Science and Government, by C.P. Snow

[p025] Science and Government. By C. P. Snow. Oxford University Press, 9s. 6d. The real purpose of this book is to demonstrate that in the advanced capitalist societies of the West, scientists must be employed at all levels of. government; so that the USA, Britain and so on can compete effectively with ‘societies that look to the future’, notably the USSR. The shortcomings of the existing use of scientists in. the West are illustrated by the Lindemann (Lord Cherwell)/Tizard controversy, which takes up the bulk of the book. As soon as. Churchill came to power during the last war he saw to it that his friend and adviser Lord Cherwell displaced Tizard. to become the effective . scientific director of -the country. 103 Churchill and Cherwell were for the strategic bombing of Germany; Tizard and other scientists were against it from the start, advising that it would cost Britain more to carry out than the damage to be inflicted on German war production. In the event, Tizard was proved correct. Clearly, in a matter of vital concern to the prosecution of the war, personal influence, caprice and self- conceit had triumphed over a rational appreciation of the situation. Thus ‘the author urges the rational employ- ment of scientists. at all levels of government and administration, as against promotion by knowing people in the right places. The author has been both scientist and administrator. While recogniz- ing that administrators tend ‘to become masters of the short-term solution’ whereas scientists can know ‘what a future-directed society feels like’, the book bears the stamp of the administrator. For no amount of adjustment in the art of government can make a society devoted to pro- duction for profit into a society geared to production for use. Only government based on working-class power will be able to remove the anarchy in production relations and allow scientists to work in harmony with the needs of society. The necessity for secrecy and ‘closed politics’ inevitably prevents scientists from full and free discus- sion and influencing government decisions as they should. Thus the more rational use of scientists in government is discussed within the context of ‘above politics’-—but not before the author: briefly recognizes that the abolition of nation-states will mean the abolition of ‘some, though probably not all, secret choices’. Even in a limited way, C. P. Snow is- obliged to reach some conclusions fundamental to the concept of inter- national socialism. RS. Managerialism