理事長武田郁夫から武田賞を受け取るストールマン氏。 |
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We are here to celebrate technology.
Technology can empower and liberate and heal people, but
technology can also subjugate, surveil and poison people.
Which one will it do? Technology can improve productivity
which can make it possible for everyone to have an easier
and wealthier life. But not necessarily. That result is
not inevitable.
In the Untied States, for instance, despite tremendous increases in technology, most people's wages are the same as in 1980, and technology can make it possible for all of us to work less of the time on necessary chores, having more leisure, but this result is not inevitable. While in Japan people have been working less over the years, in the Untied States most people have been working harder, they are working a whole month per year more than in 1970. In fact, Americans, on the average, work more hours than Japanese now, a reverse from the past.
What will decide what happens how technology is used, ultimately it depends on how our governments work. If we have a strong democracy, if the people can decide how they want their society to be arranged and decide, therefore, how to use technology which affects the structure of society, then this strong democracy can ensure, for instance, that businesses must compete with each other instead of entrenching positions, can ensure that businesses must raise the standard of living of all society instead of just their owners. It can ensure that the technology that is used does not poison people or the earth. It can ensure that the technology that you use in your life is under your control, that you can decide what you'll do with it privately. It can ensure that businesses can't stop you from cooperating with your neighbors.
But if we allow business to dominate government, then I'm afraid we can expect very different results. We can expect poisoning of the environment. We can expect obstacles to scientific research. We can expect poor standards of living and poor medical care for most people even in a country with the most advanced medicine on earth. We can expect that the software you use will be a secret from you, that it will do what certain businesses wanted to do, and they will not give you any choice.
I hope that we will reclaim our governments. It would
be nice to believe that technical progress automatically
would solve these problems, but what we see is that technology,
vital though it is for progress, doesn't guarantee progress
in a good direction. We have to continue to work in the
political sphere to decide the direction that progress
will take us once technology makes progress in some direction
possible. We have to reclaim our governments from the
businesses. Thank you. |
