Exploring the Black Box

Book Reviews Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History. By Nathan Rosenberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 274; figures, notes, index. $54.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper). Nathan Rosenberg’s Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History explores technological change, an area consigned by most economists to a black box, from the point ofview of economics and economic history. Like his earlier Inside the Black Box (1982), it is a collection of papers, most previously published elsewhere and several coauthored. This book continues Rosenberg’s important contributions to the economics ofcontemporary and historical tech­ nological developments, though it may be somewhat frustrating to historians of technology. The articles are divided into three sections. Part 1, “Dealing with an Uncertain Future,” begins by laying out a general argument for the book (to the extent that this collection of essays has one): tech­ nological change is “path-dependent”—that is, history matters. As Rosenberg states, “one cannot demonstrate the direction or path in the growth of technological knowledge merely by reference to certain initial conditions. Rather, the most probable directions for future growth in knowledge can only be understood within the con­ text ofthe particular sequence ofeventswhich constitutes the history of the system” (p. 10). While he rejects what he refers to as a “crude sort oftechnological determinism,” as well as crude economic deter­ minism, he embraces a “soft determinism,” in which historical events make certain paths of technological developments more eco­ nomically feasible than others. This chapter provides the underpin­ nings of the collection, supporting his complex rendering of the temporal dynamics of technological innovation and development, but focusing on economic, rather than social or institutional, factors. After this opening manifesto, part 1 looks at how two individuals (Charles Babbage andJoseph Schumpeter) and one set of literature (on long-wave theory) dealt with uncertainty about the future. The chapter on Babbage attempts to resurrect him as an economic thinker about technology, labor, and manufacturing, as well as an influence on Schumpeter, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. The chapter on Schumpeter positions that economist as a radical ques­ tioner of past and present economic orthodoxy, emphasizing the Permission to reprint a review printed in this section may be obtained only from the reviewer. 617 618 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE central importance to capitalism of disequilibrium and technologi­ cal change over economic equilibrium. The final chapter here, “Technological Innovation and Long Waves,” written with Claudio Frischtak, expresses skepticism about technological explanations of long waves, while laying out a set of logical requirements that would have to be met to prove such a theory. In general, these three chap­ ters are more concerned with the history of economic thinking about technological change than with technological change itself. Part 2, “Technology in Context,” has four chapters. The first, “Economic Experiments,” functions as a transition from Rosen­ berg’s treatment of the history of economic thought toward his look at technology in context. It addresses the “strategic role played by the freedom to experiment in the long-term process of economic growth and industrialization” (p. 108) by comparing capitalism and socialism, focusing particularly on Marx’s writing. The next three chapters are explicitly focused on technology in the American con­ text. “Why in America?” provides a supply-and-demand analysis for why the American system of manufactures first arose in the United States, arguing that America’s particular technological path de­ pended on its early richness in natural resources and relative poor­ ness in labor and capital. In “Can Americans Learn to Become Bet­ ter Imitators?” Rosenberg and W. Edward Steinmueller compare Japan’s successful skills in imitation with America’s need to improve such skills. “Critical Issues in Science Policy Research” identifies some critical issues in the relationship between science and technol­ ogy, including transferring technology from the lab to the industrial context, and stresses the importance of interdisciplinary research. Part 3 narrows the focus, presenting five “Sectoral Studies in Technological Change,” covering energy efficiency, chemical­ processing industries, telecommunications, forest products, and scientific instruments. These chapters vary in level of detail and in specific focus, looking, for example, at the importance of “down­ stream” development activities, the “systemness” of

Argument (complex analysis) · Determinism · Economics · Epistemology · History of technology · Neoclassical economics · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · Technological determinism · Economic Growth and Productivity · History · Philosophy