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1960S Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory A "More than Planners, Less than Utopians:" 1960s Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Jasper Verschoor August 2017 © 2017 Jasper Verschoor. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled "More than Planners, Less than Utopians:" 1960s Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory by JASPER VERSCHOOR has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Kevin Mattson Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT VERSCHOOR, JASPER, Ph.D., August 2017, History "More than Planners, Less than Utopians:" 1960s Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory Director of Dissertation: Kevin Mattson This dissertation studies the ideas of a group of thinkers described by Time Magazine in 1966 as “Futurists.” The American sociologist Daniel Bell, the French political philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel, and the physicist Herman Kahn argued that the future could not be predicted but that forecasting certain structural changes in society could help avoid social problems and lead to better planning. In order to engage in such forecasting Jouvenel founded Futuribles, an international group that facilitated discussion about the future of advanced industrial societies. Bell chaired a Commission on the year 2000 that aimed to anticipate social problems for policy makers. The dissertation also focuses on work done by Kahn and others at the RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute. The origin of 1960s futurism is traced to debates held under the auspices of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, especially ideas about the “end of ideology.” The supposed exhaustion of left and right-wing political ideologies produced a desire for new theories of social change. Bell offered his theory of post-industrial society, a future shaped by theoretical knowledge and information in which computers played an important role. The importance of new intellectual techniques made possible by the computer could also be used to anticipate and plan for the future, or so the futurists hoped. A focus on social forecasting and social planning aligned in important ways with 4 the goals of President Johnson’s Great Society. Bell chaired a Presidential Commission on automation, and later a panel on social indicators. The later aimed to produce social statistics that could rival economic indicators, and ultimately lead to comprehensive planning for social goals. The futurism of the 1960s fell far short of its ambitions, and failed to leave a lasting mark on society. This dissertation examines why this was the case and studies the tensions and problems inherent in the futurist efforts. Most importantly the futurists struggled to articulate how planning could be incorporated in a pluralist democracy, and how it could be commensurate with free market capitalism. The futurists wavered between normative and value-free understanding of their efforts, weakening their case for future-oriented governance. Ultimately this dissertation holds that futurist efforts are necessary but that the argument for futurism has to be political. Demanding a long-term perspective and planning for the future has to start in the political arena and cannot be value-neutral. 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks first to Kevin Mattson. He has taught me much, made me a better writer, and a more critical thinker. It has been a joy to study under someone who constantly aims to find the connections between history and our contemporary world. Numerous other people at Ohio University have been good to me: John Brobst, Katherine Jellison, Jaclyn Maxwell, Kevin Uhalde, and Stephen Cote. Thanks also to Chester Pach for teaching a killer grad seminar and being part of the dissertation committee. I am also thankful for the help and advice of Ingo Trauschweizer and Judith Grant. Bethany J. Antos was very helpful at the Rockefeller Archive Center and the same goes for Jennifer S. Comins at Columbia University’s Butler Library. Chasity Gragg was a great problem solver at Ohio University’s Alden Library. The late Herman Beliën inspired my interest in American history at the University of Amsterdam, and I’m grateful to have been his student. The love and support of my parents has been invaluable. They have always encouraged intellectual curiosity, even when it led me to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Finally, I’m grateful for the love and companionship of my wife Erin; I could not have done it without her. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ...........................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................................5 Introduction .....................................................................................................................7 Chapter One: Possible Futures and the End of Ideology ................................................. 21 Chapter Two: The Art and Technique of Conjecture ...................................................... 97 Chapter Three: Great Society Futurism ........................................................................ 169 Chapter Four: War, Technology, and the Critique against "Establishment Futurism" ... 283 Epilogue: A Futurism for Today? ................................................................................ 376 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 386 7 INTRODUCTION In February of 1967 an article in the New Republic noted that “future-planning” was “the most fascinating, and certainly the most fashionable thing to be doing this year in both government and the social sciences.”1 A month earlier, an article in Fortune discussed the emergence of “a new style of private and public planning, problem solving, and choosing.” In ten years this “new way of dealing with the future” would be “recognized at home and abroad as a salient American characteristic,” the author predicted.2 Time Magazine, moreover, called these future-planners “futurists” and noted that “their work left utopians and science-fiction writers far behind.”3 In April, the New York Times agreed, and noted that these “futurists” offered a different take on “the Jules Verne business” and that they “live in the year 2000.”4 “The central figures of ‘future- planning,’” wrote Andrew Kopkind, the author of the New Republic article, were “more than planners and less than utopians.” They were “a new genus of social actors” who dreamed of using “social science instead of pressure politics to solve the nation's problems.”5 These articles, as well as numerous others, identified some of the key figures involved. Three people were always mentioned: they were the Columbia University sociologist Daniel Bell, former RAND Corporation physicist Herman Kahn, and the French political philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel. The last of these was usually identified as the philosophical founding father of the new futurism; Bell’s futurist work 1 Andrew Kopkind, “The Future-Planners,” The New Republic, February 25, 1967, 19. 2 Max Ways, “The Road to 1977,” Fortune, January 1967, 94. 3 “The Futurists:Looking Toward A.D. 2000." Time, February 25, 1966, 34. 4 William H. Honan, “They Live in the Year 2000,” The New York Times, April 9, 1967, 57. 5 Kopkind, “the Future-Planners,” 19. 8 straddled the line between academia and government, while Kahn was the intellectual innovator who brought along “new techniques” of “systems analysis” and a reliance on computing power from military planning circles. All three also led their own futurist endeavors: there was Jouvenel’s international discussion group Futuribles, which was supported by the Ford Foundation; Bell’s Commission on the Year 2000, supported by the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences; and Kahn’s Hudson Institute, his own think tank which he had started after leaving the RAND Corporation. In the New Republic Kopkind, a journalist best known for chronicling and celebrating the rise of the New Left and the anti-war movement, identified Daniel Bell’s theorizing on “the end of ideology” as a crucial idea of the future planners. According to Kopkind, Bell had argued that class conflict and major social problems were “forever resolved in the U.S.” Marxism and radicalism, moreover, were discredited and “a dead letter.” All that society needed now were “intelligent, humanistic technicians”; the “future-planners filled the bill perfectly.”6 Kopkind was clearly critical of this idea. Inequality, racism, and the escalation of the Vietnam War were signs that conflict and radicalism were anything but a “dead letter.” He presented the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, as another problem solver, another “systems analyst” armed with computers. The future-planners, argued Kopkind, had their own ideology, even if they could not see it. It was one that tended towards “elitism” and was wary of democratic principles.7 6 Kopkind, “The Future-Planners,” 23. 7 ibid. 9 Where Kopkind was critical, the author of the article in Fortune, Max Ways, was greatly sympathetic to the new futurism. Ways, an editor at both Fortune and Time Magazine with center-right and pro-business proclivities, also highlighted Bell’s “end of ideology” thesis. Unlike Kopkind, he claimed that the development of futurism invalidated
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