The Political Economy of Technoscience

Abstract

The paper considers how researchers manage matter and energy and how they negotiate space, surface area, and place. They are doing so either by accommodating themselves to limits or by seeking to overcome such limits. To describe this adequately we develop a notion of a political economy of science that follows the distinction by French philosopher Georges Bataille between restricted and general economics. We identify the first with sciences that are constituted by conservation laws whereas the second can be identified with the technosciences that appear to adopt a principle of non-conservation which is exemplified by the ambition to expand resources like “space” or “matter.” The image and theoretical representation of our blue planet is particularly suitable to follow this transgression because it embodies the ambivalence of conserving a limited whole by exceeding and surpassing it. While Heinrich Hertz or Thomas R. Malthus never leave the framework of strict accountancy and lawful nature, the promoters of nano- and ecotechnologies share the creative desire to design machinery, create artwork, expore the globe, or change society. They develop strategies of control that open up a boundless space of technical possibility.