The technocentric differs from
the ecocentric in how he would approach environmental
issues, and in his basic ideologies. He is identified by an apparent undiluted rational,
scientific approach, which particularly translates itself into an economic rationality
founded on the neo-classical school, There is, too, a belief in the ability and efficiency of
management in solving problems by the use of 'objective analysis' and recourse to the
laws of physical science - the natural authority of which is extended to economic 'laws'.
This management includes management of
the environment - and of men, for unlike the
ecocentric the technocentric turns away from public participation in environmental and
other decision-making in favour of accepting as authoritative the advice of (scientific and
economic) 'experts'. Although this is ostensibly a rational mode, such rationalism may
be stripped away to expose a raw and sometimes irrational faith - a faith in the idea of
progress as expressed in, and equivalent to, material advancement, in the superiority of
'high' over 'lower' technology, in the sustainability of economic growth, and in the ability
of advanced capitalism to maintain itself.
Frequently those who express such faiths
have much to gain materially by their
application. And their resultant undetached and unobjective position manifests itself in an
irrationality which clearly transgresses the technocentric's own terms. Thus a truly
'objective' and 'expert' cost-benefit analysis would probably have grounded the Concorde
project before it ever left the drawing board. It would probably have stopped the nuclear
power plant building programme of the British Conservative Government which came to
office in 1979, for many economic forcasts of demand for fast travel and for energy
showed that both programmes would be redundant in the face of Britain's declining
future needs.
However, if irrationality lies behind
the rational facade, so too, according to does a lack of
confidence lie beneath the authoritative expert aura. For if one 'strips off the veil of
optimism' one can reveal underneath an inherent and disquieting uncertainty,
prevarication, and tendency to error. Thus, the management of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.
argued vehemently at the 1978 Windscale Inquiry into the reprocessing of atomic waste,
that adequate and stringent safety precautions were taken at the Cumbrian atomic plant
where the reprocessing was intended. Yet, two years later, a report was finding evidence
of managerial incompetence over radioactive waste which had leaked some years
earlier into the soil surrounding the plant, while in 1983 Government legal action was
contemplated against the management because of new leaks. And the story of the
accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 is studded
with examples of the technocrats' prevarication and error to a remarkable degree. Many
follow ups after failures of management do not assure us that lessons will be learned
and that they could never happen again.
