It’s tempting to see Judge J. Garvan Murtha’s recent decision on the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee as just another example of corporate power undermining democratic processes. In that interpretation, the powerful giant, Entergy, used its might to silence the will of the Vermont state legislature. The Judge was just a pawn, some might say, to economic interests. There are no institutions strong enough, goes this line of reasoning, to resist the will of Corporations!
Another way to read this decision is through the shared powers of federalism. The commerce clause of the U. S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate all things that pass between states. By that interpretation, Murtha was merely following the established law of the land. If a business is engaged in interstate commerce, which is the case with Vermont Yankee, the federal government is in charge.
Still, the fact that the federal government regulates interstate commerce doesn’t mean that states aren’t part of the mix. Let Congress regulate the navigable waterways and the interstate highways, but the states have always held the nobler responsibility of protecting the public welfare. Under this bifurcated system, the states do the real job of politics: building schools, providing a police force, supporting rural and urban communities. Safety, according to the rules of federalism, is a state issue. No wonder the state of Vermont stressed public safety when it denied Entergy an operating license.
But here’s where Murtha’s ruling is particularly instructive. When it comes to nuclear power, states are precluded from deciding what is unsafe. Nuclear technology is so complex, so dangerous, and so capital-intensive that it requires a centralized, technocratic organization to oversee its operation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established to deal with nuclear safety concerns and its determinations trump any democratic legislature. Murtha could not find for the State of Vermont because radioactive safety concerns had been pre-empted by federal law. The State of Vermont can protect its citizens from sex offenders but, under the Atomic Energy Act, it cannot protect them from radioactive particles.
What all this means is that technology itself plays a big role in determining whether or not our politics are democratic. As Langdon Winner points out in a 1989 essay, “the intractable properties of certain kinds of technology are strongly, perhaps unavoidably, linked to particular institutionalized patterns of power and authority.” Nuclear reactors create a particular type of political structure, one that is highly centralized and run by elite technocrats, as a matter of necessity. Friedrich Engel, it should be pointed out, made a similar argument for authoritarianism and modern industry. If we want an industrialized economy, said the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, we need a disciplined hierarchy to make it work.
But not all technology necessitates a centralized technocratic political system. Winner points to solar panels as examples of a technology strongly linked with a decentralized, democratic political structure. While solar panels may require technical knowledge to produce, they are innocuous enough to be regulated by civilian legislatures. The difference between nuclear and solar, then, is not just a difference in the type of energy being produced but in the type of political structure we can expect each technology to produce. Nuclear reactors produce centralized and authoritarian systems; solar panels produce decentralized and democratic systems.
Right now, the complex technology known as the Internet is fighting with Congress to maintain its decentralized and democratic pattern of power and authority. When Congress tried to claim more regulatory authority through PIPA and SOPA, Wikipedia shut down for a day and Senator Patrick Leahy was swamped with calls of protest. The techocrats in this instance, the producers of Internet content and html codes, operate in a pattern where power is shared. No way will they exchange that decentralized structure for something controlled by Congress!
Congress will only prevail if they are able to convince a majority of Americans that the Internet is as dangerous as nuclear power. Should there be a War on Piracy as part of the War on Terrorism, or a massive campaign against corrupt foreign powers trying to steal our data, then the American public might surrender its democratic authority to something akin to the NRC. But that seems very unlikely. The nature of the technology of the Internet links it to a democratic system. Indeed most users assume they know more about its proper use than the white-haired, would-be regulators in Washington.
But here’s the rub: the democratic, de-centered Internet runs partially on energy created by authoritarian, centralized nuclear reactors. It’s as if we have another bifurcated system, only this time the parallel tracks aren’t the federal government and the states but two different types of technology/political systems, one democratic and the other authoritarian. The more dangerous the technology, the more willing we are to cede authority to a technocratic concentration of power. The same tendency, it should be noted, happens during times of war. Authoritarian structures develop when the situation is too dangerous for mere civilians to understand.
What all this means is that politics often follows technology. When the technology is decentered and democratic, the political structure allows for many decision-makers. When the technology is centralized and controlled by technocratic elites, the political structure allows only a select few to decide. We’ll want to think about this as we go forward. As Judge Murtha’s decision makes clear, the type of technology, not the political climate, determines who is in charge.
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