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H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by [log in to unmask] (January, 1999) 
 
David M. Hart. _Forged Consensus: Science, Technology, and Economic 
Policy in the United States, 1921-1953_. Princeton Studies in American 
Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. xiv + 267 
pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-691-02667-X. 
 
Reviewed for H-Pol by Mark Aldrich <[log in to unmask]>, Smith College 
 
This slim volume, the result of the author's Ph.D. thesis, reveals 
impressive research in archives and other primary materials as well as 
wide reading in the secondary literature on science and technology 
policy. In the Preface, the author states that his goal is "to undermine 
the field's creation myth" (p. ix), which says "postwar science and 
technology policy sprang full blown from the mind of Vannevar Bush." The 
consensus on policy was, he claims, a forgery. Hart stresses that policy 
explanations resting on transactions cost economics or the "liberal 
society tradition" are inadequate, and he argues instead that policy 
evolved from the interplay of five alternative visions of the liberal 
state that he labels conservatism, associationalism, reform liberalism, 
Keynesianism, and the national security state. 
 
Hart's analysis of these events tends to be externalist. That is, 
economics and broader policy visions, rather than scientific or 
technological discoveries, are the primary forces shaping policy. He 
begins with the "New Era." From 1921-1932, the conservative vision was 
paramount, of course. But Hart also traces the influence of Hoover's 
associationalist ideas, discussing a range of policy initiatives such as 
the efforts of the Bureau of Standards to encourage research and 
rationalization in textiles, housing, and lumber. 
 
Concerning the early 1930s, Hart tells a complex story, interweaving the 
technocracy movement, associationalist schemes of Gerard Swope and 
others, and the efforts of reform liberals such as Rexford Tugwell and 
David Lilienthal. Such a disparate group of actors led to both profusion 
and confusion as policy initiatives ranged from share-the-work efforts 
and NRA codes, to the abortive Committee on National Railway Research, 
to TVA. In the late 1930s, Hart turns the spotlight to the efforts of 
reform liberals such as Thurman Arnold, and the TNEC to prevent patent 
holders from suppressing new technology. He also traces a brief alliance 
between the liberals and Keynesians to reform housing. 
 
After 1940, Hart describes the rise of military R&D and the role of 
Vannevar Bush in the National Research Defense Committee and Office of 
Scientific Research. He also chronicles the abortive efforts of Maury 
Maverick and Henry Wallace to develop an expansive program of government 
funded civilian R&D service. 
 
The end of the war brought a "convergence"--a term Hart prefers to 
consensus (p. 147)--in science and technology policy. Reformers and 
associationalists allied to push through the National Science Foundation 
in 1950 and to campaign for federal support of venture capital--which 
led to the Small Business Investment Act of 1958. The massive postwar 
commitment of resources to military R&D Hart traces to a complex of 
causes. The memory of wartime strategic bombing as effectively 
articulated by General Curtis LeMay and others, along with conservative 
fears of regimentation and giant spending programs, led to the gradual 
triumph of massive retaliation and the militarization of the AEC. Oddly, 
however, he devotes relatively little time to the Manhattan Project or 
to groups such as the Federation of American Scientists who would 
ultimately prove important in mobilizing the anti-nuclear movement.[1] 
Then, in 1950, Korea relaxed the budget constraints and the national 
security state was born, propped up by military spending and fed by the 
technological spillover from military R&D. 
 
This thumbnail sketch omits much detail, for Hart's analysis is far 
richer than one can summarize in a few paragraphs. The analysis of 
events is usually persuasive; no one writing on American science policy 
can afford to ignore it. For me, the most valuable insight was his 
stress on the continuing role of associationalism long after its heyday 
in the 1920s. Of course, there are weaknesses, and I have several 
quibbles and comments on ways I think the analysis could have been 
strengthened. 
 
First, the quibbles. No one I have read, including Bruce Smith, ever 
claimed that post war policy was entirely the creation of Vannevar 
Bush.[2] Hyperbole aside, it would also have helped if Hart had stated 
the elements of the "consensus." As Bruce Smith summarized it, there 
were four tenants: 1) basic research was a federal responsibility, 2) 
applied research would also be an important government responsibility, 
3) commercialization would be virtually automatic, and 4) some minimal 
regulation would be necessary.[3] 
 
There are, however, several more serious weaknesses. Despite Hart's 
claim that he has cast a broader empirical net than earlier authors, 
there are curious omissions. There is no discussion at all of science in 
the Department of Agriculture or of the Public Health Service (PHS) or 
of the founding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Moreover, 
the long campaign that culminated in the NIH, as recently described by 
Victoria Harden, both confirms and qualifies Hart's analytic scheme. She 
too depicts the interplay of associationalists, reformers, and others in 
the origin of NIH, but she casts an even broader net to include agency 
scientists, bureaucrats, scientific associations, women's groups, 
individual companies, and others.[4] Nor does Hart discuss the impact of 
the regulation (except for anti-trust). Yet work on the ICC, FDA and 
other agencies suggests that regulation significantly shaped 
technological change.[5] 
 
I am also skeptical that Hart's category "Keynesian" is very useful. As 
he acknowledges at one point, "Science and technology played an 
ambiguous part in Keynesian thought" (p. 22). He then goes on to note 
that "WW II...detached Keynesianism from reform liberalism" (p. 23), and 
in the post war years it came to rationalize military spending. I would 
go a good deal farther: there is nothing in Keynesian analysis to lead 
one to any particular view of science and technology policy or any other 
sort of spending. Some who called themselves Keynesians no doubt urged a 
more ambitious role for Federal R&D spending. But no doubt so did some 
who called themselves Presbyterians. As Hart notes, tax cuts and 
military spending are just as compatible with Keynesian analysis. In 
fact, macro economists in general ignored technology until Robert 
Solow's famous 1957 paper--done in the neoclassical mode and cited by 
Hart--pointed to its importance. 
 
Finally, although Hart briefly notes the technocracy movement of the 
1930s, there is little in his analysis to foreshadow the rise of 
environmental concerns and the anti-technology counterculture of the 
1970s. This results, I think, from his omission of the work of the 
Public Health Service and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as 
the origins of anti nuclear activism in the FAS. Yet as Christopher 
Sellers has argued, there are direct links between PHS-FDA scientific 
investigations of workplace toxics in the 1930s and environmental 
movement in the postwar years.[6] 
 
Notes 
 
[1]. For the early efforts of the Federation of the American Scientists 
to prevent military domination of atomic power see Daniel Kevles, _The 
Physicists_ (Vintage, 1979), Chapter 22. 
 
[2]. Bruce Smith, _American Science Policy Since World War II_ 
(Brookings, 1990). What Smith actually said (p. 36) was "The Bush 
report...perhaps comes closest to summarizing many elements of the 
consensus, but even it is incomplete." 
 
[3]. Smith, _American Science Policy_, pp. 36-37. 
 
[4]. Victoria Harden, _Inventing the NIH_ (Johns Hopkins, 1986). 
 
[5]. On the role of the Bureau of Mines see Joseph Pratt, "Letting the 
Grandchildren Do It: Environmental Planning During the Ascent of Oil as 
a Major Energy Source," _Public Historian_ 2 (Summer 1980: 28-61). For 
the effects of regulation in shaping more recent technological change, 
see William Capron, _Technological Change in Regulated Industries_ 
(Brookings, 1970) and Paul MacAvoy, _The Regulation of Transport 
Innovation: The ICC and Unit Coal Trains to the East Coast_ (Random 
House, 1967). 
 
[6]. Christopher Sellers, _Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease 
to Environmental Health Science_ (University of North Carolina, 1997). 
 
This review was commissioned for H-Pol by Lex Renda <[log in to unmask]> 
 
 Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be 
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