ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the concept of technology is approached in critical development theory. Arguing that we must rethink development as a sociometabolic process of accumulation, it reviews some influential narratives of the history of capitalism to illustrate how they tend to relegate technology to an unnegotiable, politically neutral sphere that is extraneous to social deconstruction. The tendency to refer to technologies as mere tools is identified in several scholars in economic history and development theory. These approaches fail to recognise that advanced engineering knowledge is politically situated in the sense that it is applicable only under certain conditions of global exchange. Their acknowledgement of global asymmetries does not taint their understanding of technology. There are thus significant ideological continuities linking colonialism and modern development theory. Whether conceptualised as an innovative idea, a privileged investment, a useful tool, or an amendable ecological inconvenience, technology tends to be understood as a phenomenon that is external to social theory.
