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1030 Walter A. McDougall 



straints. Let us, therefore, define technocracy as follows: the institutionalization of 

 technological change for state purposes, involving the organization and funding by 

 the state of a national infrastructure for the acceleration of technological change on 

 the assumption that its own foreign and domestic goals will be served by the 

 products of such change. 



The transition in the United States to state-supported research and development 

 for the continuous stimulation of technological revolution — this is the essence of the 

 saltation that Sputnik triggered. The evolution of command technology is discern- 

 ible in isolated cases dating from the eighteenth century. It became a regular 

 feature of procurement in the British navy and German army in the 1860s, and it 

 was vastly increased by all belligerents in the world wars.'' But Sputnik marked the 

 discontinuity leading to full-fledged technocracy. In the United States, the Progres- 

 sive era first provided a technocratic ideology, and World War II gave us the model 

 of government-industry-science collaboration; postwar challenges to the passive 

 role of government, the prestige of social science and Keynesian economics, and the 

 American technique of softening social and ideological discord through policies 

 expanding growth and opportunity all prepared the mix. Sputnik was the spark. By 

 suggesting,an imminent military stalemate between the superpowers and at the 

 same time lending credibility to claims that Communism was a superior system for 

 rapid national development. Sputnik changed the nature of the Cold War. It made 

 it "total" — a global conflict in which science, education, housing, and medical care 

 were as much measures of Cold War standing as human rights or bombers. Science 

 was first: the creation of NASA, a deliberately civilian agency for purposes of 

 propaganda, then the explosive growth of the National Science Foundation, and 

 the National Defense Education Act. Apollo came next — it tripled NASA's budget, 

 channeled an extra $30 billion into the aerospace industry and universities, and 

 represented the largest open-ended peacetime commitment by Congress in history. 

 The shock of Sputnik and Soviet claims to social superiority then helped to break 

 down longstanding resistance by Republicans and Southern Democrats to federal 

 involvement in education generally as well as other social arenas and began the 

 greatest flood-tide of legislation in American history, a tide that, as Lyndon 

 Johnson recalled, "all began with space. "'~ 



By the mid-1960s the space program helped convince investment-model econo- 

 mists and their colleagues in think tanks, in corporate boardrooms, and on Wall 

 Street that heavy and systematic investment in technological and "human" re- 

 sources was not a necessary evil but, rather, the key to continuous growth and, 

 hence, social stability. Large social, military, and space expenditures would be 

 covered by the new wealth created through new technology, thanks to the 

 phenomenon of transfer — from point sectors (like aerospace and computers) to 

 other sectors and from the American economy to developing economies. Forcing 

 more rapid growth from an already superior scientific and industrial base, the 



" See McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, chap. 8. 



" The phrase "total Cold War" dates from a speech by Vice President Nixon in .San Frani isco. December 6. 

 1957. But especially see tiscnhower's State of the L:ni()n. Address. |anuar\ 9, 19r)H, Johnson's remark was made 

 in an interview with Walter Cronkite. "Man on the Moon: The Epic Journey ot Apollo 1 1," July 21. 1969. 



