ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of technical change and the meaning of technical improvement. It focuses on the discussion of technical change in one very important substantive area, military technology. The customary and in many respects most obvious way of thinking about the relationship between technical change and society involves looking at the impact of technology on society. The political economic critique of technical choices thus draws its force from being able to demonstrate that the machine which was actually inferior was promoted over the superior one for extrinsic reasons. Worldwide, therefore, an enormous amount of research effort goes into military technology. Governments, as purchasers of weapons, and the producers of armaments thus have a common interest in generating innovative weaponry which will keep their armed forces ahead of the competition. A very considerable part of the cost of innovative weaponry thus lies in the research and development expenditure.
