earth.
2. The material and energy
resources of the human race are just
those of our planet.
3. Any realistic solutions to our
problems of food, population, energy,
and materials must be based on a kind
of zero-sum game, in which no
resources can be obtained by one na-
tion or group without being taken
from another.
Given those premises, logic has
driven most observers to the conclu-
sion that long-term peace and stability
can only be reached by some kind of
systematic global arrangement, with
tight constraints to insure the shar-
ing?equable or otherwise?of the
limited resources available. I find it
personally shocking that many such
observers, even those who profess a
deep concern for humankind, accept
with equanimity the need for massive
starvation, war, or disease as necess-
ary precursors to the achievement of
such a systematic global arrangement.
In my opinion, based on studies car-
ried out at Princeton University, these
three basic premises on which most
discussions of the future have been
The wheel-like design shown above (and also on the cover) might be used
for the first space colony. The mirror floating above the colony reflects
sunlight into the ring mirrors below, which reflect it through 100-foot
strip windows into the colony's interior for light and agriculture. Above
the core sphere are communications and spacecraft docking facilities.
Long rectangle in foreground is a heat radiator. The facility below the col-
ony is the manufacturing area where lunar ore is melted with solar
power. Lower central sphere is the original "construction shack" for the
colony.
Drawing: NASA
based are simply wrong. The human
race stands now on the threshold of a
new frontier whose richness is a thou-
sand times greater than that of the
new western world of 500 years ago.
That frontier can be exploited for
all humanity, and its ultimate extent
is a land area many thousands Of
times that of the entire earth. As little
as 10 years ago we lacked the techni-
cal capability to exploit that frontier.
Now we have that capability, and if we
have the willpower to use it, we can
not only benefit all humanity, but also
spare our threatened planet and per-
mit its recovery from the ravages of
the industrial revolution.
The high frontier which I will
describe is space, but not in the sense
of the Apollo program, a massive
effort whose main lasting results were
scientific. Nor is it space in the sense of
the communications and observation
satellites, useful as they are. Least of
all is it space in the sense of.science-
fiction, in which harsh planetary sur-
faces were tamed by space-suited
daredevils. Rather, it is a frontier of
new lands, located only a few days
travel time away from the earth, and
built from materials and energy
available in space.
Space Colonies: The Basic Plan
The central ideas of space coloniza-
tion are:
1. To establish a highly-in-
dustrialized, self-maintaining human
comm&ity in free space, at a location
along the orbit of the moon called L5,
where free solar energy is available
full time.
2. To construct that community on
a short time scale, without depending
on rocket engines any more advanced
than those of the space shuttle.
3. To reduce the costs greatly by ob-
taining nearly all of the construction
materials from the surface of the
Moon.
4. At the space community, to pro-
cess lunar surface raw materials into
metals, ceramics, glass, and oxygen for
the construction of additional com-
munities and of products such as
satellite solar power stations. The
power stations would be relocated in
synchronous orbit about the earth, to
supply the earth with electrical energy
by low-density microwave beams.
5. Throughout the program, to rely
only on those technologies which are
available at the time, while recogniz-
ing and supporting the development of
more advanced technologies if their
benefits are clear.
The two key factors that make space
colonization an economically sound
idea are solar energy and lunar
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materials. As everyone knows, the sun
is a virtually inexhaustible source of
clean energy. On earth, solar energy
use is hampered by nighttime, by
seasonal variation in the day-length,
and by clouds; in space, solar energy is
always available, and also much more
intense. The amount of solar energy
which flows unused, in a year, through
each square meter of free space is 10
times as much as falls on an equal
area in even the most cloud-free por-
tions of Arizona or New Mexico. A
solar-energy installation in space,
therefore, is potentially able to oper-
ate at a tenth the cost at which it could
operate on earth.
The cost of space colonization could
be reduced further by obtaining con-
struction materials from the moon. On
earth, we are the "gravitationally dis-
advantaged." We are at the bottom of
a gravitational well 4000 miles deep,
from which materials can be lifted
into space only at great cost. The
energy required to bring materials
from the moon to free space is only one
twentieth as much as from the earth,
and Apollo samples indicate that the
moon is a rich source of metals, glass,
oxygen, and soil. The moon's lack of
an atmosphere reduces further the
cost of transporting lunar materials to
orbiting space colonies.
Lunar surface raw materials, would
be transported by a launching device
called a mass driver; it exists now only
on paper, but it can be designed and
built with complete assurance of suc-
cess because it requires no high-
strength materials, no high accelera-
tions or temperatures, and its princi-
ples are fully understood. The mass
driver would be a linear electric
motor, forming a thin line several
miles long, which would accelerate
small 10-pound vehicles called
buckets to lunar escape velocity, at
which time they would release their
payloads and then return on a side
track for reuse. The mass driver would
be an efficient machine, driven by a
solar-powered or nuclear electric
plant.
Building the First Colony
If we were to start now, with deter-
mination and drive, I believe that the
first space colony (Island One) could
be in place, with its productive
capacity benefiting the earth, before
1990. This is possible, I must emphas-
ize, within the limits of present-day,
conventional materials and tech-
nology.
A modified space shuttle and a
chemical space tug would be used to
transport basic construction equip-
ment, supplies, and 2,000 workmen to
a point in space called L5. (L5 is a
point in the moon's orbit equidistant
from the earth and the moon at which
objects will remain in a stable orbit,
stationary with respect to the moon.)
A smaller work force of about 200 peo-
ple would establish a lunar outpost
which would provide 98% of the raw
materials needed for the construction
of Island One.
The mass driver, operating only
25% of the time, could lift 500,000
tons of material to L5 in the six-year
construction time of Island One. An
identical machine, located in space,
could be a very effective reaction
motor for the shifting of heavy
payloads in the 100,000-ton range.
Lunar soil is 40% oxygen, 19.2%
silicon, 14.3% iron, 8% calcium, 5.9%
titanium, 5.6% aluminum, and 4.5%
magnesium. The aluminum would be
the primary building material and the
oxygen would be used as atmosphere
and to fuel rocket engines. Lunar sur-
face materials are poor in carbon,
nitrogen, and hydrogen, which would
have to be brought from earth. For ev-
ery ton of hydrogen brought from
earth, nine tons of water could be
made at the colony site, using oxygen
from the processing of lunar oxides.
The removal of half a million tons
of material from the surface of the
moon sounds like a large-scale mining
operation, but it is not. The excava-
tion left on the moon would be only
five meters deep and 200 meters long
and wide, not even enough to keep one
small bulldozer occupied for a five-
year period.
In the long run, we can use the fact
that the asteroids are also a source of
materials. The three largest asteroids
alone contain enough materials for
the construction of new lands with a
total area many thousands of times as
large as that of the earth. Once the
asteroidal resources are tapped, we
should have not only metals, glass,
and ceramics, but also carbon,
nitrogen, and hydrogen. These three
elements, scarce on the moon, are
believed to be abundant in the type of
asteroid known as carbonaceous
chondritic.
Island One
Within the materials limits of or-
dinary civil engineering practice and
within an overall mass budget of
500,000 tons (about the same as the
mass of a super-tanker), several
designs for the first "island in space"
have evolved. All are pressure
Below is an artist's conception of a segment of the wheel-shaped space
colony during final stages of construction. Shown is an agricultural area
with a lake and a river. These farming sections are interspersed with
three more-populated areas, all protected by a shield of lunar slag at-
tached to the outside of the colony shell.
Drawing: NASA
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vessels?spherical, cylindrical, or
toroidal?containing atmospheres
with the same oxygen content as at sea
level on earth and rotating slowly to
provide a gravity as strong as that of
the earth. The axis of the structure
would always point toward the sun,
the source of all the energy used by the
colony.
The first space community would
house 10,000 people; 4,000 would be
employed building additional col-
onies, while 6,000 would be producing
satellite solar power stations. The in-
terior of the colony will be as earth-
like as possible?rich in green plants,
trees, animals, birds, and the other
desirable features of attractive regions
son earth. The design would allow a
line of sight of at least a half mile, giv-
ing the residents a feeling of spacious-
ness. The landscape would feature
plains, valleys, hills, streams, and
lakes. The residential areas might
consist of small apartment buildings
with big rooms and wide terraces
overlooking fields and groves. Near
the axis of the structure, gravity would
be much reduced and, consequently,
human-powered flight would be easy,
sports and ballet could take on a new
dimension, and weight would almost
disappear. It seems almost a certainty
that at such a level a person with a
serious heart condition could live far
longer than on earth, and that low
gravity could greatly ease many of the
health problems of advancing age.
The space colony would have separ-
ate residential, agricultural, and in-
dustrial areas, each with its optimal
gravity, temperature, climate,
sunlight, and atmosphere. Intensive
agriculture would be possible, since
the day-length and seasonal cycle
would be controllable independently
for each crop and care would be taken
not to introduce into the agricultural
areas the insect pests which hamper
earth agriculture. Agriculture could
be efficient and predictable, free of the
extremes of crop failure and glut
which the terrestrial environment
forces on our farmers. Only 111 acres
would be needed to feed all 10,000
residents.
Energy Without Guilt
Energy for agriculture would be
used directly in the form of sunlight,
interrupted at will by large, aluminum
shades located in zero gravity in space
near the farming areas. An advanced
sewage system would quickly and effi-
ciently turn wastes into pure water
and agricultural chemicals. The air,
constantly filtered, would be cleaner
than in any city on earth.
Why Not a Moon Colony?
Gerard O'Neill offers the follow-
ing reasons why a colony in space is
more practical than one on the sur-
face of the moon:
1. The availability of energy.
The moon has a 14-day night;
therefore, there is a serious
problem of obtaining energy. Con-
venient, low-cost solar power is cut
off because of the fact that energy
storage over a 14-day period is ex-
tremely difficult. On the moon one
is probably forced to rely on
nuclear power, so one loses one of
the principal advantages of work-
ing in space.
2. The moon is more expen-
sive to get to. To reach the moon,
you first have to go into free space,
and then go down again.
The analogy that I use is that in
our old-fashioned talk about col-
onizing planetary surfaces, we were
rather like a small animal which
was deep down in a hole in the
ground. The animal climbs at great
cost up to the top of the hole and
looks out and sees all the grass and
flowers and sunshine, and walks
across the grass. Then he finds
another hole and climbs down to
the bottom of that hole again. And
in gravitational terms that is ex-
actly what we are doing if we go
into free space and then climb
down again to the surface of the
moon.
The transport costs to get to the
moon are about twice as high as
they are to go out into free space;
that means that the capitalization
for productive equipment is up by
the same factor of 2.
3. Control over gravity. The
moon has one-sixth the earth's gra-
vity, you have to take it as it comes,
and you can never cut it off. Even
to get higher gravity than that is a
lot more complicated and expen-
sive on the surface of the moon
than it is in free space, where you
can simply rotate a vessel to get
any gravity that you want. 0
Non-polluting light industry would
probably be carried on within the liv-
ing-habitat, convenient to homes and
shops. Heavy industry, though, could
be located in nearby external non-
rotating factories because of the ad-
vantages of zero gravity. The com-
bination of zero gravity and breatha-
ble atmospheres would permit the
easy assembly?without cranes, lift-
trucks, or other handling equipment?
of very large, massive products. These
products could be the components of
new colonies, radio and optical
telescopes, large ships for the further
exploration of the solar system, and
power plants to supply energy for the
earth. Within a century, other indus-
tries might be shifted to space colonies
because of the abundant, free, pollu-
tionless energy supply and the greater
efficiency made possible by zero gra-
vity and the vacuum of space.
Process heat for industry, at tem-
peratures of up to several thousand
degrees, would be obtainable at low
cost, simply by the use of aluminum-
foil mirrors to concentrate the ever-
present sunlight. In space, a passive
aluminum mirror with a mass of less
than a ton and a dimension of about
100 meters, could collect and con-
centrate, in the course of a year, an
amount of solar energy which on earth
would cost over a million dollars at
standard electricity rates.
Electrical energy for a space com-
munity could be obtained at low cost,
within the limits of present tech-
nology, by a system consisting of a
concentrating mirror, a boiler, a con-
ventional turbogenerator, and a
radiator, discarding waste heat to the
cold of outer space. It appears that, in
the environment of a space com-
munity, residents could enjoy a per
capita usage of energy many times
larger even than what is now common
in the United States, but could eo so
with none of the guilt which is now
connected with the depletion of an ex-
haustible resource.
Shape of Future Colonies
While the first space colony will
probably be a torus (a wheel-shaped
structure), later colonies will be
cylinder-shaped. The main reason for
the change is that the first colony will
be by far the most expensive to pro-
duce and the torus will cost less to
construct. Once the first colony is in
place, the initial investment in equip-
ment and materials from earth will
not need to be repeated; consequently,
the cost of colony construction will
drop drastically. The cylindrical
design, considered the most efficient,
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will then be as easy to build as the
torus.
Each colony would consist of a pair
of cylinders, connected by cables and
spinning in opposite directions so that
the total system would have almost no
spin. Alternating stripes of land and
window areas would run the length of
the cylinders; the cylinder walls
would be made of aluminum and
glass. Agriculture would be housed in
auxiliary capsules connected to the
cylinders.
The smallest cylindrical colony, like
the torus, would support 10,000 peo-
ple. Each cylinder would be 3,280 feet
long and 328 feet wide. A Model II
colony would have three times more
area and as many as 100,000 people,
and would be less dependent on earth
for resources. Model III, which might
be built early in the next century,
would be so large that a portion of the
island of Bermuda or a section of the
California coast like Carmel could fit
easily within one of its "valleys."
Model III residents would begin min-
ing the asteroid belt for resources and
would no longer need to import any
materials from earth.
A Model IV colony consisting of two
cylinders, each 19 miles long and four
miles in diameter, could house several
million people comfortably. Its at-
mosphere would be deep enough to in-
clude blue skies and clouds. The
endcaps of the cylinders could be
modeled into duplicates of a mountain
range such as the Grand Tetons, with
8,000-foot peaks. A reflected image of
the ordinary disc of the sun would be
visible in the sky, and the sun's image
would move across the sky from dawn
to dusk as it does on earth. The land
area of one cylinder could be as large
as 100 square miles.
Eventually, it may be possible to
build even larger spherical structures
with diameters of up to 12 miles and a
total habitable land area of 250
square miles.
The date of realization of Model IV
colonies does not depend on materials
or engineering?those we have
already. Rather, it depends on a
balance between productivity, a rising
living standard, and the economies
possible with automation. Under the
space colony conditions of virtually
unlimited energy and materials
resources, a continually rising real in-
come for all colonists is possible?a
continuation rather than the arrest of
the industrial revolution. Reasonable
estimates of 3% per year for the real
income rise, 8% for interest costs, and
10% for automation advances put the
crossover date (the date when large
The largest (Model IV) space colonies, which could be functioning by 2025,
will probably consist of two connected cylinders, each 19 miles long, four
miles in diameter, and containing as much as 100 square miles in total
land area. The most beautiful living areas on earth could be duplicated in
the colonies. The bridge shown here, to give an idea of the dimensions in-
volved, is similar in size to the San Francisco Bay Bridge. A Model IV col-
ony could hold up to several million people comfortably, but the interior
design pictured here is intended for only about 200,000 people.
Drawing: NASA
Night is approaching in this Model IV space colony cylinder, which is 19
miles long and four miles in diameter. The atmosphere in the large col-
onies is deep enough to include blue skies and clouds. A reflected image
of the sun moves across the sky from dawn to dusk. The amount of light
entering the cylinder is controlled by mirrors outside the stripes of win-
dow areas which alternate with the land areas in the colony. The earth-
like atmospheric effects make the colony seem more spacious and
natural.
Drawing: NASA
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colonies become economically feasi-
ble) about 40 to 50 years from now?
well within the lifetimes of most of the
people who are now alive.
First Colony Could Cost $100
Billion
The best estimate currently availa-
ble is that the establishment of Island
One would cost $100 billion, with a
possible variation of $50 billion in
either direction. That figure is 2.5
times the cost of Project Apollo and
5-15% of the estimated cost of Project
Independence, the U.S. energy self-
sufficiency plan. To put the cost of the
first space colony in perspective, a list
of approximate costs for other large-
scale engineering projects (in 1975
dollars) follows:
a) Panama Canal $2 billion
b) Space Shuttle Development $5-8 billion
c) Alaska Pipeline $6 billion
d) Advanced Lift Vehicle
Development $8-25 billion
e) Apollo $39 billion
f) Super Shuttle Development $45 billion
g) Manned Mission to Mars $100 billion
h) Project Independence $600-2000 billion
The Apollo project provided trips to
the moon for a total of 12 men, at a
cost of about three billion dollars per
man. In space colonization we are con-
sidering, for Island One, a thousand
times as many people for a long dura-
tion rather than for only a few days.
With the cost savings outlined earlier,
it appears that we can accomplish this
thousand-fold increase at a cost of at
most a few times that of the Apollo
project.
The eventual cost of building the
first colony will be affected signifi-
cantly by the following variables:
1. Frequency and efficiency of crew
rotation between the earth and L5,
and between the earth and the moon,
during the construction period.
2. Extent of resupply needed during
construction. This item can vary over
a wide range, depending on the at-
mospheric composition needed at the
construction station, and whether
food is shipped in water-loaded or dry
form.
3. Atmospheric composition. The
structural mass of Island One is pro-
portional to the internal atmospheric
pressure, but independent of the
strength of artificial gravity produced
by rotation. Nitrogen constitutes 79%
of earth's atmosphere, but we do not
use it in breathing. To provide an
earth-normal amount of nitrogen
would cost us two ways in space col-
ony construction, because structure
masses would have to be increased to
contain the higher pressure, and
because nitrogen would have to be im-
ported from the earth. A final choice
of atmospheric mix would be based on
a more complete understanding of fire
protection.
With these factors in mind, three
different preliminary cost estimates
have been made for construction of Is-
land One. My own spartan estimate,
$33 billion, would allow for no crew
rotation, an oxygen atmosphere, little
resupply, and small power plants
(10Kg/Kw) on the moon and at L5.
The NASA Marshall Space Flight
Center made two independent cost
estimates for the project last year. The
initial estimate, $200 billion, includes
chemical and nuclear tugs, super shut-
tle development, orbital bases, an ox-
ygen/nitrogen atmosphere, extensive
crew rotation, resupply at 10 pounds
per man/day, and power plants at 100
Kg/Kw. A later re-estimate, carrying a
$140 billion price tag, eliminates un-
necessary lift systems, but still in-
cludes the oxygen/nitrogen at-
mosphere, crew rotation, resupply at
10 pounds per man/day, and power
plants at 100 Kg/Kw. The two NASA
estimates also appear to include a con-
tingency factor for problems not yet
identified.
Energy for the Earth
Island One will pay for itself mainly
by manufacturing satellite solar
power stations which would supply
the earth with an inexhaustible energy
supply. At present, both the industrial
nations and the underdeveloped third
world nations are vulnerable to the
threat of supply cutoff by the Middle
East oil-producing nations. The only
permanent escape from that threat
lies in developing an inexhaustible
energy source with a cost low enough
to make synthetic fuel production
economically feasible.
Nuclear power is moderately expen-
sive (1.5 cents/KWH) and is accom-
panied by the problems of nuclear
proliferation and radioactive waste
disposal. Fossil fuels are scarcer now,
and intensive strip-mining for coal
will almost inevitably further damage
the environment. Solar energy on the
Asimov Supports Space Colonization
Noted science writer Isaac
Asimov, in a written statement
submitted to the House Subcom-
mittee on Space Science and Ap-
plications in August 1975, said, "It
is my opinion that the important
goal for space exploration over the
next century is the establishment of
an ecologically independent human
colony.on the Moon, or on artificial
space colonies that use the Moon as
a quarry for raw materials. The
reasons for this follow:
(1) Observatories beyond
Earth's atmosphere can lead to a
better knowledge of the Universe
and the laws of nature governing
it?with unpredictable but surely
great applications to the human
way of life.
(2) The presence of infinite
amounts of hard vacuum, of low
temperatures, of high solar radia-
tion, should make possible in-
dustrial activities of types not prac-
tical on Earth, leading to unpredic-
table but surely great advances in
technology.
(3) The establishment of a work-
ing colony, ecologically indepen-
dent, on either the Moon or in an
artificial structure in space will re-
quire a society fundamentally
different from our own?a society
that can live in an engineered en-
vironment under conditions of
strict recycling and mineral waste.
Since this is precisely the sort of
condition toward which Terrestrial
life is tending (barring a
catastrophe that destroys our tech-
nology altogether), the colonies
will serve as schools to Earth, as
experiments in living from which
we may profit immensely.
(4) The establishment of a col-
ony will be difficult enough and ex-
pensive enough to require a
global?rather than a national?
effort. The effort will be great
enough to supply mankind with a
common goal and a common sense
of pride that may transcend local
chauvinisms, and thus encourage
the growth of a global political
community?and indeed serve as a
substitute for the emotional cathar-
sis of war.
(5) Lunar or space colonists, liv-
ing in engineered worlds, on the in-
side, would be more psy-
chologically adapted to life in a
spaceship undertaking long
voyages, so it will be they rather
than Earthmen by whom the rest of
the Solar system (and eventually
the stars perhaps) will be explored.
(6) Colonies in space generally
will supply a chance for growth and
adventure after Earth itself has,
perforce, adopted a no-growth
philosophy."
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Interest in Space Colonies Rises
During the past year, Gerard
O'Neill's space colonization con-
cept has captured the imagination
of a rapidly increasing number of
people. He reports that he gets
more mail than he can answer, and
99% of the letters are favorable.
Last July, O'Neill's testimony
also impressed the Subcommittee
on Space Science and Applications
of the U.S. House of Representa-
tiv es. Near the end of the
testimony, Subcommittee Chair-
man Don Fuqua (a Floricta
Democrat) said of the space col-
onization project, "It's something
that will happen, and even though
it kind of boggles the mind at the
present time, it is not beyond the
realm of possibility. I hope I live to
see it." The Subcommittee con-
cluded, in its official report, that
orbital colonies were "potentially.
feasible" and deserving of close ex-
amination. It also stated that "con-
cepts and methods for the space-
based generation of electricity,
using energy from the sun, should
be developed and demonstrated as
a significant contribution to solu-
tion of the fossil fuel dilemma."
Finally, the Subcommittee gave its
support to "an expanded space
program in FY 1977-1978, at least
25% greater than current funding,
to undertake new space initia-
tives." Fuqua later said that "
bold new space programs, such as
the possibility of space coloniza-
tion, based on realistic appraisals
of potential space progress, deserve
serious consideration. It is ap-
parent that the imagination, skill,
and technology exists to expand the
utilization and exploration of
space."
Astronomer Carl Sagan, .testify-
ing before the subcommittee,
declared that "our technology is
capable of extraordinary new ven-
tures in space, one of which is the
space city idea, which Gerard
O'Neill has described to you.
That's an extremely expensive un-
dertaking, but it seems to me
historically of the greatest signifi-
cance. The engineering aspects of it
as far as I can tell are perfectly well
worked out by O'Neill's study
earth is an unreliable source, suitable
for daytime peak loads in the
American southwest, but not clearly
competitive in most applications at
the present time.
For several years, design groups at
Boeing Aircraft and at Arthur D. Lit-
tle, Inc., have studied the concept of
locating large solar power stations in
geosynchronous orbit?where sunlight
is available 99% of the time?to con-
vert solar energy to electricity and
beam it by microwaves to earth, where
it would be reconverted to ordinary
electricity. Already, an overall
transmission efficiency of 54% has
been demonstrated in tests. The main
stumbling block has been the problem
of lift costs. Construction of the
satellite solar power station (SSPS)
units at the space colony, using lunar
materials to avoid the high lift costs
from earth, would make solar energy
competitive with other energy sources
even from the start, according to my
, calculations. Eventually, solar electric
? power rates would be much lower
than those of coal-fired or nuclear
power plants. No thermal, chemical,
or radioactive pollution would be cre-
ated, and the microwave intensity
would not exceed official exposure
limits.
"The human race
stands now on the
threshold of a new
frontier whose richness
is a thousand times
greater than that of the
new western world of
500 years ago."
group. It is practical." O'Neill says
that Wernher von Braun has also
expressed interest in his project.
The space colony idea also was
examined last year by 28 physical
and social scientists participating
in the NASA/ASEE/Stanford
University 1975 Summer Study at
the Ames Research Center in
Mountain View, California. The
10-week study was sponsored by
NASA's Ames Research Center,
Stanford University, and the
American Society for Engineering
Education (ASEE). The group
found no insurmountable problerns
that would prevent successful space
colonization and recommended
"that the United States, possibly in
cooperation with other nations,
take specific steps toward the goal
of space-colonization."
A Princeton Conference on Space
Manufacturing Facilities was
hosted by O'Neill last May. The
Proceedings will be published later
this year.
A number of technical papers
supporting the space colony idea
have appeared recently, including
"R & D Requirements for Initial
Space Colonization" by T. A. Hep-
penheimer and Mark Hopkins
If development of the space colonies
proceeds on the fastest possible time-
scale (with intensive design beginning
this year and major construction of
the first colony beginning in 1982), the
program could pay back all of the
total investment (plus 10% interest)
in 24 years. The total investment cost
includes the development and con-
struction cost of the first colony; the
cost of lifting the materials needed
from the earth for subsequent colonies
and for non-colony-built SSPS compo-
nents; a payment in dollars on earth
of $10,000 per person/year to every
colonist, representing that portion of
salaries convertible to goods and ser-
vices on earth (for subsequent use on
visits or, if desired, on retirement);
and a carrying charge of 10% interest
on the total investment (outstanding
principal) in every year of the
program. The economic output of the
program is measured in the sale of
solar power at initial rates of 1.5 cents
per Kilowatt-hour, gradually drop-
ping to one cent per Kilowatt-hour:
To produce the necessary number of
power satellites within this time-scale,
a total work force of 100,000-200,000
people would be required. In our
calculations, we assumed that the con-
struction of the first colony would take
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(both of the Summer Study) and
"Space Production of Satellite
Solar Power Stations," an analysis
by William Agosto, a project
engineer with the Microwave Semi-
conductor Corporation, Somerset,
New Jersey.
University courses are beginning
to be offered dealing with various
aspects of space colonization.
Magoroh Maruyarna of Portland
State University is teaching a
aurst ' on Extraterrestrial Com-
munity Systems, which explores
new cultural options; possible psy-
chological and social problems;
and alternative physical, architec-
tural, environmental, and social
designs. Massachusetts Institute of
Technology now has an under-
-graduate course in space systems
engineering, emphasizing space c61-
onies. Beginning this May, futurist
Dennis Livingston will teach a
course at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, New York, called
"Space Colonies: A Technology
Assessment." The course will cover
technical, economic, moral, politi-
cal, and social aspects of space col-
?flies.
The American Institute of Aero-
nautics and Astronautics is lobby-
? ing for more congressional support
for O'Neill's project, and he was a
keynote speaker during the In-
stitute's Annual Meeting in
Washington, D.C., on January 30.
For those interested in keeping.
informed about the latest develop-
ments in O'Neill's space coloniza-
tion efforts, several newsletters are
now available.
Gerard O'Neill puts out his own
Newsletter on Space Colonization
periodically. The newsletter sum-
marizes recent work, lists the latest
magazine articles and books deal-
ing with space colonies, lists lec-
tures scheduled on the subject,
reports on the status of the space
colony group at Princeton Univer-
sity, and advises of future plans.
The newsletter is free. Simply write
to Professor Gerard K. O'Neill,
Physics. Department, Princeton
University, P.O. Box 708, Prin-
ceton, New Jersey 08540.
L-5 News is a monthly newsletter
produced 'by the L-5 Society, a
group formed recently "to educate
the public about the benefits ?of
space communities and manufac-
turing facilities, to serve as a clear-
ing house for, information and news
in this fast. developing area, and to
six years; thereafter, each colony
could replicate _itself in two years.
Each colony would produce two SSPS
units per year. The productivity im-
plied, 13-25 tons/person-year, is simi-
lar to that of heavy industry on earth.
New colony construction would be
halted after the 16th colony, due to
market saturation. In this scenario,
the benefit/cost ratio would be 2.7.
By the 11th year of the program
(1993 on the fastest possible time-
scale), the energy flowing to the power
grids on earth from L5-built SSPS
units could exceed the peak flow rate
of the Alaska pipeline. By the 13th
year, the SSPS plants could fill the en-
tire Market for new generator capacity
in the U.S. By year 17, the total energy
provided could exceed the total esti-
mated capacity of the entire Alaska
North Slope oil field. Given the rapid
growth of the manufacturing capacity
and the possibility of power cost
reductions, true "energy indepen-
dence" for the nations taking part in
the L5 project could occur before the
year 2000, with a shift to production of
synthetic fuels.
Cooperative Multinational
Program Is Desirable
There are, in my opinion, at least
five or six nations or groups of nations
"By 2150, there could
be more people living
in space than on earth
... Earth might serve
mainly as a tourist
attraction?a carefully
preserved monument
to man's origin."
raise funds to support work on
these concepts where public money
is not available or is inappropri-
ate." L-5 News contains news arti-
cles; listings of courses, lectures,
publications, and conferences; and
letters. Membership in the L-5
Society costs $20 (regular) or $10
(student), which should be sent to
L-5 Society, 1620 North Park
Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85719.
Another newsletter which
reports on O'Neill's ideas occa-
sionally (as well as other space con-
cepts) is the EARTH/SPACE
Newsletter. EARTH/SPACE,
describes itself as a commercial
space venture dedicated to free
space enterprise and "focusing on
market development and methods
of making space profitable to the
commercial user.'' The
EARTH/SPACE Newsletter is
available for $5 per year from
EARTH/SPACE, 2319 Sierra, Palo
Alto, California 94303.
O'Neill received a small grant
from NASA in 1975, but he believes
that additional funding this year of
between 0.5 and 1.0 million dollars
is needed for basic research if the
project is to continue to develop at
the fastest possible rate.
which possess the technical and
economic ability to carry out the con-
struction of Island One on their own.
In my own view, I would like to see a
cooperative multinational program
formed, based on participation by all
interested nations. It would be in the
interest not only of the energy-con-
suming industrial nations, but also of
the oil-producing nations to take part
in the program, since it would result in
a drastic drop in the market value of
Middle Eastern oil before the end of
this century. A cooperative interna-
tional program could have a real
stabilizing effect on world tensions.
It would be naive to assume that the
benefits of space colonization will be
initially shared equitably among all of
humanity, but the resources of space
are so great that those who are first to
exploit them can well afford to pro-
vide the initial boost that will allow
their less advantaged fellow humans
to share the wealth. Suddenly given a
new world market of several hundred
billion dollars per year, the first group
of nations to build space manufactur-
ing facilities could easily divert some
fraction of the new profits to providing
low-cost energy to nations poor in
mineral resources, and to assisting un-
derdeveloped nations by providing
them with initial space colonies of
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Author Gerard O'Neill, Professor
of Physics at Princeton University,
hopes that space colonization will
be a cooperative internatiunal
program, bringing world peace a
step closer.
their own. The resources of space are
so great that even those nations which
achieve the ability to use them only
after a long delay will still find an
abundance remaining. It should also
be emphasized that the provision of
unlimited low-cost energy to the
developing nations will probably be
the most effective contribution we
could make to solving the world's food
problem, because the cost of chemicals
for high-yield agriculture is almost en-
tirely the cost of energy for their pro-
duction.
If we use our intelligence and our
concern for our fellow human beings
in this way, we can, without any
sacrifice on our own part, make the
next decades a time not of despair, but
of fulfilled hope, of excitement, and of
new opportunity.
Public Response Is Favorable
The evidence of the past year indi-
cates that, in terms of public response,
space colonization may become a
phenomenon at least as powerful as
the environmental movement. Since
the first small, informal conference in
May, 1974, a rapidly increasing num-
ber of articles about it have appeared
in newspapers and magazines, and all
have been quite favorable. Radio and
television coverage has also increased
rapidly.
A volunteer organization in Tucson,
Arizona, recently spent an intensive
week trying to get information to peo-
ple about the space project, and two
weeks later carried out a random sam-
pling telephone survey. They report
that 45% of the people in that city now
know about this project, and of those
who know about it, two-thirds of them
are already in favor of it.
The mail that I get?from many na-
tions around the world, as well as the
United States?runs 100-to-1 in favor
of the project. Also, encouragingly,
less than 1% of all mail is in any way
irrational. Many of the correspon-
dents have offered volunteer help, and
are actively working at the present
time in support of the space coloniza-
tion concept. The letters express the
following reasons why this concept, in
contrast to all other space options now
extant, is receiving such broad sup-
port:
1. It is a right-now possibility. It
could be realized within the immedi-
ate future.
2. In contrast to the elitism of the
Apollo project or a manned mission to
Mars, it offers the possibility of direct
personal participation by large num-
bers of ordinary people. Many of the
correspondents, from hard-hat con-
struction workers to highly-educated
"The evidence of the
past year indicates
that, in terms of public
response, space
colonization may
become a phenomenon
at least as powerful as
the environmental
movement."
professional people, see themselves as
prospective colonists.
3. In contrast to such technical op-
tions as the supersonic transport,
nuclear power, or the strip-mining of
coal, it is seen as offering the
possibility of satisfying real needs
while preserving rather than further
burdening the environment.
4. It is seen as opening a new fron-
tier, challenging the best that is in us
in terms of technical ability, personal
motivation and the desire for human
freedom. Many correspondents refer
to space colonization by analogy to the
discovery of the New World or to the
settlement a century ago of the
American frontier.
Colonies Offer Freedom and
Diversity
By about the year 2018, emigration
to better land, better living conditions,
better job opportunities, greater
freedom of choice and opportunity in
small-scale, eventually independent
communities could become a viable
option for more people than the
population increase rate. The cultural
diversity will be enormous (in exact
contrast, I think, to the way things are
going on earth at the present time). By
2150, there could be more people liv-
ing in space than on earth. The reduc-
tion of population pressures on earth,
left possibly with only a few billion
people, would allow the planet to
recover from the ravages of the in-
dustrial revolution. Earth might serve
mainly as a tourist attraction?a
carefully preserved monument to
man's origin. At the same time, tour-
ism and trade among the colonies
would be practical and desirable, in-
suring the survival and growth of the
colonies.
From the vantage point of several
decades in the future, I believe that
our children will judge the most im-
portant benefits of space colonization
to have been not physical or economic,
but the opening of new human op-
tions, the possibility of a new degree of
freedom, not only for the human body,
but much more important, for the
human spirit and sense of aspiration.
0
Gerard O'Neill, Professor of Physics at
Princeton University, is noted for his work
in high-energy experimental particle
physics. He is the leading proponent of the
space colonization concept, which he origi-
nated in 1969. His address is Physics
Department, Box 708, Princeton University,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540. The foregoing
article is based on the author's presenta-
tion to the World Future Society's Second
General Assembly in June, 1975, and on his
testimony before Congress on July 23, 1975.
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by Stanley Lesse
Psychiatry and psychotherapy may be replaced in the
years ahead by a future-oriented health science discipline
whose practitioners would stress prevention of health
problems. Cybernated health science systems would han-
dle many tasks now performed by skilled medical person-
nel.
Since the end of World War II, the
rate of technological and social
change has accelerated to a degree
never before experienced in all of
recorded history. Because of this rapid
rate of change, many traditional in-
stitutions accustomed to today-
oriented planning are being forced to
modify their structure and goals in
order to survive. Psychiatry and psy-
chotherapy are no exceptions. Many of
our psychiatric and psychotherapeutic
theories and techniques are now
anachronisms in that they reflect late
Victorian sociocultural patterns and
early 20th century needs rather than
current realities.
The constantly changing state of
society in many ways has made ob-
solete much of the today-oriented
planning in psychiatry and psy-
chotherapy. Psychiatric institutions,
concepts, and treatment techniques
must take into account not just pre-
sent situations, but also the circum-
stances that are likely to occur in 10,
20, or even 30 years. What we do today
must be seen as a logical step along a
flexibly planned path leading to op-
timum application at a tentative
period in the future. Psychiatrists and
psychotherapists, in order to be pre-
pared for their changing roles, should
be students of futures forecasting.
In the next few decades, I see three
basic factors that are likely to have the
major impact on the structure of
civilization (They will not, of course,
be the only forces): (1) socioeconomic
and sociopolitical forces; (2) a
decrease in available living space due
to population growth; and (3) the
widespread use of automation and
cybernation. These forces will mold
the societal climate that will deter-
mine the types of psychodynamic and
psychosociM disturbances that will
prevail in the future, as well as the
techniques that will be required to
effectively treat them.
1. Socioeconomic and
sociopolitical forces: Our future
society will probably become in-
creasingly group-oriented and more
highly organized. Group orientation is
evolving gradually but with growing
momentum in the form of big govern-
ment, big business, and big labor. Psy-
chosocial studies indicate that the
progressive growth of large
hierarchically-ordered institutions
leads employees to become more in-
clined toward group goals, we-
oriented rather than /-oriented. In
group-oriented environments,
unanimity is stressed and great in-
dividual expectations become diluted.
In large organizations, persons stress-
ing individual expectations are often
rejected as anti-group trouble-makers.
Psychosocial stress in the future will
have different sources from those of
today, in great measure because the
group ego will supersede the in-
dividual ego in importance. The in-
dividual, rather than being preoc-
cupied by his personal self, will proba-
bly find it increasingly necessary to
change his orientations to fit in as a
part of the integrated group in order
to be accepted by his society?or in-
deed to survive.
Future man may very likely ex-
perience illness as being detached
from the group and health as being in-
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tegrated into the group, with one of
future man's great concerns being the
threat of physical and psychological
separation from the group. Indeed,
psychiatrist are beginning to observe
such separation anxiety with increas-
ing frequency among persons working
in large institutions.
2. Population growth and scar-
city of space: Despite efforts to
retard population growth, the world
will likely have more than six billion
people by the year 2000, two billion
more than now. One crucial factor
that will shape our future society is
the fixed and limited amount of land
available for living and working. The
finiteness of available space, com-
bined with the accelerating trend
toward urbanization, will make
horizontal expansion difficult, if not
impossible. It is important to recog-
nize, in this connection, that with in-
creased complexity and tightness of
Organization, the number of interrela-
tionships between individuals in-
creetses geometrically. Thus, when two
people occupy a limited space, there
are twci relationships possible. With
six people, the number of relation-
ships increases to a hundred. To cope
with a situation in which millions will
be living in a relatively tightly defined
area, new regulatory devices will
almost surely have to be instituted.
Massive population expansion and
urbanization may necessitate in-
creased structuralization of society.
When individuals are integrated into
any organized group, less space is
needed for effective interpersonal
functioning than when the same num-
ber of persons are free to act without
restrictions. For example, one can im-
agine the chaos that would occur in a
crowded army camp in which 75,000
troops were confined in an area of 25
or even 50 square miles, if there were
no regulatory guidelines. If everyone
in this congested situation were a
grand individualist, free to follow the
dictates of his impulses, destructive
anarchy would result. The same rule
would also hold for megalopolises
saturated with tens of millions of in-
habitants. The overpopulation
problem will invite new efforts to
determine how we can preserve in-
dividual prerogatives in the face of
these anticipated restrictions.
3. Automation and cybernation:
Cybernation is often confused with
very sophisticated mechanization, but
there is an important difference: The
most sophisticated mechanical system
is "open"; that is, a human being is
needed to operate it by closing what is
called a "controlling loop" (the on-off,
go-no-go signals to the machine). In
contrast, a fully cybernated system is
closed; the human component is sup-
planted by a computing machine. The
increasingly cybernated world of the
future will necessitate radical changes
in technological, political, and social
thinking.
The cybercultural revolution, whose
early rumblings are heard in the
upheavals we are experiencing today,
differs radically from previous in-
novations because man now has
devices which will largely supplant
certain activities of his mind as well as
his body. In the age of cyberculture,
enormous segments of the population
are likely to live in leisure. Fewer and
fewer will produce more and more.
Drudgery will become increasingly un-
necessary.
Heretofore, the unemployment that
has occurred as the result of automa-
tion has principally affected unskilled
labor. Cybernation, in all likelihood,
will also replace those whom we now
consider to be highly skilled techni-
cians, including many health science
specialists. Because of this equalizing
effect alone, cybernation will have a
profound impact not only upon the
economic but also upon the
philosophical aspects of this new
revolution.
Cybernation, social and economic
change, and population growth must
be viewed, however, as an indivisible,
interreacting group of forces. To con-
sider them separately would inevita-
bly lead to tragic error.
Medicine Will Be Health- Oriented
Medicine, in general, and psychiatry
and psychotherapy in particular, have
traditionally been disease-oriented.
We wait for the patient to become ill
before we institute treatment. Then,
for the most part, we apply "blowout-
patch treatment," with the
therapeutic processes usually being
directed at abnormal behavior or syn-
dromes.
Such an approach is inefficient and
anachronistic. It is like permitting an
infection to become an epidemic
before taking any action. In the world
of the not-too-distant future, it will
probably be socially and economically
unthinkable to relegate psychiatric
techniques purely to the repair of psy-
chologically disturbed persons rather
than to the prevention of psychic dis-
turbances.
The disease orientation of the medi-
cal sciences is a continuation of primi-
tive concepts concerning the causes of
illness, especially psychological ill-
ness. Hopefully, the disease orienta-
tion Will disappear when the health
sciences?which by definition will be
"health-oriented"?supersede the
medical sciences, including psychia-
try.
Health Sciences in the Year 2000
Several current trends point to the
development of cybernated systems in
the health sciences and the conse-
quent displacement of skilled person-
nel who are now considered indispen-
sable. The trends include:
1. Marked acceleration in the
development of sophisticated measur-
ing equipment and computers that can
readily be adapted to medical diag-
nostics.
2. Pressure from a mushrooming
population for more extensive medical
care facilities. Projected demands far
exceed the projected capacities to
train medical and paramedical per-
sonnel of the type with which we are
now familiar.
3. Current educational trends en-
couraging medical students to special-
ize in the early years of their training,
thus eliminating the traditional prac-
tice of educating the young physician
to be a generalist before he becomes a
specialist.
4. The crowded, group-oriented,
highly automated world that seems
destined to become a reality in the
not-too-distant future. In this environ-
ment, patients will probably not object
to a more impersonal type of health-
science care.
Two New Types of Health Scientists
In 1966, I first described the ap-
parent necessity for two general types
of professionally trained individuals
who would be required to care for
health needs in a highly structured,
integrated and automated society.
Tentatively, these two types of health
scientists can be labeled as medical
academicians (MA's) and medical-
technical experts (MTE's).
The medical academician would be
trained primarily in the comprehen-
sion, expansion, and pragmatic ap-
plication of the dynamic interrelation-
ships between physiodynamics, psy-
chodynamics, and sociodynamics.
These three terms may be defined as
follows:
? Physiodynamics refers to the
state or changing state of the in-
dividual's anatomic structures and
physiological and biochemical func-
tions, and their mutual interdepen-
dence in relationship to one another
and in relationship to psychodynamic
and sociodynamic factors.
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? Psychodynamics refers to the
state or changing state of the in-
dividual with regard to all psychic
functions, conscious and unconscious,
and their mutual interdependence in
relation to physiodynamic and
sociodynamic factors.
? Sociodynamics refers to the
state or changing state of an in-
dividual's external environment and
its mutual interdependence in relation
to physiodynamic and psychodynamic
factors.
The central theme to be stressed
here is that whenever there is an
alteration in one area of human func-
tion, there is inevitably an alteration
in other areas or aspects of the same
function and all other functions both
internal and external, until a state of
relative equilibrium is reached. This
concept differs fundamentally from
the widely followed "team" approach,
in which a group of specialists under a
single leader expresses opinions con-
cerning a specific patient or problem.
The sum of many parts does not
necessarily make for a unified, func-
tional whole. The encouragement of
expressions of creativity must be one
of the cornerstones of a medical
academician's training. The medical
academician?as teacher, leader, and
programmer in our future society?
would require basic qualities different
from those trained to be medical-tech-
nical experts.
The medical-technical expert work-
ing with sophisticated automated
devices would take over many tasks
now performed by today's highly
skilled physicians. Most routine diag-
noses and therapies would undoub-
tedly be performed by the MTE-com-
pu ter combination. Automated
devices would take histories, perform
specialized biochemical, physiological,
and psychological tests and then
record and analyze the results. ("Corn-
putest" language in the form of "yes"
and "no" answers can be used to
sharply define specific symptoms and
syndromes.) The data would then be
automatically correlated. The testing
and analysis of the data would proba-
bly be done far more accurately and
intensively than most of today's diag-
nosticians can accomplish. The
machines very likely would indicate
not only the nature of the problem but
also the appropriate types of therapy.
The medical-technical expert would
be highly trained for very specific,
limited jobs. Since his field of opera-
tion would be sharply circumscribed,
his education would require far less
time than that of today's medical
specialist. He would learn to interpret
and apply, in combination with auto-
mated systems, the program methods'
developed by the medical academi-
cians.
District Clinics Might Replace
Most Physicians
The two types of health scientists
would function in an entirely new
physical structure. Health science in-
stitutions would likely become
hierarchically structured so as to
guarantee a maximum of efficiency
and a minimum of duplication. For
health-science purposes, a "district
general medical clinic" (DGMC)
might supplant the general practi-
tioner and, in most instances, the cur-
rent types of medical specialists.
These clinics, structured around the
MTE-computer team, would be con-
structed at locations determined by
area and population.
Patients whose illnesses are too
obscure or refractory to treatment to
be managed by the MTE-computer
team would be referred to "regional
specialty centers" (RSC' s) equipped
with more sophisticated diagnostic
devices and more specifically
programmed computers. Each RSC,
operating under the supervision of a
medical academician, would be capa-
ble of treating a limited number of in-
patients on a short-term basis.
Finally, there would be "zone
specialty hospitals" (ZSH's) which
would manage patients who require
long-term treatment entailing more
intricate equipment or facilities. The
zone specialty hospital, which would
also serve as a research and training
institute, would be headed by a medi-
cal academician who would supervise
the programming of the cybernated
systems and act as the coordinator of
the specialized MTE-computer teams.
Enormous strides will be made in the
development of newer physiological
and psychopharmacological techni-
ques that will be effective in the active
treatment of individuals with psy-
chological problems. Entirely new
psychotherapeutic procedures will be
necessary to accommodate patients
whose clinical problems may result
from types of stress different from
those commonly encountered today.
"For health science
purposes, a district
general medical clinic
...(DGMC) might supplant
the general practitioner
and, in most instances,
??%.t" the current types of
-
medical specialists."
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Prophylactic Psycho-Bio- Sociology
Psychiatrists and psychotherapists
now spend a considerable part of their
time as diagnosticians. The auto-
mated systems will take histories in-
finitely more detailed than those ob-
tained today and will indicate ap-
propriate diagnoses and treatment.
Preserving mental health is likely to
be the psychiatrist's and psy-
chotherapist's main concern in the
future. Prophylactic measures of a
psychological nature should become
part and parcel of the socio-political
structure. In the future, the psy-
chotherapist and indeed the political
scientist must be profoundly con-
cerned with the influence of economic
and political institutions on the psy-
chological well-being of the in-
dividual. For example, the new breed
of mental health scientist will seek to
have positive supports to the in-
dividual's ego structure automatically
built into the political system and at-
tempt to eliminate or modify economic
or political systems that may place
one's adaptive mechanisms under
stress.
My studies of psychological
problems in different countries have
demonstrated that certain types of
psychological illnesses inevitably
develop as nations become in-
dustrialized. For example, agitated
depressions occurring in middle-aged
persons are not common among those
living in the agricultural, rural por-
tions of Japan or India, whereas they
are noted with increased frequency in
the industrialized-metropolitan com-
munities. In the same fashion, a
variety of clinical syndromes may
result from psychosocial incom-
patibilities due to stresses that will be
unique for the developing post-in-
dustrial state.
All economic, political, and
philosophical systems have some
aspects that are compatible with
modern man's ego structure and other
aspects that are incompatible. For ex-
ample, our current industrial societies
have large numbers of persons who
become psychologically disturbed, in
part due to their inability to tolerate
the stress associated with the competi-
tive economic structure. On the other
hand, the restrictions placed upon up-
ward mobility associated with highly
structured, socialistic economies also
have been a source of psychic
difficulty. A serious effort should be
made to determine which aspects of
different economic and political
systems are innately more beneficial
or more stressful to the psychic exis-
tence.of the individual.
All those whom we now designate
as psychiatrists, psychologists, social
scientists, and political scientists
should in the future become "psycho-
bio-sociologists." Because they must
understand the dynamic interrelation-
ships between sociodynamics (the
function of social groupings) and in-
dividual psychodynamics, this new
breed of humanistic scientist will have
to be prepared by a new concept of
education. Our traditional educa-
tional system emphasizes the en-
cyclopedic method of learning, which
is anachronistic in view of the massive
accumulation of new data and man's
inability to memorize information
beyond certain limits. This
mushrooming plethora of facts can
and will be recorded by automated
memory banks that will have far
greater retentive capabilities than the
human brain. In addition, the
machines have the capacity for im-
mediate and total recall whenever re-
quired.
The emphasis on the encyclopedic
method of learning should be replaced
by a system that emphasizes the need
to interrelate information that will be
immediately available from various
memory banks. The emphasis upon in-
telligence quotients (I.Q.'s) would be
relegated to an educational museum,
since they reflect a memory-bank psy-
chology. I.Q. tests measure only the
child's capacity to recapitulate or
"play back" the information to which
he was exposed by very verbal parents.
We must develop methods of detect-
ing early in life those persons who
have the propensity to interrelate in-
formation. In addition, we must
develop theories and methodologies
aimed at encouraging the develop-
ment of the capacity to interrelate
knowledge.
The maturation of the psychological
sciences and social sciences will be sig-
nalled by their disappearance in their
present form, to be replaced by an en-
tirely new science?psycho-bio-
sociology. The new science will not be
a summation of psychodynamic,
biodynamic, and sociodynamic fac-
tors, but sill reflect the indivisible in-
terrelationships between the in-
dividual and his society. The future
psycho-bio-sociologists will be actively
involved in the development and
evaluation of sociopolitical systems
that could be optimally compatible
with human adaptation.
Treatment of Latent Illness
The concept of prophylaxis may
take on another form. For example,
active therapy, in some instances, very
likely will be instituted before illness-
es become overt, while they are in a la-
tent form. This prophylactic type of
therapy is likely to be made possible
through health science memory banks.
In coming decades, all individuals in
the United States and certain other
countries are likely to have automated
medical records. Every contact that a
patient has with the health system
will be electronically recorded in a
regional memory bank.
The records will be available for im-
mediate recall whenever the patient
has a medical examination. In addi-
tion, they will be screened periodically
by computers, and those individuals
whose records are interpreted by the
computer-analyst as demonstrating
adverse psycho-physio-sociologickl
problems will be automatically called
up for early therapy. If a person moves
from one portion of the country to
another, his medical records can be
simultaneously transferred
electronically to another memory
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bank in the area where the individual
now resides. In keeping with this ad-
ministrative-technological likelihood,
most psychophysiological, psy-
chosocial or psychosociological
problems are likely to be diagnosed
and treated in a subliminal or barely
discernable phase. Consequently, new
conceptualizations of psychiatric and
psychotherapeutic techniques will be
necessary.
Future-Oriented Psychotherapy
Future-oriented psychotherapy is a
prophylactic therapeutic procedure
that is radically new in both theory
and practice. As such, it cannot be un-
derstood in terms of older theories
and procedures.
Viewed in terms of future-oriented
psychotherapy, psychoanalytic psy-
chotherapy is largely past-oriented
and focused upon habit patterns,
frustrations, and identifications rel-
ated to the early development of the
individual. Similarly, the theoretical
concepts that evolved from any today-
oriented therapy?such as ego psy-
chology, behavior therapy, hypnotism,
or existential psychology?have no
direct relationship to future-oriented
theory or technique.
One obstacle to effective dealing
with the future is prejudicial or mood-
dominated thinking. For example,
most persons project into the future in
a wishful-thinking pattern. In some
instances, the thinking is utopian in
character. In other instances, in-
dividuals project into the future in an
anti-utopian manner which might be
labeled as negative or pessimistic pro-
jection. The patient should be helped
to view the world of the future as it is
likely to be rather than as he wishes it
to be. At times, it is theoretically
possible to blend wishful thinking
with pragmatic projection.
In future-oriented psychotherapy,
the primary goal is to help a person
plan for his or her own destiny. The
therapy proceeds by helping in-
dividuals to visualize how their roles
will appear to be at a certain time in
the future, whether five, 10, 20, or
even 30 years from the present. The
purpose is to motivate them to take
steps in the present that will prepare
them for that future reality.
The point in therapy at which
futuristic considerations are in-
troduced depends upon a number of
factors, some of which include the pa-
tient's age, the nature and severity of
the psychosocial problem, the pa-
tient's intelligence and social aware-
ness, the degree of psychic maturity at-
tained in therapy, the ability to
manage current stresses and discern
other symptoms and signs of mounting
anxiety, and the rigidity of the per-
sonality structure. A final factor is
"The medical-technical
expert working with
sophisticated,
automated devices
would take over many
tasks now performed by
today's highly skilled
physicians."
how urgently the patient must formul-
ate a plan for the future due to the
need for a professional or vocational
decision, preparation for retirement,
or plans for changes in family rela-
tionships. -
During the past ten years I have
utilized this procedure with approx-
imately 150 patients. I have found
that the challenge of the future is
readily introduceable, since there are
so many decisions in each phase of the
patient's life that require futures pro-
jection. The patient is encouraged to
consider the various vocational and
social possibilities that are likely to be
available to him in terms of the
foreseeable future and to formulate a
flexible plan by means of which these
tentative futures may be approached.
He is also encouraged to contemplate
the various stresses or supports that
are likely to be encountered.
Effective future-oriented psy-
chotherapeutic techniques require
that the therapists be "futurists,"
namely, persons dedicated to the
study of factors likely to determine
both individual and societal futures,
and to develop the methodologies by
means of which man may logically an-
ticipate and plan for a better tomor-
row.
The health sciences, including psy-
chiatry and health science education,
are faced with radical alterations in
scope and quality. The health scientist
whom we train today will be responsi-
ble for prevention and treatment in a
society dramatically different from to-
day. If we are to create a health
science that will be optimally applica-
ble to our anticipated societies, we
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must avoid as much as possible the er-
rors and prejudices of the past and
present. We must be wary of employ-
ing ideas and techniques that will be
anachronistic by the time they are ap-
plied.
Author Stanley Lesse, a neurologist,
says that preserving mental health is
likely to be the psychiatrist's and psy-
chotherapist's prime concern in the
21st century.
I anticipate that the general health
plan proposed here will also stop the
spiraling of health-care costs. For ex-
ample, in 1964 a total of $35 billion
was spent for health care in the United
States, with $9 billion or about 25%
coming from government agencies at
all levels. In 1975, the total health
care cost was estimated at $110 billion
with $40 billion, or approximately
36%, coming from governmental
agencies and $70 billion from all other
sources. The total cost represents
about 9% of the gross national pro-
duct. Without careful futures plan-
ning, health care could cost more than
a half trillion dollars per year in
another decade. I believe that the
overall plan suggested here would be
more thorough and efficient and in
step with future needs.
Stanley Lesse is Editor-in-Chief of the
American Journal of Psychotherapy, 114
East 78th Street, New York, New York
10021. He is also an attending neurologist
at the Neurological Institute of the
Presbyterian Hospital of New York, a mem-
ber of the faculty of neurology of the Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons of Colum-
bia University, President of the Association
for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, and
a member of the Scientific Council of the
World Future Studies Federation.
Computer Dispenses Mental Health
Diagnoses
Some futurists, including Stanley
Lesse, predict that computers will
play a major role in diagnosing psy-
chiatric problems by the year 2000.
For patients at the Salt Lake City
Veterans Administration Hospital
in Utah, the future is now.
A receptionist greets each incom-
ing patient and feeds his name,
social security number, and other
relevant data into the computer
terminal on her desk. The patient
then is sent to a testing room where
he sits before a computer terminal
and takes a series of six automated
diagnostic tests.
The first test, lasting only five
minutes, is a simple true-false test
designed to determine if the patient
understands the testing procedure
and is likely to tell the truth. The
computer then administers a per-
sonality inventory test and quickly
provides both a set of raw scores
and an interpretation of the find-
ings. After a short I.Q. test, the
computer goes on to a special test
which measures depression level
and suicidal intent in the patient.
Again, the computer prints out a
raw score, an analysis of the score,
and a list of critical items.
The final two tests are actually
conducted by paraprofessionals
(human) who feed the data into the
computer and receive guidance on
what further questions to ask. (The
computer is programmed to
branch, which means that specific
responses from the patient will trig-
ger a preprogrammed series of ad-
ditional questions.) One such test
attempts to identify the patient's
history of psychopathological
symptoms, moods, hallucinations,
and delusions; the other is a physi-
cal examination. The computer is
also programmed to administer 11
other more specialized diagnostic
tests if the initial test results indi-
cate they are needed.
The computerized diagnostic
assessment takes only five hours,
compared to the three to five days
taken by conventional procedures.
The results of the tests are printed
out only 20 seconds after the last
test is completed, making it possi-
ble for a decision to be made very
quickly as to whether the patient
has a serious mental problem and,
if so, whether he should be
hospitalized or assigned to an out-
patient program.
In addition to saving time, the
computer testing also saves money,
according to clinical psychologist
James H. Johnson, a coinvestigator
on the project. The computerized
diagnostic assessment cots an
average of $120 per patient; con-
ventional testing costs up to $500
per patient.
Because of the short time needed
for the computer to arrive at a diag-
nosis, fewer people are being
hospitalized for mental illness, ac-
cording to Johnson. Before the
computer was used, 75% of the peo-
ple who came to the hospital for
mental health help were
hospitalized. Now only 45% are ad-
mitted. Th computer analysis
quickly determines which people
have nothing seriously wrong with
them and which ones can benefit
more from various types of outpa-
tient care. Under the old system,
many people who were admitted
for testing became labeled as men-
tal patients by society, even though
no serious mental problem was
found and they were released after
the diagnosis was made.
Johnson sees little danger of the
computer inaccurately labeling a
person as mentally ill. In fact, says
Johnson, the computer "is proving
itself more accurate and definitive
in its patient assessments" than
previous methods used. In one
study involving two groups of in-
stitutionalized patients, the com-
puter was found to have made the
correct diagnosis in 96% of its
cases, while physicians diagnosed
only 83% of their patients cor-
rectly.
The computer has frequently
identified problems that had not
been detected by physicians. In one
case, the computer led doctors to
discover organic brain damage in a
man who had been treated unsuc-
cessfully for years for depression
and extreme anxiety. Another man
who had been hospitalized
repeatedly for alcoholism was
scheduled for confrontive group
therapy before being given the com-
?
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puter diagnostic tests. The com-
puter identified him as a paranoid
schizophrenic, possibly saving his
life, according to clinical psy-
chologist Ronald A. Giannetti. If
he had experienced the confrotitive
group therapy in that state,
declared Giannetti, "It could have
broken the guy up. He would have
gotten depressed and possibly
suicidal." A 46-year-old woman,
another chronic alcoholic, showed
no progress until computer testing
uncovered a severe depressive dis-
order. Now being treated for
depression rather than alcoholism,
the woman is given a good chance
of being cured.
all concentrated into a relatively
brief period of time, seems to say to
a patient that somebody really
cares. They don't get this imper-
sonal feeling of "Call me next
week."
In some cases, the computer
questioning even seems to have a
therapeutic effect upon the patient.
One patient reported that the com-
puter's questions helped him to
remember important events in his
past that he had long forgotten.
Another patient liked the computer
so much that he wanted to have
one installed in his home so that he
could consult it when feeling
depressed.
Most patients who were tested by
the computer expressed a
preference for it over conventional
diagnostic procedures, according to
a study done by psychologist Daniel
Klingler. When 132 patients who
had been processed both ways were
surveyed, 89% preferred the com-
puter and 56% said that they
answered the computer's questions
more truthfully. Seventy-eight per-
cent agreed that the computer was
not too impersonal.
Johnson theorizes that patients
find the computer testing to be
stimulating and gratifying, with
questions flashing rapidly on the
screen and the patient given the
responsibility of keyboarding an
immediate response. "I don't think
it's as threatening to some people
as sitting down with a shrink,"
Johnson adds. "There is no social
stigma attached. There is more
feedback. The extent of the testing,
AMMak
The program, which is supported
by $500,000 in grants from the
Veterans Administration and the
National Institute of Mental
Health, with the computer hard-
ware donated by the University of
Utah Medical Center, handles
about 300 new patients a month at
the hospital and is expanding to
several new locations. Two new
terminals have been installed, one
at the nearby University of Utah
Medical Center and another at the
Community Mental Health Center
in Salt Lake City. Thomas A.
Williams and James H. Johnson,
coinvestigators on the project, hope
to extend the service soon to the
isolated Indian reservations of
southern Utah and northern
Arizona.
For more information, see "Computer
Crazy" by Eric Shuman, Human Behavior,
August 1976.
Medicine in the
Post-Physician Era
Doctors will be obsolete in 50
years, replaced by computers and a
new type of health care profes-
sional called "the medic," predicts
physician Jerrold Maxmen in his
book The Post-Physician Era.
"Three major capabilities are re-
quired for logical medical deci-
sions?objectivity, probability, and
memory," says Maxmen. And the
computer can outperform the doc-
tor in every one of them. Com-
puters are always rational, while
doctors "can be unduly influenced
by their feelings and can make
serious errors in judgment." While
a physician, in assessing the pro-
bability that a patient's symptoms
mean that he has a particular dis-
ease, can rely only on his own
knowledge and experience, a com-
puter of the future, because of its
gigantic storage capacity, could
have access to "the collective
wisdom of all physicians." The
doctor's memory is limited; the
computer never forgets.
Maxmen goes on to dispose of the
criticism that a physician, by mak-
ing "intuitive leaps," has an ad-
vantage in diagnosing a new pa-
tient from "scratch." "A study was
conducted in which the Cornell
Medical Index, a 195-item ques-
tionnaire, was administered to
5,929 consecutively hospitalized
patients. A machine analyzed the
questionnaires to yield a diagnosis
from among 60 possibilities. The
result of this investigation revealed
that the derived diagnoses were
slightly more accurate than those
rendered by physicians," Maxmen
reveals.
The biggest unsolved problem in
making computer diagnoses fully
reliable, Maxmen asserts, is to
have an accurate program to feed
into the computer. "When the logi-
cal pathways needed to make a
diagnosis are delineated, they
readily can be and have been
programmed into the computer.
Unfortunately, at present the logi-
cal pathways required to diagnose
many ailments have not been iden-
tified." Improvements will also be
required in storage capacity, treat-
ment programs, precise medical
terminology, and accessible hard-
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ware, but Maxmen believes that all
of these problems can be overcome
in the 21st century, based on the
current rate of development of
computer technology. He adds that,
if all clinical observations were
automated and stored in the com-
puter's memory banks, researchers
would be better able to "advance
our medical knowledge and signifi-
cantly improve patient care."
With computers taking over the
technical functions of the present-
day physician, a new breed of
health-care professionals will be
trained to assume the supportive
and psychotherapeutic functions.
Because of this reduced burden,
Maxmen says, "the medic will not
have to possess a basic understand-
ing of health and disease con-
cepts." The medic's training will
take only 12-18 months, compared
to eight years for modern doctors.
"Interpersonal talents will replace
scientific sophistication as the ma-
jor admission criterion." Medics
will be selected on the basis of their
capacity to "empathize with, be
sensitive to and be tolerant of peo-
ple with physical and emotional
disorders."
"The overall objective of the stu-
dent's medical school education,"
Maxmen elaborates, "would be to
prepare him to function within a
medic-computer model. To ac-
complish this goal, the curriculum
would have to focus upon the
following areas: the psychology of
illness, family dynamics, group pro-
cesses, medical sociology, medical
terminology, medical ethics, pa-
tient administration, and the tech-
nology of supportive care."
The evidence suggests that pa-
tients will be willing to accept
medical care from nonphysicians,
Maxmen claims. He notes that
"Without any major difficulties,
nonphysicians have assumed prim-
ary clinical responsibilities in other
nations for centuries." Paraprofes-
sionals have also seen widespread
use in the U.S. armed forces, with
generally good results. "The
public's ? experience with nurse-
practitioners, nurse-clinicians, and
physician's assistants will in-
fluence the likelihood of future pa-
tients accepting the medic," Max-
men adds. The medic will gain the
patient's confidence and respect
because of his personality and sen-
sitivity rather than because of his
academic credentials. Maxmen
adds: "Like the shaman and physi-
cian who preceded him, the medic
will perform rituals, such as utiliz-
ing complicated machines, practic-
ing in uniquely designed settings,
conversing in a strange clinical
vocabulary, and wearing a
futuristic medical uniform." All of
these, along with licensing and cer-
tification procedures, will enhance
his prestige.
The communications revolution
will play a major role in the provi-
sion of medical services in the
future, Maxmen predicts. "The
widespread availability of
videotelephones, IATV [interact-
ive television] and computer ter-
minals within the home may allow
patients to receive a large propor-
tion of their medical care without
having to travel to a hospital,
clinic, or office." Wireless sensing
devices may monitor the patient's
physiological state and transmit
the data instantly to the clinician.
(A battery-powered device which
can monitor temperature, blood
pressure, pulse, and electrocar-
diogram has already been
developed by the Boeing Company,
but is still too expensive for
widespread use.)
After the medical data has been
analyzed by a central computer,
Maxmen suggests, "the medic
could discuss the results with the
patient and suggest treatment via a
telecommunications linkup. Only if
certain aspects of the physical ex-
amination cannot be performed by
remote control or if selected ancill-
ary tests are needed, would the pa-
tient have to go to a regional health
center." Group therapy might be
conducted via? conference
videophone. Outpatient psychiatric
clinics might be replaced by ad-
vanced commqnications tech-
nology. The use of sophisticated
telecommunications technology to
monitor and supervise patient
behavior at home might greatly
reduce the need for psychiatric
hospitals, as well as nursing homes.
Maxmen also devotes several
chapters to speculation about
future breakthroughs in
biomedicine. "Just as medical com-
puters underscore the limits of
physicians," he predicts, "so too
will future biomedical innovations
highlight humanity's biological
deficiences. The anticipated ability
to manipulate genetic material,
create an artificial placenta, and
clone superior beings illustrates
that technology could improve
upon man's reproductive processes.
In the future, synthetic organs will
be able to outperform natural ones.
Eventually, human-machine
chimeras may be able to exceed
man's physical powers, emotional
functions, and intellectual
capacities. These innovations may
seem frightening because of their
potential dehumanizing effect and
impact upon man's evolutionary
future. Condemning these innova-
tions, however, can neither sweep
away the fact of their possible
development nor allow us to avoid
recognizing the biological limita-
tions of our species."
The Post-Physician Era: Medicine in the
21st Century by Jerrold S. Maxmen. John
Wiley and Sons, New York, 1976. 300
pages. $15.95. (Available from the World
Future Society's Book Service.)
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Projected Developments Related to Medicine
The following forecasts are excerpted from The Post-Physician Era: Medicine in the 21st Century
(Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1976). Author Jerrold Maxmen believes that there is at least a 50%
probability that each of these developments will occur by the dates indicated.
Communication and Biomedicine and
Year Computer Technology Therapeutics
Education and
Occupations
Miscellaneous
By 1980 Establishment of TV
network for MDs
Wide use of computers
for hospital record
storage and data re-
trieval
Routine use of cable
TV for medical confer-
ences
Development of useful
tissue adhesives to re-
place sutures
Development of tests
for rapid diagnosis of
viral diseases
General availability of
home diagnostic kits
for urine and fecal
examinations
Pharmacist's educa-
tion stressing his con-
sultant role
Unrestricted medical
license granted only
after completion of
residency
Ombudsmen widely
used in hospitals and
clinics
Laboratory creation
of protein for food by
in vitro cellular pro-
cesses
Enactment of national
health insurance cov-
ering 75 percent
of medical costs
Noncarcinogenic
cigarette
By 1985
Wide use of video-
phones in hospitals
Wide use of computers
for medical history
taking
Portable telephone
widely available
Artificial heart im-
plantation
Chemical synthesis of
specific antibodies
Laboratory solution of
immunologic rejection
problem
Development of re-
liable chemical tests
for psychotic disorders
Use of teaching ma-
chines that respond to
a student's answers
and to his physiologic
state (tension)
Virtual obsolescence
of the general
practitioner
The "classical" lecture
system ended in 40
percent of medical
schools by teaching
machines, closed cir-
cuit TV, interactive
TV, and audio-visual
aids
Decriminalization of
marijuana
Red Cross a semi-
public agency in most
nations
Government-estab-
lished standards for
medical computers
By 1990
Frequent use of "tele-
medicine"
Wide use of computers
to prescribe medica-
tions
Some people able to
have daily checkups of
body
Development of arti-
ficial colon
Development of safe
chemical means to
reverse effects of
arteriosclerosis
Chemical cure for
schizophrenias
Development of anti-
cancer vaccines
Wide use of tests in
children that will
reliably predict their
developing some major
mental illnesses in
adulthood
Wide use of profes-
sional nurses to de-
liver primary care
Failure to consult a
computer considered
grounds for mal-
practice suit
Water and air pollu-
tion problems largely
diminished
Chemical synthesis of
cheap nutritious food
By 1995
General availability of
computers to conduct
psychotherapy
Frequent use of con-
ference videophones
for group psycho-
therapy
Extensive use of inter-
active TV to monitor
aged within their
homes
Development of drugs
that alter memory and
learning
In vitro fertilization
of human ovum with
implantation into
host mothers
Development of syn-
thetic blood substi-
tute
General availability of
physical and chemical
means to modify some
forms of criminal be-
havior
First human clone
85 percent of pharma-
cists working in hospi-
tals and clinics rather
than in drugstores
Techniques that per-
mit useful exploitation
of ocean through aqua-
culture farming, with
the effect of produc-
ing 20 percent of the
world's caloric intake
continued on next page
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Year
Communication and
Computer Technology
Biomedicine and
Therapeutics
Education and
Occupations
Miscellaneous
By 2000 Wrist watch TV
commonly available
Wide availability of
computers that "learn"
from experience
Moderate chemical
control of senility
Effective transplanta-
tion of all organ sys-
tems except for CNS
Development of elec-
tronic sensors enab-
ling blind people to
"see"
Robots with sensory
feedback performing
routine household
chores in hospitals
First clinic or hospital
on the moon
By 2005
Demonstration of way
to decrease time be-
tween birth and
maturity
By 2010
Wide use of artificial
insemination to pro-
duce genetically super-
ior offspring
Use of highly complex
chemical simulation
models of the human
body for use in drug
experimentation
By 2015 Demonstration of man-
machine symbiosis,
enabling people to ex-
tend their intelligence
by direct electrome-
chanical interaction
between his brain and
a computer
"Telemedicine" ser-
vices widely delivered
in homes
Use of drugs or al-
tered prenatal condi-
tions to raise IQ of
normal individuals by
10 to 20 points
Laboratory demon-
stration of biochemical
processes that stimu-
late growth of new
organs and limbs
Extrauterine devel-
opment of human fetus
Replacement of human
organs with those
derived from specially
bred animals
Virtual cessation of
MDs providing clin-
ical services except for
surgery
Average US life ex-
pectancy 95 years old
with commensurate
prolongation of vigor
By 2020
Electrical control of
mood disorders avail-
able
Demonstration of
long-duration human
hibernation; allows for
prolonged space travel
Moderate use of gen-
etic engineering in
humans by chemical
substitution of DNA
chains
Wide use of self-
contained dwellings
using life support
systems that recycle
water and air to pro-
vide independence
from external envi-
ronment
By 2025
In utero genetic
modification
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Part 3
THE FUTURE AS CHALLENGE
If we face emerging problems squarely, we
may be able to solve them or at least soften
their impact.
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The Coming Energy Transition
by Denis Hayes
The world will experience a historic change in its patterns of energy
use during the years ahead. This change in energy use is dictated
by the rapid exhaustion of easily exploited deposits of petroleum
and natural gas. However, there is now a wide area of choice about
how to reshape our approach to energy in order to have a
prosperous world in the future. A researcher at the Worldwatch
Institute in Washington, D.C., recently reviewed the energy options
and here reports his conclusions.
During the last 25 years, world fuel
consumption tripled, oil and gas con-
sumption quintupled, and electricity use
grew almost sevenfold. Clearly, such
trends cannot be sustained indef-
initely?nature abhors exponential
curves as well as vacuums.
The world has begun another great
energy transition. In the past, such
transformations have always produced
far-reaching social change. For example,
the substitution of coal for wood and
wind in Europe accelerated and re-
fashioned the industrial revolution.
Later, the shift to petroleum altered the
nature of travel, shrinking the planet
and completely restructuring its cities.
The coming energy transition can be
counted upon to reshape tomorrow's
world. Moreover, the quantity of
energy available may, in the long run,
prove much less important than where
and how this energy is obtained.
Most energy policy analyses do not
encompass the social consequences of
energy choices. Most energy decisions
are based instead on the naive assump-
tion that competing sources are neutral
and interchangeable. As defined by
most energy experts, the task at hand is
simply to obtain enough energy to meet
the projected demands at as low a cost
as possible. Choices generally swing on
small differences in the marginal costs of
competing potential sources.
But energy sources are not neutral
and interchangeable. Some energy
sources are necessarily centralized;
others are necessarily dispersed. Some
are exceedingly vulnerable; others will
reduce the number of people employed.
Some will tend to diminish the gap be-
tween rich and poor; others will accen-
tuate it. Some inherently dangerous
sources can be permitted unchecked
growth only under totalitarian regimes;
others can lead to nothing more
dangerous than a leaky roof. Some
sources can be comprehended only by
the world's most elite technicians;
others can be assembled in remote vil-
lages using local labor and indigenous
materials. In the long run, such con-
siderations are likely to prove more
important than the financial criteria that
dominate and limit current energy
thinking.
Appropriate energy sources are nec-
essary, though not sufficient, for the
realization of important social and
political goals. Inappropriate energy
sources could make attaining such goals
impossible. Decisions made today about
energy sources will, to a far greater
extent than is commonly realized,
determine how the world will look a few
decades hence. Although energy policy
has been dominated by the thinking of
economists and scientists, the most
important consequences may be
political.
After consideration is paid to the
myriad constraints facing energy
growth, and to the sweeping social
consequences produced by energy
choices, few attractive options remain.
For a variety of reasons, the long-term
roles of fossil fuels and nuclear fission
are likely to be modest. Geothermal
power is already proving useful in Italy,
Iceland, New Zealand, and the United
States as a means of generating
electricity and as a source of space
heating. However, the exploitable
global geothermal potential appears to
be rather small, and the environmental
impact of geothermal operations is
larger than most people assume.
Nuclear fusion is popularly envi-
sioned as a clean source of virtually
limitless power. But the reality belies the
ideal. William Metz has noted "a
gap . . . between what the fusion pro-
gram appears to promise and what [it] is
most likely to deliver."
When scientists ,speak of building a
commercial nuclear fusion reactor
within 25 years, they are referring to a
deuterium-tritium reactor, a reactor
that does not share all the idealized
characteristics associated with nuclear
fusion. The D-T reactor's fuel supply
would not be limitless; tritium is derived
from lithium, an element not much
more abundant than uranium. The D-T
fusion power plant might well be even
larger (and hence more centralized) than
current conventional facilities, and the
energy produced could be much more
expensive than that derived from
current sources. The reactor would
certainly require maintenance, but the
intense radioactivity of the equipment
would make maintenance almost
impossible. Although cleaner thli
nuclear fission, a large fusion reactor
might nonetheless produce as much as
250 tons of radioactive waste annually.
Renewable energy sources?wind,
water, biomass, and direct sunlight?
hold substantial advantages over the
above alternatives. They add no heat to
the global environment and produce no
radioactive or weapons-grade materials.
The carbon dioxide emitted by biomass
systems in equilibrium will make no net
contribution to atmospheric concentra-
tions, since green plants will capture
CO2 at the same rate that it is being
produced. Renewable energy sources
can provide energy as heat, liquid or
gaseous fuels, or electricity. And they
lend themselves well to production and
use in decentralized, autonomous
facilities. However, such sources are not
the indefatigable genies sought by ad-
vocates of limitless energy growth.
While renewable sources do expand the
limits to energy growth, especially the
physical limits, the fact that energy de-
velopment has a ceiling cannot
ultimately be denied.
Power tower: an artist's concept of how the
sun's energy could be used for large-scale
production of electricity. Movable mirrors
reflect solar heat and focus it on a boiler at
the top of the tower. Water in the boiler is
converted to high-pressure steam, which is
pumped to a conventional steam-turbine
generator at the tower's base. This concept
is now under study by the Honeywell Corpo-
ration, which hopes to have a test "power
tower" able to generate electricity for 5,000
homes by 1980. Photo: U.S. Energy Research
and Development -Administration
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The highest energy priority in all
lands today should be conservation.
Investments in saving energy, whether
to double the efficiency of an Indian
villager's cookstove or to eliminate
energy waste in a steel mill, will often
save far more energy than similar in-
vestments in new power facilities can
produce. The cheapest and best energy
option for the entire world today is to
harness the major portion of all com-
mercial energy that is currently being
wasted.
A transition to an efficient, sustain-
able energy system is both technically
possible and socially desirable. But 150
countries of widely different physical
and social circumstances are unlikely to
undergo such a transition smoothly and
painlessly. Every potential energy
source will be championed by vested
interests and fought by diehard oppo-
nents. Bureaucratic inertia, political
timidity, conflicting corporate designs,
and the simple, understandable reluc-
tance of people to face up to far-reach-
ing change will all discourage a transi-
tion from taking place spontaneously.
Even when clear goals are widely
shared, they are not easily pursued.
Policies tend to provoke opposition; un-
anticipated side effects almost always
occur.
If the path is not easy, it is nonethe-
less the only road worth taking. For 20
years, global energy policy has been
headed down a blind alley. It is not too
late to retrace our steps before we
collide with inevitable boundaries. But
the longer we wait, the more tumul-
tuous the eventual turnaround will be.
Dawn of a New Era
We are not running out of energy.
However, we are running out of cheap
oil and gas. We are running out of
money to pay for doubling and redoub-
ling an already vast energy supply
system. We are running out of political
willingness to accept the social costs of
continued rapid energy expansion. We
are running out of the environmental
capacity needed to handle the waste
generated in energy production. And we
are running out of time to adjust to
these new realities.
For two decades, we have pursued a
chimerical dream of safe, cheap nuclear
energy. That dream has nearly
vanished. Nuclear fission now appears
to be inextricably bound to weapons
proliferation and to a broad range of
other intractable problems. Every week
new evidence buttressing the case
against nuclear power is uncovered;
every week worldwide opposition to
nuclear power grows stronger. Nuclear
fission now appears unlikely ever to
contribute a large fraction of the world's
energy budget.
We are consequently no closer today
than we were two decades ago to finding
a replacement for oil. Yet the rhetoric
that public officials in the world's
capitals lavish upon the energy "crisis"
is not being translated into action. Most
energy policy is still framed as though it
were addressing a problem that our
A Lesson from Spain
In 1492, the monarchs of Spain fi-
nanced the explorations of Christo-
pher Columbus to the New World. In
the following century, mineral
wealth from these newly found lands
catapulted Spain to the height of its
glory. Beginning in the 1520s, the
flow of precious metals to the Iberian
Peninsula grew more or less regular-
ly for seventy-five years, making
Spain one of the dominant states of
Europe.
In 1598, King Philip II died after a
reign of forty years. Although the
nation had a heavy burden of debt,
resulting from stalemated wars with
England and Holland, the debt was
not onerous in the face of Spain's
rapidly increasing prosperity. When
Philip III assumed the throne, Spain's
prospects seemed bright. Unbe-
knownst to the Spanish rulers, how-
ever, the flow of gold and silver had
already peaked: the next seventy-
five years were years of rather steady
falloff in production. However, tra-
ditional Spanish agriculture and
small industry had languished during
the nation's years of aggressive as-
cendancy, and were not successfully
restored. The flow of precious metals
had given Spain a golden moment in
the sun, but the unanticipated decline
in looted treasures brought the coun-
try to its knees.
The Spanish experience may hold
special meaning for the contempo-
rary world. The industrial nations
have been shaped by the availability
of cheap, plentiful oil at least as
much as Spain was by the flow of
gold. Unlike Spain, we can see the
end ahead, and can choose to begin a
voluntary transition, but failure to
do so will lead to a fate much like
Spain's.
?From Rays of Hope
Author Denis Hayes is an energy specialist
with the Worldwatch Institute in Washing-
ton, D.C. He stresses conservation as the
best approach to the world's energy prob-
lems in the near future.
grandchildren will inherit. But the ener-
gy crisis is our crisis. Oil and natural gas
are our principal means of bridging to-
day and tomorrow, and we are burning
our bridges.
Twenty years ago, we had some
flexibility; today the options are more
constrained. All our possible choices
have long lead times. All new sources
will require new factories to produce
new equipment and large numbers of
workers with new skills. Energy con-
servation programs will similarly re-
quire decades to implement fully, as
existing inventories of energy-using de-
vices are slowly replaced. Inefficient
buildings constructed today will still be
wasting energy fifty years from now;
oversized cars sold today will still be
wasting fuel ten years down the road.
If the energy crisis has no "quick fix,"
neither is there any long-term deus ex
machina. Great progress has been made
on coal conversion technologies in
recent years, but environmental and
resource constraints necessarily limit
coal to a transitional role. Coal can and
should be substituted for oil and gas in
many instances, but coal cannot replace
the 75% of all commercial energy these
fuels now provide.
Nuclear fusion, if feasible at all,
would be expensive, incredibly com-
plex, and highly centralized. For tech-
nical reasons, the first generation of
fusion reactors would probably consist
of fusion-fission hybrids designed to
breed plutonium. Such devices would
lead the world into an unconscionable
"plutonium economy" and will there-
fore be vigorously fought by a formid-
able array of opponents. While "pure"
fusion deserves continued research sup-
port, it holds no immediate potential,
and even over the long term there is no
assurance that it will become a
commercially viable source of power.
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Although no easy answers exist, some
solutions clearly outshine others. Of the
supply technologies in hand today,
solar, wind, water, and biomass sources
appear most attractive. And for years to
come, the world's greatest opportunities
will lie in energy conservation.
Priorities for a Post-Petroleum World
The energy crisis demands rapid de-
cisions, but policies must nevertheless
be formulated with an eye to their long-
term implications. In making each of
hundreds of discrete decisions, we
would be well advised to apply a few
basic criteria. Thrift, renewability, de-
centralization, simplicity, and safety
should be the touchstones. Using these,
we might judge whether a given action
will move us closer to, or further from,
the type of energy system we ultimately
seek.
Both rich industrial countries and
poor agrarian ones can cull far more
benefits in the immediate future from
investments in increased efficiency than
from investments in new energy
sources. In fact, because they are unable
to afford to make the necessary initial
investments that conservation
sometimes requires, the poor frequently
waste a higher fraction of the energy
they use than the well-to-do. By
eliminating waste and by matching
energy sources carefully with appro-
priate uses, people can wring far more
work from every unit of energy than is
now the case. A sensible energy strategy
will help accomplish this sensible goal.
Energy is a means, not an end. Its
worth derives entirely from its capacity
to perform work. No one wants a
kilowatt-hour; the objective is to light a
room. No one wants a gallon of gas-
oline; the object is to travel from one
place to another. If our objectives can be
met using a half, or even a quarter, as
much energy as we now use, no benefit
is lost.
Investments in conservation must
mesh with plans for a rapid switch from
fossil fuels to sustainable energy
sources. An intelligent strategy will lead
to dependence upon energy derived
solely from perpetually reliable sources.
Solar technologies alone can provide us
with as much energy as can be safely
employed on our fragile planet.
In establishing priorities for the post-
petroleum period, foremost attention
should be given to basic human needs ?
to food, shelter, clothing, health care,
and education. Fortunately, such needs
either require comparatively little
energy or have energy requirements that
can be met with renewable energy
sources. Indeed for most of history
Homo sapiens has been entirely depend-
ent upon renewable energy sources and
could not have survived if renewable
sources had not met the most basic
needs.
The industrial world, powered mostly
by renewable energy sources a mere
hundred years ago, now runs almost
entirely on fossil fuels. The agrarian na-
tions still obtain more than two-thirds
of their fuel from sustainable sources?
mostly firewood and forage for draft
animals. These two worlds
consequently face different problems
and may honor different priorities
during the coming transition.
In the Third World, enormous strides
can be made with relatively modest
investments if those investments are
made wisely. For example, 2% of the
world military budget for just one year
could provide every rural Third World
family with an efficient stove?doubling
overnight the amount of useful work
obtained from fuel wood, and reducing
the pressure on the world's forests
accordingly. If, in addition, armies were
mobilized in major tree-planting
campaigns, the firewood crisis could
eventually be alleviated.
In the industrial world, the situation
is arguably more precarious, and dra-
matic steps are in order. However, such
steps are not being taken. For example,
a responsible energy policy reflecting
the urgency of the necessary transition
would require that all new automobiles
average at least 35 miles per gallon
OUTDOOR RADIANT/CONVECTOR
9.?
within three years, and that the
transition to non-petroleum vehicles be
well under way within a decade. If the
energy transition were proceeding on a
reasonable timetable, tens of millions of
solar water heaters would be produced
annually; current production, by
contrast, is in the thousands. While the
generation of electricity from high-
temperature industrial steam is the
cheapest and most attractive new power
source in many countries, institutional
factors have caused this technology to
be slighted all over the world.
It is virtually impossible to develop a
list of global energy priorities. Each
country must pursue those options most
compatible with its conditions and its
aspirations. But in general,
conservation investments will prove
more immediately productive than new
source development, and genuine
necessities, such as food, must always
take precedence over frivolous trim-
mings.
Suitable Energy Technologies
Historically, many important inven-
tions have consisted of no more than
ingenious new applications of existing
knowledge. In recent decades, however,
large teams of specialists wielding com-
plex and expensive research tools have
been increasingly rubbing against the
boundaries of knowledge. Nowhere is
HEATING /COOUNG FAN cal.
ACES HOUSE
HEAT PUMP MECHANICAL PACKAGE
SUT1CHOTtSTOWE TAW
FREEZING 0311-Iiiik
WARM/COLD AIR REGISTER
Experimental home will feature special system for heating and cooling. The first demon-
stration of the Annual Cycle Energy System outside the laboratory will be this three-bed-
room house built on University of Tennessee property outside Knoxville. The principal com-
ponent of the system is an insulated tank of water which serves as an energy storage bin.
Designed to save at least 50% of the electrical energy now used to heat and cool a home,
/the system is being developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Photo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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vant to the true needs of the poorer
countries. This argument contains a
kernel of truth in a husk of misunder-
standing. Countries can choose to learn
from each other's experience, but each
country must view borrowed knowl-
edge through the lens of its own unique
culture,. resources, geography, and insti-
tutions. The United States and China
can trade knowledge to good purpose,
but little of what they trade can be
transplanted intact.
The differences between such indus-
trialized lands as Japan and France merit
note, but the differences between two
Third World countries may be more
striking than the similarities. Surinam
(with an annual per capita income of
$810) has energy problems and
potential solutions to those problems
that bear little resemblance to those of
Rwanda (with an annual per capita in-
come of about $60). And national
wealth is not the only feature in an ener-
gy profile. The tasks for which energy is
needed vary from country to country.
In some, the most pressing need may be
for pumps to bring water from a deep
water table to the parched surface. In
lands with more abundant water sup-
plies, cooking fuel may be in desperate-
ly short supply. The availability of sus-
tainable resources may also differ. One
region may have ample hydropower
potential, another strong winds, and a
third profuse direct sunlight. Successful
technology transfers require a keen sen-
sitivity to such differences.
Some disillusioned solar researchers
in both industrialized and agrarian
countries contend that the major im-
pediment to solar development has been
neither technical nor economic. The de-
vices do work-and many simple devices
can be cheaply made. Instead, they
claim, the problems have social and
cultural roots. Many Third World
leaders do not want to settle for "sec-
ond-rate" renewable energy sources
while the industrial world has flourished
on oil and nuclear power. Often, offi-
cials who found themselves in charge of
new technologies, such as windmills,
were unable to find technicians who
could maintain and repair them. Occa-
sionally, people who were given solar
equipment refused to use it because the
rigid time requirements of solar technol-
ogy disrupted their daily routines or
because the direct use of sunlight had no
precedent in their cultural traditions.
Many of these attitudinal impedi-
ments may now be vanishing as the
global south begins developing its own
research and development capacity. In-
digenous technologies born of this new
capability may prove to be more com-
patible with Third World needs than
borrowed machines and methods.
Brazil's large methanol program, India's
gobar gas plants, and the Middle East's
growing fascination with solar electric
this phenomenon more clear than in the
industrial world's response to the energy
crisis. Research is currently focused on
the liquid metal fast breeder reactor,
with fusion reactors and coal conver-
sion technologies vying for the remain-
ing funds. Sources that don't cost bil-
lions of dollars to develop seem almost
unworthy of serious consideration. The
"hard" technologies obtain the most
funds, attract the brightest researchers,
kindle the greatest public interest, and
accrue the most glamour. They do not,
however, necessarily represent the
wisest choices. Nuclear fusion research
may well yield a Nobel Prize someday;
no plausible line of research on biogas
plants seems likely to win a trip to
Stockholm. Nevertheless, biogas plants
will almost certainly provide more ener-
gy to those who need it most then fusion
reactors ever will.
Energy funding continues to be ap-
portioned as though big were beautiful,
and the reasons for this are understand-
able. "Those in power always want big
accomplishments?scientific break-
throughs and politically visible facili-
ties," explains M. C. Gupta, director of
the Thermodynamic Laboratory at the
Indian Institute of Technology. "But
those things aren't what India needs
most. The needs of our neediest can
only be met by small, inexpensive de-
vices that use indigenous materials and
are easily maintained."
Even research on direct and indirect
solar sources will not necessarily pro-
duce devices that meet the diverse needs
of the world's peoples. Most significant
research on sustainable energy sources
has been performed in industrialized
countries. Technological advances have
therefore reflected the needs of societies
with temperate climates, high per capita
incomes, abundant material resources,
sophisticated technical infrastructures,
expensive labor, good communication
and transportation systems, and well-
trained maintenance personnel. Such
societies are wired for electricity?in-
deed, two-thirds of the U.S. solar ener-
gy research budget is devoted to the
generation of electricity.
Clearly, some of the findings of this
research are not easily or wisely trans-
ferred to societies with tropical climates,
low per capita incomes, few material re-
sources, stunted technical infrastruc-
tures, cheap labor, poor communica-
tions, and only fledgling maintenance
forces. Most people in the world do not
have electrical outlets or anything to
plug into them. What they need are
cheap solar cookers, inexpensive irriga-
tion pumps, simple crop dryers, small
solar furnaces to fire bricks, and other
basic tools.
With the traps of technology transfer
in mind, some argue that a major solar
research and development effort on the
part of the industrialized world is irrele-
Nuclear Terrorism
Researcher Denis Hayes argues
strongly against nuclear power as an
answer to the world's energy prob-
lems. His chief reason is the impossi-
bility of assuring that the technology
will not be diverted to terrorists and
aggressive nations. Even today,
nuclear technology is widely dissem-
inated and within the capabilities of
many individuals and groups.
Hayes writes:
Once assembled, nuclear weapons
could be rather convenient to use. The
dimensions of the Davy Crockett, a small
fission bomb in the U.S. arsenal, are 2 feet
by 1 foot (0.6 meters by 0.3) The smallest
U.S. bomb is under 6 inches (0.15 meters)
in diameter. Such bomb miniaturization is
well beyond the technical skill of any ter-
rorist group, but no wizardry is required
to build an atom bomb that would fit
comfortably in the trunk of an
automobile. Left in a car just outside the
exclusion zone around the U.S. Capitol
during the State of the Union address,
such a device could eliminate the Con-
gress, the Supreme Court, and the entire
line of succession to the presidency.
With careful planning and tight disci-
pline, armed groups could interrupt the
fuel cycle at several vulnerable points and
escape with fissile material. The high price
likely to be charged for black market plu-
tonium also makes it attractive to organ-
ized crime: sophisticated yet ruthless,
modern criminals have close links with
transport industries in many parts of the
world. Perhaps most frightening is the in-
side thief ?the terrorist sympathizer or
the person with gambling debts or the vic-
tim of blackmail. A high official of the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission had, it
was discovered in 1973, borrowed almost
a quarter of a million dollars and spent
much of it on racing wagers.
Quiet diversion of bomb-grade
material may have taken place already.
Plutonium has often been found where it
should not have been, and, worse, not
been found where it should have been.
Determining whether or not weapons-
grade material has already fallen into the
wrong hands is impossible. . . .
Theodore Taylor, formerly the leading
American atom bomb designer, has de-
scribed at length where the detailed in-
structions for building atomic bombs can
be found in unclassified literature and
how the necessary equipment can be mail-
ordered. An undergraduate at MIT,
working alone and using only public in-
formation, produced a plausible bomb de-
sign in only five weeks.
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The Art of Retrofitting
At the National Bureau of Stand-
ards in Gaithersburg, Maryland, sci-
entists and engineers are conducting
studies on how to install a solar
heating and cooling system in an
existing house. Since it is impractical
to try to build a new house to meet
the new requirements for energy ef-
ficiency, retrofitting is developing
into a new science?and art.
Engineer inspects solar collector atop
experimental townhouse.
Townhouse before retrofitting with solar
heating and cooling system.
Townhouse after retrofitting. The system is
intended to supply three-fourths of the
heating, cooling, and domestic hot water
needs for a four-bedroom townhouse.
Photos: National Bureau tit Standards
technologies can all be read as signs of
an interest in renewable energy re-
sources that bodes well for the future.
At the same time, the Third World,
stunned by a simultaneous shortage of
firewood and petroleum, may be more
willing than it was a few years ago to
adopt solar solutions.
In much of the global north as well,
solar technologies are being embraced
as important future options. In Japan,
the Soviet Union, France, and the
United States, renewable resources are
increasingly being viewed as major
components of future energy planning.
Some of the innovative research in these
countries could well be of global signifi-
cance.
Energy and International Equity
Decisions on energy sources can dra-
matically affect the international distri-
bution of wealth. High-priced oil, for
example, has brought a flood of dollars
?mostly from the rich industrial coun-
tries?to what had previously been
some of the world's poorest lands. The
rest of the Third World, although itself
hard hit by rising oil prices, has rather
steadfastly maintained its solidarity
with the oil exporting countries; rising
prices for raw materials are viewed as
crucial components of a far-reaching
new economic order, and oil is currently
the world's most important raw mater-
ial. Other countries that export natural
resources hope that OPEC's successful
price hikes will blaze a trail they can
follow.
Although the new economic order is
generally defined in terms of commodi-
ty prices and monetary reforms, its suc-
cess may hinge on the choice of a post-
petroleum energy source. Whereas com-
plex technologies Would divert a major
stream of scarce capital to the industrial
world, the development of safe sustain-
able sources could cause investment
dollars to flow in the other direction.
Direct and indirect solar sources thus
appear to hold a double economic
promise for the Third World.
Investment funds tend to become
available where energy is available. In-
dustries compete vigorously for the
right to build plants in the Middle East,
less to penetrate the region's small
markets than to be assured of a supply
of fuel. As renewable sources attract
more adherents, hard currencies can be
expected to flow to the world's richest
sources of sunlight, wind, water, and
biomass, and most of these are located
in the Third World.
If resource exporting countries are to
enter fully into a new economic order,
they must be able to process much of the
material they produce, tapping locally
available flows of energy. In an era of
diffuse energy resources, the enormous
use of energy that now characterizes the
industrial world would be spread out
over the entire globe. Instead of ship-
ping ore to Europe for refining, the pro-
ducing country would ship refined
metal. Containing "embodied" energy
derived from natural sources, the re-
fined metal is worth much more than
ore, so the exporting country would
achieve a more favorable balance of
trade. As an industrial infrastructure
takes shape, the exporting country
would also be able to produce and sell
more manufactured products.
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Waste heat from power plant heats greenhouses in Minnesota. Minnesota's Northern States
Power Company's Sherburn County power plant produces waste heat along with electricity.
The waste heat can be used to grow top quality vegetables and flowers during the harsh Min-
nesota winter. The Energy Research and Development Administration in Washington says
that this is the largest experimental greenhouse using waste heat from a power plant. If the
demonstration proves economically feasible, private commercial growers could begin oper-
ating their own facilities at this and other plant sites. In addition to selling electricity, the
power company would sell heat from water warmed during power generation. Photo: ERDA
Poverty is, of course, a matter of peo-
ple as much as of countries. Almost all
poor countries have some rich people,
and all rich countries have poor people.
Increases in national income do not
necessarily mean that the new wealth
will be shared. In some oil producing
countries, rising revenues have left the
rich richer and the poor untouched.
If vigorous conservation is to lead
eventually to an energy ceiling, popula-
tion growth must be constrained as en-
ergy is equalized. The alternative is to
divide a constant amount of energy
among an ever-increasing pool of peo-
ple. Population stabilization is impera-
tive both in the industrial world, where
non-renewable fuel consumption per
person is twenty to thirty times higher
than in the Third World, and in the
Third World, where burgeoning popu-
lation growth is outstripping traditional
energy. sources such as firewood. Like
energy itself, population is a global
problem, and it requires a worldwide
solution.
The development of renewable energy
sources cannot itself abolish poverty?
only widespread social and political
change can. But decentralized sources of
energy are compatible with a develop-
ment strategy that grows from the bot-
tom up, rather than one that merely
permits a few benefits to trickle down to
the masses from the elite in control of
centralized high technologies. The use
of appropriate energy sources will facili-
tate a more equitable distribution of
wealth and power both within and
among. nations, by transferring control
from distant corporations and bureauc-
racies to more responsive local units.
Energy and the Human Prospect
For 20 years, the world has pursued a
dead-end path. This energy route can-
not be changed without fundamentally
altering society. Some alternatives are
better than others because the changes
they dictate are relatively attractive, but
there is no way of avoiding some form
of pervasive change. If, for example, the
world were to opt for harmonious,
small-scale, decentralized, renewable
energy technologies, few aspects of
modern life would go unaffected.
Farms would begin to supply large
fractions of their own energy through
wind power, solar heaters, and technol-
ogies for harnessing the energy in agri-
cultural wastes. Such self-sufficient
farms would tend to be smaller and to
provide more employment than those
that prevailed in the oil era. Food stor-
age and preparation would slowly be
shifted to solar-powered technologies.
Meat consumption in the industrial
world would drop and the food process-
ing industry would become more ener-
gy-efficient and less pervasive in its im-
pact on diets.
In the new energy era, transportation
would be weaned from its petroleum
base even as improved communications
and intelligent city planning began to
eliminate pointless travel. Energy effi-
cency and load factors would become
important criteria in evaluating trans-
port modes and would be reflected in
the costs of travel. Bicycles would begin
to account for an important fraction of
commuter traffic as well as of other
short trips. And freight transport would
be transferred wherever possible to
more energy-efficient modes, especially
trains and ships.
If we were to opt for the best renew-
able energy technologies, buildings
could be engineered to take full advan-
tage of their environments. More and
more of the energy needed for heating
and cooling would be derived directly
from the sun. Using low-cost photo-
voltaics that convert sunlight directly
into electricity, many buildings could
eventually become energy self-suffi-
cient. New jobs and professions would
develop around the effort to exploit sun-
light, and courts would be forced to
consider the "right" of building owners
not to have their sunshine blocked by
neighboring structures.
While industry would doubtless turn
to coal for much of its energy during the
PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURE
Largest array of solar cells ever constructed will power a crop irrigation system on an experi-
mental farm near Mead, Nebraska. The project is being conducted for the U.S. Energy Re-
search and Development Administration by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Lin-
coln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Photo: ER DA
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transition period, eventually it would
also draw its primary energy from
natural flows. Thus, energy availability
would play an important role in deter-
mining the locations of future factories.
The sunshine-rich nations of the Third
World, where raw materials and renew-
able energy sources are most plentiful,
could become new centers of economic
productivity. The across-the-board sub-
stitution of cheap fuel for human labor
would be halted. Recycled metals,
fibers, and other materials would be-
come principal sources of raw materials.
Seen as energy repositories, manufac-
tured products would necessarily be-
come more durable and would be
designed to be easily repaired and re-
cycled.
Using small, decentralized, and safe
technologies makes sense from a sys-
tems management point of view. Small
units could be added incrementally if
rising demands required them, and they
would be much easier than large new
facilities to integrate smoothly into an
energy system. Small, simple sources
could be installed in a matter of weeks
or months; large, complex facilities
often require years and even decades to
erect. If gigantic power plants were dis-
placed by thousands of smaller units
dispersed near the points of end use,
economies of size would become rela-
tively less important vis-a-vis econo-
mies of mass production. Technology
would again concern itself with simpli-
city and elegance, and vast systems
would become extinct as more appropri-
ately scaled facilities evolved.
To decentralize power sources is in a
sense to act upon the principle of "safety
in numbers." When large amounts of
power are produced at individual facili-
ties or clusters of plants, the continued
operation of these plants becomes cru-
cial to society. Where energy produc-
tion is centralized, those seeking to
coerce or simply to disrupt the com-
munity can easily acquire considerable
leverage: for example, a leader of the
British electrical workers recently noted
that "the miners brought the country to
its knees in eight weeks," but that his co-
workers "could do it in eight minutes."
Disruption need not be intentional,
either. Human error or natural phenom-
ena can easily upset fragile energy net-
works that serve wide areas, while use
of diverse decentralized sources could
practically eliminate such problems.
The societies that will develop around
efficient, renewable, decentralized, sim-
ple, safe energy sources cannot be fully
visualized from our present vantage
point. Indeed, one of the most attractive
promises of such sources is a far greater
flexibility in social design than is afford-
ed by their alternatives. Though energy
sources may not dictate the shape of so-
ciety, they do limit its range of possi-
bilities, and diverse, dispersed energy
sources are more compatible than cen-
tralized technologies with social equity,
freedom, and political participation.
Societies based upon natural flows of
energy will have to wrestle with the con-
cept of limits. Endless and mindless
growth is not possible for nations living
on energy income instead of capital.
Such societies will need public policies
and ethics that disparage rather than
whet the appetite for frivolous con-
sumption. Materialism, which gives
sanction to what Voltaire saw as hu-
manity's perpetual enemies?poverty,
vice, and boredom?will need to be re-
placed by a new source of social vitality
that is less corrosive to the human spirit
and less destructive to the collective en-
vironment.
The attractions of sunlight, wind,
running water, and green plants as ener-
gy sources are self-evident. They are
especially appealing in their stark con-
trast to a world of nuclear garrison
states. Scarce resources would be con-
served, environmental quality would be
maintained, and employment would be
spurred. Decentralized facilities would
lead to a more local autonomy and con-
trol. Social and financial equity would
be increased, within and among
nations.
Had industrial civilization been built
upon such forms of energy "income" in-
stead of on the energy stored in fossil
fuels, any proposal to convert to coal or
uranium for the world's future energy
would doubtless be viewed with incred-
ulous horror. The current prospect,
however, is the reverse?a shift from
trouble-ridden sources to more attrac-
tive ones. Of the possible worlds we
might choose to build, an efficient solar-
powered one appears most inviting. jr.)
From Rays of Hope: The Transition to a
Post-Petroleum World by Denis Hayes. W.'
W. Norton, New York. 240 pages. Paper-
back. $3.95. Available from the World
Future Society's Book Service.
Strategies for
Conserving Energy
Ways to save energy include "leak-plugging" and "machine-
switching," says Denis Hayes in his book Rays of Hope. If all
else fails, there is "belt-tightening."
Americans waste more fuel each
year than is used by two-thirds of the
world's population, energy re-
searcher Denis Hayes reports in his
new book Rays of Hope. Overall,
fully 50% of all the energy generated
in the United States is lost through
inefficient consumption practices.
Most energy waste is a direct result
of entrenched policies that have en-
couraged energy extravagance,
Hayes says, but there is still much
that individuals can do to conserve.
He divides strategies for conserva-
tion into two types: (1) technical
solutions, which require changes in
the types of machinery we use or in
the way that we use them and (2) so-
cial solutions, which require changes
in the way we live and act. Adoption
of either type does not exclude the
other, but Hayes feels that it might
be advantageous to start with the
possible technical alternatives since
they involve essentially no behavior-
al alterations, and consequently
could be utilized by a larger segment
of the population.
Hayes characterizes technical con-
servation strategies as either "leak-
plugging," which eliminates waste in
existing technologies, or "machine-
switching," which involves the re-
placement of existing energy-con-
suming devices with ones with a
higher efficiency.
Leak-plugging on an individual
level includes tuning up your auto-
mobile, insulating your house, and
putting on a blanket when your feet
get cold. Machine-switching includes
purchasing a smaller car, installing a
heat pump in a building, and wear-
ing warmer socks.
Social solutions in energy conser-
vation include "belt-tightening" tac-
tics like turning off unnecessary
lights, driving cars more slowly, and
using heating and cooling systems
more sparingly. More vigorous en-
deavors of a cooperative nature in-
clude car pools, public transit, apart-
ment buildings, and joint ownership
or rental of infrequently used items.
"A comprehensive program of
energy conservation initiated today
will allow the earth's limited resource
base of high-quality fuel to be
stretched," Hayes says. "It will en-
able our descendants to share in the
earth's finite stock of fossil fuels. It
will make an especially critical dif-
ference to those living in underdevel-
oped lands where the marginal bene-
fit per unit of fuel used is far greater
than it is in highly industrialized
countries."
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Population and Education:
How Demographic Trends
Will Shape the U.S.
by Joseph F. Coates
Changing life-styles are transforming U.S. schools. More women are
entering the work force and marrying later, and fewer babies are being
born. Unless population trends are better understood, education plan-
ners may be increasingly baffled by changes in school enrollment.
Birthrates in the United States have
declined significantly over the past 18
years, with 28% fewer children being
born now than were born in 1959. This
"baby bust," which has followed the
post-war baby boom, has already re-
duced the number of children enrolled in
elementary school by about 10%, and a
drop of another 7 or '8% by the mid-
1980s is certain. As the children born
during the baby bust become older,
their numbers will affect high school en-
rollments. During the 1980s, enroll-
ments may drop as much as 25%. These
statistics represent a basic, nationwide
trend, but other demographic factors?
those which most concern planners on
the regional, state and local levels?
make school planning much more com-
plex and uncertain than simple aggre-
gate fertility rates suggest.
Other trends that will affect educa-
tion:
? Women are increasingly entering
the work force and staying longer. This
will create more demands to change cur-
riculum and add new school-centered
services.
? Continued immigration will place
special burdens on school systems in
major cities, where immigrants tend to
settle.
? Local mobility?the ease with
which populations move within this
country?will create increasing uncer-
tainty among education planners.
The principal impact of these demo-
graphic trends occurs at the state and lo-
cal levels. Since this is where most edu-
cation planning is done, improved
demographic study must begin at these
levels. To see just what problems arise
from these trends, it is useful to examine
them in detail.
Left: Crowds can be fun, but they may not
be beneficial to mental development. Child-
ren placed together with other children for
extended periods of time?as in daycare?
may experience slower intellectual growth.
Photo: Joe Di Dio, National Education Association
The Changing Family
The traditional image of the family?
mother, father, and children, around
which public policy has been framed?is
increasingly at odds with reality. The
growth of the single-parent family is one
of the major demographic trends affect-
ing schools. Approximately 45% of
children born in 1976 will have lived
with a single parent for some time be-
fore reaching 18 years of age. Between
1970 and 1976, the number of children
living with a divorced mother increased
by two-thirds, and the number living
with a single mother increased by about
40%. The number of female-headed
families with children has increased by
over 250% since 1950. These families
comprise 41% of all poverty-level fami-
lies; the limited income of these families
creates new demands and stresses on all
public services, including schools.
Another factor relating to marriage
and the family which can influence the
school is the tendency of women to de-
fer marriage. In 1970, 12% fewer 20-
year-old women had been married than
in 1960. The decline in the number of
married 24-year-olds was only 7%. This
suggests that women are not turning
away from marriage in any great num-
ber; they are merely delaying it. During
that period of deferral, women tend to
enter the work force or to continue their
education in order to prepare for work.
The entry of women into the work
force is perhaps the demographic trend
that most profoundly influences curri-
culum, services, the child's environment
and the whole family structure. The
shifting roles that women assume as
they enter the work force create a de-
mand for curriculum changes to prepare
women for their ntry. And working
mothers need services to take care of
their children.
The effects on schools of women in
the work force will be great. First, there
will be a decline in volunteerism. At a
time when the school system is experi-
encing greater demand for volunteers to
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meet the pressures for more services,
fewer women will be available. An ex-
ample of this has been experienced by
the League of Women Voters. Much of
the envelope-licking and stuffing that
once was done with free labor now must
be done on a fee-for-service basis be-
cause so many of the League's members
have moved into the work force. Simi-
lar effects will soon be felt by schools.
Demographers associate increasing
female participation in the work force
with a decline in the number of children
a family will bear. And education en-
courages participation in the work
force. In the future there will be a cycle
in which education promotes work,
work promotes a decline in fertility, and
declining fertility increases the problems
of elementary and secondary schools.
The increasing number of dual-income
families, especially among middle-class
managerial and professional house-
holds, provides more discretionary
money, money which may lead such
families to send their children to private
schools or to relocate their residences
outside of central cities. The exodus of
middle-class families may bring about a
big-city public school system whose sole
purpose is to educate the underclass.
Female participation in the work
force may lead to changes in the pur-
poses and structures of public schools.
Schools will face an increased demand
to overcome stylized gender roles asso-
ciated with occupational choices. Ca-
reer counselling may change to meet
new work-sex roles. The new role mod-
els for girls will probably increase the
number of students desiring vocational-
ly-oriented curricula and counselling.
Deferred marriage and earlier entry into
the work force may create a demand for
curricula that focus upon independent
living, and training in financial manage-
ment and personal affairs. Those who
live in the lowest economic strata and
are burdened by small children or single
parenthood need education that focuses
on improving one's economic status
through continuation course certifica-
tion and specially-tailored high-school
programs.
The increased demand for day care
and nursery care for preschool and
young school children of working moth-
ers may be met by the school systems.
For children roughly aged 7 to 13, the
school day is not quite long enough to
accommodate the needs of single-parent
working households. There are efforts
in some communities to extend the
length of afternoon care, not by extend-
ing the school day, but by extending the
use of school buildings. Some 15% of
children in this age group can be useful-
ly served by extending the use of facili-
ties from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The family is becoming less of a
dominant factor in the socialization of
Working Women
and Men
0,0
15 20
Age in Years
Labor force participation rates for men in
1974?and for women in 1974, 1960, 1950,
and 1940. More women are entering the
work force, and fewer are dropping out dur-
ing the childbearing years. This trend is in-
creasing demand for child care.
Chart: Juanita Kreps, ed.,
Women and the American Economy, 1976.
How Many Will
Be Born?
Much of the future will be in-
fluenced by present age distributions
and birth and death rates that prevail
now and in the coming years. The
age composition of the population is
in a state of continuous flux. As the
post-World War H baby boom age
group matures, it will create "waves"
of expanding and contracting age
groups.
Babies produced by the post-
World War II "baby boom" genera-
tion will create a second-wave effect
which is likely to create an upswing
in school populations by the mid-
1980s. Yet it appears that the long-
range trend in the United States is
toward fewer children. Recent sur-
vey data collected by the Bureau of
the Census on the birth expectations
of young wives aged 18 to 24 show
that nearly 75% expected two or
fewer children. If these young wives
achieve their expectations?and
other fertility surveys have shown a
fairly close correlation between the
number of children that women say
they want and the number that they
actually have?then they will experi-
ence an average 2.17 births per wom-
an. This works out almost exactly to
replacement fertility.
the child. A child now entering the first
grade may have been exposed to nur-
sery school or day care. He may have
been involved with Head Start or relat-
ted programs, or have had extensive ex-
posure to television. The size of his fam-
ily is different from what it was for chil-
dren born 10 years ago. Organized reli-
gious groups, grandparents and other
members of the family, and adult neigh-
bors seem to be playing a declining role
in the socialization of children.
The reduced amount of time available
for parenting in families where females
work may create a demand for new
school services that deal with functions
traditionally learned at home. Schools
may need to teach the skills of eating,
drinking, dressing, social behavior, de-
portment, manners, self-control, and
other functions to compensate for re-
duced parental care. In view of the un-
deruse of schools and of surplus teacher
capacity, the possibility of extending
school functions into these areas may
seem quite attractive to teachers' un-
ions. However, a word of caution is nec-
essary: Data from social psychological
literature indicate that children put to-
gether with large numbers of other chil-
dren for extended periods of time may
suffer a reduced mental development.
Immigration and Non-English
Speaking Students
Immigration accounts for one-fourth
of net population growth in the United
States. Since immigrants tend to settle in
metropolitan areas, continuing immi-
gration will create a chronic source of
stress for big-city school systems.
There is an interesting relationship
between high school dropout rates and
the language spoken at home. Where
English is the language spoken, or where
English is spoken along with some other
non-English language, the dropout rate
is between 8 and 10%. But where a lan-
guage other than English is the only lan-
guage spoken at home, the dropout rate
rises to 38%.
Among the specific population of
those of Spanish origin, the situation is
even worse. The principal non-English
language spoken in the United States by
people four years old and over is Span-
ish, spoken by almost 10 million people.
Among school-age children, about five
million speak Spanish as their primary
language. Where English is spoken
among families of Spanish descent, the
dropout rate of their children is 14 to
15%. Where only Spanish is spoken, the
dropout rate is 45 % .
Among students who do not measure
up to standard performance, non-Eng-
lish speaking students represent the big-
gest problem. Only 10% of English-
speaking students are two or more
grades below their peers. In grades one
through four, approximately 17% of the
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non-English speaking students are two
grades below mode; at the high school
level, some 35% are two or more grades
below mode.
The implication of these statistics is
significant when they are coupled with
the long-term movement of American
society toward that of an information
society. Approximately 55% of the
work force is now in the information
business. This situation raises questions
about the value of bilingual education,
and whether it denies students the
chance for an economically useful edu-
cation. The data suggest that, as now
taught, students of foreign origin may
be precluded from getting their first foot
up on the economic ladder.
If the higher cost of bilingual educa-
tion of students whose primary lan-
guage is not English precludes other pri-
orities, the level of education of English-
speaking students may be reduced, fur-
ther accelerating the decline of the ur-
ban school systems. Whether or not bi-
lingual education continues, the steady
stream of foreign-born students will re-
new the kinds of cross-cultural stresses
associated with students who are hard
to acculturate. This often results in de-
linquency and poor school perform-
ance, particularly for urban school sys-
tems. And proposed changes in the sta-
tus of new illegal immigrants might en-
courage them to make greater use of the
school system for their children. This
will especially affect big-city schools
About
the
Author
Joe Coates is Assistant to the Director of
the Office of Technology Assessment for
the U.S. Congress. Before joining OTA, he
served on the staff of the National Science
Foundation and the Institute for Defense
Analyses. He has also worked as a
research chemist and as a lecturer in philo-
sophy and chemistry, technology assess-
ment, and futurism.
His previous articles in THE FUTURIST
include: "Technology Assessment: The
Benefits the Costs ... the Conse-
quences" (December 1971) and "The Future
of the U.S. Government" (June 1972). His ad-
dress is Office of Technology Assessment,
U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C. 20510.
This article is adapted from testimony be-
fore the Subcommittee on Elementary, Sec-
ondary, and Vocational Education of the
Committee on Education and Labor of the
U.S. House of Representatives, May 10,
1977, and is based on an analysis he made
for the Office of Technology Assessment.
Preschooler "reads" to himself. The increasing entry of mothers into the workforce will in-
crease the demand for daycare. Photo: Joe Di Dio, National Education Association
and the smaller communities in the
Southwest and in California.
Local Mobility and Internal Migration
Internal mobility and migration are
perhaps the demographic factors that
most perturb education planners at the
state and local level. Between 16 and
18% of the U.S. population moves an-
nually. The data reveal some evidence
that people seem to be attracted to the
city for work and other opportunities;
but as they enter the childbearing years,
people have a tendency to move out of
central cities.
The cm.. rall effect of internal migra-
tion is a trend of movement out of the
city and into suburban and rural areas.
From 1970 to 1974, cities experienced a
net exodus of 1.8 million people. The
eight largest cities saw a net out-migra-
tion of 1.2%. Population growth in rur-
al areas during this same period was
5.6%, contrasting with a growth of 4%
for the nation as a whole. Educational
management in these nonmetropolitan
and small-community growth centers
may run into special problems, because
such growth was unexpected. The tax
base may be inadequate to meet the de-
mands caused by the influx of people,
and the social values of the new mi-
giants may be substantially at odds with
those of the local people. The redistribu-
tion of population will create an acute
problem for education planning in
boom towns. In order to come to grips
with the energy crisis, we will open up
coal resources in Wyoming, the Da-
kotas, Colorado and other areas in the
West, and Kentucky and southern Illi-
nois in the east. One can reasonably an-
ticipate surges in population for which
the local communities in these areas will
be totally unprepared.
There is a long-term trend toward the
equalization of regional incomes. Once
the nation's economic backwater, the
sun belt areas of the South, the South-
west and southern regions east of the
Rockies are all currently undergoing
economic growth. In the early 1930s, re-
gional income varied from 50% below
average to 50% above the national
average. In 1974 this range had nar-
rowed to about 15% to 20%. Equaliza-
tion may reduce regional differences in
cost and quality of education, undercut-
ting regional disparities of funds avail-
able per child on a statewide basis.
Migration in and out of metropolitan
areas is having the effect of concentrat-
ing minority students within the big cit-
ies and non-minority students outside
of those big cities. This phenomenon,
along with concern about the quality of
schools, and about the curricula, are in-
creasing white and middle-class dissatis-
faction. There are only a small number
of options open to middle-Ciass parents
who do not wish to have their children
experience the effects of the decline in
metropolitan school systems. One alter-
native is to withdraw the pupil to a pri-
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vate or parochial school. The data sug-
gest that families that have the financial
option of sending their children to pri-
vate schools tend to exercise it. Even
families with incomes in the $10,000-
$15,000 range often send children to pri-
vate schools.
For families without the income to
send their children to private schools,
the alternative may be a change of resi-
dence. Other options include early grad-
uation and entry into college?a process
that may stimulate programs of gradua-
tion based on credentials?and track-
ng, or grouping students by ability. In
any case the net effect of all these alter-
natives open to a white or middle-class
population?those dissatisfied with
school systems in urban areas?is reseg-
regation.
Teenage Childbearing
The only group in the United States
now undergoing significant expansion
in birthrates is that of females under age
15. Of the 3,144,198 live births in the
United States in 1975, 12,642 were born
to girls under 15 years of age. This situ-
ation has several implications for the
educational system. Young motherhood
interferes with the ability of the mother
to continue her education. Children
Bringing the School
to the Worker
Employers around the world are
recognizing the need for employees
to have more than mere technical
training, according to a report by the
Organization for Economic Cooper-
ation and Development (OECD).
If an employee is given an oppor-
tunity "to develop his whole per-
sonality" and engage in "creative
self-expression," the report says, he
will contribute more to the economy:
"Progress towards industrial demo-
cracy depends upon the existence of
well-informed employees."
Part of the movement to combine
education and training is based on
the growing belief that changing jobs
or social classes is a social right. But
the need to absorb greater amounts
of information just to keep up with
technical matters is barring most em-
ployees from taking the time and
money initiative to enroll in non-
technical courses. The OECD argues
that the employee requires financial
support, and the chance to devote
some of his working hours?or an
extended sabbatical leave?to con-
centrated study. In the future, the re-
port states, the employer will pro-
vide on-the-job study facilities?
places where a worker can study dur-
ing the working day, without loss of
income. For those who are unem-
ployed, governments will sponsor
training programs that lead directly
to available jobs.
A major problem facing most
adult education systems is their fail-
ure to attract the uneducated. Ac-
cording to the OECD, the majority
of adults enrolled in courses have al-
ready had more than 16 years of for-
mal education. Present systems often
have course prerequisites, or courses
that are beyond the capacity of the
uneducated. Many courses simply
have no practical relevance to work-
ers' careers. The OECD report says
that adult education in the future will
need to re-design methods of certifi-
cation and accreditation to meet the
needs of those wishing to catch up
with the national educational level.
Adult school systems will also need
to take into account the differences in
learning characteristics between
adults and children: Too many sys-
tems are based on traditional school-
ing methods that remind former un-
successful students of their unhappy
school careers. Thus many adult
dropouts avoid repeating the shame
and embarrassment of their youth.
In order to accommodate the un-
dereducated worker, adult schooling
will be more accessible and will be
complemented with specialized, in-
dustry-based, guidance counseling
systems. Teachers may be replaced
by part-time educators recruited
from the ranks of professions and in-
dustrial leaders. Courses will be
geared toward functional literacy,
second-language courses for immi-
grants, vocational retraining, and
civic and cultural literacy. They may
be taught in mini-courses conducted
at the workplace, with correspond-
ence courses, or through learning
machines and texts located in indus-
trial lunch rooms and recreation
areas.
Innovative adult education sys-
tems, the report claims, may revolu-
tionize world attitudes toward edu-
cation. Governments and industries
may come to see adult education as a
means of fostering true democracy
by giving all workers the opportun-
ity for personal, career, and cultural
advancement.
who are born to young mothers are far
more likely to suffer a variety of con-
genital defects. These children born to
adolescent mothers are themselves more
likely to bear children at an early age,
thus further burdening the school sys-
tem.
Junior high school curricula, services
and goals have never come to grips with
the onset of puberty. Especially critical
is the increasing rate of early sexual ac-
tivity among boys and girls of junior
high school and high school age, creat-
ing both immediate and long-term so-
cial and educational problems and needs
associated with adolescent childbearing.
Decline in Enrollment
The national decline in enrollments
does not imply universal distress?nor
is it a universal phenomenon. A decline
is occurring predominantly in the Mid-
west, Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific states,
Lone student works in an empty classroom.
Declining enrollment may make scenes like
this more common.
Photo: Joe Di Dio, National Education Association
while the South and Southwest are ex-
periencing a boom. To complicate mat-
ters further, both enrollment declines
and increases often occur in the same
state, with different small districts ex-
periencing both shrinking and growing
student populations. Especially hard hit
by the general trend will be the big cit-
ies, already in great fiscal distress.
Thirty-seven states have experienced
enrollment declines since 1970. Sixteen
of these states have lost at least 4% of
their students. Simultaneous with the
declining enrollments has been an in-
crease in minority enrollment in big cit-
ies. In the period between 1968 and
1974, the average student minority en-
rollment was 67.1%. School enrollment
in the 27 largest cities peaked in 1970,
and is now back at the level it was in
1962. The exodus seems to have oc-
curred primarily among middle-class
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Regional Incomes
Change in per-capita personal income as a percentage of the U.S. average, 1929-1974.
Regional income levels are becoming more equal as the South and Midwest begin to catch
up with the traditionally dominant northeastern and far western states. Broader national
distribution of income will tend to equalize regional educational differences.
-25
-27
-15
? Del. .30
? Md.-3
1:16- -43
States Gaining in States Losing in
Percentage of Average
0-24 percent
25 and over
Percentage of Average
0-24 percent loss
25 and over
Chart: Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Urban
Enrollments
(In
5.4
5.3
Enrollments
millions)
76
5.2
51
5.0
4.9
62.63
63-64 64-65 65-66 66 67
67-68 68-69 69 70
70-71 71 72
72 73
73-74 74 75
75
School enrollments in the 27 largest American cities have declined to the level they were in
1962, and they may drop even further. This change may transform urban school systerps in
the future. Chart: Council of the Great City Schools.
Students leave school building. Declining
population in major cities?along with the
exodus of the middle class from urban cen-
ters?is causing city schools to deteriorate.
Photo: Joe Di Dio, National Education Association
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The traditional image of the family?working father, housekeeping mother, and two chil-
dren?is becoming increasingly at odds with reality in the United States. Some 45% of chil-
dren born in 1976 will have lived with a single parent for some time before reaching 18 years
of age. Among two-parent families, an increasing number have both parents in the work
Photo: USDA
force.
Other Trends
Affecting Education
A variety of non-demographic fac-
tors are likely to interact with demo-
graphic trends to change the schools
of the future.
? Energy will have many impacts
on education. Direct effects include
fuel costs for heating, transportation
and busing; long-term effects on the
structure and design of school build-
ings; and a movement toward larger-
size school districts to allow for
larger buildings. Indirect effects in-
clude a reduction in the discretionary
income of families, which may affect
the amount of expenditures taxpay-
ers will allow schools. Scarce energy
may increasingly encourage people
to live closer to the areas where they
work?and perhaps bring the mid-
dle-class back to the city.
? Civil rights movements have in-
creased the percentage of children
bused to and from school. Increasing
busing costs may cause curtailment
of other school costs in a time of
shrinking budgets and inflation.
? The rise of the knowledge indus-
tries?trade, finance, real estate,
transportation, communication, etc.
?has occurred simultaneously with
a decline in the percentage of work-
ers in other areas. The major, basic
new trend in the labor sector is a
movement toward knowledge-based
and knowledge-dependent indus-
tries. Since the information society
puts a great demand on the ability to
read and write English, the comple-
tion of some level of formal educa-
tion, either high school or college, is
a crucial element in being able to
take the first few steps on the eco-
nomic mobility ladder.
? Flextime and other alternative
work schedules may enable more
women to work and thus may in-
crease the demand for day-care serv-
ices. On the other hand, flextime
may permit more informal familial,
neighborhood and other non-institu-
tionalized day-care arrangements,
which may reduce the demand for
childcare services in schools or other
formal institutions.
and white students. Looking at a sample
of those 27 cities, one finds that the per-
cent of minority school enrollment in al-
most every case is substantially above
the percent minority population in the
city. For example, Atlanta has a 52%
minority population; minority students
there comprised 85% of the school sys-
tem in 1974. Denver's population is
11% minority; in the schools, 47%. St.
Louis is 41% minority; the school sys-
tem is 70% minority. And the same is
true of impoverished families. The per-
cent of students from poor families in
the big cities is far in excess of the per-
cent of families in poverty: 33.4% ver-
sus 11.6% .
Response to Decline in Enrollment
In the face of declining enrollment,
there are three general strategies avail-
able to school administrators: One al-
ternative is to shrink by reducing staff
and the so-called "frills" such as sports,
music, and art. The second alternative is
to expand services to current educa-
tional clientele. Places to expand in-
clude after-school care, courses in per-
sonal development, expansion of curri-
culum, and smaller classes with more
individualized attention.
A third solution for school systems
facing declining enrollment is to expand
services to include new clientele. Pre-
school day-care may be part of this so-
lution. Another is the entry of school
functions into health services (such as
immunization) and community center
functions. But the most important new
client for secondary school systems may
be the adult. Adults have the need for
credentials, courses teaching career
skills, hobbies and recreation, and train-
ing of economic value, such as car and
home repair. And one can anticipate
that the coming increase in costs of ener-
gy will create a demand for courses
teaching home conservation.
The Need for Improved Demographic
Studies
Familiarity with local circumstances
can play a major part in determining
whether or not a given forecast is useful
to policy planners. In general, however,
there is not enough expertise at the state
and local levels to meet this need. The
Census Bureau's state-level population
projections are about 10 years old. The
upcoming Census of 1980 will give sub-
stantial opportunity to improve the
means of collecting data on a local level.
The need for demographic research rele-
vant to plans concerning adult educa-
tion, day care, nursery care, and after-
school services is increasing along with
the increased demand for such services.
Such demographic data is essential for
the wise policy-making needed to build
effective educational systems for the fu-
ture.
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OMMEMEr
11111...MMI
omm,Pm'
by William Abbott
Technological breakthroughs will continue to change the
world of work in the years ahead. But the workplace may
be affected even more by the continuing revolutions in
values, consciousness, knowledge, and equality. These
changes are already transforming labor unions and
universities, and have brought about an unusual alliance
of Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Government.
Although the work environment
will expand in the next few decades to
include outer space and the depths of
the oceans, the most important
changes in the workplace will be con-
siderably more down to earth. Those
changes will involve how the worker
prepares for his job, how he updates
his training, and how he interacts with
management as part of the decision-
making process.
,15kil1ed_warkers will have to attend
school at. least four times in their lives
TO- be totally retrained Frequent
retraining is already necessary in a
number of trades. For example, mem-
bers of the Graphic Arts International
Union must now be retrained three or
four times during their working lives,
according to Union President Kenneth
Brown. The International Brother-
hood of Electrical Workers now has 57
of its members rewriting textbooks
because about 10% of the technical_
knowfareiri the industry becomes ob-
solete each year.
Industrial workers will be employed
in autonomous work teams, making
their own production decisions. Facto-
ry work will be organized horizontally,
with employers and employees making
joint production decisions. This
"unimanagement" is already occur-
ring in a few factories as a result of
agreements between the United Auto
Workers (UAW) and the Harman,
Rockwell, and Dana Corporations. At
Harman Industries in Bolivar, Ten-
nessee, worker-supervisor core com-
mittees plan production within each
department, subject to review by a
plantwide union-management work
committee. At a Dana Corporation
plant at Edgerton, Wisconsin, produc-
tion committees of workers and fore-
men elect a union-management
screening committee, which sifts the
production committee's suggestions as
to how best to organize the factory's
production. In Europe, co-determina-
tion has made rapid strides. A 1973
Swedish law put union representa-
tives on corporate boards. A 1976
West German law gives workers the
right to elect half of the directors of
firms employing over 2,000 people.
Worker participation in management
is increasing dramatically in a number
of Western and Eastern European
countries. The reason behind this
movement, according to Andre Thiria,
International Secretary of the
Swedish Confederation of Trade
Unions, is that "demands are being
raised for a better work environment
and more satisfaction on the job,
while at the same time mechanization
and streamlining of production makes
it more difficult to meet these de-
mands." Joint labor-management
decision-making is an attempt to solve
this dilemma.
Workers will schedule their own
hours under flexitime. Many will work
at home. Most workers will probably
hold two jobs or go to college on a
part-time basis. (The need for lifelong
learning will be a generally accepted
principle.)
Economist Eli Ginzberg points out
that 45% of employed Americans now
work less than full-time for the whole
year and that 30% of all work is per-
formed by less than full-time workers.
This trend is likely to continue.
Collective bargaining will continue,
but fist-banging will give way to joint
problem-solving task forces and argu-
ments over the interpretation of data
in books and budgets that are open to
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labor as well as management. Labor
relations will increasingly become a
battle among intellects. Union leaders
are going to college, and are beginning
to run for office by pointing to com-
munity college degrees in labor as a
qualification for elected office. Some
go on for a four-year education. In at
least one instance, company execu-
tives and union leaders sit in the same
class as they pursue a labor studies
two-year degree at Black Hawk Col-
lege in Moline, Illinois. In 1976,
faculty, staff, and administration at
Federal City College (now the Univer-
sity of the District of Columbia) ran a
joint program where labor played the
role of management and vice versa.
In order to keep their identity and
the loyalty of the members, unions
will become more a way of life than a
simple bread-and-butter organization.
UAW sends entire families to its ex-
tensive Walter and May Reuther
Family Education Center at Black
Lake, Michigan. Husband, wife, and
children are all taught union leader-
ship. Retirees now play an integral
role in the union's program. In-
creasingly, the kind of leadership
UAW is talking about is that of meet-
ing the needs of the whole personality.
Next in the union's bargaining
program, according to President
Leonard Woodcock, is a sabbatical
leave just like that of university
professors.
Multiple Revolutions
Transform the Workplace
On top of a continuing technological
revolution in the 1970s, the decade
has been marked by several concur-
rent revolutions: the Equality Revolu-
tion, the Knowledge Revolution, the
Value Revolution, and the Conscious-
ness Revolution.
The Equality Revolution, while far
from complete, nevertheless has
brought some giant employment
strides. Blacks and other ethnic
minorities have made gains largely
through the impetus of the civil rights
struggles of the 1960s, often consum-
mated in affirmative action legisla-
tion. In the 1970s, women have also
demanded equal treatment. In
employment, while the number of
employed males has increased 26%
since 1950, the number of female
workers has soared 93% during the
same period.
By the year 2001, there will proba-
bly be new battles launched by those
struggling against established
orthodoxies. Social utopia will remain
elusive as solutions to old problems
create difficulties anew. People with
an ideological, emotional, or material
investment in what is established will
be confronted by an imaginative
avant-garde pressing for ever greater
rapidity of change.
If one accepts Arnold Toynbee's
definition of the proletariat as that
group which feels itself disinherited,
the "lower class" may be that which
gets pushed aside in the Knowledge
Revolution, which is beginning to mix
practical work values and a liberal
education together into a new recipe
for success, leaving behind those who
cannot put the two together inside
their personalities. To a greater
degree than ever before in history,
tomorrow's worker will have to
become something of a scholar, and
today's scholar will have to learn
communication, administration, and
other practical skills to stay on top.
Consequently, the 1980s will see more
organized groups clamoring for a piece
of the educational action, insisting
that institutions gear themselves to
meet their special needs.
"Many of the best
ideas for the future
may come from senior
citizens, who will have
the advantage of
continual educational
renewal as well as the
richness of their
experience."
In 1976, apprentices in the skilled
trades began to ask for two-year col-
lege degrees which included English,
humanities, and social sciences as part
of their training. The Operating
Engineers Union responded by initiat-
ing a dual enrollment program?a
worker could study either for a college
degree or for the traditional certifi-
cate. Under this program and others,
job training has tended to take on the
character of a general education.
A related development has been the
rapid proliferation of community col-
leges in recent years. In a period dur-
ing which many of the more tradi-
tional universities have been going
through doldrum agonies, the com-
munity colleges have been thriving. In
1974, community college enrollment
was up 12.1%; in 1975, it increased an
additional 15.4%.
The rise of the community colleges
has been accompanied by the birth of
a new kind of educator who goes into
the neighborhoods, plans courses with
adult students, and learns to com-
municate with them in their language.
He or she is part teacher, part
recruiter, part administrator, part
counselor, part planner, part innova-
tor, and, on the whole, quite successful
in these roles. This new educator does
his job on campuses, in neighborhood
drop-in centers, in churches, union
halls, factories, and storefronts, and in
homes. In the future, he may reach
many people in their homes through
various electronic media, as well as
through personal visits.
The flaw in the new form of higher
education is that research and
materials development have not kept
up with the innovations. The
challenge to universities is to provide
scholarship synthesized with non-
esoteric communication styles to
uphold this redefinition of education.
The community colleges need the
universities if they are to accomplish
their mission.
Workers Demand Education
In the 1970s, the Equality Revolu-
tion has taken a social-class turn, with
workers beginning to demand the
same educational opportunities en-
joyed by other classes. They are being
attracted by colleges that count their
work experience as credit toward
degrees and that are best equipped to
help them as adults to update or
change their skills and broaden their
life as well as work options.
Business also has turned to higher
education for help. Industry spent at
least $10 billion on its own training
program in 1975. But even this stag-
gering amount was not enough to do
the job. To meet its more pressing
training needs, business has looked to
the higher education institutions with
the most flexibility; more often than
not, they have been the community
colleges. Earlier this year, for exam-
ple, the National Automobile Dealers
Association announced a unique two-
year degree program at community
colleges for aspiring auto mechanics.
The dealers are convinced that simply
learning how to repair a car is no
longer enough. An auto mechanic
must also have a greater knowledge of
society and be able to communicate
effectively.
The UAW, in recent years, has
negotiated tuition assistance ranging
from $450-$700 a year. In 1976, the
union bargained an increase to $900
per member per year from the Ford
Motor Company. This year, the UAW
expects to extend this $900 benefit to
over a million workers.
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iu
Nationwide, a total of two million
members of various unions are
covered by such tuition aids; an addi-
tional four million unionists benefit
from apprenticeship training funds, a
substantial amount of which finds its
way into community colleges.
In 1976, Bernard DeLury, then U.S.
Assistant Secretary for Labor-
Management Relations, expressed
hope that the number of workers
receiving such aid would soon be
much higher. DeLury called for "a
negotiated careers program" which
would use "collective bargaining as a
means of opening the door to clerical,
technical, professional and manage-
ment jobs for workers in the bargain-
ing unit." Counselors would be
available to advise the worker on "the
need for good reading ability and
language skills" and to recommend
colleges and universities that could
best satisfy his needs. The counselor
would also "talk with management
about providing opportunities to learn
about the overall production in the
plant and the various departments
related to it .... The counselor would
work with training and higher educa-
tion institutions to develop a tailor-
made, work-integrated program for
this worker which leads to a creden-
tial, and perhaps even a degree in
Business Administration." The Inter-
national Union of Electrical Workers
has already run a successful experi-
ment for its membership in this type of
counseling.
The flow of workers into college is
taking place in Europe, too. A 1971
French law gives educational leaves to
most of the nation's work force. The
faculties of France's overcrowded
universities have not been wildly
enthusiastic about the idea of catering
to swarms of workers. The British
government has also attempted to
open up higher education to the com-
mon people, and met similar faculty
resistance. As the Organization of
Economic Cooperation and Develop-
ment's Centre for Educational
Research and Innovation dourly
noted, "There is no evidence that any
impetus for educational leaves of ab-
sence came from the education sector
itself." British historian Harold
Perkin observes that while left-wing
majorities now dominate many Ger-
man universities, working class stu-
dents are discouraged from attending
them. "Left-wingers," says Perkin,
"are as academically conservative and
elitist as the rest."
Thus a new class struggle has
shaped up, with government, business,
and more pragmatic-minded unions
attempting to get the lowly commoner
into college, while academic
ideologues, both left and right, team
up to pour cold water over such a
move.
Colleges Begin to Emphasize
Community Service
The burgeoning community colleges
and the faltering universities in the
United States and Canada have
engaged in some struggles over turf;
however, as early as the late 1960s,
survival-minded four-year institu-
tions quietly began a shift in emphasis
from the traditional academic pattern
to that of community service.
A good method of measuring this
change is to compare "faculty" to a
new breed of professionals providing
services to the academic as well as the
larger community. At the University
of Hawaii, the regular faculty mem-
bers are called "nine-month
employees," while professionals
engaged in year-round service-type
duties (which could mean anything
from teaching to program planning to
administration?or a combination of
those skills) have been labeled "11-
month employees." In 1973, the 11-
month personnel numerically edged
out the nine-month faculty as the
university sought to provide more ser-
vices to more people of varying ages
and walks of life. This is the mark of a
"communiversity," for in 1973 one out
of every 16 men, women, and children
who lived in Hawaii participated in
some program of the University
system.
Education has taken a totally new
direction. People of all ages and social
classes will continually have to seek
an updating of their education simply
to cope with the fast-paced changes
swirling within the world of work. If
they are to avoid drowning in the
whirlpool of change, they will have to
return to school recurrently to update
their skills. Many of the best ideas for
the future may come from senior
citizens, who will have the advantage
of continual educational renewal as
well as the richness of their ex-
perience.
In 1976, the American Board of
Family Practice made 1,400 family
doctors take tests to see if they had
kept abreast of advances in the field.
If they failed, the Board would not
renew their certification. No line of
work is safe now from the demands of
lifelong learning.
It should be clear that the separa-
tion between work and education is
disappearing. By the year 2001, most
Americans will not be able to separate
one from the other very easily, and
perhaps there will also be no clear
demarcation between education and
ordinary living.
To cope with living in today's
society, 17 million people have
enrolled in adult education classes.
This figure may appear impressive,
but it fails to match the need. A
University of Texas study concluded
that twice that number of people are
functionally incompetent to cope with
their personal consumer economics.
The study warned: "If the require-
ments change and the individual does
not adapt by either acquiring more or
different knowledge and skills, then
that person becomes less competent."
Simply remaining proficient at liv-
ing requires lifelong education, ac-
cording to Edmund J. Gleazer, Presi-
dent of the American Association of
Community and Junior Colleges.
The Knowledge Revolution is
described best by Robert Hillard,
educational broadcasting specialist
for the Federal Communications Com-
mission:
"At the rate at which knowledge is
growing, by the time the child born to-
day graduates from college, the
amount of knowledge in the world will
be four times as great. By the time
that same child is 50 years old, it will
be 32 times as great, and 97% of
everything known in the world will
have been learned since the time the
child was born."
Many jobs will become obsolete so
quickly that no one will think in terms
of career education but rather of a
lifetime of multiple careers.
Knowledge Workers Will
Proliferate
One of the largest vocations will be
knowledge workers, many of them
condensing torrents of new informa-
tion into frequent newsletters and
tapes for all manner of national
organizations, local affiliates, and in-
dividuals. "Capsi-Knol" (capsuled
knowledge) will employ several
"Hierarchy will vanish
in offices, to be
replaced by autonomous
self-directors who will
probably waste too
much time at meetings
coordinating
themselves."
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Do-Goodism: A Growing "Industry"
"There will be more people mak-
ing a career out of helping other
people in the year 2000 than there
will be in any other occupation,"
predicts William Abbott in a recent
article in CAREERS TOMOR-
ROW.
U.S. Census Bureau statistics
show that the number of volunteers
helping other people increased
from 24.3 million in 1964 to 36.8
million in 1974. Among these
volunteers, reports Abbott, were
"church members helping to fix up
dilapidated homes in Appalachia,
businessmen working out plans for
a self-help cooperative with ghetto
blacks, union carpenters donating
free time to build low-income hous-
ing, a biology instructor giving free
yoga lessons to young people, a doc-
tor coaching a Little League team,
and a welfare recipient organizing
an arts and crafts club."
This increasing interest in help-
ing others will also lead to a
greater number of paid jobs in
altruistic fields, Abbott says. As
evidence for this trend, he cites the
types of job training now offered by
community colleges. "In the
paraprofessional field alone, one
can get a degree as a social work
technician, a legal technician, a
planning technician, or a health
technician. Most of these new op-
portunities have cropped up in the
last three years and they often in-
volve low-income people who
several years ago could only look
forward to mopping floors or
sweating in small workshops."
"Do-goodism is becoming such a
powerful force in our society that it
may bring about a fundamental
political realignment," concludes
Abbott. "Future partisan battles
may be fought between 'open-min-
ders' and 'closed-minders': the first
group oriented toward unfettered
experimentation, the other group
more prone to doctrines and
authorities." Those battles could
determine how large a role altru-
ism will play in government policy-
making in the year 2000.
hundred thousand readers,
researchers, interpreters, writers and
technicians.
Typists and file clerks will dwindle
as speakwriters (typewriters that take
dictation) and robotized filing
machines take over routine office
work. Hierarchy will vanish in offices,
to be replaced by autonomous self-
directors who will probably waste too
much time at meetings coordinating
themselves. There will be bursts of
creativity before the iron law of
oligarchy stultifies workers in an
organization, at which point Albert
Camus's idea of permanent rebellion
against what exists will pick up a large
following.
The alliance of Big Government,
Big Business, and Big Labor in bring-
ing about some of these changes in the
workplace has created suspicions
among some people who feel that the
"little person" is increasingly at the
mercy of giant forces. Due to their
fears, the resisters have not recognized
the need for rapid educational change,
and thus have programmed them-
selves into the vortex.
People who feel powerless will form
new organizations and coalitions in
the years ahead in order to cope with
the tidal wave against tradition and to
protect the interests of the average in-
dividual in the emerging new society.
They will demand decentralized,
grass-roots economic and social plan-
ning where their voices can be heard
and their input counted. Popular Par-
ticipatory Planning (PPP) for more or-
derly social change (Alvin Toffler
calls it "anticipatory democracy" )
may be as universally revered in 2001
as the Fourth of July is today in the
United States.
New Values Affect the
Marketplace
Concurrently, we are in the midst of
a Value Revolution. For many people,
the acquisition of material symbols no
longer is the primary goal in life. A
President of the United States wears
blue jeans; the rich move out of the
suburbs into the city's inner core;
compact cars are favored by those who
have long ago arrived and want to go
someplace else; Ph.D.'s sneer at ad-
vanced degrees.
In gaining the world, many dis-
covered they had misplaced their
souls. While much of the population is
still laboring mightily for orthodox
middle-class goals, the children of the
well-to-do stick an irreverent finger
into the air at such strivings. This
value gap caused much hostility bet-
ween "hippies" and "the establish-
ment" in the 1960s. But in recent
years, in a less ostentatious manner,
more people have accepted non-
material values, albeit rather clum-
sily, because of a general uncertainty
about what values should replace
those being discarded.
In the future, the search for ways to
fill one's leisure time with fun will in-
tensify greatly. Alvin Toffler writes of
future "experiential industries," in-
cluding simulated environments that
would be enclaves of the past and
would allow people to experience the
kind of life their ancestors lived.
"Thus," Toffler says, "computer ex-
perts, roboteers, designers, historians,
and museum specialists will join to
create experiential enclaves that
reproduce, as skillfully as sophisti-
cated technology will permit, the
splendor of ancient Rome, the pomp of
Queen Elizabeth's court, the `sexotic-
ism' of an 18th-century Japanese
geisha house, and the like."
Tourism, already big, will become
bigger in the years ahead. Two
decades from now, many tours may
begin with an audio-visual panorama
that will brief tourists on the sights
they will see and get them in the right
mood to visit the sites. There will also
be "consult-a-historian" services
where tourists can enter private coun-
seling rooms for an in-depth talk with
an expert. Regional craft people will
not just show tourists how they weave
rugs or fashion pottery, but will teach
tourists the skills. A mark of status in
the year 2001 will be to have a home
furnished with the objects that you
yourself have constructed.
The search for roots in a turbulent
world will make history more popular
than ever before, and indeed, parallels
will be found between the cult of self-
improvement of the 1830s and 1840s
and that of the 1970s and 1980s.
Perhaps history moves in cycles: The
new cooperation between labor and
management in the latter 1970s,
coupled with way-of-life unionism,
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Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, recreates 19th-century maritime life. In shops
like those on Seaport Street (above), craftsmen still ply their trades in sup-
port of the shipbuilding, whaling, fishing, and shipping industries. In the year
2001, craftsmen may be teaching their skills to tourists, not simply
demonstrating them.
Photo: Russell A. Fowler, Mystic Seaport, Inc.
Tourists wait their turn for a stagecoach ride in Old Tucson, Arizona. This
replica of 1860s Tucson was originally a movie location set, but is now also a
major tourist attraction with shops that are permanently in operation. A town
like Old Tucson could have important educational applications in the future,
with students learning their history lessons by "living in the past" for a few
weeks or months.
Photo: Courtesy of Tucson Chamber of Commerce
Visitors ride in a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Colonial
Williamsburg, Virginia, a restored community which includes 88 original
18th- or 19th-century houses, shops, taverns, and public buildings. Such
enclaves of the past may be increasingly popular as people search for roots in
a turbulent world.
Photo: Colonial Williamsburg
Experiential
Communities May
Thrive in Future
"Enclaves of the past" may be
very much in demand as tourist at-
tractions in the year 2001, says
author William Abbott, because
"the search for roots in a turbulent
world will make history more
popular than ever before." People
may take great pride in visiting
such a community and mastering
some of the skills of their ancestors.
"Regional craft people will not just
'show tourists how they weave rugs
or fashion pottery, but will teach
tourists the skills," says Abbott. "A
mark of status in the year 2001 will
be to have a home furnished with
the objects that you yourself have
constructed."
Alvin Toffler, author of the best-
seller Future Shock, has suggested
that people suffering from future
shock could retreat to enclaves of
the past similar to Colonial
Williamsburg, Virginia, Mystic
Seaport, Connecticut, and Old Tuc-
son, Arizona, where they could live
for periods ranging from a few days
to several years. Living and work-
ing in one of these enclaves could
also be a valuable educational ex-
perience for students. "Such living
education would give them a
historical perspective no book
could ever provide," Toffler
declares.
Toffler speculates that "com-
puter experts, roboteers, designers,
historians, and museum specialists
will join to create experiential
enclaves that reproduce, as
skillfully as sophisticated tech-
nology will permit, the splendor of
ancient Rome, the pomp of Queen
Elizabeth's court, the 'sexoticism'
of an 18th-century Japanese geisha
house, and the like."
Work Newsletter
For those who wish to keep in-
formed about the latest develop-
ments in the area of work and
careers, the World Future Society
is now publishing a bimonthly
newsletter called CAREERS
TOMORROW. The eight-page
newsletter contains articles on
work, labor unions, compensation,
job opportunities, industrial rela-
tions, and workplaces. CAREERS
TOMORROW is available for $6 a
year for Society members and $9
for non-members and libraries.
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bears some striking resemblances to
the old-time guilds.
Consciousness Revolution Will
Continue
And the quest for inner peace has
led to another revolution?the Con-
sciousness Revolution. "Psychenauts"
(a term coined by behavioral scientist
Jean Houston) are currently probing
inner space to help people find levels
of consciousness to better communi-
cate with themselves and with others.
Already, there are 8,000 methods ad-
vocated as the right road to happiness.
Werner Erhard has already sold his
"est" to 83,000 individuals at $250
each for a 60-hour "experience" in
discovering alternative realms of con-
sciousness within oneself. Awareness,
a big business now, will get bigger.
People will invest heavily in psychic
process classes, in meditation and
other methods of inner development,
finding and using senses they may
have never been aware of before.
Already the consciousness move-
ment is being co-opted to a significant
degree by churches, colleges, and other
established institutions who see sur-
vival or institutional progress in their
ability to keep up with change. The
Author William Abbott, editor of the
World Future Society's CAREERS
TOMORROW newsletter, reports that
unions are beginning to seek in-
creased educational opportunities for
their members, so that they can keep
up with changes in the workplace and
in society.
U.S. military is researching telepathy
since the Russians are also doing it.
Spiritual development and
organized religion may not be quite
the same in the year 2001, but humans
are social in nature and they need the
reinforcement of others to identify
themselves. All social beliefs which at-
tract sizeable followings, including
communism, have religious overtones;
hence, nothing in the future is likely to
wipe human religiosity out.
The prognosis for the future can
look bright with one important pro-
viso. If the heavily industrialized na-
tions ignore the multiplying problems
of developing regions, a titanic strug-
gle could take place between the haves
and have-nots. The powerful countries
of the world could make a better
future guarantee if they would pool
their resources to wage the only war
worth fighting?the war on human
misery and degradation.
William Abbott, editor of the World
Future Society's CAREERS TOMORROW
newsletter, is also Director of the Service
Center for Community College-Labor
Union Cooperation of the American
Association of Community and Junior Col-
leges, 1 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20036.
Will Diplomas Need To Be Renewed?
In the future, university degrees
may expire automatically unless they
are renewed after the degree-holder's
abilities are checked.
The rapid increase in new
knowledge creates a need for con-
tinuous updating of professional
skills, according to Leland R. Kaiser,
comprehensive health planner with
the University of Colorado.
"The credential loses most of its
meaning in a period of rapid
knowledge obsolescence," Kaiser says
in an article in the January-February
issue of Hearing and Speech Action.
"A piece of paper representing an
academic or any other formal
qualification can only assure compe-
tence for a short period of time. The
emphasis will be upon demonstrated
competence retested at frequent inter-
vals."
People will need to be "life-long
learners," Kaiser says, and institu-
tions will need to offer programs of
continuing education and self-
directed learning "to meet the
challenge of rapid educational recyc-
ling."
Already in many localities physi-
cians and school teachers, among
other professional groups, must show
proof of continuing education for
periodic recertification.
Kaiser also foresees an increase in
education for sensory enrichment.
"New emphasis on quality of life,"
he says, "is moving us towards a posi-
tive definition of health. Positive
health means actualization?develop-
ment of the highest potential. Since
the sensory organs connect the human
being to the external world, the
quality of life depends upon sensory
enrichment and awareness training."
He expects that this kind of training
will be especially beneficial to older
people.
The percentage of older people in
the population will increase, Kaiser
says, as medical services become more
advanced and more available, and as
the birth rate continues to decrease.
The elderly increasingly will become a
political force in the United States.
Kaiser expects the United States to
adopt some form of national health in-
surance, in order to solve some of the
problems of increasing cost and une-
qual access to health services. He also
looks for a continuation of the trend
toward transfer economics?that is,
federal monies being returned for dis-
tribution by the states and counties in
the form of revenue sharing and other
local distribution plans.
Increasing accountability of human
service agencies will result from rising
costs and the disappearance of
philanthropic funds, plus the exis-
tence of a better-educated public. As
the health goals of society far outstrip
its resources for health care in the
years immediately ahead, Kaiser sees
much more use of quality standards,
agency assessments, cost-benefit
analysis, and peer review. Voluntary
not-for-profit health organizations
may lose their tax-exempt status
unless they can show that their ser-
vices are of real benefit to the com-
munity.
A growth of consumer advocacy
may lead to public regulation of the
health professions and their schools.
"The image of the health professional
is becoming increasingly tarnished on
television and in the newspapers,"
Kaiser says. 0
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-Wrna\c`,4a.
The Views of 50 Distinguished World Citizens
and Educators
by Harold G. Shane
What will the world be like at the start of the next century
and how should educators help people to prepare for it?
To answer this question, the National Education Associa-
tion, which represents about two million U.S. teachers,
sought the opinions of a group of carefully selected
leaders. In the following article, a futurist-educator sum-
marizes their conclusions.
In 1972 the National Education
Association established a Bicenten-
nial Committee to commemorate the
principles of the American Revolu-
tion, and also to consider the next 100
years of U.S. education in an interde-
pendent global community.
As one of its goals, the Bicentennial
Committee sought to determine
whether the "Seven Cardinal Princi-
ples of Education" are valid for the
21st century or how they should be
revised.
The Cardinal Principles were a
statement of educational goals that
were first published in 1918 and
became perhaps the most important
guidelines ever to appear; their in-
fluence on U.S. schooling, at least, has
been enormous. The goals of educa-
tion, according to the 1918 statement,
are: (1) development of health,
(2) command of fundamental pro-
cesses, (3) worthy home membership,
(4) vocational competence,
(5) effective citizenship, (6) worthy
use of leisure, and (7) ethical
character.
After much careful discussion, a
Project Pre-Planning Committee
selected a panel of about 50 dis-
tinguished persons, both in the U.S.
and from overseas, to be interviewed.
The participants were asked to res-
pond to three questions:
1. In broad terms, and barring
such catastrophes as nuclear war,
what are some of the charac-
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teristics of the most probable
world you foresee by the 21st cen-
tury?
2. In view of this image of the
future, what imperative kills
should education seek to develop?
Also, in anticipation of the 21st
century, what premises should
guide educational planning?
3. Have the original (1918) car-
dinal principles retained their
merit? If so, what are the new ways
in which they now should be in-
terpreted, amended, or applied in
anticipation of changing social,
economic, and political conditions
in the world community?
While no attempt was made to
secure a scientific sample, the Project
Pre-Planning Committee endeavored
to include panelists whose ideas com-
manded respect, who represented the
views of persons in other countries,
who were geographically widespread,
who were representative of the
polycultural and multiethnic fabric of
American so6ety, and who were ac-
tive in many different fields of human
endeavor.
Among the panelists were Roy
Amara, President of the Institute for
the Future in Menlo Park, California;
sociologist Elise Boulding; economist
Lester R. Brown; McGeorge Bundy,
President of the Ford Foundation;
Wilbur J. Cohen, former U.S. Secre-
tary of Health, Education and
Welfare; Israeli political scientist
Yehezkel Dror; Willis W. Harman,
Director of Stanford Research In-
stitute's Social Policy Research
Center; Theodore M. Hesburgh, Presi-
dent of the University of Notre Dame;
and David Rockefeller, President of
the Chase Manhattan Bank.
To provide a "youth view," a panel
of 96 high school students were asked
what they hoped to be doing in 2001
and how they felt that education could
help them attain their future-focused
role images.
More than 80 hours of individual
panelists' tapes were recorded. An ad-
ditional 18 hours of dialogue were ob-
tained from youth, who were mainly
interviewed in small groups.
The Next 25 Years
What sort of world did the panelists
foresee in 1976-2001? While the
sophisticated international partici-
pants in the NEA inquiry recognized
the hazards if not the impossibility of
over-precise or extravagant predic-
tions, their speculation proved highly
interesting and as plausible as any
social prophecies that reflect highly
informed opinion.
Without exception, the respondents
recognized that not only the U.S. but
the world as a whole is passing
through the greatest tidal wave of
transition in history. Our era is so con-
fusing that we get a severe case of
cerebral cramp if we attempt to study
the undercurrents of the tidal changes
and their implications for life in the
next rnillenium. The panelists clearly
recognized that ? anyone's problems
anywhere had become everyone's
problems everywhere, and generally
felt that mutually planned interde-
pendence and "dynamic reciprocity"
(Barbara Ward's phrase) could do a
great deal to improve relationships in
the human community.
"We have gone
overboard with our
monstrous cars, our
waste of food, and our
consumption of raw
materials. Someone
has said that the world
could not stand two
Americas. I am not
sure it can stand one."
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh
President of The University of Notre
Dame
Despite the near-chaos of the pre-
sent discontinuity in the old order of
things, the panelists agree on certain
points:
? Accelerating change. The
panelists did not all foresee the same
events, and those who did sometimes
thought in different time frames. But
the panelists concurred that an in-
creasingly rapid rate of change could
be anticipated.
? Increased complexity. Complex-
ity, an apparently inevitable concomi-
tant of rapid change, promises to be
with us for the decades under con-
sideration. Trade, communications,
armaments, international relations,
the subtleties of pollution problems?
all promise to demand of the human
community its best coping skills.
? Twilight of the hydrocarbon era.
From secondary school students to
presidents of national gas companies,
it was widely recognized that we are
running out of such inexpensive and
convenient sources of energy as
natural gas and oil. Lacking foreign
oil imports, the U.S. could exhaust (at
current consumption rates) all of its
known domestic reserves, including
off-shore and Alaskan pools, in ap-
proximately 3,500 days. The threat is
not ,only to our transport system?our
"wheels"?but to the agricultural pro-
ductivity which has., become a world
resource. Besides great quantities of
fuel needed for farm machinery, enor-
mous quantities of petroleum and
natural gas are needed for some of our
widely known types of fertilizer.
? New concepts of "growth." In
view of resource depletion, and with
due allowance for human adaptability
and wit, the panel felt that the
"growth is good" doctrine would be
carefully reviewed?probably before
the 1990s. The task, apparently, will
be to define "reasonable" or "selec-
tive" growth so as to give due recogni-
tion to the limits of the earth's bounty
and to make trade-offs that will lead
eventually to a dynamic equilibrium
between humans and their environ-
ment as Nobel physicist Dennis Gabor
suggested years ago in The Mature
Society.
? Continued crowding and hunger.
Project participants were impressed
by the problems of hunger and by the
stress placed on planetary resources
by a population that recently passed
the four billion mark. One panel mem-
ber likened the earth to an old resort
hotel of faded grandeur?its carpets
frayed, its hangings faded, and its
plumbing increasingly unreliable?
overbooked by impoverished guests
who could not pay the room rates that
the hotel would need to charge if it
were to restore its former standards of
service.
As of the late summer of 1976,
world food conditions did not offer
much hope in the 1970s for improve-
ment of the conditions. The world's
inability to get sufficient food to the
right places at the right time, accord-
ing to Father Hesburgh, led to the
death, by starvation, of more than one
million humans during 1975. Another
ten million, he noted, were physically
impaired or brain-damaged due to
lack of proper nutrition for expectant
mothers and too little food for infants
during their early years of life.
? Third World pressure for equity
and for a new economic order. The
NEA tapes stressed that the next two
decades will continue to be charac-
terized by growing Third/Fourth
World pressures for a greater share in
the material goods of which the
developed nations?the U.S. in par-
ticular?are overwhelming con-
sumers.
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These pressures seem to add up to
more than a "new deal" in which pay-
ment for raw materials and for labor
are more fairly rewarded. There are
likely to be pressures for an entirely
new order in which resource-rich
Third World countries seek industrial
power so that they can process, pro-
duce, and promote finished products.
If and as such a new economic order
develops, the entire political power
structure of the planet could change
significantly.
? Troubled international waters.
Prospects for international tranquility
during the period previewed by
panelists-1976-2001?seem slim. As
Elise Boulding pointed out, the world
we will have to put together will be
very different from the one we have
now if the images of the future of the
Celtic League, the Bretons, and the
Basque Separatists are considered!
Two decades from now, peacekeep-
ing machinery will probably be im-
proved, regional economic alliances
perfected, and such matters as oceanic
mining rights arbitrated, but basic
problems will remain to test human
skill in economic and political innova-
tions and relations as we seek to cope
with the "international chemistry"
that will seethe at least during the 25-
year period ahead.
? Welfare, debt, and freedom. At
first glance, welfare, debt, and
freedom appear to be disparate topics,
but certain relationships between
them began to surface during the in-
terviews. Let us comment briefly on
each, then consider how they are
linked together.
The participants felt that the years
immediately ahead will bring to
America such welfare provisions as a
guaranteed annual wage, appreciably
improved medical care at least partly
at federal expense, and guaranteed
employment. The happy promise of
improved human welfare was
diminished, however, by the poten-
tially fractious problems of increasing
debt in the 1980s and 1990s.
America's investment in welfare in-
creased by 738% between 1964 and
1974 and, during the fiscal year which
ended last July 1, various subsidized
programs (medicare, veterans'
benefits, and the like) required $116
billion in federal support. Data from
the U.S. Office of Education indicate
that another $108 billion was invested
in public and private education from
early childhood through the post-se-
condary level during the same 12-
month interval.
Reduced paychecks due to with-
holding provide evidence of the in-
creasing cost of Social Security?a
program which will need additional,
massive infusions of money for an in-
definite period. The ratio of workers
and Social Security recipients was
seven to one in the early 1970s. By
1985 there will be approximately one
recipient for every two workers con-
tributing to the program. When the
large number of baby boom workers
reach retirement some 25 years hence,
the strain on our system of Social
Security benefits becomes difficult to
imagine.
Welfare guarantees also called to
many panelists' minds the potential
dangers of "regulated freedom." If
employment is assured, for instance,
presumably some agency will need to
enforce participation either in a posi-
tion for which one is qualified, or in
job training, perhaps in some environ-
mental cleanup-and-repair activity in
the tradition of the Civilian Conserva-
tion Corps introduced in the 1930s to
aid unemployed youth.
? A post-extravagant society. The
40% decline in the dollar in ten years,
the prospects for sustained 6% to 8%
unemployment, severe international
problems, and alarm over resource
depletion motivated a number of the
panel members to conceive of a post-
extravagant society by 2001. While
more sanguine than economist Robert
Heilbroner, who warned in 1975 that
affluent Americans would need to give
up a great many of our expensive pri-
vileges, panelists saw the need to
phase out the "throwaway society"
(Toffler's phrase), to incorporate
recycling and "voluntary simplicity"
in lifestyles, and attain a prudent
balance in export-import policies. In
short, America may be able to avoid a
gray-toned post-affluent society by
striving now to create a
post-extravagant era not too different
from the "wear it out and make it do"
lifestyles of our grandparents prior to
1920.
? Work and leisure. The survey
revealed a distinct split in opinion as
to what the future might hold for work
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and leisure. John Johnson, Editor and
Publisher of Ebony magazine, simply
replied, "Leisure? Most blacks don't
have it!"
McGeorge Bundy, President of the
Ford Foundation, commented that
"As far as the use of leisure is con-
cerned, I think there is going to be a
trend toward spending more time
making or growing what people used
to buy in the marketplace."
Other panelists suggested an era of
less leisure because of diminishing
energy sources and a consequent
return to more labor-intensive produc-
tion. For the most part, a shortened
work-week of perhaps four eight-hour
days was foreseen as industry, farm-
ing, and services gradually reduce (to
perhaps 40% ) their need for participa-
tion by the work force.
An aging population?up from 22
million in the over-65 group in 1975 to
31 million in 2000?also seems certain
to influence both leisure and work
(not to mention politics). Other factors
likely to be of influence are:
(1) increased production or lack of it,
(2) more women in the work force,
and (3) inflationary pressures which
might motivate larger numbers of per-
sons to hold down two or even three
jobs.
? Future-directed planning. A
need for future-oriented planning was
expressed repeatedly by virtually all
survey participants. They also ex-
pressed concern because so little
"future-think" is being done. Fred
Jarvis, head of Britain's National
Union of Teachers, put it this way:
"Decisions about the future [in Great
Britain] are being made without any
attempt to picture society as it's going
to be 10-to-30 years hence."
Presumably the study of the future
promises to become a more influential
part of life in the U.S. if the panelists'
views prove to be self-fulfilling
prophecies! The trick will be to obtain
the benefits of long- and short-range
planning while avoiding dangers im-
plicit in the concern expressed by Ster-
ling McMurrin: "The future is going
to be marked by automation,
mechanization, cybernation, and cer-
tainly by an increase in bureaucracy,"
he noted. "All of this, I am afraid,
adds up to a great threat to in-
dividuality."
The Viewpoints of Youth
The concepts which high school age
youth had of the next 25 years tended
to parallel those expressed by adults
who participated in the inquiry. Evi-
dently their schools and other media
of instruction had provided a substan-
tial amount of input with respect to
such endemic problems as pollution,
resource depletion, nuclear dangers,
and so on.
In the youth dialogues, three points
came through repeatedly and clearly:
1. In a frustrating and sometimes
frightening world there is a great need
for coping skills and techniques. Good
guidance and better preparation are
needed in the skills of human rela-
tions, in dealing with uncertainties,
and in learning to choose wisely
among alternatives.
2. Young people want to attend
schools in which people care about
them, and the "good" teacher is a per-
son who radiates warmth and genuine
interest.
3. Help was sought in communicat-
ing?in finding at least a few people
(teachers, peer group members,
parents, etc.) with whom to share con-
cerns, hopes, and aspirations.
"Schools have to teach
people how to change
?give us an open
mind so we can cope
with change when it
comes."
New York senior high school student
When questioned about the work-
roles they hoped to fill ten or more
years hence, the juniors and seniors
showed little interest in managerial,
ownership, or executive roles, but fre-
quently expressed an interest in ser-
vice or professional positions. There
was least interest shown in clerical,
sales, or factory work?except for
short periods of a year or two to fi-
nance various types of post-secondary
preparation.
Interestingly, while high school
youth anticipated huge social, politi-
cal, economic, and technological
changes, the personal lives that they
expected to lead often were projec-
tions of present lifestyles with some of
the imperfections and defects
removed. In short, they saw their own
futures as being very like the present
but better because of improved human
relations.
Education for a New Millennium
Space limitations preclude anything
like a complete review of the educa-
tional premises proposed for a new
century in the 80 hours of tapings.
High spots can, however, be inven-
toried.
For one thing, panelists almost
universally agreed that education was
of supreme importance but that it
would involve much more than con-
ventional schooling during the 25
years between 1976 and 2001 with
which the NEA inquiry concerned it-
self. Willis Harman, for instance,
pointed out that pressing social deci-
sions and reforms must be contempla-
ted in the next two decades and that
children and youth, for the most part,
would still be too young to participate
and to offer leadership during this in-
terval. Other media are needed, Har-
man argued, to provide continuing
adult education in the 70s and 80s for
the ill-informed, the biased, the
selfish, and the stubborn, and to do so
in the shortest possible time.
Lester R. Brown made an
analagous comment during lunch with
the writer. Referring to the diners in a
club frequently patronized by promi-
nent Washingtonians, he commented
that most of them could give an hour-
long extemporaneous talk on such
problems as resource depletion and
pollution, topics which were not in the
curriculum 20 or 30 years ago. Media
other than the schools, he felt, are
needed to update continually the
backgrounds of learners of all ages
with respect to information that is just
becoming available.
On the subject of education, most
panelists seemed to agree on the
following points:
1. The need for educators to
develop a spirit of global com-
munity?of planned interdependence
and dynamic reciprocity?which
respects multi-ethnic and poly-
cultural differences both in the U.S.
and abroad.
2. Recognition of the need to make
education a continuing, lifelong pro-
cess.
3. The need for flexibility in in-
struction and for the merit of learning
experiences rather than the route
followed in attaining them.
4. The importance of recognizing
that a wide range of performance is to
be expected among learners, both
young and old.
5. The importance of understand-
ing that students' aspirations and
motivations are best served when
learning is at least partly self-selected
rather than dictated by teachers.
6. The need for continuing educa-
tion on a worldwide basis that would
serve both mature (past 30) and senior
(past 60) learners.
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7. Teaching and learning should
not occur only in schools.
8. The need to understand that oc-
cupational education should trans-
cend vocational training and requires
the encouragement of greater ver-
satility among members of the work
force through such techniques as bet-
ter general education.
9. Recognition that traditional
patterns of home-school relations
need to be modified because of
changes in the home.
10. The view that problem-prevent-
ing education begun in early child-
hood is distinctly superior to compen-
satory education provided at a later
time.
11. The point that instruction in
subject matter fields should instill an
understanding of contemporary
threats to the biosphere and emphas-
ize socially useful service?by persons
of all ages?in maintaining the
biosphere and achieving a balance
between humans and their environ-
ment.
12. Promotion of "human geogra-
phy"?a grasp of planetary cultures as
they exist today.
In summary, emergent educational
development, 1976-2001, presumably
would help young learners acquire a
knowledge of the realities of the pre-
sent, an awareness of alternative solu-
tions, an understanding of conse-
quences that might accompany these
options, development of insights as to
wise choices, and help U.S. youth to
develop the skills and to acquire the
information that are prerequisite to
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the implementation of examined
ideas, policies, and programs. In
short, five terms to remember in
developing new curricula are:
realities, alternatives, consequences,
choices, and implementation!
The Classic 1918 Goals of
Education Reexamined
As indicated earlier, the NEA
panelists were asked whether the
goals for U.S. education?the "seven
Cardinal principles of 1918?were
valid after 60 years. With no more
than two or three minor exceptions,
the 50 participants agreed that the
goals remained suitable, but the
meanings of the goals needed moder-
nizing.
"We must remember
that the children of
2050 will be just as
valuable as our
children are now ...
They deserve the best
of our time and energy
now.,,
Robert J. Havighurst
Professor of Education
University of Chicago
The development of health, for ex-
ample, was seen as still an appropri-
ate goal, but teachers now should help
the young learn how to survive in a
carcinogenic society, to understand
the causes of cardiac illness, the im-
portance of mental health practices,
and to understand that opportunities
for healthful living need to be ex-
tended to the world's millions who do
not see a physician from birth to
death.
Command of fundamental pro-
cesses, largely limited to the 3R's in
1918, was expanded by 1976 to encom-
pass human relations skills, develop-
ment of cross:cultural insights,
developing a knowledge of sources,
understanding computer languages,
learning to cope with increasing com-
plexity, and developing "anticipatory
skills" such as the power to see rela-
tionships and to make correlations.
Worthy use of leisure. The line
dividing work and leisure is likely to
become even more blurred. Complex-
ity?demanding more time for the
tasks and routines of daily living?
was singled out as a factor of the
future along with the likelihood that
more items now bought in the market
place (e.g., canned soup) would be
made "from the ground up" in the
home and that householders would do
more of their own repairing and ser-
vicing of equipment and appliances.
Worthy home membership, accord-
ing to survey participants, was related
to an understanding of changes occur-
ring in the status of the family; recog-
nition that traditional families con-
sisting of a mother and father and two
or more youngsters living in a neat lit-
tle frame house was the exception
rather than the rule in present-day
America. While the importance of a
family or comparable "affinity group"
was emphasized, it also was conceded
that the influence of family bonds has
decreased appreciably since 1918.
The meaning of vocational compe-
tence also was deemed to have
changed with the passing years.
Panelists noted:
? Specific vocational skills are
difficult to foresee in a changing
society.
? A good general education is a
prerequisite to the vocational skills of
operating theater, supermarket, or
factory.
? Lifelong learning is a vocational
skill.
? There is a need to develop a new
breed of workers who see their jobs in
an ecological context.
? Occupational education must
not lock people into the wrong jobs.
Citizenship skills, many consultants
felt, should embody a measure of
loyalty to the planet as well as to the
nation, and a consciousness of the
need to study and to improve the ine-
quities existing between the have and
the have-not worlds. Some partici-
pants also saw a need to introduce the
young to ways of making positive use
of power and the need for people to be
better informed when they sought to
exercise it.
Ethical character. Everyone was in
favor of the seventh cardinal principle
as a developmental goal. Of particular
interest was the emphasis by a large
plurality of panelists on (1) the need
to recognize again the value of self-
discipline in learning, (2) the merit of
rules to live by as distinct from
unrestricted permissiveness, and (3)
the importance of protecting and im-
proving the biosphere. These concerns
may serve as sources of secular com-
mandments or guidelines for better
lifestyles during the coming decades.
The need for adults to set suitable ex-
amples, to serve as mature models for
the upcoming generation, also found
frequent mention.
Concluding continent. A quality of
cautious optimism with respect to the
next 25 years tended to pervade the in-
quiry. The panelists seem to feel that
the world's peoples have sufficient
time to clean up the "planetary nest"
they have befouled and the potential
to demonstrate that they are the miss-
ing link between animals and civilized
man.
It would seem, in Pogo's immortal
phrase, that "We have met the enemy
and he is us." How we cope with "the
enemy" largely will determine
whether the children and youth of
2050 live in a better, more humane
world or find themselves wallowing in
a tragic low-technology re-run of the
10th century!
Harold G. Shane is University Professor
of Education, Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana 47401. For further
information, see Today's Education, Sep-
tember-October 1976, published by the Na-
tional Education Association, 1201 Six-
teenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
20036, U.S.A.
The -Educational Significance of the
Future by Harold G. Shane is available
from the World Future Society Book Ser-
vice. Phi Delta Kappa, Inc., Bloomington,
Indiana, 1973. 116 pages. Paperback. $4.20.
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Prolongevity:
The Extension of
the Human Life Span
by Albert Rosenfeld
Scientists are making good progress toward learning the
secrets of aging, and may begin to control it within the
lifetimes of people living today.
In ancient Greece, the average life
expectancy was something like 22
years. Individuals did live to ripe old
ages, but their number was small
enough to render them an elite group
in most ancient societies, where their
seasoning was rare and their wisdom
prized. A Greek who reached the age
of 70 in the fifth century B.C. had just
as many years to live?perhaps more,
since he had to be tougher to have sur-
vived so long under such conditions?
as does the 70-year-old of today, who
has merely reached his average life ex-
pectancy.
Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex when
he was 75, and won the last of his
many dramatic prizes at 85, still going
strong. And he needed no contempor-
ary equivalent of Masters and
Johnson to tell him that men of that
age were still sexually viable. He not
only kept his bed and bones warm
with the famous hetaira Theoris (who
was succeeded at an even later date by
Archippe), but also became a father
again. This is not to say that vigorous
longevity such as Sophocles' goes un-
matched today, but simply that it is
still rare. The maximum life span has
not been extended. And our contem-
poraries who reach 70, 80, and 90 pro-
bably have just as many aches and
failings as the ancients did, though
there may be a few more medications
available to ease their more
troublesome pains.
The fact that so many of us do reach
70 and beyond is what makes us more
aware than ever how universal are the
ravages of the aging process?ravages
that made even Sophocles, for all his
honors and amours, a thoroughgoing
pessimist in his declining years. Ob-
serving the inexorable nature of these
changes, their variety, their sheer
multiplicity, and their interlocking
complexity, most traditional geron-
tologists have maintained an
unshakable conservatism despite the
boldness of their stated goals. The pre-
vailing view, understandably, has
been that, considering the multi-
faceted nature of the aging process, it
would be foolish to count on any sig-
nificant progress toward final answers
until countless further generations of
painstaking experimentation shall
have passed.
Typical of this cautious outlook,
even among scientists not reputed as
especially conservative, is the conclu-
sion of a 1962 paper in Proceedings of
the Royal Society. Its author,
anatomist P. L. Krohn of the Univer-
sity of Birmingham, after describing a
brilliantly original series of experi-
ments designed to study the effects of
transplantation on aging tissue,
finally appends this demurrer:
"Nothing has been said to imply that
problems of old age are likely soon to
be solved by this approach.... The
solution will probably come as slowly
and insidiously as the aging process it-
self."
Control of Aging May Begin
Soon
Gerontologist Bernard Strehler of
the University of Southern California
represents a spirited avant garde of
scientists who vigorously dispute the
cautious, pessimistic views of the
medical traditionalists. They believe
that significant progress can be made
toward the control of aging, perhaps
in our own lifetimes or within the cur-
rent century. The more confident
gerontologists are hopeful of buying a
little extra time for themselves per-
sonally while waiting for the larger
advances to be accomplished?much
as a leukemia victim might hope for
the larger breakthroughs to occur
while he is in remission.
Scientists who a few years earlier
would have deplored such specula-
tions as being in the realm of the
quack and the con man are now dis-
tressed that the general public just
won't give serious credence to the new
possibilities. If people begin to believe
in them, progress will certainly occur
more rapidly. Gerontologist Alex
Comfort is convinced not only that a
project to slow down aging is feasible
but that it could be carried out for
relatively modest sums of money.
In any case, because the older ex-
planations of aging leave so much still
unexplained, interest in the avant
garde view has been growing in
research laboratories all over the
world. This view is easy to summarize.
Though even avant garde geron-
tologists differ in the details of their
schemes and their persuasions, they
are clearly coming together in the
common convictions:
(1) that there does exist within our-
selves an identifiable "clock of aging,"
a genetically determined program
which dictates that we will age and
die, and the rate at which this will oc-
cur;
(2) that we have an excellent chance
of discovering the location (there may
be more than one) of the clock of
aging, as well as the nature of its
operating mechanisms?and how to
interfere with them to our own advan-
tage;
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"I will venture to
predict that by the year
2025?if research
proceeds at reasonable
speed?most of the
major mysteries of the
aging process will have
been solved, and the
solutions adopted as
part of conventional
biomedical knowledge."
(3) that, moreover, all this can begin
to happen, not centuries from now, but
now, if only the research can be car-
ried out;
(4) that senescence may thus be
started on its way to obsolescence.
Research on Aging: Many
Promising Approaches
Let us assume that gerontological
research does hold out a valid promise
of additional good years of life. In that
case, each of us is bound to wonder
whether the hoped-for advances will
occur in time to add good years to our
own lives?and to the lives of those we
wish to share ours with; and, further,
what we might meanwhile do to
enhance the probability that we will
still be on hand to take advantage of
whatever breakthroughs may occur.
It is impossible to set forth a timeta-
ble of upcoming gerontological
achievements with any assurance that
these events will occur on schedule.
This is true even for a given theory or
a given investigator. Suppose, as one
example, that researcher Donner
Denckla succeeds in his quest for the
thyroid-blocking hormone, and it
turns out to be the death hormone, as
theorized. How long would it take for
the results to start doing us any good?
Denckla has recently made some
careful calculations, considering each
painstaking step along the way: isolat-
ing and purifying the hormone (if in-
deed only one hormone is involved),
discovering its structure, synthesizing
it, devising some molecular means to
inhibit its action; perhaps identifying
its releasing factor in the hy-
pothalamus?the smaller molecule
that induces the pituitary to release
the larger one?and going through the
same sequence of procedures with it;
getting a sufficient supply of the in-
hibiting agent to test it on animals;
carrying out the necessary animal
trials; then?with Food and Drug Ad-
ministration approval and the in-
formed consent of the subjects?con-
ducting some preliminary human ex-
periments, followed by broader and
more conclusive human trials; and
finally getting the new drug on the
market. Denckla figures that, even
with good luck, going at his present
maximum pace it will take him 40
years to complete the work. With step-
ped-up funding and expanded
facilities, he feels he might do it in 20.
Thus it is not preposterous for
Denckla, who is now only 40, to main-
tain a reasonable hope that he could
become a direct beneficiary of his own
research.
Most gerontologists doubt that
substantial advances will be made
within their own lifetimes. But many
do not share this skepticism, and they
encourage a cautious optimism in
others. Modest progress?much more
modest than that envisioned as the
finale of Denckla's overall program?
might still offer a slowed-down rate of
deterioration, enhanced vigor and en-
joyment in the later years, some
alleviation or even reversal of overt
aging symptoms?in a word, a signifi-
cant postponement of old age as it is
customarily experienced (and feared
in advance). Human beings who are
very young today may hope that, if
they remain in reasonably good health
through, say, their middle years, they
may become the first people in history
to have their life spans extended by ar-
tificial means?by how many years, no
one can say. Gerontologists such as
Comfort and Strehler have held out a
long-shot hope that, if you can hang on
a little longer, and then a little longer,
perhaps helped in each case by some of
the smaller breakthrough events, it is
just barely possible you could still be
here and a candidate for further
prolongevity when the larger
breakthroughs arrive.
The pace of progress in gerontology
should quicken as the National In-
stitute on Aging begins to support
programs on a broader scale. Within
the next decade or so, I believe we will
see the proving out of some of the po-
tential anti-aging substances known
at this time as well as others yet to be
discovered. At least a few should
prove to be effective, with acceptably
minimal side effects.
A number of antioxidants are
already at hand, and some are safely
ingestable?among them Vitamin E.
Vitamin C is also an antioxidant,
though less so; and it is supposed to
amplify the effects of Vitamin E. A
much more powerful antioxidant than
either is the element selenium. Traces
of it are present in many of our foods,
and perhaps we already get all of it
that we need?or is good for us. More
is not necessarily better. But "super-
nutrition," as Richard Passwater
calls it, the administration of
unusually large doses of vitamins and
minerals, is a popular trend among
biological investigators, and some
purely dietary aids to age resistance
may well be developed. Selenium will
undoubtedly be among the substances
studied for that purpose.
The usefulness of antioxidants will
depend on the validity of the free radi-
cal theory of aging. This does not
mean free radicals will have to be
shown to be the cause of aging, only
that they represent an important fac-
tor in wear-and-tear damage. We have
at least indirect proof that this is so.
As researcher Richard Hochschild re-
minds us, "Animal studies show that
deficiency of vitamin E in the diet
leads to damage of exactly the kind
predicted. Age pigments pile up faster.
Mitochondria, the power houses of the
cell, swell and eventually disintegrate,
knocking out the energy generating
ability of the cell. And lysosomes
break open, releasing their digestive
chemicals to digest the entire cell.
Thus a small amount of free radical
damage is multiplied into a devastat-
ing sequence of pathological events."
Much of this damage is prevented or
repaired by the body's own self-protec-
tive mechanisms as well as by antioxi-
dants naturally present. But, as the
studies cited by Hochschild?includ-
ing those of A. L. Tappel?indicate, an
antioxidant deficiency clearly reveals
extensive free radical damage. When
there is such a clear-cut deficiency, an-
tioxidant therapy can definitely
reverse the damaging trend.
Moreover, substituting one equally
effective antioxidant for another will
accomplish the same result, proving
that it is the antioxidant function at
work.
Should you therefore begin taking
Vitamin E and other antioxidants?
Many people do, including some
gerontologists?but the latter have
large reservations about taking
Vitamin E in the massive doses often
recommended. The fact that Vitamin
E will counter a specific antioxidant
deficiency is not proof?again?that
more is necessarily better. Some feel
that, with so much still unknown
about the precise actions of Vitamin
E, there could be some hazard in-
volved. For instance, suppose we were
to prevent too many of the cell's ox-
idation reactions; it might impair the
cell's functioning in some vital way.
So I would recommend caution until
such time as more conclusive experi-
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ments have been carried out. (I take
100 units of Vitamin E a day myself,
on the grounds that, like chicken soup,
it isn't likely to do any harm.)
I do feel optimistic, however, about
the potential use of antioxidants in
aging, and, because investigators like
Harman and Comfort believe the
definitive research could be carried
out in reasonably short order if suffi-
ciently funded, I include antioxidants
as being among drugs probably availa-
ble in the next decade.
Other good bets for such availability
are hormone preparations (such as
thymosin), lipofuscin inhibitors (such
as centrophenoxine), and lysosome
membrane stabilizers (such as the
DMAE with which Hochschild has
been getting such encouraging
results). The same is true of cross-link
inhibitors. Robert Kohn, for example,
has?in collaboration with F. S.
LaBella of the University of
Manitoba?had some success with a
substance called beta -
aminoproprionitrile. Kohn has in-
vestigated other possibilities, too, as
has Johan Bjorksten. Even though the
prevention or reversal of cross-
linkages may (like antioxidant
therapy to combat free radical damage
within cells) fail to get at the basic
cause of aging, such an outcome could
still prolong the good years of life
through "symptom relief." If a drug
were to appear that could do no more
than uncross-link collagen molecules
in the connective tissue outside the
cells, the benefits could be considera-
ble.
Collagen makes up some 30 to 40%
of the body's protein. Its universal
presence in the body's framework is
what has led scientists of Kohn's
stature to suggest that the aging of col-
lagen could be a primary factor in the
overall aging of the organism.
Nutrients going from the bloodstream
to the cells must pass through collagen
in order to get there. The same is true
of waste materials going in the other
direction. If collagen becomes dens6
and rigid, it also becomes less permea-
ble (perhaps even impassable in some
cases); hence the cells have a harder
time getting their food and getting rid
of their wastes, and heart and lungs
probably have to work correspon-
dingly harder. Changed collagen
molecules could also invite autoim-
mune attack.
So it is clear that the loosening up of
collagen via uncross-linking (or pre-
venting cross-linkage in the first
place) could help keep the body
younger longer. This would probably
be true of appearance as well, since
much of the skin's aging and wrin-
kling could be due to collagen
changes. It is even conceivable, as
Hochschild further suggests, that it
could slow down the graying and fall-
ing out of hair. The next decade could
be an exciting one, then, in terms of
the first visible steps toward anti-
aging medications.
Many substances under investiga-
tion, such as the temperature-lowering
agents of Rosenberg and Kemeny, will
undoubtedly take much longer to test
because so much is still unknown
about the effects of chronic cooling on
living organisms. But it is possible
that, within two decades, we would
know whether such medications are
feasible or not?and, if they are, we
should by then also have a good idea
when we might expect our physicians
to be able to prescribe them for us.
During this same 20-year period I
think we will also be getting close to
arriving at some effective enzyme mix-
tures and other compounds that
would supply substances that were
running short and counteract subs-
tances that were in damaging oversup-
ply.
During this 20 to 30 years, a
multitude of lines of investigation will
be followed simultaneously, and
surely some of them will bear fruit.
Work such as Denckla's is problemati-
cal, depending on good luck and ade-
quate funding. But I am more op-
timistic than most about seeing sig-
nificant progress in hormonal
research, in understanding the hy-
pothalamo-pituitary role in aging, in
understanding and controlling the on-
off switching of genes, and in the
general area of genetic engineering. I
will venture to predict that by the year
2025?if research proceeds at reasona-
ble speed?most of the major mys-
teries of the aging process will have
been solved, and the solutions
adopted as part of conventional
biomedical knowledge; and that some
of the solutions will by then already
have come into practical use to stave
off the ravages of senescence.
What You Can Do Now To Live
Longer
So you are ready to do whatever is
possible to enhance your chances of
being around to enjoy the benefits per-
sonally? I'm afraid that the only ad-
vice I can offer at this point is the
same old-fashioned advice you have
always received from your family doc-
tor: Take good care of yourself.
This is always easier to say than to
do. Nor is there anything like univer-
sal agreement as to what constitutes
taking good care of yourself. Even
such factors as diet and exercise are
controversial?though Alexander
Leaf, the investigator who has studied
most closely those celebrated pockets
of longevity in Ecuador, Hunza, and
Soviet Georgia, was able to pin down
only two common factors (as reported
in his Youth in Old Age): all those old
folks eat frugally (though
nutritiously) and continue to exercise
and work hard.
Whole books, indeed whole shelves
full of books have been written, on
how to take care of yourself. They are
not, needless to say, in total agree-
ment. But it is possible to list some
general points I have noted in many
years of reading, and of talking with
members of the various biomedical
professions.
In the realm of diet, the best advice
is: Eat lightly. Obviously, even very
old people still require a well-
balanced and nutritious diet, but the
quantity does not have to be large.
Obesity is a handicap, especially as
you grow older. With your strength
diminishing, your heart and lung
capacity declining, and your blood-
vessel spaces narrowing, you don't
need to carry around any extra weight
to add to the burdens of your car-
diovascular and respiratory systems?
to say nothing of the extra tissue that
also needs oxygen and nourishment
and adds an additional burden to the
same overworked systems. So go easy
on calories.
Go easy on fats, too. We have by
now all heard the bad news about
cholesterol and its probable role in
cardiovascular diseases and heart at-
tacks. Cutting down on foods loaded
with saturated fats (eggs, fatty beef,
fat-rich dairy products) is undoub-
tedly a good idea. But, considering
what aging research has taught us
about polyunsaturated fats and their
probable role in the production of ex-
cess free radicals, I wouldn't feel safe
in eating unlimited quantities of those
either. My own stance is to be prudent
"Within the next
decade or so, I believe
we will see the proving
out of some of the
potential anti-aging
substances known at
this time, as well as
others yet to be
discovered."
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about all fats, not be fanatical about
avoiding them entirely but simply to
eat them sparingly.
The same is true of sugar. Research
results are contradictory and in-
conclusive, but excess sugar intake
may have a role in heart troubles and
even in the buildup of cholesterol, not
to mention lesser adverse effects such
as causing tooth decay. We can proba-
bly get all the sugar we need by eating
fruits, preferably fresh fruits.
In sum, we don't need a lot of any
kind of food (except in special cases
where the doctor advises otherwise for
specific conditions). We should eat
well-balanced diets, including at least
the recommended daily minimum
quantities of vitamins. Fish and
seafood provide excellent protein,
although some seafood, such as
shrimp, is high in cholesterol while
low in fat. Poultry is another good
source, although it's well to avoid the
skin of the chicken or turkey, where a
lot of the fat lies. When you eat meat,
select the leaner cuts wherever possi-
ble. As for dairy products, drink skim
milk rather than whole, make your
cheese cottage or pot or low-fat
whenever you can. Cereals (preferably
unsugared) are good for both nutrition
and roughage. You can eat bread and
other carbohydrates?whole wheat or
vitamin-enriched?but not in large
quantities; practically all the fresh
fruits and vegetables you want, within
reason. As for rich desserts?pies,
cakes, pastries, ice-cream dishes, and
the like?you're better off without
them. Try to avoid them, except as an
occasional treat.
How you prepare foods is of course
important too. Boiled, poached,
baked, roasted?almost any other
means of cooking is preferable to fry-
ing. The typical short-order service of
cheeseburger with french fries and ap-
ple pie with ice cream is one of the
dumbest kinds of meals you can eat,
especially if you're getting on in years
and have either a high-cholesterol or
weight problem.
"Human beings who
are very young today
may hope that, if they
remain in reasonably
good health ... they
may become the first
people in history to
have their lives
extended by artificial
means."
Laboratory technician prepares to slice tissue section with an ultra
microtome for viewing under an electron microscope, in research on aging at
the U.S. National Institute on Aging's Gerontology Research Center in
Baltimore, Maryland.
What of exercise? For most people
who do not participate in regular
vigorous athletics, it's best to find
some congenial way of getting a
moderate amount of exercise
regularly. An occasional spurt of hard
exercise or physical work which may
be unavoidable, such as the necessity
of shoveling snow, or pushing a stalled
car, or running to catch a train with a
heavy suitcase, can be very dangerous
if you haven't been doing anything
else for a while. The weekend athlete
is a notorious example of someone
courting heart trouble. Exercise, if not
every day, should occupy a little of
your time at least three or four times a
week. It should not be so strenuous as
to tax you unduly, but strenuous
enough to keep you reasonably fit.
Here again, books and exercise
systems (from aerobics to yoga)
abound; almost any of them is better
than nothing. In addition to whatever
you do at home, you ought to do some-
thing outdoors, something fairly easy
and enjoyable but preferably some-
thing that exercises your whole body:
bicycling, swimming, jogging, skating,
dancing (this one is mostly indoors, of
course), or even just taking long and
not-too-leisurely walks. The main
point is to move enough to keep your
body from becoming stagnant and
lethargic. When you're active, your
mind works better too. We have
placed great emphasis in our society
on labor-saving devices, all the way
from pushbutton garage doors to golf
carts. Saving labor is fine if you're
really overworked or just plain worn
out. Otherwise it doesn't save a thing.
It costs.
Photo: NIA Gerontology
Keep moving. Be sensible and
moderate about alcohol. Don't smoke.
There simply is not a good thing to be
said about smoking. If there is a body
system it hasn't yet been shown to be
bad for, it's because it hasn't been
measured yet.
Life-style is a difficult thing to
define. I guess a principal element, in
terms of aging, is how well you can
organize 'your life to deal with stress
and challenge?enough to keep you in-
terested and on your toes, but not so
Much that you can't cope with it.
What of environment? There is not
much you can do about it personally,
except to avoid undue exposure to en-
vironmental hazards and pollution
when possible. For everyone's good,
refrain from doing anything to add to
pollution. Otherwise, act wherever
you see the opportunity in clean-up or
prevention campaigns.
Everybody has always "known"?
except for a few cranks and
crackpots?that extending the human
life span is and always will be a
pipedream. That is why I have
devoted the major space in this book
to spelling out the research and theo-
ries that suddenly transform the
pipedream into at least a feasible fan-
tasy, and perhaps a reality we can
plan for. Unlike Shaw's Barnabas,
who was relying on the sheer power of
wishful thinking to bring about his ex-
tended life span, we will soon have in
our hands the biological tools to bring
about, in a practical manner, the long-
sought elixir of life, in one form or
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another. Old age will be a disease you
can go see your doctor about, if, in-
deed, prophylactic measures do not
virtually eradicate it.
Our species is at a critical transition
point in its history on this planet. To
fear the consequences of further
knowledge?and thus decide to halt
further research?would be the surest
road to a non-solution of our
problems, and thus to disaster. We do
not begin to know all that we need to
know. So why not take up, with some
anticipatory exhilaration, the
challenge of pursuing whatever path
may bring us to our full humanhood?
The foregoing article was excerpted from
Prolongevity by Albert Rosenfeld.
Copyright 1976 by Albert Rosenfeld.
Reprinted by permission of Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc.
U.S. Establishes
National Institute
on Aging
The U.S. Congress focused na-
tional attention on the problems of
aging by establishing the National
Institute on Aging in October 1974,
as one of 11 National Institutes of
Health administered from
Bethesda, Maryland.
The new Institute incorporated
the already-existent Gerontology
Research Center in Baltimore,
Maryland, as its main research
facility. A coordinated program is
now underway to learn the secrets
of aging and minimize its ravages.
The new Gerontology Research
Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
This is the main research facility
of the National Institute on Aging.
Photo: NIA Gerontology
Volunteer takes test to measure
nerve conduction velocity at
Gerontology Research Center. The
test can detect nerve dysfunction
which may be related to diabetes.
Photo: NIA Gerontology
The Gerontology Research
Center brought to the new Institute
a longitudinal study on aging,
begun in 1959 with 650 male volun-
teers, aged 20 to 96. Women and
minority group members are soon
to be added to the study. Partici-
pants are given thorough medical
and physiological examinations at
regular intervals and the informa-
tion is fed into a data bank on
aging. Useful information from the
study is expected to increase
rapidly as additional data is
gathered.
A complete program of research
on aging is planned for the new In-
stitute, including studies on
molecular biology, genetics and
chromosomal change, cell and
tissue aging, and immunologic and
endocrine changes as well as social
and nutritional variables.
For further information, write: Na-
tional Institute on Aging, National In-
stitutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
20014, U.S.A.
Volunteer walks on treadmill in
electrocardiology test at Geron-
tology Research Center. Test can
detect coronary damage in heart.
Photo: NIA Gerontology
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The
Pleasure
Bond:
Reversin
The
Antisex
Ethic
by Robert T. Francoeur and Anna K. Francoeur
Western society is on the verge of developing a new sexual
ethic based on pleasure, caring, and mutual growth, say
two experts on marriage and sex. They predict that,
despite antiquated laws and mores which uphold
monogamy and fidelity, a "pleasure bond" ethic of non-
reproductive sexual relationships outside of marriage
will fundamentally alter society, the family, and values in
the future.
For 3,000 years, people in western
society have been nervous about most
things sexual.
In the early Christian era we denied
sex in our religious traditions by ex-
tolling female virginity and recom-
mending celibacy for all. We have ig-
nored sex by claiming only married
people should do it, and then only to
conceive children.
We've put down sex by talking
about "private" body parts, by our un-
comfortableness with nudity, and by
our constant attempts to hide sex
behind bedroom doors and the dark of
night.
Much of this antisex mentality
started when the Hebrews were in-
fluenced by the Persian cult of Mithra
during the Babylonian captivity. That
religion, a type of gnostic dualism,
said the body was evil, a prison for the
divine soul. The world was split into
black and white, and sex was
definitely black.
In early Christianity, a similar anti-
sex influence came into the new
religion from the disciples of the
Greek philosopher Plato. Again dual-
ism divided humans into a good soul
and a not-so-nice body.
Christians fought this heresy, but
like the Hebrews, they were often un-
con ciously influenced by it. In the
thir1 century, Augustine joined a
gno tic group, the Manicheans, and
kept a mistress. Later he converted,
became a bishop and a great Christian
saint. When many were denying sex
and labeling it evil, Augustine argued
that sexual pleasure was permissible
if it were used as God intended, as an
inducement for a husband and wife to
go through the trials and tribulations
of parenthood. Progeny redeemed sex.
The Three R's of Sex
Nine hundred years later, as the
battle to segregate sex from life con-
tinued, medieval theologians finally
spelled out our basic sexual ethic, the
Three R's of Sex. Sex with the Right
person, your spouse; Sex for the Right
reason, children; and Sex in the Right
position,?male prone?female supine
(the "missionary position").
A hundred years ago the medical
profession endorsed this commonly
held view and introduced physical
education programs into our public
schools. If we were going to keep our
kids in school instead of letting them
work in the fields, mines, or factories,
we should keep their minds and hands
off sex. "Idle minds and hands are the
devil's workshop," was a commonly
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held view. A fatigued boy or girl has
little time or energy for playing
around.
In America, the western frontier
was built on this philosophy. The best
remedy for concupiscence and lust is
good hard work, and plenty of it. In-
stead of playing with himself, a young
man was urged to chop down an oak.
If he masturbated anyway, what bet-
ter way to work off his guilt and get
out of his childish fixation on play and
pleasure than to cut down two more
oaks?
Cornflakes Reduce Lust
Graham crackers and cornflakes
came out of this tradition of denying
sex in the same era. Sylvester
Graham, an advocate of dietary
reform, believed that Americans in
1850 were going the way of Rome?
down, and fast. Spicy cooking, too
much meat, and hot foods, he said,
promoted excessive sexual indulgence.
The remedy, besides hard manual
labor, was an organic, nutritious and
bland diet of Graham bread or
crackers three times a day.
Stimulants, coffee, tea, alcohol, spices,
meats, and all animal products were
discouraged. For variety, there was al-
ways Dr. Kellogg's cornflakes without
benefit of milk or sugar.
This antisex philosophy continued
well into this century. Doctors often
recommended removal of the clitoris
to suppress unwanted sexual drives in
women and spiked penile rings to dis-
courage males from masturbating.
Marital intercourse was recom-
mended only for males over 30 and
then never during pregnancy, nursing,
which lasted 18 months, or during the
mother's six to eight month recovery
period after weaning.
Antisex Ethic Lingers On
In 1976 this history of our sexual
values sounds either pathetic or
ridiculous, or both. But our parents
and grandparents lived like that, and
so do we in a less obvious and extreme
way. The antisex tradition is still with
us.
Our laws still make criminals of
millions of Americans who engage in
non-marital and non-reproductive
sex. Oral sex is punishable by a year in
jail or $1,000 fine in New York, in New
Jersey by 20 years or $50,000! Same-
sex relations are outlawed because
homosexuality is unnatural, meaning
non-reproductive. Heterosexual rela-
tions before or outside marriage are
unnatural because they are non-
marital and should be non-reproduc-
tive. But if no contraceptive is used,
they are immoral because of the risk of
illegitimacy.
So do we really have a sexual
revolution?
The real meaning of the sexual
revolution, we believe, is the fact that
despite our antiquated laws and
changing mores, we are really tossing
overboard the marital-reproductive-
female property ethic. In its place we
are beginning to develop a new ethic,
or new aesthetic, based on com-
munication, pleasure, relationship,
and recreation.
The revolution began when Freud
challenged the Victorian belief that
women and children were somehow
entirely innocent of any sexual desire
or enjoyment. And it really caught
hold in the 1960s when the birth con-
trol pill and the socioeconomic libera-
tion of women became a part of our
lives.
We can't turn back without revers-
ing all our technological, social, and
economic advances. But going ahead
is not easy either. A lot of us get ner-
vous, even frightened, just thinking
about what life would be like if we
honestly decided to stop trying to
segregate sex from everyday life. We
get uncomfortable thinking about
what life and society might be like if
we become truly comfortable with our
sexuality. What would life in South
Dakota be like if we eroticized our
businesses and politics?
Lack of Rules Marks New Sex Ethic
The old life-styles and antisex men-
tality had a nice, neat compartment
for sex, with very clear licenses, pre-
cise rules, and definite penalities for
infractions. The new world is not so
well defined. In fact, a lack of rules
and guidelines seems to be the only
rule in a society that is comfortable
with sex. Durkheim, the sociologist,
called this condition anomie,
"normlessness."
The new values we are finding in
sexual relations and behavior are
varied. Sex alone or with others is for
self-knowledge, for pleasure, for
friendship, for enjoyment, for variety,
for learning, and for mutual growth
and support.
There are several specific areas in
which this shift in values has concrete
meaning for us as individuals and for
our society.
Sexual Experience Among Youth
The most obvious form of non-
reproductive and non-marital sex to-
day is found among youth. College
cohabitation and its off-campus
parallel are common and becoming
more so. On many campuses one-
quarter or one-third of the students
are living with an opposite sex partner
at any one time.
A White House survey taken in 1973
revealed that over 50% of America's
19-year-old single women were sex-
ually experienced. In 1969, 66% of
Americans polled said premarital sex
was wrong; by 1973 disapproval was
down to a minority of 48%. Among
those under 30, disapproval was only
29%. Eight percent more Catholics
approved of premarital sex than Pro-
testants. Other surveys indicate that
single women are much more sexually
active than the same-aged single male,
an interesting inversion of the old
"double standard."
For many adults, especially parents,
this is an uncomfortable reality. The
young are marrying later and later in
life and reaching sexual maturity
earlier and earlier?four months
earlier for girls with each passing
decade. We recognize this, often reluc-
tantly, but we continually try to ignore
it. Instead of creating relaxed, positive
settings for our youngsters' first sex-
ual experiences, we shove them back-
handed into a cheap motel, the back
seat of a car, the hypocrisy of a college
dorm, or the anxiety of home before a
parent returns.
Middle-aged Singles Sexually
Active
Non-marital cohabitation is also
common among middle-aged
Americans. Over half of Americans
between ages 18 and 39 are single,
divorced, separated, or widowed. How
many of these are sexually active? A
good number, no doubt.
For Americans over 50 or 60, non-
marital cohabitation is encouraged by
social security and pension laws.
Many retirees on fixed income know
that marriage will cut their income in
half. So Grandma lives with her
boyfriend, and their kids blush.
In the year 2000, just 25 years from
now, the first of the post-war "baby
boom" generation will be retiring.
Our birth rate has dropped like lead
from 2.7 children per fertile woman 10
years ago to under 1.7 today. If this
continues to drop, or even stays cons-
tant, we will soon reach the time when
the average American is over 50.
Unless our pension laws and social
security change, non-marital living
together may become more common
than marriage!
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Sex and the Mentally Retarded
Several million Americans live in
institutions?the mentally and
physically handicapped, the aged, the
law-breaker. What kind of sex does
our society allow these persons?
The mentally retarded of all ages
are commonly segregated according to
sex. Until recently very little was done
to deal with their sexual needs and
rights. They can, are, and perhaps
should be, protected from the respon-
sibilities of parenthood they cannot
handle. But we can protect them from
unwanted pregnancies without deny-
ing them the psychological and emo-
tional support normal non-reproduc-
tive sexual relationships could give
them. Why do we limit them to secre-
tive masturbation or a closet
homosexual experience? Allowing
these persons free expression in loving
sexual relationships that are non-
reproductive could make their lives
much richer, more fulfilling, and pro-
bably better adjusted.
Aged and Handicapped Have
Sexual Needs
The same can be said about the sex-
ual needs and rights of the physically
handicapped and aged?the stroke
victim, the paralyzed victim of
automobile and other accidents, the
120,000 quadriplegics and
paraplegics, those suffering from
neurological and muscular disorders
like muscular dystrophy and multiple
sclerosis, and the aged. In one home
for the aged, inmates lose their pri-
vileges for five days if they are caught
in the room of another inmate of the
same sex. The penalty is 10 days if the
person is of the other sex!
Criminals Denied Normal
Sexual Outlets
We claim to rehabilitate the cri-
minal, but in this rehabilitation we
deny them the emotional and psy-
chological support of sexual relations
with their spouses. We even expect the
mate to be there waiting patiently and
faithfully to resume normal marital
life five, 10, or more years later. Our
penal system is carefully designed to
cut the criminal off from all sexual
relations and expression, save mastur-
bation and homosexuality.
Masturbation Shapes Sexual
Self-image
Masturbation is the most common
and least acknowledged form of sex-
ual expression. It can and does occur
within hours of birth. It is common in
early childhood, preadolescence,
adolescence, young adulthood, mid-
dle, and old age. Kinsey reported that
98% of husbands do it, at least occa-
sionally, and many married couples
do it together. Engaged or dating cou-
ples who want to "save themselves for
marriage" do it. Still we deny its exis-
tence and practice, especially for
women.
"Know thyself," Socrates urged us.
Masturbation?self-exploration, self-
learning, self-pleasure, self-knowing?
can play an important role in the im-
age we develop of ourselves as sexual
persons. How can you tell another per-
son what to do to turn you on unless
you have gained some knowledge of
yourself? Many women's conscious-
ness-raising groups highly recommend
self-examination and self-pleasuring
for women. Sometimes this is a nega-
tive expression towards men, but more
often it is a healthy development
designed to put the woman in touch
with herself and help her communi-
cate better with her man. Masturba-
tion, both alone and with a partner, is
an important exercise in many sexual
therapies.
Homosexuality Slowly Gains
Acceptance
Between five and 10% of the U.S.
population is exclusively homosexual
in orientation, most studies indicate.
And many researchers believe that a
much larger percentage, 70 or 80%, is
potentially, if not actually, bisexual or
ambisexual in their enjoyment of sex.
If this is true and we are indeed shift-
ing from a marital-reproductive-pro-
perty ethic to an aesthetics based on
communication, pleasure, friendship,
enjoyment, variety, and mutual
growth, then why are we still so up-
tight about the logical application of
these values to sexual relations bet-
ween two or more males, two or more
females, or any combination thereof?
Ten states are in varying stages of
adopting "consenting adult laws"
which hold that any sexual activity
between two or more consenting
adults is legal, provided it is not a
public nuisance or disturbance. Even
the Vatican recently authorized
publication of a book by a noted Jesuit
theologian which reinterprets the
morality of homosexual relations in
terms of "loving concern" or its lack
in the relationship, rather than on the
basis of unnatural acts of sodomy,
anal or oral sex, or any other form of
non-reproductive behavior.
Americans Teach Young Guilt
About Sex
For well over 100 years, Americans
have tried to protect their children
from the primal scene of mating. The
result has been generations of
youngsters totally puzzled by a basic
aspect of life. Sex becomes a mystery
and a problem, instead of a joyful,
wonderful part of their lives.
In most cultures today, sex is not a
great taboo secret. Children are raised
with a natural comfortableness with
nudity and sexual behavior of all
kinds. In many cultures, children are
encouraged and even taught to ex-
plore their bodies. When they discover
what turns them on, their elders re-
joice. Children are often allowed, even
encouraged in playful explorations of
love-making and intercourse. Play-
fully they prepare for their adult life.
In America we show our children
every form of violent behavior on
television. But God help the kid who
accidentally walks in on his parents
making love. We drive our children's
natural curiosity underground. We
load their natural explorations with
taboos and our own guilt and shame.
We do everything we can to create a
negative, "forbidden-fruit" image of
sex. Many children never overcome
this negative learning. They end up
gutted adults, incapable of appreciat-
ing one of the richest sources of
pleasure and communication we have.
Removing Taboos from Sex
Why can't we have a ritual to
celebrate a girl's first menstrual flow,
or a boy's first wet dream? Why can't
we parents share with our children the
anxieties, insecurities, and joys we
find in sex? Why shouldn't a son or
daughter feel free to discuss his or her
hesitant explorations of sexuality with
a parent?
Western society needs to be
open and accepting of the human
body and its ability to experience
sensual pleasure, according to
Robert and Anna Francoeur. They
recommend open discussion of sex
among parents and children and
feel that parents should encourage
the natural expressions of their
youngsters' sexuality.
Photo: George A. Francoeur
more
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We toss our children into one of the
most important areas of human com-
munications with a few words about
sexual plumbing and a few abstract
instructions about good and bad. We
refuse to admit sexuality to our
children until they marry and can
have kids, instead of seeing their
natural sexuality as a process which
may or may not lead to marriage
and/or parenthood.
Monogamy vs. Sexually Open
Marriage
A final issue is raised by the value
shift to sex for communication,
pleasure, friendship, enjoyment,
variety, learning, and mutual growth:
the question of monogamy.
Several noted theologians and a fair
number of marriage counselors,
sociologists, and psychologists are sug-
gesting today that we have gone far
enough down the devastating path of
trying to save monogamy with no-
fault divorces.
Divorce today is far more socially
and religiously acceptable as a
modification of the "until death do us
part" vow than is a sexually non-ex-
clusive marriage which maintains the
commitment of a lifelong bond but
modifies the "forsaking all others" to
include others. It is about time we ask
ourselves which of the two values is
more important in a good marriage,
and whether modifying one or both
will lead to a fuller, more human life.
In this perspective some theologians
are suggesting that maintaining the
long-term commitment while expand-
ing the circle of love to include others
may be a viable Christian option.
Can a man and woman have a
lifelong, healthy, growth-oriented,
open and trusting marriage that
allows each to have supporting friend-
ships, even when these are sexually
and genitally involved? Can a good
marriage be enriched and
strengthened by satellite or comarital
relations? Does all extramarital sex
have to be destructive forbidden fruit?
Alternatives to Monogamy
There are many ways a couple can
modify traditional sexual monogamy.
These include couple-front swinging,
group marriages, and intimate net-
works based on the acceptance of the
possibility of any friendship involving
the sexual and erotic. Another alter-
native is a sexually open marriage,
where the amount of information
about the satellite or comarital rela-
tionship that comes back to the other
spouse can vary from simple
knowledge it will happen sometime, to
the name of the person and some brief
details about him or her, to mutual
friendships developing between the
satellite and the other spouse. This
variety has been carefully documented
in several recent books: Francoeur's
Eve's New Rib; the Francoeurs' Hot
and Cool Sex; Rogers' Becoming
Partners; Bartell's Group Marriage;
Myers' Adultery and Other Private
Matters; Clanton and Downing's Face
to Face to Face; the Lobells' John and
Mimi; and Ramey's Intimate Friend-
ships.
James Ramey's research is perhaps
the most interesting in our context
here. Director of the Center for the
Study of Innovative Life Styles,
Ramey has examined the "intimate
networks" that develop when happily
married couples and contented singles
accept the legitimacy of sexual expres-
sion as part of traditional friendship.
Some of these networks have been in
existence for 30 or 40 years. The exis-
tence of such intimate networks and
their durability suggest that this form
of marriage may prove a good alterna-
tive for some to the serial polygamy,
divorce, and remarriage that is now
our most common pattern. (See
Ramey's articles, "Intimate Net-
works," THE FUTURIST, August
1975, and "The Multi-Adult House-
hold: Living.Group of the Future?,"
THE FUTURIST, April 1976.)
The environmental situation we
face today in America is quite
different from what existed 100 years
ago. What worked then in terms of
marriage patterns, sex roles, and sex-
ual values is obviously no longer
working today. Yet we still have some
basic human needs: for intimacy, sup-
port, growth, communication, and
pleasure.
The old pattern of the extended
multi-generation family still survives
in some rural areas. But in our vast
urban-suburban regions we have
millions of isolated, fragmented
nuclear families, often single-parent
families. The psychological, emotional
and economic support we once drew
from our aunts, uncles, cousins,
grandparents who lived nearby or
next door no longer exists. What, if
anything, can replace this support?
Opening Up the Pleasure Bond
Sex researchers Masters and
Johnson in their latest best seller, The
Pleasure Bond, say that there is no
need to replace this support network.
They argue that if only a husband and
wife work at their mutual commit-
ment and recognize the growing erotic
pleasure bond between them, they will
not need outside support or enrich-
ment. In their Victorian, reactionary
conservativism, they argue that a
healthy, committed marriage cannot
exist without sexual exclusivity. For
them, the suggestion that we might
develop a new definition for fidelity
and commitment in marriage not
based on sexual exclusivity is, in their
words, "to encourage the dangerous
and self-serving malady of
megalomania" and "the most seduc-
tive of rationalizations."
Actually, our sexual ethics have
been constantly evolving over the cen-
turies. Our marriage patterns have
also evolved, because behavior pat-
terns and values that worked well in
one era may not work at all when the
environment changes. Of 185 cultures
in today's world studied by Beach and
Ford, America from 1930 to 1960 had
one of the most restrictive and anti-
sexual.
Given the overall pattern of mar-
riage in western civilization and our
current trends in both behavior and
values, it may be wise to allow more
freedom of expression to what
William Masters and Virginia
Johnson call the pleasure bond.
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Three Concepts of
the Family
(46
The
" extended family:
The way families
used to be
(I)
? ? 0
The extended family, with several generations living
under one roof, characterized American society until
early in this century, when it began to be replaced by the
nuclear family comprised of a wife, husband, and their
children. The nuclear family, considered the basic unit of
American family life, has become the firmly established
norm in the past 20 years. Now some people, such as the
authors, are suggesting that the nuclear family may give
way to the multi-adult living group or intentional ex-
tended family. Such groups would consist of networks of
intimate friends who may or may not live together and
for whom the possibility of sexual involvement with each
other is open. Several such networks have lasted 30 or 40
years, which leads the Francoeurs to believe that this
life-style may prove a good alternative to present mar-
riage patterns.
The nuclear family:
Today's "ideal" family
?
Illustrations by H. Ronald Graff
The multi-adult family:
The family of tomorrow?
New Sexual Values to Shape
Future Society
It seems likely in the future that
American society will be more con-
cerned with parenting. The laws have
always tried to protect children and
assure their proper upbringing. Maybe
in the future, the laws will focus on
this aspect and leave the non-
reproductive sexual relations of con-
senting adults alone, in the private
sphere. In this event, our laws will ig-
nore the whole realm of premarital,
comarital, postmarital, nonmarital,
homosexual, bisexual, adolescent, and
infantile sexual behavior, provided
the behavior is non-reproductive.
In a zero-growth society where
children are rare, where blood rela-
tives are few and scattered, where
mobility, contraceptives, and the
economic liberation of women are ac-
cepted realities, our needs for intellec-
tual, emotional, psychological, and
sexual support may no longer have to
be met exclusively by one person, our
spouse. We may find that the old inti-
mate network of blood kinships with
its incest and adultery taboos is
already being replaced by the pleasure
bond of non- or comarital, non-
reproductive relationships. This new
intimate network, a kind of inten-
tional family without incest and adul-
tery taboos, may be even more suppor-
tive and creative than blood kinship
because it is not determined by birth,
but rather is open to creative spon-
taneity and new additions as we en-
counter new persons and new needs.
The pleasure bond will very likely
be the foundation of our luture
society, marriage and family, but it
will be with a whole new set of values
and life-styles which we are still strug-
gling to develop and articulate. The
central issue we will have to face in
developing these new values and life-
styles is two-fold. On the philosophical
and religious plane, there is our need
for a whole new philosophy and
theology of play, pleasure and non-
goal-oriented human activity includ-
ing non-reproductive and non-marital
sexual behavior of all types. On the
social and economic plane, we will
have to deal with the impact of this
new aesthetic on our American
capitalistic (property-oriented), con-
sumerist (competitive) Puritan work
ethic. In simple words, can our present
society survive the shift to a person-
oriented, non-competitive value
system that accepts play and pleasure
as prominent realities in life, equal
to?or superior to?work?
Robert T. Francoeur, a professor of
human sexuality and embryology at
Fairleigh Dickinson University, has
authored and edited eight books and over
140 articles on marriage, alternative life-
styles, theology, and evolution. His most re-
cent books are Hot and Cool Sex and The
Future of Sexual Relations, which he co-
authored with his wife, Anna K. Francoeur.
Anna Francoeur, a member of the Groves
Conference on Marriage and the Family, is
researching the history of sexual customs in
America. The Francoeurs live at 2 Circle
Drive, Rockaway, New Jersey 07866. 0
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Part 4
THE FUTURE AS INVENTION
"Inventing the future" has become a popular
phrase among futurists. They do not see the
future as something that just happens to peo-
ple; instead, people create the future by decid-
ing what they want and then working to
achieve it.
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Recycling People:
Work-Sharing Through Flexible Life Scheduling
by Fred Best
The world of the future will likely
require more flexibility in the way
we schedule education, work, and
leisure over a person's lifetime.
If this can be done successfully,
the way will be open for each
individual to realize many
personal dreams.
For most persons in our society, the
activities of education, work and leisure
are arranged in what might be called a
"linear life plan." We march through
school in youth, work or child-rearing
in mid-life, and retirement in old age.
This pattern of life may have worked
fairly well in the past, but there are signs
that it now is stifling the vibrance and
productivity of our lives and perhaps
even draining away the productive po-
tential and financial solvency of our so-
ciety.
For most of the 1970s, over 7% of the
United States labor force has been un-
employed. The cost of this unemploy-
ment in human misery, lost productiv-
ity, and inflationary tax-raising income
maintenance programs is horrendous. If
we cannot create enough jobs for those
who wish to work, might it not be better
to find ways to allow persons in mid-life
to reduce or temporarily leave their jobs
and thus share their work with others?
Furthermore, the competition for work
has pushed young persons into ever
longer years of schooling and older per-
sons into increasingly earlier retirement.
Beyond the psychological problems re-
sulting from this pattern, the compres-
sion of work into ever fewer years of
mid-life has created years of non-
income earning time at the extremes of
life which are leading to poverty, ever
higher welfare and student support
costs, and the possible bankruptcy of
Social Security. Might it not be better to
distribute income earning work time
more evenly over the total life cycle?
Besides unemployment, we must now
contend with underemployment.
Between 1960 and 1975, the portion of
persons 25 years and older who had
graduated from a four-year college in-
creased from 7.7 to 13.9%. But today
we are finding that our society, as pre-
sently organized, has little need for the
vast numbers of better trained and edu-
cated workers now available. As a re-
sult, there is an awesome waste of pro-
ductive human potential, growing dis-
content due to the failure to provide
equal opportunity through education,
and the possibility of widespread insti-
tutional stagnation due to the lack of
individual opportunity. If we cannot
create enough quality jobs to match the
skills and aspirations of our population,
might it not be better to rotate the more
attractive positions among qualified
persons?
Lifetime Scheduling Trends
The current predominance of the
"linear life plan" can be attributed to
three major causes: First, the natural
dynamics of the human life cycle are
such that a person gains physical matur-
ity and learns basic skills in youth,
works in mid-life when abilities and re-
sponsibilities are at their peak, and re-
tires from work as abilities and respon-
sibilities decline in old age. Second, the
consistent shortage of jobs in the United
States over the last several decades has
fostered fierce competition for work be-
tween age groups which has pushed
young people into increasingly extended
school and older persons into even earli-
er retirement. Third, the tremendous
growth of economic productivity
brought about by industrialization has
allowed tremendous growth in the aver-
age person's time away from work.
Some elaboration of the extent to
which non-work time has increased
within industrial societies may be help-
ful at this point. Rough estimates com-
puted by the Metropolitan Life Insur-
ance Company of the years of total life-
times spent on major activities during
different stages of societal development
serve to dramatize this growth of non-
work time. Work absorbed about 33%
of the average person's lifespan in
primitive times (before 4000 B.C.), 29%
during the agricultural era (4000 B.C. to
1900 A.D.), and about 14% during the
industrial era (past-1900 A.D.). In the
20th century, worktime for American
males, as a proportion of their overall
waking and sleeping lifetimes, was cut
almost in half between 1900 and 1970
from 23.7 to 13.4%, according to esti-
Utility worker checks level of gas in
,manhole in New York City.
Photo: Consolidated Edison, New York
Village barber in Bangladesh trims the hair
of a young customer.
Photo: Agency for International Development
American office worker enters punched
card into business machine.
Photo: U.S. Department of Labor
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mates computed from U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics data.
A large measure of the increase in
non-work time during the 20th century
has come in the form of a reduced work-
week. Specifically, the average U.S.
workweek has declined from approxi-
mately 60 to 39 hours over the last cen-
tury. However, during the last three de-
cades the workweek has remained re-
markably stable with significant in-
creases in non-work time taking the
form of longer vacations and more holi-
days, More years for education during
youth, and earlier retirement in old age.
Chronologically, the growth of non-
work time over the last century first
took the form of reduced workweeks
and increased vacations for those in the
mid-years of life and then began to
expand in the form of schooling and re-
tirement for persons in the early and la-
ter years of life. In this way, both the
options and constraints of advanced in-
dustrialization have led to the compres-
sion of work into the middle of life.
Between 1900 and 1970, the percent-
age of the average U.S. male's "lifetime"
spent primarily on work or looking for
work decreased from 66.6% to 59.7%.
Computations based on average life
longevity, years of school and average
age of retirement indicate that the time
spent primarily in work has been in-
creasingly compressed into mid-life, and
non-work time has increased substan-
tially in the earlier and later years of
life. This trend was caused partly by a
dramatic increase in longevity before
1940. Since 1940, life expectancy has re-
mained relatively constant, but the
compression of work into an ever
smaller proportion of mid-life has con-
tinued. If current trends continue un-
abated, the average U.S. male will, by
the year 1990, be spending 44.2% of his
lifetime in non-work activities during
youth and old age.
The trends of lifetime distribution of
education, work and leisure raise two
important questions: (1) Are we ap-
proaching or perhaps beyond the point
of "diminishing returns" for the "linear
life plan"? (2) What alternative ways of
scheduling education, work, and leisure
over total lifetimes might be pursued?
Alternative Lifetime Patterns
There are a number of alternative
ways to distribute education, work and
leisure over a total lifespan. Three
major alternatives are:
? Continued expansion of the linear
life plan. The forces which have deter-
mined life patterns in the past may con-
tinue and work years may be increas-
ingly compressed into mid-life.
? Reduction of the workweek and
part-time work. The average workweek
might be reduced and the average work-
life might be spread over a larger por-
tion of the life span. This would reduce
non-work time in youth and old age,
and presumably allow time for part-
Women Pour Into Labor Force
The rapid entry of women into the labor force in recent years has been one of
the major factors spurring more flexible work schedules.
As recently as 1960, women comprised only 33% of the U.S. labor force. In
1970, the number had climbed to 38%, and by 1976 the figure had reached nearly
41%.
Economist Eli Ginzburg, chairman of the National Commission for Manpower
Policy, has called the flood of women into the work force the single most out-
standing phenomenon of our century."
"The long-term implications are absolutely unchartable in my opinion," Ginz-
burg says. "It will affect women, men, and children, and the cumulative conse-
quences of that will only be revealed in the 21st and 22nd centuries."
Many reasons can be given for the relatively sudden surge of women into the
labor force. Among them:
? Television and other mass media have created such high standards of material
well-being that a husband's salary no longer suffices to meet a family's perceived
needs.
? Religion has declined as an outlet for women's energies and aspirations, and
careers are sought as a substitute.
? Divorce rates have risen sharply. The U.S. now has a million divorces a year.
The instability of marriage has made women realize that they cannot be certain of
having a husband to support them.
? Effective contraceptive methods, together with legalized abortion as a "fail-
safe" measure, are now far more easily available in a variety of forms. In addition,
there is a widespread attitude that having children is not necessarily good for
society.
? Marriages are occurring later in life. Even after marriage occurs, childbearing
is often postponed?sometimes permanently.
? Widespread higher education has increased women's awareness of and quali-
fications for various occupations.
time education in mid-life.
? Cyclic life plans.Current time spent
on education in youth and retirement in
old age as well as any further gains in
non-work time could be redistributed to
mid-life for extended periods away from
work for education or leisure.
None of these alternatives would meet
everyone's needs, and there are num-
erous reasons why the United States
may move toward generally increased
flexibility in scheduling working lives
which may include the above and other
life scheduling formats.
Assuming a moderately slow but con-
stant economic growth rate of around
3% and a general willingness of the
average worker to exchange about 25%
of future economic growth for more free
time, the scheduling of work for the
average person might resemble the fol-
lowing by the year 2000:
Single and Non-Offspring Years:
Longer workweeks of 45 to 50 hours
with annual vacations ranging from
eight to 14 weeks and some sabbaticals.
Early Child-Rearing Years:
Shorter Workweeks of 25 to 40 hours
with moderate vacations of two to four
weeks.
Late and Post Child-Rearing Years:
Moderate to long workweeks of 40 to 45
hours with long annual vacations of five
to eight weeks and extended sabbatical
leaves.
Old Age:
Short to moderate workweeks of 25 to
40 hours and long vacations and sabbat-
ical leaves.
Life Schedules in the Future
Such scheduling of work and non-
work time over the human lifespan
would require major shifts in the fabric
of American society. Indeed, we may
well ask whether the problems and
About
the
Author
Fred Best, a specialist on work scheduling,
is currently a Research Associate at the Na-
tional Commission for Manpower Policy in
Washington, D.C. He holds an M.B.A. and
will complete work on a Ph.D. in sociology
this year. He has held a number of research
and administrative positions, and is now
completing a book titled Recycling People,
which will be published in 1978. He has also
edited The Future of Work (Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1972. Paper-
back. 179 pages. $2.95. Available from the
World Future Society book service.).
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shortcomings of current lifetime pat-
terns are really great enough to move us
toward alternative patterns. Powerful
forces?natural life cycle dynamics,
competition for work, etc.?have fos-
tered the development of institutions
and life patterns that support the linear
life plan, and many of these forces con-
tinue to exist. We must therefore ask
whether the problems and shortcomings
of current lifetime patterns are great
enough to offset those forces and to
combine with emerging new forces to
move U.S. society toward more flexible
and cyclic patterns of life.
Let us now assess some of the major
social forces for their likely impact on
future lifetime patterns. These social
forces include unemployment, attitudes
toward income and free time, methods
and scheduling of education, education
and the desire for social opportunity,
social change and life junctures, sex
roles and family structure, develop-
mental stages of adulthood, and prob-
lems of old age and retirement.
Unemployment and Work Sharing
Of the social forces which may foster
more flexible life scheduling, none is
more pressing than unemployment.
Recent unemployment rates have been
excessively high, and the prospect for
improvement over the next few decades
is dim. Technological advances con-
tinue to foster increased productivity in
many sectors of the economy, and thus
create situations in which economic
growth may fail to generate as many
jobs as in the past. At the same time,
prospects for economic growth itself are
dampened by international competi-
tion, depletion of key raw materials,
and the indirect costs of technological
"diseconomies" such as pollution. Fur-
thermore, the proportion of the U.S.
population which is working or seeking
work is growing faster than the most
rapid rates of job creation in our his-
tory.
The rapid rise in the working popula-
tion can be attributed to several causes:
The labor force participation rate of
women has been increasing at a rate of
Years Spent on Life Activities
These charts show how human life span has lengthened (most rapidly during the
early 20th century) and how the amount of time each person spends on different activi-
ties has changed. Perhaps the most important change is the sharp decline in relative
amount of time devoted to work.
Primitive Man
(Before 4000 B.C.)
Total Life-Span:
18 Years
A
7.5
Years
Agricultural Man
(400 B.C.-1900 A.D.)
Life-Span: 35 Years
13.0
Years
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New Yo k.
Industrial Man
(1900 A.D. to Present)
Life-Span: 70 Years
Work
Childhood Play
Leisure
Eating
Education
Miscellaneous
Sleep
1900
Average Life-Span:
48 Years.
1970
Average Life-Span:
70 Years.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Bureau of the Census
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about 1% per year. The influx of the un-
usually large post-World War II "baby
boom" generation into the labor force
has swelled the ranks of the working
population still further. Adding to the
"over supply" of workers are the older
workers, who are resisting retirement,
and an estimated six million illegal
aliens now working within U.S. bound-
aries. In terms of hard statistics, the
overall labor force participation rate
rose from 59.2 to 61.2% between 1960
and 1970, and is projected to rise to
63.2% by 1985. While views vary in
degree, there is a growing consensus
that the U.S. economy will not be able
to create enough jobs for all those will-
ing and able to work during the next few
decades.
The burden of unemployment is
shared unevenly among age groups. For
example, the 1975 unemployment rate
for persons aged 16 to 19 was 20.1% as
compared to a rate of 6.7% for those
over 20 years old. People aged 20 to 24
also had a high unemployment rate-
14.3 % . Furthermore, the number of
young persons who have ceased looking
for work due to a sense of futility or
who have returned to school for a lack
of alternatives adds further "hidden un-
employment" to the already high rate of
this group. At the other end of the life
cycle, older persons without work com-
monly enter early-retirement rather
than linger in a state of unemployment.
High rates of unemployment also result
in declining promotion opportunities
for workers in mid-life, and when the
career progression of mid-aged workers
becomes blocked, younger workers will
find it difficult to obtain entry-level
positions with advancement potentials
and older workers will be pushed into
ever earlier retirements.
What can be done to reduce unem-
ployment and to achieve a more equit-
able distribution of work among
various groups, particularly among age
groups? Three somewhat traditional
solutions come to mind: (1) economic
growth, (2) public jobs and job training
programs, and (3) work-sharing, which
reduces work time for those with jobs
and redistributes work opportunities to
persons at the fringes of the labor mar-
ket. As already noted, the traditional
job-creating strategies of economic ex-
pansion and public job programs might
not be enough. Although these
approaches will undoubtedly remain the
principal ones, their limitations are
likely. to create a demand for other solu-
tions, such as work-sharing.
The idea of work-sharing is not new.
Consciously and unconsciously, the
U.S. has pursued work-sharing in a
number of ways. The common ap-
proach has been to limit or reduce the
workweek. Since the 1930s, the length
of workweeks has been limited by the
Fair Labor Standards Act, partly to
spread available work more evenly
among the labor force. In addition,
public and private policies have encour-
aged young and old persons to stay out
of the labor force, thus increasing job
opportunities for those in mid-life.
Clearly, over the last half century the
U.S. has pursued de facto work-sharing
policies.
Today, there are indications that past
work-sharing approaches may be in-
adequate. We have reached or passed
the point where more non-work time at
the extremes of the life cycle would be
desirable, and there are signs that most
workers have little interest in exchang-
ing income-earning work time for a uni-
versal shorter workweek. There is,
however, evidence that many workers
in mid-life would welcome opportuni-
ties for free time scheduled to meet their
individual needs.
If ways could be found to allow work-
ers to choose among various forms of
free time, enough work might be fore-
gone to reduce unemployment signi-
ficantly. Hypothetically, a decision on
the part of 50% of the labor force to for-
feit 2% of their annual income for an
additional week of paid vacation could
open up enough jobs to reduce unem-
ployment by 1%, as could a decision by
7% of the labor force to exchange 14%
of their earnings for one paid year off
every seven years. Of course, many
workers would not choose to give up
Alternative Lifetime Patterns
Linear Life Plan
Cyclic Life Plan
0
Age In years
10
Worktime
20
30
Education and leisure
40
50
60
70
Linear Life Plan (the way life is now organized): An extended period of non-work at the beginning of life is followed by a solid period of work
years and then another period of non-work. Under this plan, most increases in non-work are taken in the form of reduced workweeks and ex-
pansion of the time for education during youth and leisure during old age. Such expansion reduces the compressions of work into the mid-
years of life but maintains the linear progression from school to work to retirement.
Cyclic Life Plan (the way life may be organized in the future): Non-work time is redistributed through the middle years of life to allow ex-
tended periods of leisure or education in mid-life.
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Changing
Patterns of Work
Left: Much manufacturing once occurred in
the home, with all family members partici-
pating, except for the very youngest. This
Bohemian family is making cigars in their
New York City tenement about 1880. Shoes,
clothing, foodstuffs, and many other arti-
cles were commonly prepared in such cot-
tage industries for sale on the market.
Photo: Jacob Riis. Courtesy: Library of Congress
Below: When work moved out of the home
to the factory, women and children often
joined men in tending the machines. This is
a cotton mill in Lancaster, South Carolina,
about 1908. The young girl in the fore-
ground is described as "Sadie Pfeiffer, 48
inches high. Has worked half a year. One of
the many small children at work in Lancas-
ter Cotton Mills." During the early 20th cen-
tury, laws were passed to prevent the hiring
of young children as workers.
any earnings, but others might give up
substantial amounts.
Changing Attitudes Toward Time
and Income
For many decades, scholars of indus-
trial society have rather adamantly pro-
claimed that the average American
worker is not willing to give up income-
earning work time for more free time.
However, some recent evidence suggests
that the willingness of workers to ex-
change income for free time is strongly
influenced by the forms and flexibility
with which free time is scheduled. When
workers are asked whether they would
be willing to exchange some of their in-
come for a shorter workweek or some
undefined form of free time, the vast
majority express a preference for in-
come. However, when workers are pre-
sented with a choice between income
and a number of equally costly forms of
free time, only a small portion prefer
income as opposed to free time. More
notably, the largest portion prefer ex-
tended time away from work in the
form of longer vacations. One survey of
2,000 workers found that extended
Moonlighting Reaches All-Time High
While many workers are seeking
to work less, others are trying to
work more?as evidenced by the re-
cent increase in the number of moon-
lighters.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics reports that the number of per-
sons holding two or more jobs reach-
ed an all-time high of 4.6 million in
May 1977-600,000 more than a
year earlier. The proportion of all
employed persons holding two or
more jobs rose to 5%, about the rate
that prevailed in the late 1960s and
early 1960s.
"While the multiple jobholding
rate of men continued much higher
than that of women, the increase in
the moonlighting rate from May
1976 to May 1977 was much sharper
for women," the Bureau said. "For
the first time, their rate exceeded
3%. Women now make up over one
quarter of all the moonlighters."
One third of the multiple jobhold-
ers in the May 1977 survey reported
that they held second jobs to meet
regular expenses. An additional
5.3% cited a need to pay off debts.
One fifth said that they moonlighted
because they enjoyed the work on
their second jobs.
Photo: U.S. Department of Labor
vacations and work sabbaticals were the
most preferred of 15 fringe benefit op-
tions.
Changes in Education
The massive democratization of edu-
cation during the 1960s, fostered by a
larger and more diverse educational
constituency, forced a widespread re-
cognition that different individuals
learn best with different methods and
time frames. The result has been a wave
of educational innovations such as stu-
dent-initiated courses, non-graded stud-
ies, academic credit for work and other
experiences, vouchers and "learning
contracts," residential colleges, decen-
tralized campuses, ethnic curriculums,
programs for the elderly, and equival-
ency examinations.
"Non-traditional" education is gen-
erally conducive to more flexible life
patterns, and its likely growth will tend
to increase the scheduling flexibility of
schooling, thereby facilitating depar-
tures from the linear life patterns.
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Education and Social Opportunity:
Mechanization: Friend or Foe? Workers have long had mixed feelings about machinery:
On the one hand, they recognized that the machines spared them much back-breaking
labor; on the other, the machines were seen as taking away the workers' jobs. This 1882
cartoon portrays mechanization as a monster, spelling doom for the workers.
Who Will Do the Dirty Work?
Labor experts have noted a rapid increase in recent years in the feeling of work-
ers that they are entitled not just to a job, but to a good job?one that is financially
and psychologically rewarding.
And the image of a good job rises constantly: A woman who once felt proud of
earning money independently as a typist has, in recent years, sometimes been
made to feel like a victim of oppression?or guilty of "failing to live up to her po-
tential."
Newly minted law school graduates demand fantastic jobs, says University of
Denver Law School Dean Robert Yegge. "There's a perception that lawyering is
working for a larger firm, making $100,000 per year, and there is nothing else for
a lawyer to do," Yegge says. When they cannot get a dream job, Yegge says, some
law school graduates wind up tending bar.
Though society may now have a larger number of interesting jobs than in times
past, the fact is that most jobs are still rather uninspiring. As a result, society faces
a "dirty work" problem: Who will do the humdrum tasks that society requires for
its everyday functioning?
One proposal was offered in the 19th century by Edward Bellamy in his utopian
novel Looking Backward: 2000-1887. Bellamy proposed a two-year compulsory
national service in which young people would wait on tables and take out the gar-
bage.
The Problem of "Overeducation"
The failing link between educational
attainment and occupational advance-
ment is fostering social tensions which
may lead to more flexible life patterns.
In previous decades, the rising need for
a highly skilled and educated labor force
made extended years of schooling the
central avenue for social mobility. For
many years, schooling represented the
"meritocratic" ideal: The rewards and
valued positions in society would be dis-
tributed on the basis of proven effort
and skill as evidenced primarily by
educational certification. Today we are
beginning to realize that the developed
skills, not to mention the undeveloped
potentials, within our population are
considerably greater than the demands
of the labor market. Nonetheless, young
people are continuing to stay in school
longer in order to first avoid and then
overcome competition with older work-
ers and each other.
The increasing problem of "overedu-
cation" may be seen by comparing the
growth in the proportion of college
graduates in the labor force with the
growth in the number of professional
and technical jobs (the kind which most
college graduates get) as a percentage of
total civilian employment. This com-
parison shows that while the proportion
of workers who are college graduates
will continue to grow during the 1975-
85 decade, the percentage of profes-
sional-technical jobs will remain ap-
proximately constant (about 15%). This
translates into a labor market surplus of
millions of college graduates. The rather
conservative estimates of the U.S. Bur-
eau of Labor Statistics project a surplus
of 1.6 million college graduates in 1985.
Other analysts project an even greater
oversupply. Joseph Froomkin, for ex-
ample, assumes a lesser demand for pro-
fessional-technical and managerial jobs
than BLS because of technological ad-
vances and automation and a greater
supply of college graduates due to the
increased labor force participation and
educational attainment of women. His
figures project an oversupply of from
six to eight million college graduates.
The growing magnitude of the imbal-
ance may have serious consequences.
Projected levels of "overeducation"
will not only result in widespread sub-
optimization of human resources, but
political discontent, job dissatisfaction
and the counterproductive effects of
dampened occupational aspirations.
The signs of this crisis are rapidly be-
coming apparent. According to two re-
cent surveys by the U.S. Department of
Labor, one-fourth to one-third of Amer-
ican workers feel overqualified for their
jobs. Since feelings of overqualification
are one of the strongest correlates of
overall job dissatisfaction, an increase
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of such feelings could well result in
poorer worker morale and decreased
productivity. It was argued in the 1960s
by Theodore Schultz and other "human
capitalists" that investments in educa-
tion were investments in the gross na-
tional product. These economists felt
N_ that upgrading the workforce educa-
tionally would lead to high productivity
as underqualified workers were replaced
by those with greater skills.
But Ivar Berg in his book Education
and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery
(Praeger, New York, 1970) has argued
that the reality is quite different from
the economists' model. What actually
happens is that more highly qualified
workers may be forced to stay in or
accept jobs not utilizing their education
and bump slightly less qualified workers
from their jobs. No increase in pro-
ductivity occurs because the nature of
the jobs is usually such that they do not
require higher skills. Productivity may
actually drop because the more highly
qualified worker is likely to be dissat-
isfied with the job. In sum, increasing
the educational level of the workforce
above a certain level, without concom-
itant changes in the structure of work to
capitalize on the increased capabilities
of workers, will probably exert a slight-
ly negative impact on productivity.
On the positive side, the increasing
overqualification of workers, who,
ironically, have the educational back-
grounds to articulate their dissatisfac-
tions, could result in an overall
improvement of working conditions,
the creation of more interesting jobs (as
employers consider how to adjust the
demand to fit the supply), and greater
amounts of industrial democracy with
more workers sharing in corporate de-
cision-making. Though the increasing
educational attainment of the labor
force has not had such an impact thus
far, we must remember that the over-
supply problem is still somewhat new,
having begun only in the past five years.
In the future, it may be necessary to
develop new channels, and perhaps new
definitions, for social opportunity and
personal achievement. The problem and
the solution will lie primarily with the
world of work rather than education. In
a society in which human capacities
surpass the opportunities for achieve-
ment, it becomes necessary to either ex-
pand or redistribute opportunities or
confront stagnation. Since the
structural realities of the U.S. labor
force are not likely to allow a significant
expansion of opportunities, it may be
necessary to redistribute opportunities
by moving toward some type of rota-
tional system for sharing not only the
number of jobs, but the quality of work.
In this sense, a flexible life pattern, in
which most persons open work and ad-
vancement opportunities to others by
periodically leaving their jobs for ex-
tended periods, may well become the
next step in America's traditional pur-
suit of achievement and equal oppor-
tunity.
Sex Roles and Family Structure
Today there is cause to believe that
changes in sex roles and family structure
will be critical forces in fostering more
flexible life patterns.
The increase in women workers, par-
ticularly working wives, will enable
more male "breadwinners" to decline
income-earning work time in favor of
more free time. Correspondingly, the
decline of family size and dependents
will likely decrease parental chores, thus
freeing more time and income for non-
work activities.
While women today are working
more during and shortly after preg-
nancy, the physiological necessities and
preferences of women workers to take at
least some time away from their work
activities for both pregnancy and child-
rearing will likely have the effect of in-
creasing the flexibility of work hours
and work years for both men and
women as the proportion of women in
the labor force rises.
Husbands and wives are becoming in-
creasingly flexible in exchanging work,
household and child-rearing responsi-
U.S. Men's Lifetime Distribution of
Education, Wort and Leisure by Primary Activity:
Retirement
and other
Work
Formal
education
Preschool
Age in years
70 ?
60 ?
50 ?
40 ?
30 ?
20 ?
10'-'
Life
expectancy
in years
48.2
A631%11,
66.6
67.1
68.3
68.5
10.0%
8.3%
7.6%
7.40/0
7.3%
7.3%
1900
1940
1960 1970
1980
1990
This chart, based on data from such government agencies as the Bureau of the Census and the Office of Education, includes projections
of worklife and life expectancy from unpublished computations provided by Howard N. Fullerton, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figures were computed for U.S. males only because of fundamental differences in current lifetime patterns between men and women
which made consolidation of figures for both men and women inadvisable. Parenthetically, when "hOmekeeping" and "child rearing" are
consideied as "work," the life pattern differences between men and women become more similar. Additionally, while women appear to be
pursuing longer and more continuous "worklives," it is unlikely that the average woman will develop a worklife which consumes a longer
portion of total lifetime than the average man. In this sense, male lifetime activity estimates present a conservative indication of the "linear
life plan." ?
Based on a chart that originally appeared in "Education, Work and Leisure: Must They Come in That Order?" by Fred Best and Barry Stern, Monthly Labor Review, July 1977.
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The
Disappearance
of Work
The substitution of animal?and later
mechanical?power for human labor
made it possible to accomplish more
with a smaller expenditure of human
labor.
In recent years, instruments and con-
trol devices have increasingly taken the
place of human perceptual and intellec-
tual abilities, making it possible to have
highly productive factories that require
only a small number of workers.
Above: Nepalese family farms together; he
tills and she sows.
Photo: Agency for International Development.
Left: Tractor cultivates cotton in the United
States. A field like this once required scores
of slaves to do the job that one man and a
tractor can do today. Mechanization of the
cotton fields of the U.S. South deprived mil-
lions of blacks of their jobs and sent many
of them into the ghettoes of the North.
Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Below: Control room of a modern food fac-
tory. This is the nerve center of the Gaines
Pet Food plant in Topeka, Kansas. Checks
are made of the readings of monitoring
equipment which keeps watch over the en-
tire processing and packaging operation of
the plant.
Photo: General Foods Corporation, ?
White Plains, New York
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bilities. While past sex roles required
men to be "breadwinners" and women
to be "housewives," increasing sex role
flexibility is likely to expand the oppor-
tunity for spouses to rotate roles and
thus free each other from the linear life
patterns of the past.
Developmental Stages of Adulthood
Over the last few years several schol-
ars have proposed that adults exper-
ience developmental stages, as do child-
ren and adolescents.
There appears to be some consensus
that most adults progress through suc-
cessive phases of stabilization and con-
solidation followed by change and
growth as they pursue new goals and
confront the changing crises of different
stages. If so, cyclic life patterns might
correspond more to the needs and
rhythms of adulthood than linear pat-
terns. In fact, the prevailing linear life
plan may be robbing society of much of
the creativity and productivity which
occurs among adults during mid-life
junctures.
Social Change and Life Junctures
There is evidence that considerable
change is occurring in American so-
ciety, and that it will likely continue if
not increase. In societies where there is a
rapid rate of social change, individuals
constantly confront new opportunities
and new problems which require signifi-
cant changes in their life-styles. In the
future we can expect that social change
and its attendant changes in individual
life-styles will be an ongoing force mov-
ing U.S. society toward more flexible
life patterns.
Old Age and Retirement
The conditions confronting persons in
the later stages of life will likely create
powerful forces for the development of
more flexible life scheduling. Older per-
sons today are living longer and there
are increasingly more of them. The life
expectancy of a person aged 65 increas-
ed from 12.8 years in 1940 to 15.3 years
in 1970. The percentage of persons aged
65 and over in the U.S. will increase
from 9.7% in 1970 to some 14.6% in
2020, and 17.3% in 2030. We can expect
a major social realignment when the
post-World War II "baby boom" gen-
eration begins to withdraw from the
labor force in the year 2000. Since the
younger generation behind them will be
significantly smaller, there may be an
inadequate number of persons to fill the
jobs developed by their predecessors.
As a result, younger persons are likely
to be drawn out of schooling and older
persons detained from retirement to fill
the demand for labor. These forces will
be highly disruptive and possibly de-
structive to the continuation of the "lin-
ear life plan."
The Social Security System, which
has allowed most elderly persons to re-
tire with a basic income and more re-
cently fostered early retirement at age
62, may face continuing financial trou-
ble. The tax-paying population is de-
clining relative to the retired population
and inflationary pressures are at once
reducing the financial base of Social Se-
curity while the demand for large ex-
penditures is rising. Proposals for later
and flexible retirement are already being
made and it is highly possible that the
emerging financial limitations of the So-
cial Security System will not only halt
the trend toward earlier retirement but
foster continuous or intermittent work
activity further into the stage of life now
called "old age."
In addition to the demographic and fi-
nancial forces that are limiting the
length of retirement, there are comple-
mentary signs that many elderly persons
are resisting withdrawal from work
activities. A combination of longer life
expectancy for older persons, better
health, declining physical demands of
most work, and financial considerations
appears to be fostering a desire on the
part of many persons for gradual or in-
termittent rather than mandatory and
earlier retirement. As one indication of
changing preferences toward retire-
ment, a 1970 Social Security Adminis-
tration survey found that one half of the
men who were subject to compulsory re-
tirement wanted to return to work one
year after withdrawal from the labor
force. Changing preferences and emerg-
ing trends are likely to foster both flexi-
ble retirement and work patterns during
the later stages of life.
Institutional Constraints and Options
While there are a number of social
forces afoot which may foster or allow
movement toward more flexible lifetime
patterns, there are also strong forces of
institutional inertia that may make the
emergence of more flexible life schedul-
ing more fantasy than reality. Ulti-
mately, we must confront the critical
question of whether or not the con-
straints and options of most work
organizations and other influential in-
stitutions can be adjusted to new pat-
terns of life.
Among the obstacles to more flexible
patterns which might be expected from
work organizations and the persons
The Four- Day Week
The workweek, long standardized at five days, has shown signs in recent years
of shrinking to four.
Between 1973 and 1977, the number of U.S. workers on a four-day workweek
increased by more than 50%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. However,
they still represent only a tiny percentage (1.4%) of the U.S. labor force.
During the same period, workers having workweeks greater than 51/2 days de-
clined from 17.3% of the labor force to 15%. Occupational groups that stand out
as working long weeks include managers, sales workers, and transport equipment
operators. Local government workers constituted the group most likely to be on a
four-day workweek.
Increase in Part-Time Workers
The category of "permanent part-time workers" is one of the fastest growing
segments of the U.S. work force. Almost nonexistent in 1900, it now includes close
to 17 million people, mainly women.
The rise of the "permanent part-time" workers has facilitated the growth of the
temporary help industry, which provides typists, secretaries, clerks, and a wide
variety of other workers to fill temporary vacancies.
Union leaders generally oppose attempts to substitute part-time workers for
full-time workers, on the grounds that more workers may be lured into the job
marketplace at a time when jobs are scarce and the wages of full-time workers will
be depressed.
New Terms for New Work-Styles
Job Sharing: The sharing of a single job by two or three persons who cooperate
in carrying out the responsibilities of the job.
Work Sharing: Reduction of worktime so that more employees can have some
employment. Instead of laying off 10% of its employees, a factory could reduce
the hours?and wages?of all employees by 10%.
Flexitime(or flextime): Flexible work scheduling which allows employees to start
and quit work at times that best meet their personal schedules. In general, flexi-
time maintains a certain"core" period when all or most employees are expected to
be present?typically in the late morning and early afternoon. Flexitime normally
does not imply any reduction in the total amount of time worked each week, but
only a flexibility in the period of time during which the work takes place.
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who manage them are problems of or-
ganizational discontinuity, threats of
losing trained personnel and possible
business secrets to competitors, admin-
istrative costs of coordinating non-con-
tinuous employees, and fears by em-
ployees of all levels that they may lose
both their jobs and organizational in-
fluence.
Of course, more flexible life patterns
may also have positive impacts. For
example, extended non-work time may
allow both self-renewal and retraining
of employees, worker morale and pro-
ductivity may improve, non-productive
and "dead-ended" workers may find
new and more suitable jobs to the bene-
fit of themselves and their old organi-
zation, and tax burdens for unemploy-
ment and welfare services may be low-
ered. Whether these problems and bene-
fits can realistically be managed or
actualized, and whether the net effect
would be positive or negative upon
organization, is perhaps the most criti-
cal question to be answered by those
concerned with the future distribution
of education, work and leisure over the
human lifespan.
In evaluating the adaptability of work
organizations to cyclic life patterns, it is
important to recognize that their con-
straints and options vary tremendously.
The product type, size, structure, and
stability of organizations are important
considerations. For example, the work
scheduling flexibility of organizations
concerned with continuous, year-round
mass production is different from those
concerned with seasonal or batch pro-
duction. Similarly, a small firm will face
different constraints and options than a
large corporation. Likewise, the level of
capital investment and nature of tech-
nologies will influence organizational
flexibility. The ways in which employ-
ees are organized is particularly impor-
tant, as is the overall stability and rate
of organizational change.
While there is, at this time, no sys-
tematic overview of the adaptability of
work organizations to cyclic patterns of
life, there are a number of indications
that suggest widespread adaptations
may be possible. The growth of progres-
sively longer vacations is an important
case in point, suggesting that large num-
bers of organizations are finding it pos-
sible to adapt to extended absences by
their employees. Other more limited
and specific examples suggest that or-
ganizations have been adaptable to a
wide variety of work scheduling inno-
vations such as "flexitime," 4-day, 40-
hour workweeks, leaves of absence
without pay, extended vacations some-
times approaching 3 months, "cafeteria"
time-income tradeoff options, and a
Age Groups as Percentage of Total Labor Force
1960-1990
Changes in the age mix of the U.S. work force may have widespread impacts. Note the rise
in the percentage of workers aged 35-44 as the "baby boom" generation moves into middle
age. Source: Manpower Report of the President, 1975
Unpaid Time Off-
a New Employee
Benefit
Workers are coming to view un-
paid time off as a valuable fringe
benefit, employment experts report.
Since many workers would rather
have time off than extra money,
workers are generally ready to ac-
cept shorter hours during a period of
low economic activity rather than
see some of their fellow workers
completely deprived of work while
the rest go on working the same
hours as before.
"Work-sharing" thus becomes "un-
employment sharing."
variety of work sabbatical programs.
On another dimension, a number of
organizations experimenting with "job
rotation" have reported positive results.
While further investigation and experi-
mentation in this area is necessary, these
trends and innovations suggest that the
institutions of work can be adapted to
more flexibility in the short- and long-
run scheduling of individual worktime.
Beyond the problems which must be
overcome by management are those of
organized labor, whose reservations
about increasing worklife flexibility
may be well-founded in some instances.
Over a period of more than 100 years,
organized labor has struggled to build a
legal and political system which sup-
ports the institution of collective bar-
gaining and the rights of individual
workers. Widespread flexible worklives
might undermine standardized worker
rights like overtime pay and job security
provisions, and possibly complicate and
fragment the worker solidarity needed
for effective collective bargaining.
Additionally, many union leaders be-
lieve that gains in free time should not
come at the expense of reductions in
worker income, particularly if gains in
free time are fostered as work sharing.
Any major movement toward flexible
worklives is likely to be gained only
after thorough assessment of the desires
of rank-and-file union members and a
careful adjustment of public statutes
and collective bargaining agreements so
that options for worklife flexibility can
be developed without undermining
basic union concerns.
Flexible Worklife Policy Options
While the prospect of worklife flexi-
bility has wide appeal, there are many
often conflicting ideas on how the gen-
eral concept might be applied. The no-
tion has value to many groups, almost
to the point of offering something for
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everyone at only moderate costs. Yet
the idea does have some costs and possi-
bly dangers, and its benefits could be
shared unequally. While there may
seem to be compelling reasons for
movement toward life scheduling flexi-
bility, there are also a great many un-
answered questions. At this stage in the
development of the flexible worklife
idea, it is important to isolate as many
policy options as possible, and stimulate
broadly-based dialogue about them.
Five general policy options will be sur-
veyed: reduced workweeks, time-in-
come tradeoff options, accumulated
leaves of absence, work sabbaticals with
pay, and income maintenance pay-
ments.
? Reduced Workweek and Part-Time
Work Opportunities. While a universal
reduction of the workweek would pre-
sent many complications, there is a
growing interest in shorter workweeks
and part-time work among many
groups?particularly working mothers,
student youth, and elderly persons. Pro-
grams and policies to create a given
quota of jobs with reduced workweek
hours at all levels of the occupational
stratum would be well received by per-
sons at different stages of the life cycle.
Over the last few years, a growing
number of efforts have been undertaken
to legitimize and increase the role of
part-time work. In the U.S. Congress,
Representative Pat Schroeder and Sena-
tor Gaylord Nelson have introduced
joint legislation to creat a fixed pro-
portion of part-time jobs within the fed-
eral government. Similar efforts have
been undertaken within many state gov-
ernments, and in California an organi-
zation called New Ways to Work is
spreading the notion of "job sharing" in
which two persons share one full-time
position.
? Time-Income Tradeoff Options.
Private and public sector initiatives to
allow workers to exchange income-
earning work time for a number of types
of free time would increase worklife
flexibility. Two examples may illustrate
this approach.
A "Time-Income Tradeoff Option
Agreement" was developed for em-
ployees of Santa Clara County in Cali-
fornia by union-management negotia-
tion. Employees could either keep their
existing hours and pay or make one of
three exchanges: 5% pay cut for 101/2
days added vacation, 10% pay cut for
21 days of added vacation, or 20% pay
cut for two 21-day vacations per year.
One year after implementation, some
18% of the county employees had vol-
untarily requested one of the tradeoff
options, mostly the 5% and 10%
choices.
A second similar example is the
"Flexiyear Contract" which is gaining
popularity in Germany. The basic idea
Photo: U.S. Dept. of Labor
Photo: General Foods Corporation, White Plains, New York
Working conditions: Then and Now. A Pennsylvania coal mine in 1911 employed horses?
and young boys. The lad holding the gate had "a chronic cough," the photographer report-
ed. By contrast, a modern factory?the Gaines Pet Food plant in Topeka, Kansas?offers a
clean, healthy environment for the employees.
is that employer and employee negotiate
individualized agreements annually
concerning how much time each em-
ployee will work each year and how the
work time will be scheduled. Presum-
ably, a worker could negotiate for the
right to work full time only six months a
year, three-fourths time all year round,
or any of a number of other workyear
variations. While organizational con-
straints do not allow unlimited options,
numerous German firms are finding that
the "Flexiyear Contract" allows for
more scheduling options for both em-
ployee and employer than would other-
wise be possible.
? Accumulated Leaves of Absence.
Public and private policies could en-
courage employers to allow their em-
ployees the right to accumulate rights to
leave from work. As commonly advo-
cated, this proposal would allow pro-
gressively longer leaves of absences
without pay as an employee's length of
service increases. As an illustration, an
employee might accumulate the right to
take a one-month leave without pay for
every year of continuous employment.
In this way it would be possible to leave
work for a half year after six years serv-
ice, and still return to one's job.
? Work Sabbaticals with Pay. The
sabbatical concept entails an extended
leave from the job, frequently for a full
year, taken after several years of con-
secutive service. Sabbatical leaves com-
monly entail continuation of income,
though possibly at a reduced rate.
There are many existing examples of
applied sabbaticals. The most common
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examples are academic sabbaticals for
college faculty, which are generally
taken for one year every seven years
and are commonly intended for some
academically related activity. Another
variation is the "Continuous Service
Leave" policy initiated by the Rolm
Corporation in California. An em-
ployee who has worked six consecutive
years can leave work for as much as 12
calendar weeks with pay. Finally, a col-
lective bargaining agreement negotiated
by the U.S. Steel Workers in the mid-
1960s has provided 13-week "sabbatical
leaves" every seven years.
There are a number of proposals for
national sabbatical programs. U.S.
Civil Service Commissioner Jule Sugar-
man has advocated consideration of a
mandatory "Decennial-Sabbatical Plan"
College Graduates:
Supply Overtakes Demand
College graduates as a
percent of total
civilian labor force
Professional-technical
workers as percent of
total civilian employment
1960
10.0%
11.0%
1965
11.7%
13.0%
1970
13.2%
14.2%
1975
16.9%
15.0%
1985 (projection)
20-21%
14.9-15.4%
This table compares the percentage of college graduates in the U.S. workforce with the per
centage of professional-technical jobs, the positions which college graduates have gener
ally filled in the past. The comparison suggests that increasing numbers of workers will be
"overeducated" for the jobs they will fill. Compounding the problem is a shrinkage in the
percentage of managers?expected to decline 1% to 2% between 1975 and 1985.
Source: 1985 projections by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and by Joseph Froomkin in Supply and Demand
for Persons with Postsecondary Education, Policy Research Center paper prepared for the Assistant Secretary
for Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 1976.
The Shrinking Workweek
In the 18th century, when most
workers were engaged in agriculture
and crafts, the normal workweek
was approximately 72 hours long?
from sunrise to sunset, six days a
week. Even today many farmers still
follow that schedule.
After the Industrial Revolution be-
gan in England about 1750, workers
started traveling to jobs in factories,
and the workweek dropped slightly.
But in 1860, Americans were still
working an average of about 68
hours a week and even by 1900 the
workweek had declined only to 65
hours a week.
During the first half of the 20th
century, however, a dramatic drop
occurred in the length of the work-
week. Between 1900 and 1930, the
workweek declined from 65 to 50
hours, and during the Great Depres-
sion the workweek declined still fur-
ther, to 40 hours (partly as a means
of work-sharing during a time when
jobs were scarce).
Since the Depression, the 40-hour
workweek has remained the gener-
ally accepted standard, though some
organizations have adopted a work-
week as short as 35 hours. Further
shrinkage of the workweek has gen-
erally been opposed by workers,
who prefer to earn more money
rather than have additional time off
from work. Recently, however, there
have been signs that many workers
would rather have time-off than
money.
which would use accumulated personal
tax withholdings to provide full pay
during a one-year leave every ten years.
Workers would lose all or part of their
personal tax contributions if they did
not take their sabbatical within a pre-
scribed period. The plan was advocated
by Sugarman to reduce unemployment.
Barry Stern, a policy analyst for the De-
partment of Health, Education, and
Welfare, has proposed a less mandatory
national sabbatical program which
would provide partial income support
and be financed totally or in part by
general tax revenues.
? Income Maintenance Payments. In-
come maintenance and other transfer
payment programs could be integrated
to provide some income support for
non-working persons at all stages of life
on the basis of an employment or in-
come level test. In this proposal, work-
ers might use funds now categorically
reserved for unemployment insurance,
educational loans, welfare or social se-
curity to support or partially support
non-work periods during mid-life. The
best known proposal of this sort is the
"lifelong drawing fund" concept advo-
cated by French consultant Gosta Rehn.
This plan would entitle workers to use
individually accumulated public retire-
ment funds for mid-life leaves as long as
they did not deplete their retirement
accounts below a given level. Some ad-
vocates of advanced "guaranteed in-
come" schemes have also suggested a
similar use of income maintenance pro-
grams.
Clearly there are many approaches to
more flexible worklife scheduling, each
with its unique problems and advan-
tages. Further, there are many varia-
tions of the few ideas surveyed, and
doubtless whole new ideas yet to be pro-
posed. Some of these approaches will
evolve naturally within some portions
of the private sector. Others will need
government support in the form of in-
formation dissemination, technical as-
sistance, tax incentives, regulatory legis-
lation, and possibly income subsidies.
Besides helping to solve many of
today's pressing social problems, more
flexible life patterns promise new oppor-
tunities for human growth and enrich-
ment. Every individual has some desire
to explore and possibly change to a
fundamentally different way of life. We
all have a yearning for what we might
have been and may yet become?a
yearning to explore things like the art of
the classical guitar, the writing of
books, the building of houses, or the
setting up of a business. Such dreams
take time to realize, and one of the
promises of more flexible life patterns is
that each individual will have a greater
choice to explore the countless possibil-
ities of human existence. fta
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APPR
TECH NOLOG
What Ills and
Where It Is Going
by Rowan A.Wakefield and Patricia Stafford
A new "appropriate technology" movement is vigorously
challenging conventional technology and economics. Pro-
ponents argue that the human situation now is quite
different from what it was in the recent past, and that is
why "the old rules are not working any more." What is
now needed is a drastic revision of man's technological
and economic systems to make them fit the new realities.
Modern technology developed when
natural resources were abundant and
human labor was relatively scarce.
Since natural resources now are
shrinking and worldwide unemploy-
ment is growing, society is seeking
ways to adapt its technology to the
new conditions. That is a major un-
derlying reason for the appropriate
technology movement which is now
growing rapidly across the world. The
movement may be expected to lead
eventually to a new technological
order, and, hopefully, an easing of the
many problems that mankind now
confronts.
The specifications for tomorrow's
technology are still emerging, but its
philosophical outlines ,already are
clear. An intellectual catalyst for
many people has been Small Is
Beautiful, a book by British economist
E. F. Schumacher. Small Is Beautiful
argues that high technology is thus in-
appropriate in many situations, and
"low" or "intermediate" technology
should be used. What is often needed,
Schumacher says, is technology that
will employ lots of people, be gentle in
its use of scarce resources, and serve
the human person instead of making
him the servant of machines. An "in-
termediate technology," Schumacher
explains, is one that is "vastly
superior to the primitive technology of
bygone ages but at the same time
much simpler, cheaper, and freer than
the super-technology of the rich. One
can also call it self-help technology or
democratic or people's technology?a
technology to which everyone can gain
admittance and which is not reserved
to those rich and powerful."
The term "appropriate technology"
is generally used to describe
Schumacher's ideal, but there is con-
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siderable ambiguity in the phrase. To
some people, appropriate technologies
include large-scale or high tech-
nologies, such as electronic telecom-
munications or freeze-dried blood
plasma if "appropriate" to a given
situation.
However, the phrase generally im-
plies the use of indigenous materials
and minimal use of non-renewable
resources such as fossil fuels. The U.S?
Agency for International Develop-
ment's summary definition states, "In
terms of available resources, appropri-
ate technologies are intensive in the
use of the abundant factor, labor;
economical in the use of scarce factors,
capital and highly trained personnel;
and intensive in the use of
domestically-produced inputs."
The concept of appropriate tech-
nology implies a redefinition of
economic efficiency. Traditionally,
economic efficiency has been viewed
as producing maximum output with
minimum input or cost. Evaluating
the appropriateness of technology
emphasizes how production occurs
and the consequent implications for
the quality of the physical environ-
ment and the life of the individual.
This new perspective represents a fun-
damental change in the way people
evaluate economic relationships.
Appropriate technology is becoming
increasingly popular as a component
of development strategy. Both the
World Bank and the Inter-American
Development Bank have established
special procedures to insure appropri-
ate uses of technologies in their
programs. The International Labor
Organization is showing a keen in-
terest in appropriate technology as a
possible approach toward increasing
employment opportunities in develop-
ing countries. The World Health
Organization and the Pan American
Health Organization have begun look-
ing for ways that appropriate tech-
nology can be related to health deliv-
ery systems in places where modern
hospitals and ambulances cannot be
maintained.
Workshops on appropriate tech-
nology at Habitat: the United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements
last June have led to the establish-
ment of an informal network of
organizations interested in common
actions and strategies in the interna-
tional arena. This network, known as
TRANET, is one of the organizations
seeking to insure that appropriate
technology will receive major atten-
tion at the 1979 U.N. Conference on
Science and Technology. The Con-
tleground between the friends and
foes of appropriate technology.
An International Network for Ap-
propriate Technology was established
in Paris last fall to increase com-
munication and coordination among
organizations in the field. The core of
the Network consists of the "big five"
of the major private voluntary
organizations involved in appropriate
technology, namely, Volunteers in
Technical Assistance (VITA), a U.S.
group; the International Technology
Development Group, Schumacher's
organization in London; Brace
Research Institute, located in
Canada; a Dutch group using the
acronym TOOL, and a French
The 40 Women and the Washing
Machines
When the Agency for Interna-
tional Development sent two
$32,000 washing machines to the
Barranquilla Hospital in Colom-
bia, the hospital administration
had the good sense not to hook
them up, reports James C. Mc-
Cullagh. The machines would have
displaced the 40 women who did
the laundry by hand, thus threaten-
ing the life-support not only of their
families but of store clerks, bus dri-
vers, and others whose goods and
services they bought with their
wages.
McCullagh currently is editing
an American edition of Socially
Appropriate Technology, a book
originally published in the Nether-
lands. The book will be issued this
summer by the Rodale Press. The
laundry incident is typical of many
reported in the book. Over and
over, technology is misapplied,
causing enormous problems.
"Experience gained in some
developing countries shows that
the application of modern or ad-
vanced technology in many cases
actually creates more unemploy-
ment even when production is in-
creased," says Charles R. Tett,
author of one of the papers in
Socially Appropriate Technology.
"In Kenya between 1954 and 1965
manufacturing output rose by 7.6%
while employment increased by
only 1.1%. This is typical of many
other countries which have fallen
for the same sales talk."
High technology, McCullagh
comments, "often encourages a
questionable economic order which
prevents much of the world from
utilizing its own creative
resources." He cites the Case of the
Jam Jar, described by P. R.
Lofthouse:
"I was horrified," Lofthouse
reports, "to get a letter from Chile,
saying: 'Please can you find us a
supplier of glass jam jars. For years
we have been importing jam jars
from the United Kingdom to put
our jam in.' The mind boggles at
the thought of a boatload of empty
jam jars being transported there to
be filled with jam and then ex-
ported back to the western world. I
thought this was absolutely crazy.
So I started looking into this.
"I talked to various people, all of
them highly technical and very
knowledgeable about glass, and
amongst them was the Chairman of
the Glass Research Association. I
said, 'I have done a little bit of
homework and as far as I know
glass is basically silica, sand,
limestone, and soda ash with a few
traces of elements like arsenic to
clear it. So what is the problem in
making glass?'
"He said that the problem is soda
ash, which is only produced by
I.C.I. (Imperial Chemical Indus-
tries), and without soda ash you
cannot make good glass. I was feel-
ing just a bit naughty that day, so I
said, 'How long has I.C.I. been run-
ning-50 years? Could you then tell
me how the Egyptians and the
Chinese made glass before I.C.I.
was ever heard of?"
The jam jar tale ended happily
with the Chileans able to make
their own glass. The only difference
between high-technology glass and
intermediate-technology glass is
that the latter will be slightly green
and have tiny bubbles in it. It will
be the kind that curiosity shops sell
for $4 or $5 apiece.
McCullagh currently is Executive
Editor of Rodale Press's Intermediate
Book Series. "I am interested in receiv-
ing manuscripts in the general area of
appropriate technology," he told THE
FUTURIST. McCullagh's address is
Rodale Press, Organic Park, Emmaus,
Pennsylvania 18049.
ference may well become a bat-
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Solar heater, built from salvaged
materials, can heat a room. This
device consists of a wooden frame
holding a plate of glass and a piece of
black roofing metal. Sunlight passes
through the glass and strikes the
black metal, which changes the light
energy into heat energy. The air bet-
ween the metal plate and the window
is heated and rises into the room; at
the same time, cooler air from the
room is drawn through a vent just
above the window sill. This device
was developed by Chris Ahrens and
his colleagues at Friends World Col-
lege, Huntington, Long Island, New
York, under a grant from the Com-
munity Services Administration.
Photograph: Sam Love
organization known as the Groupe de
Recherche sur les Techniques rurales
(GRET).
Interest in appropriate technology
is greatest in the developing countries
themselves. Five African nations?
Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana
and Kenya?have appropriate tech-
nology organizations intended to
become nationwide focal points, ac-
cording to a survey by the U.S. Agency
for International Development. In ad-
dition, more than 100 community
development groups, university
engineering and agricultural facilities,
research institutions, and small indus-
try extension units are active in ap-
propriate technology in 32 African na-
tions. In the 10 East and South Asian
nations surveyed, 25 public ageNicies
and universities were identified as
being actively involved in appropriate
technology. Pakistan, India, and
Bangladesh each have appropriate
technology units in one of their central
ministries. According to the AID
survey, government support of ap-
propriate technology is just beginning
in Latin America, but more than 300
organizations, nearly all private, are
concerned with appropriate tech-
nology in the Latin countries.
One example of an appropriate tech-
nology project is the World Bank's
effort to develop a manually-operated
hand-pump for lifting irrigation
water. The diesel pumps now availa-
ble cost about $1,300 apiece and
create maintenance problems due to
the difficulty of procuring spare parts.
The new irrigation pump, now in the
prototype stages, is made of cheap,
corrosion-resistant plastic (instead of
cast iron), and will cost only about
$100. It will operate with human
labor rather than diesel power. The
use of human labor reduces the need
for fossil fuel, thus easing the farmer's
capital outlays, his country's need for
foreign exchange, and the world's
energy problems.
U.S. interest in appropriate tech-
nology is increasing, as shown by the
recent establishment of AT Interna-
tional, a non-profit corporation cre-
ated by the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development. AT International
draws its support from funds ap-
propriated by the U.S. Congress,
under the Foreign Assistance Act, "to
expand and coordinate private effort
to stimulate the development and dis-
semination of appropriate tech-
nologies in developing countries."
AID has also established an internal
unit within the Agency's Technical
Assistance Bureau to see that ap-
propriate technology is emphasized in
AID's own programs.
Congress has mandated the Na-
tional Science Foundation to establish
a program in appropriate technology,
and intended to do the same for the
Energy Research and Development
Administration (ERDA). The ERDA
authorization bill, which was ap-
proved by the joint House and Senate
Conference Committee but failed to be
enacted in the closing hours of the
94th Congress, contained a $10
million authorization for ERDA to
establish a small grants program in
appropriate technology.
Congress has also authorized the
creation of a National Center for Ap-
propriate Technology to explore the
utilization of appropriate technology
in low-income communities. Located
in Butte, Montana, and responsible to
the Community Services Administra-
tion (CSA), an independent federal
agency, the Center provides technical
assistance and seed grants to local
Community Action Agencies and
other community-based organizations
working in impoverished neighbor-
hoods. The Center plans to offer tech-
nical expertise on such things as wood
stoves, greenhouses, and low-cost
solar collectors that can be produced
locally.
Prior to the establishment of the
Center, CSA funded some successful
demonstration projects, which?ap-
propriately enough?cost the Govern-
ment very little. For example, a solar
heater which can be utilized by low-in-
come people was built under a $1,000
grant to Friends World College on
Long Island, New York. The heater,
constructed by Chris Ahrens from
recycled materials for less than $50,
can be mounted in any south-facing
window, and provides most of the heat
required to keep a room warm during
sunny and partly sunny days. Devices
like this window heater can have an
immediate impact on the lives of
many low-income people, unlike the
sophisticated (and generally expen-
sive) solar experiments that are the
focus of most government research. In
another project, low-income people
constructed a solar-powered hot water
Wood stove has two combustion
chambers for greater efficiency.
Gases from wood burning in the lower
chamber are vented through the up-
per chamber so that more complete
combustion occurs, thus providing
more heat This apparatus was built at
Friends World College, Long Island,
New York, under a grant from the
Community Services Administration.
The device was made in a very small
shop as a prototype of the sort of stove
that a small community group could
produce. Photograph: Sam Love
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Substituting Labor for Capitak Laborers in Kenya show
how they can do same job as grader. Use of labor-intensive
rather than capital-intensive methods makes sense in
countries with large numbers of unemployed people?and
little foreign exchange.
Photographs: World Bank
heater and a wind-driven electric
generator on the roof of a renovated
tenement on East 11th Street in New
York City. Beyond the energy con-
tribution of the technology, the project
is infusing an infectious spirit of hope
into the surrounding neighborhood.
At the state level, California has
taken the lead by establishing an
Office of Appropriate Technology,
which reports directly to the Gover-
nor. The Office assists Californians in
developing cost-saving alternatives to
present practices, and plans to help
California to develop and use renewa-
ble resources rather than non-renewa-
ble resources which may not be availa-
ble in the future. The Office has pro-
posed the installation of solar energy
systems on state highway stations,
establishment of an appropriate tech-
nology skills center, and development
of methane-generating plants for ur-
ban wastes.
Despite widespread enthusiasm for
appropriate technology, there is also
criticism. One objection is that the pri-
mary goal of technology should be to
maximize output?that is, to produce
the most with the least?so as to meet
urgent human needs as fast as possi-
ble. Proponents of appropriate tech-
nology reply by pointing out that the
introduction of complex mass-produc-
tion technology, generally in urban
areas, has not reduced unemployment
and has resulted in goods and services
that are too expensive for most people
to buy. Another charge is that ap-
Propriate technology is "technological
imperialism." In the view of these cri-
tics, appropriate technology means se-
cond-rate technology, and stems from
the desire of developed nations to
hoard their most advanced technical
devices in order to discourage com-
petitive technological development_
elsewhere. The advocates of appropri-
ate technology respond by saying that
they are not opposed to high tech-
nology per se but only to its use in
situations where people would be bet-
ter served by a low or intermediate
technology. "In some circumstances,"
notes the AID proposal for AT Inter-
national, "efficient, labor-intensive
technologies may not exist (e.g., petro-
chemical industries), or competitive-
ness in export markets may require
precision machine-made products."
AID concludes that developing coun-
tries require a mix of technologies.
Besides the theoretical criticisms of
appropriate technology, there are
practical objections that may be even
more important motives for resistance
to the concept. Low or intermediate
technologies appear .unpromising to
many large corporations which must
sell their products at a high enough
price to cover a large capital invest-
ment. For example, the John Deere
Corporation found that it could not
profitably produce small tractors that
would sell in developing countries at
prices that farmers could afford. Many
small manufacturers, though less in-
fluential in government decision-mak-
ing, may find it easier to produce
lower-priced items for the developing
countries. Large corporations are
showing a growing willingness to sell
or license to smaller companies ap-
propriate technologies that the large
companies often discover as by-pro-
ducts of their main research and
development work, but decide not to
produce, for economic or other
reasons.
One approach to improving the dis-
semination of appropriate tech-
nologies is for the local and national
governments, assisted by national and
international organizations, to take
the leadership in helping local people
get information they can use in decid-
ing which technologies are the most
appropriate to their own situations
and how to adapt them. Local people
often are more competent than anyone
else to choose the technologies ap-
propriate to their own situation. A
development specialist in Costa Rica
reported that when peasants are
queried about the technologies they
want to improve their communities,
they ask for simple things like better
dirt roads, whereas government plan-
ners in the capital, San Jose, spoke of
airports.
Useful in Rich Areas, Too?
What does the future hold for the
appropriate technology movement?
For one thing, it is likely to have con-
sider able influence on highly
developed societies such as the U.S.
During most of U.S. history, land,
water, natural resources, and energy
were abundant and cheap. The work
force was relatively small, even with
slavery and mass immigration. By
comparison, land, water, raw
materials, and energy today are scarce
and expensive. Capital is also harder
to come by, especially for investment
in traditional technologies. But labor
is abundant and educated, with the
result that the U.S. now experiences
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chronic unemployment and under-
employment. Furthermore, belief in
the desirability of high economic
growth is widely challenged, and the
sheer numbers of people everywhere
has led to increased concern about the
quality of life and the environment.
More and more people feel the need to
preserve their individuality in what
they perceive to be a sea of people and
machines, both controlled by ever big-
ger and increasingly insensitive in-
stitutions. Thus we now seem to have
a search for technologies that would
not only conserve energy and
resources, but also enhance the
quality of life and offer satisfying
work opportunities in which the in-
dividual counts for something.
The appropriate technology move-
ment suggests that some of the tech-
nology developed to meet yesterday's
needs is no longer appropriate for the
U.S. today, and may never have been
appropriate for third world countries.
The current struggle in today's society
is a painful process of changing and
adapting technology to meet these new
conditions. This process of change will
be with us for some time to come.
Appropriate technology will likely
continue to grow as a force in society
for several decades until the proper
mix of high, intermediate and low
technologies comes into a new
equilibrium with social forces, the
marketplace, and the physical limits
of the environment. The rapid growth
Can appropriate technology
save the cities? Like the
underdeveloped countries,
Newark, New Jersey, suffers
from high unemployment in a
population lacking technical
expertise.
of the appropriate technology move-
ment, with the establishment of cen-
ters and programs throughout the
world and the growth of organizations
promoting and subsidizing appropri-
ate technology, will increase both the
supply of appropriate technology and
pressures to market it. Initially, the
market may be supplied mainly by
Japan, some Western European coun-
tries, and by the third world countries
themselves which will seek to sell
Simple wool-spinning machine in operation in Peshawar, Pakistan. The device
was developed in the laboratories of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and In-
dustrial Research under supervision of Pakistan's Appropriate Technology
Development Organisation. Photograph: PCSIR Labs, Peshawar
abroad the appropriate technologies
that they have developed to meet their
own needs. China may be the first
Communist country to see an export
market for innovative low and inter-
mediate technologies. The role of the
Soviet Union and Eastern European
Community countries is unclear, but a
Soviet paper circulated at the interna-
tional appropriate technology meeting
in Vienna last September warned the
Third World countries that the ap-
propriate technology movement is a
trick by the western countries to keep
them underdeveloped, and urged the
developing countries to stick to the
tried-and-true route of industrial
development.
Another reason for believing that
appropriate technology will grow as a
social force is that it offers a middle
ground between accelerated economic
growth and no-growth strategies.
Poverty-stricken localities in the rich
nations may also benefit from ap-
propriate technology strategies.
Newark, New Jersey, for example,
lacks the resources to purchase expen-
sive energy and high technology, and
suffers from high unemployment in a
population lacking technical exper-
tise. Furthermore, the people of
Newark, like those in an under-
developed country, have urgent needs
that are going unmet. The Office of
Minority Business Enterprises of the
U.S. Department of Commerce now
recognizes appropriate technology as a
promising new growth area for
minority-owned and operated
businesses, which face heavier com-
petition in most other fields.
The development, growth, and
utilization of appropriate technology
can go a long way toward satisfying
mankind's search for satisfying work
as one of the most important elements
of a fulfilling life. Moreover, low and
intermediate technology offers a par-
tial solution to rising worldwide
unemployment and underemployment
among the educated as well as the
uneducated. This accounts for the
strong endorsement of the movement
by the International Labor Organiza-
tion.
Overall, appropriate technology
should be seen as part of a larger
movement that seeks to improve the
quality of life in ways that harmonize
with the natural environment and our
longings for satisfying and creative
work.
The senior author, Rowan A. Wakefield,
is President of Wakefield Washington
Associates, Inc. The co-author, Patricia
Stafford, is a research assistant in the firm.
Wakefield Washington Associates, Inc.,
is a management consulting firm which
provides representation, trend analysis,
and forecasting services. The firm's address
is Suite 511, 1129 20th Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20036.
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Social Inventions
The importance of mechanical inventions is
generally recognized, and thousands of workshops
are devoted to achieving them. By contrast, social
inventions receive little recognition or support. In
the following article, a Canadian social scientist
discusses the importance of social inventions in
solving social problems, and explains why special
centers are needed to develop these innovations.
by D. Stuart Conger
It has been said that the way people lived in 1900 was
more similar to the style of life in Biblical times than to
life in the present day. To substantiate this assertion,
several examples have been offered: the fact that the com-
mon conveyance was the donkey in Christ's time and the
horse in 1900, as compared with the automobile today.
Again, most major advances in medicine have been made
since 1900: the Salk vaccine, insulin, tranquilizers, anti-
biotics, chemical contraception, to name only a few.
Our technological progress in the 20th century has indeed
been astounding, but we have failed to achieve a similar
degree of social progress. When we compare the social
problems of today with those in Biblical times,.we find that
they still are much the same and we still are trying to cope
with them in the same basic ways. Some of our solutions
are more systematic and perhaps more humanitarian, but
otherwise not very different, certainly not very different
in comparison to the great leaps in scientific technology
in the same time.
The Canadian Special Senate Committee on Poverty
recognized the need for new approaches to social problems
when it wrote recently that "the social welfare structure,
so laboriously and painstakingly erected in Canada, has
outlived its usefulness."
The whole welfare system, at all levels, costs Canadians
more than six billion dollars a year, yet it has not signifi-
cantly alleviated poverty, let alone eliminated it. Welfare
rolls have not diminished. The problems grow, costs go up,
and up, and up, and will, in time, suffocate the taxpayer.
Other social problems today testify to the need for new
social inventions. Our approach to unemployment still is
largely to blame the unemployed for being without jobs:
The fact that we train and re-train some 300,000 adults
each year is mute evidence that we consider their unem-
ployment to be their lack of skill. We know that our cor-
rectional institutions do not reform, but we do not know
what to do about them. We have no answer to marriage
breakdown, except separation and divorce.
The first strike took place in Rome in 490 B.C. when the
Plebs, or common people, struck for certain rights. Today
we still have not invented a better method of resolving
labor disputes. Striking Canadian workers usually lose
5,442,000 working days each year in about 535 strikes. We
are not even experimenting with new methods of resolving
strikes.
There is at present a serious gap between the national
desire to produce social change on a massive scale and the
necessary educational, welfare, technological and man-
power resources to meet this objective. More than money is
needed; more than reallocation of resources is needed; a
change in approaches, methods and institutions is required.
Canada (like the rest of the world) needs better methods
of human and social development to achieve a just and
equitable society; neither surveys nor armchair techniques
can create them. They can be developed only by means of
action-research, which conceives, develops, tests and
evaluates various methods in real life situations among the
people. Experience with manpower re-training programs
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has proved that training, while necessary, is frequently not
enough to enable the poor person to extricate himself from
poverty. The multi-faceted problem of poverty must be at-
tacked by an integrated and comprehensive program of
services. This requires a marked change on the part of many
social institutions currently providing single solutions based
upon the methods of a single profession; there is a need to
develop multi-disciplinary integrated programs to deal effec-
tively with poverty.
Our social problems are going to be with us until we
invent better solutions, but we are not even trying.
We know that we need research centers to find cures for
medical ailments; experimental farms to develop cures for
infestations and diseases of plants and animals; ocean-
ographic research stations to study aquatic conditions, but
we don't see that we need experimental stations to invent
new ways of dealing with our social ailments.
We need research stations to create new ways of:
1. Alleviating poverty
2. Creating jobs
3. Teaching languages
4. Achieving interracial accord
5. Reducing crime
6. Increasing family harmony
7. Overcoming addiction
8. Curing mental illness
9. Providing adequate housing
10. Settling labor disputes
This is not to say that we have made no progress in these
areas in the past 2000 or 2,000,000 years. We have made
some progress, thanks to the limited number of social
inventions that have been made over the years, with little
or no official support for the research activity.
Why Social Invention Centers Are Not Supported
We have not supported social invention centers to the
same extent that we have funded scientific research for five
reasons:
1. We tend to see social problems like poverty, unem-
ployment, crime, and poor housing as resulting from fail-
ings in human nature that should be addressed educa-
tionally, moralistically, punitively or tolerantly, rather than
as ailments in need of more effective techniques of treatment.
2. We have not acknowledged the importance of social
technology in developing our society over the years and
therefore do not see the potential that social inventions
have for the further improvement of society. For instance,
we do not realize that schools, courts, legislatures and other
institutions were social inventions that resulted in great
social progress, and that it is possible to invent new insti-
tutions of similar value to overcome present ailments and
achieve social progress.
The author, D. Stuart
Conger, is director of
Saskatchewan NewStart,
a social invention that
got him interested in
social inventions. (See
box on NewStart.)
3. We have vested interests in the way things are done
now, and are apprehensive about the implications of any
tampering with society. The disturbances in the courts and
in the streets confirm in our minds that the people demand-
ing changes in our social institutions are more intent on
destroying our way of life than on constructively developing
it. We do not see these disturbances as signs of the need to
invent improvements for society.
4. Social scientists are wary of attempting to create social
inventions and generally prefer to analyze change rather
than invent ways to bring it about. Consequently, social
science has contributed relatively few social institutions to
the community. Over the past 70 years new social institu-
tions have come from a wide variety of sources: the Boy
Scouts were invented by a soldier; Alcoholics Anonymous,
by an alcoholic, and service clubs, by a businessman.
5. We do not understand the experimental process, and
are horrified at the idea of experimenting with people?
even though people actually like to be experimented with,
because they get more attention from the researchers than
they usually receive from their ordinary associates.
What Is a Social Invention?
A social invention is a new law, organization or pro-
cedure that changes the ways in which people relate to
themselves or to each other, either individually or collective-
ly. Examples of laws that are social inventions include:
I. The Poor Law of 1388, which first gave the poor the
right to relief.
2. The Indenture of Children Act of 1601, which spelled
out the terms under which children were bound to another
person or family.
3. The English Bill of Rights (1689).
4. The Compulsory School Attendance Act in Prussia in
1717.
5. The Swiss Unemployment Insurance Act of 1789.
6. The laws against cruelty to children that were enacted
in the United States after 1875, at which time the New York
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals demon-
strated that it was possible to prosecute parents for the
abuse of children under laws against cruelty to animals.
(We had laws to protect animals before we had them to pro-
tect children!)
Social Procedures vs. Social Organizations
Social inventions include both organizations and pro-
cedures.
A procedure is a method that might be used by many
organizations in many contexts. For example: examinations,
instructional methods, curriculum design, mental tests,
guidance, probation, instructional T.V., programmed -in-
struction, and behavior modification.
Organizational social inventions are typified by schools,
service clubs, Boy Scouts, mental health associations,
women's institutes, child guidance clinics, jails, community
colleges, Y.M.C.A., and churches.
Once an organization is invented it seldom concerns
itself with inventing new procedural methods for the
delivering of its service or objectives. Instead, it becomes
consumed with developing methods of self maintenance and
extension. The restriction of employment to teachers in
educational institutions, to social workers in welfare agen-
cies, etc., is intended to preserve territorial imperatives
and prevent cross breeding of ideas or methods. Thus, the
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The hospital was a social invention that took place in Epidaurus, Greece, in 600 B.C. The temple of Epidaurus was one of the
first to be dedicated to the Greek god of healing Asclepius (Aesculapius). Attached to the temple was a hostel where the priests
would treat sick people. The god Aesculapius was represented artistically by a serpent twined around a staff That symbol?the
so-called Staff of A esculapius?became a symbol of the medical profession and may still be seen in modern hospitals.
invention of teachers' contracts, teacher training institu-
tions, jurisdictions, etc., become the focus for social inven-
tions in organizations. Therefore, most instrumental social
inventions will expectably be made outside the institutions
in which they should be utilized. This is why we need social
invention centers that are separate from service delivery
institutions. It is because of the inherent threat to the
latter of a new procedure, however, that they do not advo-
cate such research centers. A very interesting example is the
College of Education that conducts research on teaching?
even on new methods?but does not implement the new
methods in its own institutions! The difficulty of a social
institution in adopting new ways does suggest the value of
establishing alternative social institutions and removing the
monopoly given to most existing social institutions.
The use of audio-visual methods of instruction is a very
interesting example. The advantages of visual methods are
legendary?"A picture is worth a thousand words"?and in
recent decades a number of overhead projectuals, films, etc.,
have been prepared as instructional aids to the teacher.
Unfortunately, however, while almost every single school
has at least one movie projector and an overhead projector,
some are literally never used, while most are used only very
occasionally. Those who have watched programs such as
University of the Air, only to discover that the television
camera takes you to the professor in front of the chalkboard
and leaves you there without any of the instructional
methods that can be used on television, know the
minimal acceptance that teachers have made of audio-
visual methods. Documentary television programs review-
ing the history of nations provide a far superior method
of teaching social studies than the common practice of
memorizing dates of kings and queens. Yet the old practice
continues.
Recently, Sesame Street has demonstrated the value of
audiovisual-directed learning in contrast to audiovisual-
assisted learning. The invention of audiovisual means of
instruction required its own institution (television) to be
properly used in fulfilling its purpose. Many other instru-
mental social inventions are under-used or misused because
they are prisoners of old social institutions. Examples of
such procedural inventions are:
I. Programmed instruction which is capable of teach-
ing virtually all knowledge without the aid of teachers,
classrooms or schools.
2. Achievement tests which are capable of certifying a
person's knowledge regardless of whether he got it in
school or elsewhere.
3. Human relations training, affective education, or
Life Skills training that is offered only in adult remedial
programs when it should be a part of primary education.
4. Psychological tests that should be used in schools,
welfare agencies, etc., to help understand the clients
better.
5. Vocational aptitude, ability and interest tests that
should be used universally to help students make career
decisions.
6. Audiovisual-directed educational programs which
could greatly increase the comprehension of subjects by
students.
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7. Computer-assisted instruction that provides inter-
active relationship between the student and knowledge.
Each of these instrumental inventions has been only
partially implemented in only a few institutions and demon-
strates the difficulty of Putting new wine in old bottles. The
bottles don't get damaged, they just sour the new contents.
Examples of organizations that were important social in-
ventions would include the following:
? Schools in Sumer in 2500 B.C.
? Law courts in the same country in 2400 B.C.
? House of Commons in 1300 A.D.
? Labor union in England in 1696
? Penitentiaries in Rome in 1700
? Adult schools in Wales in 1754
? Y.M.C.A. in England in 1844
? Children's Aid Society in New York in 1853
? Red Cross in Geneva in 1864
? Teachers Colleges in New York in 1894
? United Appeal in Cleveland in 1913
Procedures that represent social inventions would include:
? Charity, 2100 B.C.
? Democracy, 510 B.C. in Athens
? Municipal system, 100 B.C. in Rome
? Licensing of teachers, 362 A .D.
? Training of lawyers, 1292
? Oath to tell truth to courts, 1327
? Hansard (the written record of debates in the House of
Commons) in 1608
? Formal steps in teaching, 1838
? Probation in Boston, 1841
? I.Q. tests in Paris, 1905
? Programmed instruction in U.S., 1957
? Computer assisted instruction in U.S., in 1960
A social invention such as the law court, school, munici-
pal government, or prison, spawns many ancillary inven-
tions that ultimately create a social system. For instance,
the social system developed around the civil law court in-
cludes the judge, jury, lawyer, plea, coroner, justice of the
peace, code of law, law schools, etc. Each component of
the system was itself an invention, but adapted to fit the
system.
Each social system comprises a series of social inventions.
Some systems, such as education, are relatively well de-
veloped, while other systems, such as intergroup relations,
have so few methods to rely on that the system is more a
constellation of problems than a cluster of solutions.
Medicine has developed a system for inventing better
methods of curing and preventing disease, and people
recognize this when they support medical research. By con-
trast, education does not have a well-developed system for
the invention of new methods of education, although there
is some investment in educational research, and there are in
Canada at least a few centers doing important education
experimentation. Other social systems such as welfare and
corrections are very stable as far as their technology is
concerned because they have not established research
laboratories at all, and hence, improvements in these areas
can hardly be expected except at a very slow rate.
Some of our social problems in Canada do not even have
a system of social technologies ,to provide relief and hence
we can anticipate continued frustration with little hope of
improvement. A critical example is the burgeoning problem
of racial/linguistic discord in Canada. The social tech-
nology for dealing with this problem does not exist and no
real efforts are being made to develop it. Among the needed
methods are vastly improved methods of (1) teaching
languages, (2) overcoming prejudice, (3) creating and sus-
taining dialogue, and (4) fostering equality between groups.
The present methods that are available are so crude that
while they may be used to force progress in one area they
create a backlash in another. For instance, efforts to make
more people bilingual apparently increase prejudice, and,
therefore, our programs in the entire area of racial/
linguistic reconciliation amount to a zero sum game. The
elements or components of the system act to maintain the
set status quo rather than encourage progress.
Our present systems of law, education, welfare and
municipal government can be directly traced back two,
three, four or five thousand years, and changes over the
years have modified the system, but not created entirely
new systems. Furthermore, social systems, as a rule, operate
as monopolies which, of course, tend to be less susceptible
to change or replacement. The citizen cannot choose
whether to attend a school, jail, court, or welfare agency!
Inventions Fail to Change Schools' Basic Character
Schools were invented in Sumer in 2500 B.C., teachers
contracts in 445 B.C, State support for schools in 75 A.D.,
licensed teachers in 362, schedule of teachers' salaries in
376, teacher training in 1672, classroom instruction in 1684,
vocational education in 1695, compulsory attendance in
1717, adult schools in 1754, public schools in 1763, kinder-
gartens in 1837, formal steps in teaching in 1838, educa-
tional tests in 1845, guidance counselors in 1909, teacher
aides in 1953, educational television in 1956, programmed
instruction in 1957, and computer assisted instruction in
1960. All of the inventions, after the invention of schools
and universities, made education more efficient, but did not
change the essential nature of the institution.
If you consider transportation, you find the citizen has
several separate choices of systems that he can select, e.g.,
bus, train, car, snowmobile, and motorcycle. Each is
separately owned and operated, or manufactured and sold,
thus giving the citizen real choice. A prime invention
spawned each system: the car, for instance, prompted the
invention of motels, credit cards, paved highways, service
stations, drive-ins, driver training schools, traffic police,
parking meters, shopping centers, and automobile associa-
tions.
When we look at education today we see signs of people
chafing at the monopolistic education system which includes
schools, universities, colleges of education, departments of
education, and teachers' unions. These act as a constellation
interacting in mutual maintenance and stability. It has been
said that it is easier to move a graveyard than to change a
curriculum, and this describes well the slowness to adopt a
new invention, even if it is compatible with the system:
There are too many vested interests to contend with.
The invention of programmed instruction might lead to
the recognition that education can take place outside formal
institutional structures. This could lead to an acceptance of
alternative sources of learning and then to the separation of
the certification of knowledge from the institutions that
teach. Programmed instruction is essentially a self teaching
method and does not require a stand-up teacher, but solely
a person who can occasionally answer a question or explain
a point at the request of the student. Furthermore,
programmed instruction does not require a class of students
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at all and permits students to learn simultaneously even
though each student may be at a different point in his
studies. All of these conditions are completely foreign to
our present educational system, which dictates what ma-
terial will be covered on what dates, how many will be in
the class, etc.
On the other hand, we do have another learning institu-
tion that allows people to study at their own pace, and to
be left alone unless they want help. This institution places
no limits on the number studying and is the ideal institu-
tion to use programmed instruction. It could be the alterna-
tive school for the student who can learn better by himself
D. Stuart Conger and Saskatchewan NewStart
Author Conger became interested in social inventions
while directing a Canadian social invention called Sas-
katchewan NewStart. Re describes it as "a quasi non-
governmental organization established jointly by the federal
Department of Manpower and Immigration and the Sas-
katchewan provincial Department of Education."
Saskatchewan NewStart was created to develop new
methods of counseling and training adults. It was established
as a society under the provincial Societies Act so that it
would be free of administrative and professional con-
straints imposed on traditionally-organized governmental
and educational institutions. The idea, says Conger, was to
"provide it with the freedom to experiment and make mis-
takes in the field of human development."
Set up in 1967, NewStart was given a five-year lifetime,
during which it developed materials, techniques, and pro-
grams for upgrading human skills. When its five-year life-
time expired in August 1972, the Department of Manpower
and Immigration created the Training Research and De-
velopment Station to continue, on a permanent basis, the
work that NewStart had initiated experimentally. Saskatch-
ewan NewStart continues for the time being as the publish-
ing house for the dissemination of methods created during
the past five years.
While serving as Executive Director of NewStart, Conger
prepared a booklet entitled Social Inventions, which he
published as part of a campaign to see experimental centers
such as NewStart established on a permanent basis in
Canada. Besides Social Inventions ($2), other publications
currently available from NewStart include Dynamics of Life
Skills Coaching by Paul R. Curtiss and Philip W. Warren
(234 pages, $4.95) and Life Skills: A Course in Applied
Problem Solving (181 pages, $3.95). (Send orders or in-
quiries to Saskatchewan NewStart, 101 River Street East,
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan 56V 5T2, Canada.)
Before his association with NewStart, Conger served as
Chairman of the National Committee on Counseling and
Guidance. From 1962 to 1965, he was with the federal
Department of Trade and Commerce where he developed
and organized the national Small Business Management
Training Program.
From 1957 to 1962, Conger was Director of Training
for R. L. Craine Ltd. in Ottawa. His community activities
during this time included the designing and conducting of
a course in association management for members of the
boards of directors of welfare agencies.
through programmed materials, books and other self teach-
ing devices than he can in the traditional classroom. The
institution I am talking about is the library.
We could switch much of our educational program to
the libraries except for the fact that the schools have a
monopoly on education. We could make great gains in edu-
cational progress and economy if we gave the libraries the
same right to issue certificates of knowledge as the schools
now have. Students could be given the option of attending
either a school or a library. Providing this alternative to
the students and this competition to the schools could
benefit society.
Studies have shown that it takes about 50 years for a new
educational invention to come into use in half the schools.
Other social institutions take just as long to adopt new im-
proved methods.
Because of the monopolistic nature of our social institu-
tions and systems, and their difficulty in adapting to new
circumstances or achieving a significant measure of self
renewal, it may be as necessary to invent new social
institutions as to invent new laws or procedures.
At the same time, however, our social problems are
growing in severity and people are no longer docile about
being in jail, unemployed, poor and discriminated against,
and they are using television, strikes, boycotts, demonstra-
tions and even violence to draw attention to their problems.
Agencies Cannot Adapt
Present organizations that are almost overwhelmed by the
sheer demand to provide services on a minimum budget
cannot be expected to invent new methods. Sometimes such
agencies are not able to adapt sufficiently to accept new
social inventions. A similar situation would have been to
expect the railways to invent a better alternative means
of transportation. They were not even prepared to adopt the
car when it was invented. We would still be in the railway
age, and the car would still be an awkward means of trans-
portation, if the automobile had been given to the railways
to develop.
Yet, this is precisely what is done with our social problems
and innovations. If a new educational method, such as
programmed-learning, is invented, which does not require a
stand-up teacher, it is assigned to stand-up teachers to try
it out, and naturally, they find it isn't very good.
For the same reasons, there has been little progress in
the reformation of criminals since Pope Clement invented
penitentiaries in 1700. Research and innovation in prisons
has been assigned to prison officials, and they are no more
likely to come up with a new method than the railway might
have invented the car. Better methods of penal reform will
be devised only by people who have no direct or indirect
interest in maintaining the present system.
Need "New Improved" Product
It is a fact of commercial life that it is necessary to come
up with a "new improved" product each year. Sometimes an
innovation is an improvement of substance, sometimes of
style. Sometimes the improvement represents a new genera-
tion of the product, and sometimes it fails abysmally. The
Ford Motor Company devoted huge amounts of technical
and consumer research to designing the Edsel, but the car
was not popular with the public. As a company, Ford was
able to discontinue the Edsel, but if the Edsel had been
developed by a governmental agency, it would still be in
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Government is a social invention that was old in Roman times. Government evolved out of the necessity to have an authority to
mediate disputes, and first appeared in history in Sumer, a region of Babylonia, 5,500 years ago. A modern parliament may use
such technological innovations as the microphone, but the social aspects of the legislative process?tax policy, speeches, military
problems, political factions, etc.?strongly resemble those of ancient Rome.
production and would be given to under-developed coun-
tries as foreign aid or as a bonus for buying our wheat.
When the Edsel failed, Ford did not give up its consumer
and technical research, but used them to develop other cars
such as the Thunderbird and Mustang, which proved suc-
cessful.
We must do the same with out social programs. We must
see them as stages in the evolution of truly valuable and
important social technologies.
One of the problems that we face in stimulating social
inventions is the general lack of a recognition that they are
necessary. People recognize that cancer can be cured only by
medical research, but they do not yet realize that intergroup
relations can be resolved through inventing better social
methods, and the thing that really is needed is a number of
social invention centers to invent these better methods on a
continuous basis.
Saskatchewan NewStart's Methods of Invention
One of the pressing needs for a new social invention today
is a method of achieving equality between various segments
of society. It is a reflection of the way in which organiza-
tions bind up jurisdictions that we should assign the major
responsibility for equalizing to education and give the
schools the job of undertaking a massive re-education pro-
gram, when in fact the schools had already demonstrated
their inability to educate the disadvantaged segment of the
population.
Only after several years of adult retraining which was in-
effective on many counts, not the least being a drop-out rate
of over 65%, was there an acknowledgement that some new
methods of training adults needed to be created. This gave
rise to the Canada NewStart Program in 1967. The first in-
vention of this program was an organizational innovation
that involved both federal and provincial departments
entering into equal partnership by means of joint ownership
and control of an incorporated society. In this way they
were able to overcome the constraints of their own
jurisdictions to experiment in comprehensive human re-
source development methods. The decision to do this was
eloquent acknowledgement of the crippling constraints
placed by dividing work rigidly into jurisdictions and
assigning it to monopolistic institutions. Not surprisingly,
however, the NewStart corporations worked only at devis-
ing new methods and not at inventing new. organizations
that could achieve human resource -development objectives
more effectively than present institutions. Saskatchewan
NewStart, for instance, invented methods of individualized
instruction and life skills training.
At Saskatchewan NewStart Corporations, we have identi-
fied the following stages in the development of social
invention:
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Stages of Development
1. Concept Study: This initial stage comprises a review of
the problem area and the attempted solutions to date. The
review includes a study of the theoretical and research
literature, a study of the requirements of the situation, and
assessment of various theories and methods of intervention.
The concept study results in preliminary specifications for
the desired outcomes, identifying the skills or other factors
required to achieve the outcomes, and designing the broad
strategies to achieve these goals.
2. Exploratory Development: This is the preparation of
initial program strategies, methods and materials, and an
examination of them to evaluate the feasibility of the
proposed solutions. This stage may involve a reformulation
of the concept study, but in any case, will result in more
detailed specifications and cost figures.
3. Prototype Development: This stage comprises the
preparation of detailed program strategies, methods, and
materials, and an evaluation system, and the training of
staff to conduct them. Cost, time and resource estimates
are made.
4. Pilot Study: In this stage, the new prototype is tested.
Allowance is made for sufficient acquaintance with the
problem and the prototype to permit necessary reformula-
tions, including the specification of logical alternatives.
5. Advanced Development: This stage is the redevelop-
ment or further development of the entire program includ-
ing the strategies, methods, materials, staff training pro-
gram and evaluation system.
6. Program Experimentation: This stage involves a
formally structured, systematic, experimental effort to test
alternative program elements, or the value of the program
with different groups or under different circumstances. This
stage may involve repeated testing of all or selected
components of the program.
7. Program Formalization: The program development
process is essentially a sequence of trial-revision interactions
with modifications after each test to approximate the
consequences being sought. The cyclical nature of the
process means that each stage to this point may have been
repeated several times. The preparation of the program into
a formal model which can be used elsewhere with predict-
able results must take place at the optimum time consider-
ing results of evaluation and urgency of need for the
program.
8. Field Test: Once a satisfactory program model has
been prepared, it is then tested under ordinary operating
conditions.
9. Operational Systems Development: The systems are
prepared for those who will implement the program, as well
as for the administrative support personnel and the moni-
toring agency.
10. Demonstration Project: This is the first major attempt
to foster adoption of the new program.
11. Dissemination: Publicity, seminars, conference pre-
sentations, publication of books and other documents are
necessary to get academic, professional and administrative
groups to support widespread adoption of the product.
12. Installation: The consulting services and staff training
are provided so that the program will be satisfactorily
adopted.
People Enjoy Being "Guinea Pigs"
Some people believe that it is wrong to experiment with
human beings. They argue that a researcher who uses people
for his own purposes denies them freedom, dignity, and
self-direction and is probably tricking them into believing
or doing certain things that are contrary to their nature or
integrity.
There is a popular notion that people don't want to be
treated as "guinea pigs," but the notion is wrong. People
enjoy the special attention that they get when they are the
subjects in an experiment. People want to be treated as indi-
vidual human beings. Workers on the assembly line don't
receive this treatment. Typists in a clerical pool seldom get
it. A child in a class of 40 students doesn't get it. But
subjects in social experiments do get the special attention
of someone (the researcher), who pays special attention to
them and is genuinely interested in their reactions. Indeed,
the good feeling that the experimenter creates in his human
guinea pigs, because he is really interested in them, has
been known to ruin some experiments!
Experimenting with people means that you assess them at
some point in time, try a new program with some, and an
old program with others, then you assess the subjects again
to see if those who followed the new program are any better
off than those who took part in the old. Technically, you
are not experimenting with people but with programs, be-
cause if you find that the people are no better off for
participating in the new program, you fault the program
and say we have to develop a better program.
We can be assured that people do not mind being subjects
in human experiments. They will give their cooperation in
the project for the privilege of being treated as human
beings!
Saskatchewan NewStart has experimented with up to 110
people in its laboratory at one time. Our program has
traded two things for the cooperation of these adults: (1) a
commitment to help them meet their objectives in further
education and (2) some greater attention to them as people.
At the present time we in Canada are doing little to
invent better methods of reducing poverty and other social
ills. These age-old problems are getting more serious and
there is an immediate need for new methods of resolving
our present social problems. The methods can only be in-
vented by a process of action-research which conceives, con-
ducts and evaluates new approaches in real life situations?
in other words, social invention centers.
The methods that are used today to solve social problems
are about 4000 years old, whereas the methods used to
solve medical, agricultural, transportation and industrial
problems are about 25 years old. If we can establish social
invention centers, we can create solutions to our age-old
social problems, and can rid society of racial strife, mental
illness, crime and poverty. This is a goal worth working for.
(D. Stuart Conger is Director, Training Research and Develop-
ment Station, Manpower and Immigration, 154 8th Street, East,
P.O. Box 1565, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. For a copy
of his 107-page booklet, Social Inventions, send $2 to Saskatche-
wan NewStart Inc., Box 1565, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan,
Canada.)
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Social Invention When
Social inventions Through History
The social inventions listed here are selected from a much
larger compilation prepared by author B. Stuart Conger to
suggest the importance of these innovations in the course of
civilization. The data are drawn from generally reliable
historical reference works; however, one must bear in mind
that authorities may differ on exactly when and where a
given social invention occurred.
Where
Who Why
Marriage
Prehistory Wherever Homo Homo sapiens
(Hundreds of sapiens lived
thousands of
years ago)
Against the exacting climatic background of late
Pliocene and Pleistocene times, we can picture
animal behavior evolving into social conduct;
kindred groups become the exogamous clan within
the tribe; instincts and habits of sexual intercourse
and mating are more and more artificially directed
and circumscribed until any infringement of the
code gave rise to a social interplay of condemnation
and guilt.
Religion Pre-history Wherever Paleo- Homo sapiens As man's consciousness drew him apart from
(e.g., 50,000 B.C.) lithic man lived nature, he was bound to look at nature and having
contemplated it, seek to explain what he saw, to
affect it for his own ends, and finally to regard it
with awe and reverence and a desire for reunion.
Life after death 50,000 B.C. La Chapelle Mousterians Mousterians put their dead in graves normally
(soul) aux Saints, (Neanderthal dug in the cave where the group lived. General
France man) attempts were made to protect the body. Graves
were placed near the hearths as if to warm occu-
pants. Departed provided with tools and meat.
Agriculture,
farming
Churches
(organized sects
and priesthood)
6000 B.C.
4000 B.C.
Jericho (Jordan Neolithic man The earliest inhabitants supported themselves
Valley) by hunting and collecting, but also growing crops,
watered by a perennial spring, and grazing sheep
and goats.
Sumer Priests The priesthood developed from "secret societies"
who monopolized fertility and other rituals. Once
recognized as a professional, a priest could do much
to give concrete form to imaginary beings.
City 3500 B.C. Sumer Sumerians The Sumerian was compelled by flooding of the
Euphrates and the need for perennial irrigation to
cooperate in an elaborate organization. Thus the
Euphrates delta was from the outset parcelled out
into a number of agricultural-irrigation units each
having its own center of administration. These
centers grew into cities.
Factories 3000 B.C. City-States of
Sumer (Ur,
Sippar)
Sumerians
There were private, royal and temple factories set
up to produce goods for local consumption and
for export.
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Social Invention
When
Where
Who
Books
2800 B.C.
Egypt
Egyptians
Libraries
2500 B.C.
Sumer
Priests
Schools
2500 B.C.
Sumer
Priests
24-hour day
2000 B.C.
Sumer
Sumerians
Hell
2000 B.C.
Egypt
Upper class
Divorce
1800 B.C.
Babylon
Hammurabi
Hospital
600 B.C.
Epidaurus,
Greece
Priests
Republic
600 B.C.
Greece
Aristocrats
Democracy
510 B.C.
Athens
Cleisthenes
Strike
490 B.C.
Rome
Plebs (common
people)
State Supported
75 A.D.
Rome
Vespasian
Schools
University
1000 A.D.
Paris
Abelard
(Modern)
Circuit Judge: 1176
Origin of
True Criminal
Law
England
Henry II
Why
Since papyrus was easier to work with, the
"book" must have been inventedin Egypt soon
after writing was introduced. (Sumerian "books"
date to 2500 B.C. and consisted of a series of tablets;
Egyptian books were papyrus rolls.)
Developed for schools of higher education,
usually attached to temples. Collected books on
various subjects.
First established for purposes of training the
scribes required to satisfy the economic and ad-
ministrative demands of the land, primarily those of
the temple and palace. Often attached to temple.
The organized cooperation of an urban popula-
tion requires more accurate divisions of time than
are needed in a rural village.
Immortality was open to everyone. Osiris became
the judge who determined whether or not an indi-
vidual might proceed to the celestial regions. Those
whom he refused to pass apparently stayed in the
old world, in a place full of serpents and fire.
Laws for divorce first appeared in Hammurabi's
code although divorce might have been in existence
longer.
The temple at Epidaurus was one of the first to be
dedicated to the Greek health god Asclepius. A
hostel was attached to this temple where sick
people could come and be treated by the priests.
The king was forced to reply to a council of elders
made up of prominent members of the most power-
ful clans. They gradually forced the king out.
After gaining back control of Athens, Cleisthenes
instituted sweeping constitutional changes.
For safeguards for debtors, right to
intermarry with patricians, right to vote.
The first endowment on the part of the state was
due to Vespasian, who was the first to give Latin
and Greek rhetoricians a stipend of 100,000
sesterces, to be paid from the Imperial Treasury.
It is generally agreed that the work of A belard
contributed substantially to the formation in Paris
of a general body of students who had completed
the studies provided at the lesser collegiate and
cathedral centers. It was out of this body of ad-
vanced students that the institution which became
the University of Paris was formed.
Henry II reorganized the system and divided
England into circuits, which were regularly ridden
for this purpose; and taken in conjunction with the
Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton their ad-
ministration of justice may be said to be the origin
of true criminal law.
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Social Invention
When
Where
Who
Trade union
1699
Newcastle, England
Keelmen: Lighter
men in coal
industry
Cabinet with Prime
1714
England
Committee of
Minister
Parliament
Compulsory school
attendance
1717
Prussia
Frederick William I
Unemployment
insurance plan
1789
Switzerland
Town of Basel
Kindergarten
1837
Blankenburg,
Germany
Froebel
Old age pensions
1908
Great Britain
Parliament
Family allowance
1918
France
Certain firms
Social Security Act
1935
U.S.
Franklin D.
Roosevelt
National Health
Service
1946
England
Labour Govern-
ment
Programmed in-
struction (teaching
machines)
1957
Harvard
University
B. F. Skinner
"Sit-ins"
1960
Greensboro,
North Carolina
Negro college
students
Why
Workmen began to combine for purpose of
mutual insurance against sickness, old age or
death.
King George I was unable to speak English, and
soon stopped attending Cabinet meetings. In the
absence of the King, a minister took over, who
became the Prime Minister.
The work of France in the preceding century and
the rapid development of the Pietistic schools led to
the decrees of 1717 in which Frederick William I
made attendance in the elementary schools of
Prussia compulsory.
Group action to protect workers against the
hazards of industrial life began as early as 1789
when Basel Town in Switzerland established an
unemployment plan.
This was a school which did not have preparation
for later schooling as its chief purpose. The kinder-
garten was a place in which children could grow,
develop, and learn in an entirely natural way.
Now for the first time payments were to be made
as of right, from national funds to a section of the
needy, the elderly, within strict limitations of age
and means, but with no test of actual destitution.
In France the modern movement began in 1918
with an industrial scheme under which certain
firms paid a small proportion of their wages bill
into an 'equalization fund' from which payments
were made on the insurance principle to the men
who had children.
It provided for unemployment insurance and for
retirement and death benefits (extended in 1959 to
provide income for dependents of deceased or re-
tired workers). It provided a nationwide framework
of incentives, support and standards for financial
assistance to persons in three groups?the aged,
the blind, and dependent children.
A comprehensive service, available to all who
wished to make use of it and covering all forms of
medical care.
Programming was first employed on a regular
basis in 1957 at Harvard University as a part of
B. F. Skinner's 'The Analysis of Behavior,' a
course designed to teach many of the behavioral
principles on which programmed instruction is
founded.
In February 1960, Negro college students in
Greensboro, N.C., began to 'sit-in' at white lunch
counters that refused to serve them. Soon the
technique spread throughout the South.
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Hawaii's Lessons for the Future
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ars
by Bob Krauss
Global village? Limits to growth? Future shock? The peo-
ple of Hawaii experienced these problems centuries ago
and worked out ways to deal with them. The Hawaiian
solutions may be worth studying today.
One reason we are frequently
surprised, confused, and frustrated by
events which affect our lives is an
assumption that they are unique. We
tend to take for gr.anted that our
generation is the first to live under
conditions imposed by a global
village, spaceship earth, future shock,
and limits to growth. The fact is, many
humans have lived and prospered
under similar conditions. Their ex-
perience offers a valuable fund of
practical information about the kind
of world we are coming into and how
to cope with it.
Consider some of the events which
led to our assumption of uniqueness.
One of these events was the develop-
ment of nuclear weapons. This inten-
sified a growing condition of global in-
terdependence by making us all more
vulnerable to one another. World
trade continues to strengthen this web
of interdependence. The U.S. is depen-
dent on Arabian oil. Russia is depen-
dent upon U.S. wheat. Developed na-
tions are dependent upon un-
developed raw materials. Developing
nations are dependent upon manufac-
tured imports. The only unique aspect
of this condition is its global dimen-
sion. Tighter interdependence has
been a fact of life for many humans in
the past.
Another event was the first space
flight around the earth. It took an
hour and 48 minutes. Driving around
Tahiti takes longer. So our planet has
shrunk in concept from an inconceiva-
ble enormity to the size of a small
Pacific island. Spin-offs from space
flight have shrunk our world in other
ways. Computers speed up the flow of
world credit and provide instan-
taneous hotel bookings halfway
around the globe. Boxing fans can sit
in Manila and have ringside seats for
a bout in Africa. Such a small-scale
world is unique for many of us. Other
humans have known no other kind of
world.
A third event was exploration in
space. So far, nobody else is out there.
Nothing illustrates this better than a
photo of earth taken from beyond the
atmosphere where we live. There we
are, all alone together. The enemy is
no longer the tribe over the next hill.
The enemy is ourselves. Such a sense
of group isolation is unique to people
used to escaping over the horizon. For
many humans, there was no escape for
thousands of years.
A fourth event was the gas shortage.
Suddenly we discovered there might
be a limit to oil and metals and land
and water and every other basic
resource necessary to our survival.
Such limits are unique to the growth
of the West. Similar limits are old hat
for other civilizations.
As we each plan for our own tomor-
row, it would seem logical to seek ad-
vice from ancestors who survived con-
ditions we must face. Every society in
the world has such an ancestral
resource. All homo sapiens once ex-
isted in small groups in their own iso-
lated worlds. Each world was highly
interdependent, small in size and
limited in resources. Practical living
experience under these conditions is
available in the literature of all sorts
of diverse people: Eskimos, jungle
tribes, plains Indians, river and desert
dwellers.
Pacific Islands Offer Parallels
Probably the closest parallels to our
computerized, technological, space age
world are Pacific islands scattered
like a galaxy of inhabited planets over
a universe of empty blue water. The
parallels are less exact today than
they once were because the isolation of
the islands has been compromised by
modern transportation and com-
munications. The limitation of island
resources has been lifted by contact
with the outside. As a result, the is-
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lands have become in many respects
exotic extensions of continents.
Parallels to the space age become
much closer when we go back, say, 300
years into Pacific history.
There are many reasons for this.
The Polynesians who discovered and
populated the most isolated of these
worlds were a relatively modern peo-
ple. They provide the most thoroughly
documented recent example of
sophisticated civilizations existing in
deep isolation under conditions of
tight interdependence, small space,
and limited resources. The population
densities of these peoples and their
impacts on their island environments
compare to world population densities
today and the impact of 20th century
humans upon our globe. In addition,
the mild climate on many of these is-
lands permitted a lifestyle free of
hardships which technology has been
able to overcome only in recent
decades in highly industrialized
states.
One word of caution: There are ob-
vious differences, as well as
similarities, between the space age
and the ancient Pacific. Our tools are
different. The ecology of size, both in
population and distance, must be con-
sidered. Another complication is the
fact that different Pacific islanders
used different solutions for similar
problems. Not all islanders were
Polynesian. Japanese solutions for
coping with interdependence
described by Ruth Benedict in The
Chrysanthemum and the Sword are
considerably different than the solu-
tions described by Margaret Mead in
Coming of Age in Samoa. The Tiko-
pian solutions for coping with limited
resources described by Raymond Firth
in Primitive Polynesian Economy are
somewhat different than those
described by Bronislaw Malinowski in
his classic work on the kula system in
New Guinea.
However, this variety of adapta-
tions to conditions we must cope with
is all to our advantage. It gives us a
wide choice of models. If we must not
copy, we can creatively adapt. Our
method is to approach modern world
problems as a Pacific islander would
approach them based on his ex-
perience with similar problems. This
is a fascinating exercise that offers
rich rewards in practical instruction.
Islands Had "Limits to Growth"
For example, we must conclude at
once that The Club of Rome is very
properly concerned with limits to
growth. Island experience offers abun-
dant cause for concern as well as ex-
amples of how economic systems can
operate within these limits. Island ex-
perience offers practical, day-by-day
lessons in how to deal with future
shock. These lessons amount to an in-
tegrated, multidimensional picture of
what's happening to us and why, and
what we can do personally to survive.
Island experience indicates that we
can expect a complex combination of
power concentration at the top and
more freedom of action at the bottom
of our societies. While it appears that
technology is homogenizing the globe
as tradition and religion once
homogenized smaller areas, island ex-
perience indicates that people will
cling fiercely to regional, ethnic,
family, and other identities. Islanders
have things to teach us about the
future of our religions, sex, our con-
cept of privacy, population control,
land use, warfare, and a wide range of
other human concerns. The value of
such instruction lies not only in past
successes but in past failures as well.
Let us now see how an island peo-
ple, the Hawaiians, handled one of the
conditions modern humans are fac-
ing?a highly interdependent world. It
may be comforting, as we lament our
lack of control over the future, to real-
ize that the old-time Hawaiian must
have felt the same way. He could lose
his life at the whim of a chief. The vag-
aries of weather, a shift in the coastal
current, affected his diet. He was al-
ways at the mercy of his neighbors. If
he had a fight with his wife at break-
fast, it was village gossip at noon. This
interdependence extended over the en-
tire Hawaiian chain. When Captain
James Cook stopped overnight at the
westernmost island of Niihau in 1778,
his sailors celebrated the discovery of
Hawaii by giving native women
venereal disease. A year later, when
Cook stopped off the island of Maui,
he recognized the symptoms of
venereal disease among Hawaiians in
the canoes that came out to greet him.
Think what this meant. What had
happened on Niihau one night a year
before between half a dozen people
had already affected citizens on
another island far away. These people,
isolated in their tiny world, were at
the mercy of one another. This is the
problem of interdependence. It is ob-
vious from the number of techniques
evolved by the Hawaiians to cope with
the problem that this was a major
source of aggravation. So the first
lesson we can learn from the
Hawaiian experience is that our new
condition of global interdependence
will be a major cause of future concern
that will occupy a great deal of our
time and consume much of our crea-
tive energy.
What did the old Hawaiian do to
cope in his tightly interdependent
world? The basic thing he did was
structure his lifestyle to avoid the kind
of confrontations that created friction.
What has come to be called the
Hawaiian Aloha Spirit in travel
brochures must have evolved as a sur-
vival technique. People learned to be
courteous, hospitable and tolerant,
not because they were noble or good,
but because courtesy and hospitality
and tolerance have high survival
value when you are at the mercy of
your neighbors.
In such a world, people who are too
ambitious or competitive or greedy
threaten the survival of everyone. So
another lesson the old Hawaiian
teaches, if we choose his adaptation to
survival in a highly interdependent
world, is that we must learn to be less
ambitious, less competitive, less
greedy. We will do this not because we
are noble or good but because we will
find it dangerous to be too competi-
tive, ambitious, or greedy.
"There was a feast to
celebrate every
suitable occasion: the
birth of a baby, the
building of a new
house, the
construction of a
canoe, the completion
of an irrigation system,
the arrival of a favorite
guest, the harvest of a
taro crop."
Hooponopono?"Making Things
Right"
The disease of interdependence is
alienation. Samoans call it "musu."
The Hawaiian term is "huhu." It is
expressed then as now in resentment,
stubbornness, outbursts of pique. If
allowed to fester, it can result in
serious antisocial behavior that
threatens the public health and safety.
We can assume that this disease was
common in old Hawaii because the
Hawaiians evolved sophisticated tech-
niques to combat it. One technique
was called hooponopono or "making
things right."
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Hawaiians evolved many techniques for expressing hospitality, tolerance, and
courtesy?virtues that are needed in an increasingly interdependent world.
These women perform for visitors in 1816. The artist is Louis Choris, who sailed
with Lt Otto von Kotzebue.
?""7"7"-""`"?-"'"--",""E., ,27-7 .
?
Hawaiian war canoe with masked paddlers. Invasions of neighbor island were
forbidden during the Makahiki season. Date is 1778-1779. The artist is John Web-
ber, who sailed with Captain James Cook.
The armor of today's invasion forces is more substantial. However, modern na-
tions have not yet become as sophisticated as the old Hawaiians in establishing
rules for limited warfare. Here U.S. Marines move ashore in amphibian tanks.
Photo: Honolulu Advertiser
When the behavior of someone in
the community became intolerable,
the aggrieved person asked the
kahuna (wise man or priest) for
hooponopono. Upon this request, the
kahuna called together everyone
affected by the problem. He said a
prayer to get the meeting off to a posi-
tive start, then asked for discussion.
This was a signal to stop being polite
and to vent one's feelings. Everyone
from toddlers to grandparents could
speak. When this was done, the
kahuna steered the discussion toward
a solution of the problem. He did not
dictate this but tried to develop a con-
sensus. If the aggrieved finally forgave
the offender, the session was con-
sidered a success. If there was no
forgiveness, the problem remained un-
solved.
There are similarities between
hooponopono and modern sensitivity
sessions. But one element is different.
The kahuna was not attempting to
help individuals find their own iden-
tities. His concern was the survival of
the group. Here, then, is another
Hawaiian approach to the problem of
interdependence. It is a value judg-
ment that, in this situation, the in-
dividual is less important than the
group, This does not mean that in-
dividuals in old Hawaii were unim-
portant. From all accounts,
Hawaiians were spontaneous by
nature and not reluctant to disagree.
However, the old Hawaiian tended
much more than the European to find
his identity as a member of a group,
not as an individual. The reason must
have been that group membership in
his interdependent world had higher
survival value than individual inde-
pendence. This is another lesson we
might profit from. Our chances of sur-
vival will be greater in our interdepen-
dent world if we remember that in-
dividual rights are not as important as
the good of the community.
We must credit the Hawaiian for
being very creative about exploring
the benefits of group membership in-
stead of merely inventing solutions for
the problems that resulted. He ap-
parently decided that, so long as he
was stuck with other people in an in-
terdependent world, he might as well
enjoy them. His attitude toward pri-
vacy reflects this.
It is an attitude common on all
Pacific islands. This attitude created
real hardship for Peace Corpsmen in
Micronesia. The volunteers from U.S.
suburbs could get used to the food and
they could learn the language. But the
lack of privacy drove them up the
wall. In desperation one fellow
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walked off into the jungle during a
party just to get away from everybody
for a few minutes. His Micronesian
host immediately went out to sit with
him so the guest would not be lonely.
Like the Micronesian, the old
Hawaiian valued privacy less than the
opportunity to be with people. The
19th century English missionary
William Ellis reported that the chiefs
with whom he ate breakfast became
quite congenial and talkative over the
meal although they had been silent
before. This was normal behavior.
The old Hawaiian used mealtime as a
period for establishing pleasant rela-
tions. Disagreements were forgotten
over the poi bowl. It was a time to
laugh and enjoy.
A Feast for Almost Everything
The special skills which the old
Hawaiian developed in the art of
human relations are beautifully ex-
pressed in "the feast." There was a
feast to celebrate every suitable occa-
sion: the birth of a baby, the building
of a new house, the construction of a
canoe, the completion of an irrigation
system, the arrival of a favorite guest,
the harvest of a taro crop. In modern
economic terms, the feast represented
the restaurant industry, the entertain-
ment industry, the travel industry,
and the leisure industry all rolled into
one. But it was even more to the old
Hawaiian. The feast could serve as a
substitute for war in conferring status
on the guest of honor. The feast was
used to re-establish the bonds of the
group from the family to the nation, as
at a baby luau or on national holidays.
In addition to all this, the feast was
fun.
The widespread, grassroots attempt
by many Americans to celebrate their
bicentennial on July 4, 1976, provided
an example of how the feast can be
translated into modern terms. What
became clear on July 4, after months
of growing cynicism about commer-
cialization of the bicentennial, was
that the success of the celebration
could not be measured by its profes-
sionalism. What really mattered was
the amount of cooperative community
effort expended .and the enthusiasm
displayed. The shared experience
made us all feel a bit better about our-
selves and each other, and soothed the
wounds of factionalism.
The same shared experience of
effort and fun made the feast a sur-
vival technique in old Hawaii. The
lesson seems to be that we must learn
all over again how to throw a party.
Having it catered doesn't help. The
success of a party as a technique of
Sharing the fun of a festival can still provide an escape from the pressure of en-
forced togetherness. This photograph was taken during Aloha Week in 1975.
Photo: Roy Ito, Honolulu Advertiser
survival in an interdependent world is
measured by the intensity of our
enthusiasm over the event, the
cooperative effort we expend on the
arrangements, and how completely we
put aside selfish interests in order to
?
have fun together.
On the international level, it would
appear that the problem of interde-
pendence was not so great for the old
Hawaiian as it is for us. After all, he
did not have the bomb, but only
spears, clubs, and sling stones with
which to wage war. Still, he had his
own ultimate weapon: starvation. If a
chief did not give his people nor his
enemies time to plant and to harvest,
everybody would starve. So the
Hawaiians had to cope with a very
modern dilemma. Warfare was an ac-
cepted method for settling disputes,
and the way for ambitious chiefs to ac-
quire powers and territory. Commoners
could win fame and position in battle.
It is obvious from legends and
recorded history that Hawaiians
fought frequent wars. How did they
avoid the ultimate disaster that could
have been caused at any time by an
overly aggressive chief in a small,
tightly interdependent world?
Festivals and holidays, which provided feasting and dancing, helped ease the
burden of interdependence in old Hawaii. This scene is dated 1836. It was painted
by an artist who sailed with Captain Auguste N. Valliant
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Limited Warfare Was Waged
The answer is that they waged
limited warfare. Before the fighting
began, there was always a great deal
of diplomatic maneuvering. The
kahuna of the war god had to consult
the clouds or the entrails of chickens.
Ellis reported that battle sites were
often chosen beforehand and that the
date of a battle might be fixed in ad-
vance. The fighting seldom lasted
more than a day or two. Armies
usually disengaged at sundown and
resumed the battle next morning.
Casualties were numbered in the tens,
not in the thousands. All of this is
more like a dangerous sport than the
deadly, gray efficiency of modern war-
fare. Hawaiian-style warfare permit-
ted the islanders to enjoy the danger
of war and yet to survive. The lesson
seems to be that war can be limited,
and probably must be limited in the
years ahead.
So a more practical lesson for our
future may be an understanding of the
nature of limited wars and how to win
one's share of them. Since it was im-
possible for the Hawaiians to wage
total war, their wars had to be waged
for limited objectives. Each side had
to make up its mind before going into
battle whether the objective was
worth the war. That's why it took so
long. The kahuna needed time to
judge the strength of the enemy and to
test the mettle of his own people.
Allies had to be consulted. Mean-
while, both sides engaged in psy-
chological warfare. The easiest way to
win was to convince the enemy that he
couldn't. The approved method was to
boast that your war god was more
powerful than his war god. This ex-
plains why Kamehameha, the last
great Hawaiian war chief, spent so
much time and energy dedicating tem-
ples to his war god. Finally, the
Hawaiians were diligent in honing
their skills in the art of conventional
warfare. Spear throwing and parrying
were included in the education of ev-
ery chief. The fact that the Hawaiians
entertained Captain George Van-
couver with a sham battle as well as
with hulas clearly demonstrates that
they honored the warrior as well as
the artist.
It is reassuring to discover that,
since the advent of nuclear weapons,
humans have been waging war much
like the old Hawaiians did. The first
example was the Korean war when
total war advocate General Douglas
MacArthur was relieved of his com-
mand by President Harry. Truman,
who understood the rules of the game.
A second example came in Vietnam.
U.S. troops never crossed the line into
North Vietnam. They never dropped
the bomb. This was not because of in-
herent good manners but because win-
ning the war in this fashion could
have been a greater disaster than los-
ing in conventional fashion. Both
China and Russia acted with similar
restraint.
In Angola the U.S. faced another
Hawaiian-style dilemma. Was inter-
vention worth the consequences?
Could the U.S. win or had it been out-
maneuvered diplomatically? The
Hawaiian experience indicates that
this decision will be faced over and
over again by all nations in a tightly
interdependent world. Each decision
Will be as difficult as it was for the old
kahuna. Each decision will have to be
made with consideration of the
strength of war gods, which today are
nuclear weapons. Are U.S. nuclear
weapons more powerful than Russia's
nuclear weapons? The history of both
detente and deterrent is a modern ex-
pression of the delicate, uneasy rela-
tionship that existed between rival
chiefs in Hawaii 300 years ago.
In this dangerous and potentially
terminal war of nerves, the Hawaiians
not only established traditional
ground rules for battle. They ap-
parently felt it was also necessary to
provide an annual cooling-off period.
This period was the Makahiki which
fell sometime between November and
March when rough seas made inva-
sions of neighboring islands par-
ticularly hazardous. During this time
the worship of Ku, god of war, ceased.
Lono, god of peace and agriculture,
reigned. His stick symbol was carried
on a long, slow journey around each
island. At each land division, Lono's
representatives collected taxes from
the people for the local chief. Later
there was feasting and dancing and
athletic competition. Everybody took
a long holiday.
Here is another example of the
Hawaiian genius in human relations.
The Makahiki not only placed a kapu
(taboo) on war but it also provided at-
tractive alternatives. Until he received
his taxes, a chief could not very well fi-
nance a respectable war. The
Makahiki also served as an annual re-
affirmation by the gods and the people
of the chiefly system. These were ex-
cellent reasons why a chief should ob-
serve the peace. For the people, feast-
ing and fun and games served as a
reward for the payment of taxes and
as a relief from the heavy burden of in-
terdependence. In addition, the
celebration provided an outlet for
talent in the arts as well as for com-
petitive energy in sports.
This Hawaiian warrior and officer of
the high chief is wearing the battle
dress and carrying the principle
weapon used by Hawaiians to wage
their limited brand of warfare. The
artist is Jacques Arago, who sailed
with Captain Louis de Freycinet.
Modern warriors carry rifles?
weapons they use to wage limited
warfare on our island earth.
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Mealtime is still used as a time for enjoyment as well as sustenance at camp-outs
as well as around the banquet table.
In view of his 1,000 years experience
in a small, highly interdependent
world, what advice might the old
Hawaiian give us if we asked how to
survive in our own interdependent
world? His advice might go like this:
1. Put less emphasis on competition
and more emphasis on the positive
aspects of cooperation. It is often more
important in an interdependent world
to get along with people than to win. It
is often more important to be cour-
teous than to be right.
2. Put less value on privacy and
more value on being with people. Be
less concerned with individual rights
Photo: Roy Ito, Honolulu Advertiser
and more concerned with the good of
the community.
3. Work toward developing techni-
ques for preventing alienation in the
family, on the campus, across the na-
tion and around the world. One. tech-
nique is a lifestyle of nonconfronta-
tion. Other techniques involve the
creative use of communication.
4. Provide opportunities for enjoy-
ing other people. The more parties,
feasts, parades, celebrations, anniver-
saries, holidays, and festivals the bet-
ter. Such occasions ease the burden of
interdependence and also stimulate
the distribution of wealth in a world
Mealtime in ancient Hawaii was a period for socializing, to forget animosities.
This survival technique evolved into "the feast." The Hawaiian mealtime frolic
pictured here was drawn in 1837 by J. Masselot, who sailed with Captain Abel
DuPetit-Thouars.
of limited resources. Christmas pro-
vides an example of how such an
economy can operate.
5. Recognize the need for placing
limits on warfare. At the same time,
become proficient in the skills of
limited war: psychology, diplomacy,
deterrent, the use of conventional
weapons. Understand that allies are
more important than weapons of any
kind.
6. Expand the Olympics and all
other forms of peaceful international
contact. Don't underestimate ping
pong diplomacy and cultural ex-
change. Instead, increase their scope
to that of global war. Set aside one
month of the year for a vast exchange
of musicians, dancers, athletic teams
and artists. If this seem visionary,
remember the alternatives. For the
old Hawaiian, a real alternative to the
Makahiki was protracted, wholesale
starvation. In our own interdependent
world, a real alternative to a creative
program for peace is the decimation of
humanity. Which alternative is more
desirable?
Author Bob Krauss, a columnist for
The Honolulu Advertiser, got the
idea for examining Hawaiian
history for models for future
behavior when he participated in
the 1970 Hawaii Conference on the
Year 2000.
Bob Krauss is Columnist, The Honolulu
Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu,
Hawaii 96802. He contributed a paper to
Hawaii 2000, edited by George Chaplin and
Glenn Paige. University of Hawaii Press,
Honolulu, 1973. $9.95. Available from the
World Future Society's Book Service.
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CONCLUSION
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Towards A Philosophy
of Futurism
by Edward Comish
Do futurists have a unique perspective on the
world? If so, what are its underlying
assumptions? The editor of THE FUTURIST
describes some of the beliefs that he feels are
generally found among people who have a
serious interest in the future.
The modern futurist movement, which began devel-
oping rapidly during the 1960s, appears to be gradually
forming a coherent philosophy or world view. The crys-
tallization of this philosophy is far from complete but
it is now possible to speak?very tentatively?of certain
basic principles that typify the thinking of today's fu-
turists.
Among the emerging futurist principles are: (1) the
unity or interconnectedness of reality, (2) the crucial
importance of time, and (3) the importance of ideas,
especially ideas about the future. Let us take a brief look
at each of these principles:
The Unity of the Universe
Fundamental to almost all futurist thinking is the per-
ception that the universe is all one piece, rather than an
aggregation of independent, unconnected units. An in-
sistence on the interconnectedness of everything in the
world, including the human race in all its manifesta-
tions, and on the impossibility of fully comprehending
any single entity without considering its place within the
whole, are fundamental precepts of today's futurism.
This holistic thinking contrasts with the traditional view
that man exists in the universe but is not really a part of
it. In the holistic perspective of the futurist, man is as
much a part of nature as anything else in the universe:
individual human beings owe their existence to the op-
erations of the universe and cannot possibly be sepa-
rated from it.
The unity of the universe is a unity of time as well as
space, that is, the world of the future is being created
out of the world of the present, and for this reason we
can know much about the future world by looking care-
fully at what has been happening during the recent past.
The future is built largely with the materials of the pres-
ent.
The Crucial Importance of Time
Most people are almost totally preoccupied with their
immediate concerns. Thinking about what might hap-
pen five or 10 years from now seems to them merely idle
This article is an excerpt from the World Future Society's new
book The Study of the Future: An Introduction to the Art and
Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow's World. The
article is followed by a general description of the book.
speculation. But futurists recognize clearly that the
problems of today did not appear suddenly out of thin
air; they have been building up, often for many years,
and might have been dealt with fairly easily if they had
been tackled earlier. The crisis that we face today is
generally the minor problem that we neglected yester-
day.
In addition to discounting the future, most people
tend not to recognize gradual change. For example, a
2% increase per year in air pollution might attract little
notice, yet it means that air pollution will double in 34
years! The doubling of the population of a city over the
course of a generation means a drastic transformation
of the life of that city for better or worse. Futurists gen-
erally want to identify such gradual changes, so that
they can be monitored and timely action taken to avoid
painful crises.
When a problem reaches the crisis stage?that is,
when the pain of the situation has become unbearable?
it generally gets attention. But at that point it can be
solved only with fantastic expenditures of time and
money, and in many cases it simply cannot be solved at
all. The damage has been done, and people just have to
live with it. On the other hand, a small change that is
wisely introduced today can result ira major improve-
ments in the years ahead. Such a change may be likened
to a seed that is planted in good soil and grows, almost
by itself, into a great tree. Thus, time is a crucial ele-
ment that can make things easy to accomplish?or im-
possible.
In thinking about the future, futurists tend to focus
on the period from five to 50 years ahead. The reason
for focusing on this period is that the immediate or near-
term future (less than five years) constitutes what might
be viewed as the domain of ordinary human concerns
(although even five years from now would be regarded
by many non-futurists as a very distant point in time!)
In addition, one cannot do much to change the world
that we will experience in the near-term future; there
simply isn't enough time to decide upon and put into
effect many basic changes. Nor can we do much useful
planning for the period 50 years from now because so
many unpredictable events and unknown factors will
exert their influence that anything we tried to do would
likely be erased in the intervening years.
Just as the Eskimos have developed names for differ-
ent types of snow and the Arabs for the parts of a camel,
futurists are beginning to develop names for various
parts of the future. Earl Joseph, Editor of Future Trends,
published by the Minnesota Futurists, has identified five
basic periods of the future: (1) Now: the immediate
future (up to one year from now), (2) the near-term fu-
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ture (one to five years from now), (3) the middle-range
future (five to 20 years from now), (4) the long-range
future (20 to 50 years from now), (5) the far future (50
or more years hence). (See Joseph's article in THE FU-
TURIST, August 1974.)
Joseph makes two points that are important in futur-
ist thinking:
1. The world that we will experience in five to 20
years is being shaped by decisions made now. Today's
decisions will not change very much the world that we
experience during the next five years, but they may dra-
matically change the world that we experience five to
20 years from now! This curious fact results from the
time lag between the making of a decision and its final
impact. People new to government have often been
frustrated by their inability to get their decisions imple-
mented; U.S. President Harry S. Truman is said to have
complained that he gave orders and absolutely nothing
would happen! Yet the bureaucracy which responds so
sluggishly to new commands may be changing perva-
sively in response to commands issued many months or
years earlier but only now becoming fully implemented.
In the U.S. Government, Republican decision-makers
may preside somewhat helplessly over a bureaucracy
steadily implementing policies and programs instituted
by the previous Democratic administration! Later when
the bureaucracy is finally implementing Republican
policies, a Democratic administration may again be in
power?and equally frustrated in its inability to get
decisions implemented.
2. Almost anything can be done in 20 years! The
statement is startling?until one recalls that, once the
decisions were made, only four years were needed to
unleash the awesome power of the atom and only eight
years to put man on the moon!
These two points underlie the futurists' insistence on
making the more distant future an integral part of cur-
rent decision-making. The whole point of studying fu-
ture possibilities, futurists emphasize, is to improve the
quality of decisions that are being made right now. To-
day's decisions are shaping tomorrow's world, yet only
too often we make decisions with little concern about
their impact on the longer-term future.
The Importance of Ideas
Since the future does not exist, it must be invented;
that is to say, ideas about what may happen in the fu-
ture must be generated and studied. Such ideas or fu-
turibles are critically important because our thinking is
shaped both by our concepts of what happened in the
past and our images of what we may see in the future.
,Ideas are the tools of thought. Without them, no
thought is possible. Ideas may be divided into two clas-
ses: concepts and theories. A concept is a kind of mental
map or picture of something; a theory (in this sense) is
an interlinkage of two or more concepts to indicate how
they relate to each other. For example, one may have a
concept of a house, a dog, or an educational system,
and a theory that mosquitoes (concept) lead to malaria
(concept). A theory may be compressed into a concept
by striking out the space that separates two concepts
and creating a new concept that incorporates them
both. For example, the concept of "boy" may be given
the attribution of "bad," so that the new concept of "bad
boy" emerges.
Concepts and theories are our mental models of how
the world operates. They enable us to recall what hap-
pened in the past and to imagine what may happen in
the future. Thinking consists of manipulating our con-
cepts and theories in various ways. When we daydream,
we let concepts emerge into consciousness without at-
tempting to focus them on a particular problem. When
we want to solve a problem, we seek to summon to con-
sciousness only those concepts and theories that relate
to the problem. In thinking, we play with our concepts,
moving them about in various ways. We are pleased
when we discover a concept or theory that seems to cor-
respond well with reality. A theory that promises to
work" rewards us, because we enjoy the feeling of
power that it gives us; it is like having a new power tool
or a new house. Even before we have done anything
with the fine new concept or theory, we feel a sense of
competence.
As we go through life, we constantly try to develop
our tool chest of ideas. As we acquire new and more
powerful tools, that is, as we develop knowledge and
wisdom, we feel enriched and become more secure with-
in ourselves. We feel better able to meet the challenges
of the future.
The power of ideas is not always clearly recognized,
because they are invisible and hard to evaluate, but they
represent an extremely valuable resource and, from an
economic standpoint, are often more important than
raw materials, industrial plants, and manpower when it
comes to earning money.
Businessmen tend to emphasize material rather than
intellectual capital because material wealth can be easily
?calculated, and readily exchanged. Yet intellectual capi-
tal is generally more important. After World War II,
Germany's material capital was in ruins, but within a
few years the German people were prospering as never
before, because the war had not destroyed their intel-
lectual capital, that is, the ideas in their heads, which
were their greatest resource. On the other hand, if to-
day's Germans were, by some miracle, replaced by an
equal number of illiterate tribesmen, the German econo-
my would immediately collapse. Within a few months,
the steel mills and pharmaceutical firms would be in-
fested with rats and weeds.
About the Author
Edward Cornish, author of
The Study of the Future, is
president of the World
Future Society and editor
of THE FUTURIST.
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Ideas have made civilization possible and keep it ad-
vancing. For example, the division of labor is one simple
idea that has proved extraordinarily powerful through
history. If we want to do a job, this idea offers a success
formula: Divide the job into separate tasks and assign
these tasks to specific individuals. In this way, each per-
son can become proficient in his part of the work and
everybody benefits. Without the division of labor, or
specialization, civilization would be almost inconceiv-
able.
"If we really give serious attention
to the future, rather than
continue to lurch from crisis to crisis,
we can hope for enormous benefits
in the years ahead."
From The Study of the Future
Another idea, Eli Whitney's notion of identical parts
for a machine, provided the basis for the standardiza-
tion of equipment and for assembly-line production
methods. Other ideas, such as Copernicus' theory that
the earth moves around the sun, rather than vice versa,
displaced earlier concepts, which had proved unsatis-
factory, and by so doing opened the way to new dis-
coveries. Darwin's theory of evolution by means of na-
tural selection was a similar powerhouse of an idea that
could immediately be applied to solving all sorts of bio-
logical riddles. New ideas enable us to build more accu-
rate and complete maps of reality. Useful ideas consti-
tute an intellectual capital that we have available when
needed. Education may be viewed as the mass reproduc-
tion and distribution of ideas that have proven their
worth. The ideas are stored up in the brains of people so
that they are available for later use.
If our ideas are powerful, we can dramatically change
the world to make it a happier place. But if our ideas
are weak, then we are extremely limited in what we can
do. The power of ideas is itself a powerful idea. In re-
cent years, government and business leaders in the ad-
vanced countries have come to realize that the major
constraints on human achievement are not physical but
conceptual, that is, the limitations are in our ideas ra-
ther than in the material resources at our disposal.
In social systems, more may depend on what people
think will happen than on the "realities." A builder once
explained how important it was for him to get people to
think that a building was actually going to be built: If
people believed that he was really going to build the
building, then he would get the money from the bank
and credit from suppliers and the building would indeed
be built. The image of the future that people had in their
heads played a crucial role in actually determining the
future.
People often "cannot" do things because of a lack of
ideas rather than a lack of muscle power, tools, or mon-
ey. Armed with the right ideas about what to do, the
"impossible" may quickly become possible. To get the
right ideas, we can invest in the research required to
develop them. In short, if we really want to do some-
thing that seems very difficult or "impossible," we in-
vest time and effort in the development of ideas directed
at achieving our goal. History is full of instances where
an "impossibility" was simply a case where people did
not see how something could be done. In recent years,
governments have shown that the allocation of funds
for research and development is an effective means of
removing the obstacles that have made desired goals
seem "unattainable."
Firmly convinced that ideas can move mountains,
futurists are extremely interested in the systematic de-
velopment of ideas. Better ideas will make it possible to
improve the human condition. Armed with powerful
ideas, the people of the poorest underdeveloped nation
in the world might become the richest in less than a
single generation. With the right ideas, the people of the
world might soon throw war, poverty, famine, and
disease into the ashcan of history.
Ideas about the future world?sometimes referred to
as "images of the future"?may be especially important.
People think that their actions are based on past events
and present realities, but their images of the future may
play an even more critical role. Images of the future are
the blueprints that we use in constructing our lives, and
the blueprints may be more important than the mater-
ials we work with (our bodies, families, financial re-
sources, etc.) in determining our success and happiness.
Just as a building can be built if people believe it will
be, a desirable world might be created if it can be im-
aged properly, that is, if people can develop a consensus
about what a desirable world would be like and how it
might be achieved. To develop such a consensus, futur-
ists believe, ideas about the future world should be sys-
tematically generated and studied, and that implies the
development of the study of the future as a major hu-
man activity.
An IntroduChon
t: the An and &tenon
tinelersiande, niSha
Tontnnesees WOO: P'
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FOR FURTHER READING
BOOKS
The Study of the Future: An Introduction to the Art and
Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow's
World
by Edward Cornish. World Future Society. 1977. 308
pages. Paperback. $9.50.
This systematic introduction to futurism and future
studies includes a history of the futurist movement,
methods of forecasting, ways to introduce future-
oriented thinking into organizations, detailed descrip-
tions of the lives and ideas of many prominent futures
thinkers, examples of current perceptions of future al-
ternatives, and an annotated guide to further reading.
The Future: A Guide to Information Sources
Edward Cornish, editor. Revised 2nd edition. World Fu-
ture Society. 1979. 722 pages. Paperback. $25.00.
A revised and expanded version of this indispensible
guide to the futures field, first published in 1977. Con-
tains the most complete and accurate information avail-
able on hundreds of individuals, organizations, periodi-
cals, current research projects, educational courses and
programs, books, films, videotapes, games, and other
sources of information on future studies and alterna-
tives.
Through the '80s: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
Frank Feather, editor. World Future Society. 1980. 440
pages. Paperback. $12.50.
A selection of 61 papers prepared for the First Global
Conference on the Future, held July 20-24, 1980, in
Toronto, Canada. See inside back cover for complete
listing of authors and topics.
Education and the Future
Lane Jennings and Sally Cornish, editors. World Future
Society. 1980. 120 pages. Paperback. $4.95. (In the
same format as 1999: The World of Tomorrow.)
An anthology of articles on subjects related to the future
of education and educating for the future, selected from
the pages of THE FUTURIST and the World Future
Society Bulletin. Authors include Harold Shane, Peter
Wagschal, Jim Bowman, William Abbott, Joseph
Coates, Fred Kierstead, and Gary Wooddell, with an in-
troduction by Chris Dede.
Future Survey Annual 1979
Michael Marien, editor. World Future Society. 1980.
260 pages. Paperback. $25.00.
This unique publication, making its first appearance this
year, provides concise, readable summaries of more
than 1,600 new books and articles of special interest to
futurists published during 1979. Prepared for the
Society's monthly abstract journal, Future Survey (see
below), these abstracts have been collected, integrated,
identified by key-words and numbers, and supple-
mented with introductory essays and complete cross-in-
dexes to subjects and authors. The volume includes full
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bibliographic information including publisher, address,
and price for each book and article cited.
PERIODICALS
THE FUTURIST: A Journal of Forecasts, Trends and
Ideas about the Future
Bimonthly journal published by the World Future
Society. Subscription $18.00 per year for individuals,
$21.00 for libraries.
THE FUTURIST is an exciting independent magazine
that is always informative and often prophetic. Its pri-
mary objectives are to present readers with concrete in-
formation they can use to help evaluate, for themselves,
alternative designs for change, and to alert them to the
benefits and dangers of developments already under-
way.
World Future Society Bulletin
Bimonthly professional journal published by the World
Future Society. Subscription $15.00 per year.
The Bulletin features technical and scholarly articles on
the theory and practical applications of futurism and
future study techniques. Also includes book reviews,
news of futurist organizations worldwide, and informa-
tion about the plans and activities of local Society
chapters in the U.S. and in 18 other countries.
Future Survey
Monthly abstract journal published by the World Fu-
ture Society. Subscription $24.00 per year for individ-
uals, $32.00 for libraries.
The Society's newest journal, Future Survey, is designed
to keep readers up to date on developments in every
area of futures interest. Each 16- to 24-page issue con-
tains up to 150 concise, jargon-free abstracts of current
articles and new or forthcoming books. Each item is
identified by number and key-word, and complete
cross-referenced subject and author indexes appear in
every issue.
NEWSLETTERS
The Society's three newsletters, Business Tomorrow,
Education Tomorrow, and Technology Tomorrow, ex-
plore trends and current activities in these specific areas
that are shaping the world of tomorrow. Each news-
letter is published six times a year; the subscription cost
per newsletter is $9.00 per year for World Future
Society members, $12.00 for non-members.
CATALOG
Interested readers may obtain, free of charge, a catalog
listing all items produced by or available from the
World Future Society, including hundreds of books,
audio cassettes, reprints, games, and other materials
dealing with the future. To order, contact:
World Future Society
4916 St. Elmo Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20014, U.S.A.
Telephone: [phone]
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'WORLD Pint/RE SOCIETY
An Association for the Study of Alternative Futures
The Society is an association of
people interested in future social
and technological developments.
It is chartered as a non-profit
scientific and educational organiza-
tion in Washington, D.C., and is
recognized as tax-exempt by the
U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The
World Future Society is indepen-
dent, non-political and non-
ideological.
The purpose of the World Future
Society is to serve as an unbiased
forum and clearinghouse for
scientific and scholarly forecasts,
investigations and intellectual
explorations of the future. The
Society's objectives, as stated
in its charter, are as follows:
1. To contribute to a reasoned
awareness of the future and the
importance of its study, without
advocating particular ideologies
or engaging in political activities.
2. To advance responsible and
serious investigation of the
future.
3. To promote the development
and improvement of method-
ologies for the study of the future.
4. To increase public understanding
of future-oriented activities
and studies.
5. To facilitate communication
and cooperation among
organizations and individuals
interested in studying or planning
for the future.
Membership is open to anyone
seriously interested in the future.
Since its founding in 1966, the
Society has grown to more than
50,000 members in over 80
countries. Most members are U.S.
residents, with growing numbers
in Canada, Europe, Japan, and
other countries. Members include
many of the world's most
distinguished scientists, scholars,
business leaders and government
officials.
SOCIETY PROGRAMS
THE FUTURIST: A Journal of
Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas
About the Future.
This unique bimonthly journal
reports the forecasts made by
scientists and others concerning
the coming years. It explores
the possible consequences of
these developments on the
individual, institutions and society,
iFUTURIST
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and discusses actions people
may take to improve the future.
Publications
The Society publishes books,
reports, films, and other specialized
documents on future-related areas,
including works such as The Study
of the Future, The Future: A Guide
to Information Sources, Through
the '80s: Thinking Globally, Acting
Locally, and many other stimulating,
useful guides to the future.
Book Service
World Future Society members
can purchase books, audio tapes,
games and other educational
materials dealing with the future,
at substantial savings. The Society's
unique "Bookstore of the Future"
carries about 300 titles.
Tape Recordings
The Society has a growing
inventory of audio tapes, which are
available at low cost to members.
This cassette series includes
coverage of most major areas and
issues of the future, including
science and technology,
government, education,
environment, and human values.
Chapter and Local Activities
Society chapters and local activities
in many cities offer speakers,
educational courses, seminars,
discussion groups and other
opportunities for members to get to
know each other. They provide
personal contacts with people
interested in alternative futures.
Meetings
Meetings offer special
opportunities for participation and
interaction. The General
Assemblies are large, multidis-
ciplinary convocations where
Society members can hear and
meet frontier thinkers and doers.
The Third General Assembly (The
First Global Conference on the
Future), held in Toronto, Canada, in
July 1980, drew 5,000 participants.
Specialized conferences are also
held, such as a conference on
"Communications and Society" in
November 1977 and annual con-
ferences on education since 1978.
Future Times
This informative publication covers
meetings, activities, new books,
tapes, films, and other information
of interest to members. It is sent
to all members regularly at no
charge.
NUORLD FUTURE SOCIETY Membership Application
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? EFL; I U1111%7 I
A journal of forecasts, trends and ideas about the future.
Membership Application
I would like to join the World Future Society and receive THE FUTURIST as one benefit of
my membership. Annual dues throughout the world are $18 in U.S. currency or its equiva-
lent. (80% of dues is designated for subscription to THE FUTURIST.)
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E FUTURIST
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tor the
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tN1
.1.???? Ilith
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FUTURIST
A journal of forecasts, trends and ideas about the future.
Membership Application
I would like to join the World Future Society and receive THE FUTURIST as one benefit of
my membership. Annual dues throughout the world are $18 in U.S. currency or its equiva-
lent. (80% of dues is designated for subscription to THE FUTURIST.)
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O Please bill me.
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FUTURIST
A journal of forecasts, trends and ideas about the future.
Membership Application
I would like to join the World Future Society and receive THE FUTURIST as one benefit of
my membership. Annual dues throughout the world are $18 in U.S. currency or its equiva-
lent. (80% of dues is designated for subscription to THE FUTURIST.)
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1 11 11 1
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/17: CIA-RDP90-00530R000802010001-5
Through the '80s: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
A Selection of 61 Papers Submitted to the First Global
Conference on the Future
Toronto, Ontario, Canada ? July 20-24, 1980
This 440-page volume, which takes the theme of the conference
for its title, is packed with incisive essays presenting the current
thinking of some of the best-known names in futurism. The con-
tributors, almost all of them active participants at the First
Global Conference on the Future, focus on a wide range of topics,
including energy, education, technology, values, population, com-
munications, employment, religion, business, space, resources,
growth, health, forecasting, the family, and urban futures.
Edited by
Frank Feather
Foreword by
Edward R. Schreyer
Introduction by
Maurice Strong
Postscript by
Aurelio Peccei
Price: $12.50 World Future Society ? Washington, D.C. ? U.S.A.
1980
THROUGH THE '80s
THINKING 3L()8ALLY ACT NC LOTALI
Gunnar Adler-Karlsson: The Unimportance of Full Employment
Roy Amara: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
Isaac Asimov: Homo Obsoletus?
Alfred Bernhart: Future Creativity: Inspiration for Peace
Fred Best: Work and Leisure in the Future
John P. Blair: The Changing Economics of the Urban Promise
James W. Botkin: The 1980s As a Decade of Learning
Jim Bowman, Fred D. Kierstead, and Christopher J. Dede: Education
in the '805: An Appraisal
Lester R. Brown: Looking at Resource Trends Through a Population Lens
Irving H. Buchen: Future Adolescent Values
Harlan Cleveland: The Future of International Governance
Edward Cornish: What We Must Do: An Agenda for Futurists
Louis J. D'Amore and Sheila Rittenberg: Shaping Urban Futures Through
Public Participation
Hugues de Jouvenel: Prospective: Decision and Action
Howard F. Didsbury, Jr.: The Tyranny of the Righteous
Raymond P. Ewing: Sociological Forecasting: Managing the Black Hole
of the Future
Book Service
WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
4916 St. Elmo Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20014, U.S.A.
Please send copies of Through the '80s.
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(The society will pay postage and handling.)
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Frank Feather: Transition to Harmonic Globalism
Victor Ferkiss: The Future of North America
Michel Godet: Europe Facing Its Future
B.B. Goldner: International Resources
William E. Halal: Free the Fortune 500!
Robert D. Hamrin: Managing Growth Through Epochal Change
Trevor Hancock: The Soft Health Path: An Alternative Future for Health
in the '80s
Willis W. Harman: To Think Globally and Act Locally, Perceive Newly
Philip R. Harris: Preparing Tomorrow's Corporate Cosmopolitans:
Implications for Twenty-First Century Managers and Consultants
Carter Henderson: New Age Investing
Hazel Henderson: Identifying the Planetary Coalition for a Just New
World Order
Frank Snowden Hopkins: Senior Citizens As Futurists
Russell M. Jaffe: Health in the '80s: Toward Optimum Existence
Lane Jennings: Futurecom: The Human Future in Communications
Thomas E. Jones: Motivating People to Build a Better World
Earl C. Joseph and Arthur M. Harkins: The Emergence of Ethnotronic
Systems in the 1980s
Herman Kahn and John B. Phelps: The Economic Future
Ervin Laszlo: The Obsolescence of Modernism
M. Susan Linderman: Community Decision-Making in the Future
Joseph P. Martino: Freedom and the Future of Local Action
Yonep Masuda: Global Voluntary Information Network: The Most
Hopeful Global Collective
Robert B. Mellen: The Futurist as Ethicist
Graham T.T. Molitor: Getting Out in Front of Impending Issues
Norman Myers: Vanishing Plants and Animals
Ruben Nelson: The Exhaustion of Liberalism
Gerard K. O'Neill and William T. Bryant: Breakout into Space
Arvid Pardo and Elisabeth Mann Borgese: The Oceans as the Common
Heritage of Mankind
Ted Peters: The Future of Religion in a Post-Industrial Society
Walter G. Pitman: Appropriate Education for the '80s
John Platt: The Greatest Evolutionary Leap in History
Jennie Popay, Jenny Griffiths, Peter Draper, and John Dennis:
The Impact of Industrialization on World Health
Donald R. Raichle: The Future of the Family
Marilyn Saunders: A Good Futurist Is Fully Present
Julian M. Scher: Computer-Based Human Communications Systems
Anton B. Schmalz: Energy: Plentiful Through the 1980s and Beyond
W.H.C. Simmonds: Survival in the '80s
Henryk Skolimowski: Reverential Thinking
Michele Geslin Small: Towards a Systemic Education
Robert Theobald: Management of Complex Systems: A Growing
Societal Challenge
Alvin Toff ler: The Third Wave
Larry W. Tombaugh and Robert N. Stone: Renewable Resources: Will
They Be Scarce in the Future?
Andre van Darn: Trend Is Not Destiny
Warren W. Wagar: Technocracy As the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Charlotte Waterlow: The "Community" of the Future
Daniel Yankelovich and Bernard Lefkowitz: The Public Debate on
Growth: Toward Resolution
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VORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
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