Computers and Social Change
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THE SOCIAL CONSEQENCES OF A TOOL

The ani-ani is a small knife held in the palm of the hand. It was used for centuries on the Indonesian island of Java to harvest rice. When ani-ani knives were replaced by longer-bladed sickles, observers predicted that this "progress" would lead to more efficient food production in the villages and a higher standard of nutrition. While rice prodction did increase, so did poverty and malnutrition, especially among women and children. These undesirable consequences resulted because the ani-ani was more than a tool for cutting rice; it was also a tool for dividing up shares of the harvest. Because it was inefficient, wealthy farmers with large fields had to call upon friends, relatives, and landless villagers to help them harvest. The landless poor (who were often divorced women with small children) thus had a means of livelihood and a share of the food. When the sickles were introduced, the wealthier farmers began to hire work teams from outside the village at harvest time. This was partly to avoid the embarassment of selecting only a few of the many people who had formerly helped them. It was also partly because the entrepeneurial work teams went from village to village offering to do the harvest work for a smaller share of the rice than the poor villagers' traditional portion. The loss of jobs and the flow of food out of the village in the form of work team wages was blamed on the inevitability of modern "progress". The wealthy farmers grew more wealthy, since they now got their harvesting done more cheaply. Formerly cordial social relationships between rich and poor villagers were strained; political unrest grew. Even the villagers' religion (in which the ani-ani played an important part) began to change. Surely, the technological differences between the small knife and the large knife did not cause all of this change. What did cause the changes was the rearrangement of social relationships needed in order to use the sickles. Although there is an enormous difference between harvesting knives and computers, like all tools, their use in the context of a complex pattern of social relationships can have unexpected consequences. 
References


Collier, William L., Gunawan Wiradi, and Soentoro. 1973. "Recent Changes
    in Rice Harvesting Methods", Bulletin of Indonesian Economic
    Studies, IX(2):36-45.
 
Kikuchi, Masao, Anwar Hafid, Chaerul Saleh, Sri Hartoyo, and Yujiro
    Hayami. 1979. "Class Differentiation, Labor Employment and Income
    Distribution in a West Java Village", Rural Dynamics Series No. 7,
    Bogor, Indonesia:  Agro-Economic Survey.

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