Selling Earth observation satellites on their abilities to predict and limit adverse environmental change, politicians, business leaders, the media, and technology enthusiasts have spent sixty years arguing that space exploration can create a more peaceful, prosperous world. Capitalist states have also socialized the risk and privatized the profits of the commercial space industry by convincing taxpayers to fund surveillance technologies as necessary components of sovereignty, freedom, and democracy. Jocelyn Wills’s Tug of War reminds us that colonizing the cosmos has not only accelerated the arms race but also encouraged government contractors to compete for the military and commercial spoils of surveillance. Although Canadians prefer to celebrate their role as purveyors of peaceful space applications, Canada has played a pivotal part in the expansion of neoliberal policies and surveillance networks that now encircle the globe, primarily as a political ally of the United States and component supplier for its military-industrial complex. Tracing the forty-five-year history of Canada’s largest space company – MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) – through the lens of surveillance studies and a trove of oral history transcripts, government documents, trade journals, and other sources, Wills places capitalism’s imperial ambitions squarely at the centre of Canada-US relations and the privatization of the Canadian political economy. Tug of War confronts the mythic lure of technological progress and the ways in which those who profess little interest in war rationalize their leap into military contracting by avoiding the moral and political implications of their work.
Author(s): Jocelyn Wills
Series: Carleton Library Series 242
Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: ---PDF (Conv. From .epub)---
Pages: 464
Tags: Surveillance Capitalism, Military Contracting, Rise Of Security State
Cover......Page 2
Title Page......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Abbreviations......Page 14
Introduction: Satellites and Surveillance Capitalism......Page 17
1 “A Permanent State of ‘Cold War’”: Preparing the Environment, 1940–1968......Page 44
Part One The Technology Enthusiasts......Page 76
2 “Our Knowledge Is in the Holes”: Software Consulting and the Sweat-Equity Formula, 1968–1977......Page 77
3 “Innovation in a Cold Climate”: Remote Sensing and the Government Contracting Paradigm, 1971–1980......Page 110
4 “Two Things Went Wrong at Once”: Financial Crises, Mythical Man-Months, and the Near-Death Experience, 1975–1981......Page 157
Part Two The Investor-Business Strategists......Page 192
5 “Unscrambling the Mess”: Financial Restructuring, Management Discipline, and the Military Contracting Formula, 1981–1987......Page 193
6 “The Systems Vision Was Too Hard”: Investor Strategies, Product Development, and the Demise of the Manufacturing Vision, 1982–1988......Page 235
7 “One Amorphous Mass”: Systems Integration, Strategic Planning, and the Search for Liquidity, 1988–1993......Page 259
Part Three The Systems Integrators......Page 291
8 “This Company Will Be Sold”: MDA’s Public Offering, Orbital’s Acquisition, and the Dot-Com Bust, 1993–2001......Page 292
9 “Shades of Grey”: 11 September 2001, the Homeland Security Bubble, and Canada’s Sovereignty Imbroglio, 2001–2008......Page 314
10 “A Lucky Escape”: The Great Recession, Property Information Divestment, and the Acquisition of a Critical Mass in Satellite Manufacturing, 2009–2012......Page 347
Conclusion: “Unseen, in the Background”: A View from the Security State......Page 364
Notes......Page 380
Bibliography......Page 427
Index......Page 450
