ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science to the Rescue! "Pessimist Techno-Optimism" and the End of Self-Management Socialism

• In Event: Utopian and Dystopian Sciences

English Abstract

In the 1980s, as the escalating economic crisis in socialist Yugoslavia was creating conditions ripe for the eventual dissolution of the country, science and technology came to play an unprecedented role in the public discourse: they were seen both as culprits (partly) responsible for the crisis and a force uniquely suited to help overcome it. As part of a larger debate, techno-optimist voices emerged offering a critique of the Yugoslav political and economic system as well as visions of a more “democratic socialist" Yugoslavia with a modern, efficient economy. The paper outlines a network of technical intelligentsia (and aligned sociologists) whose members actually grounded their critique of the Yugoslav self-managerial system and possible ways out of the crisis in science and technology. The paper frames this as a curious, “pessimist” manifestation of techno-optimism — a seeming contradiction in terms, yet one which captured the complexity of Yugoslavia’s predicament. How (and why) had techno-optimist discourse in socialist Yugoslavia changed between the 1950s and the end of the 1980s? The paper examines specificities and limitations of imagining technoscientific future in a (semi-)peripheral context and its political implications. The proposals on how to utilize biomedicine, materials science, or communication and information technology in order to reverse the country’s economic trajectory offer not only a glimpse into the conflict between the “technocrats” and defenders of self-management socialism (as well as within those groups), but also depict science- and technology-driven visions for the future of a country in the last days of its existence.

Author

• Vedran Duancic, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt