Login
Create Account
Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
 |
Tug of WarSurveillance Capitalism, Military Contracting, and the Rise of the Security State |
eBook Available
Lifting the veil on a corporate world girded by powerful forces at the nexus of state, capital, and geopolitical power games.
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.
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.
Details
Part of the Carleton Library Series (number 242 in series)
518 Pages, 6 x 9
ISBN 9780773550476
September 2017
Formats: Cloth, eBook
“Surveillance. Advanced technologies. National security. Multinational capitalism. Tug of War deftly probes and integrates these vexed themes. Through deep research, masterfully contextualized, Wills tracks Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (now MDA), a global giant in satellite communications, to show how patriotism and technological enthusiasm gave way to financial ambitions, lured by markets for military and surveillance technologies. A powerful book.” Pamela Walker Laird, University of Colorado Denver, and author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing and Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin
“A timely, compelling (and untold) story of the making of one of the world’s most successful global communications and information companies.” Matthew J. Bellamy, Carleton University and author of Profiting the Crown: Canada’s Polymer Corporation, 1942-1900
“Tug of War offers penetrating insight into the extensive and complex partnership between big business and big government and the influence each has on the other - regardless of politics or public opinion - when it comes to surveillance and security technologies. Recommended.” Choice
“Jocelyn Wills’ examination of the rise of surveillance capitalism and the security state vis-à-vis the story of MDA is a powerful tour de force of the political economy of science, technology, and global capital at work. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in business history and surveillance studies.” Surveillance & Society
“Jocelyn Wills's excellent history of MDA was published just before this perfect moment of closure, which, in Wills’s casting, came to conclude the third era of MDA’s innovative but always insecure and fraught history as a distinctly Canadian aerospace corporation increasingly integrated into a global neoliberal surveillance capitalist system. The arrival of Maxar bears out all of what Wills argues in this dense and tightly woven tale.” Business History Review
“A timely, compelling (and untold) story of the making of one of the world’s most successful global communications and information companies.” Matthew J. Bellamy, Carleton University and author of Profiting the Crown: Canada’s Polymer Corporation, 1942-1900
“Tug of War offers penetrating insight into the extensive and complex partnership between big business and big government and the influence each has on the other - regardless of politics or public opinion - when it comes to surveillance and security technologies. Recommended.” Choice
“Jocelyn Wills’ examination of the rise of surveillance capitalism and the security state vis-à-vis the story of MDA is a powerful tour de force of the political economy of science, technology, and global capital at work. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in business history and surveillance studies.” Surveillance & Society
“Jocelyn Wills's excellent history of MDA was published just before this perfect moment of closure, which, in Wills’s casting, came to conclude the third era of MDA’s innovative but always insecure and fraught history as a distinctly Canadian aerospace corporation increasingly integrated into a global neoliberal surveillance capitalist system. The arrival of Maxar bears out all of what Wills argues in this dense and tightly woven tale.” Business History Review
Jocelyn Wills is professor of history at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
1940-1968 30
PART ONE THE TECHNOLOGY ENTHUSIASTS
2 “Our Knowledge Is in the Holes”: Software Consulting and the
Sweat-Equity Formula, 1968-1977 63
3 “Innovation in a Cold Climate”: Remote Sensing and the
Government Contracting Paradigm, 1971-1980 95
4 “Two Things Went Wrong at Once”: Financial Crises, Mythical
Man-Months, and the Near-Death Experience, 1975-1981 142
PART TWO THE INVESTOR-BUSINESS STRATEGISTS
5 “Unscrambling the Mess”: Financial Restructuring, Management
Discipline, and the Military Contracting Formula, 1981-1987 179
6 “The Systems Vision Was Too Hard”: Investor Strategies, Product
Development, and the Demise of the Manufacturing Vision,
1982-1988 221
7 “One Amorphous Mass”: Systems Integration, Strategic Planning,
and the Search for Liquidity, 1988-1993 245
PART THREE THE SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS
8 “This Company Will Be Sold”: mda’s Public Offering, Orbital’s
Acquisition, and the Dot-Com Bust, 1993-2001 279
9 “Shades of Grey”: 11 September 2001, the Homeland Security
Bubble, and Canada’s Sovereignty Imbroglio, 2001-2008 301
10 “A Lucky Escape”: The Great Recession, Property Information
Divestment, and the Acquisition of a Critical Mass in Satellite
Manufacturing, 2009-2012 334
Conclusion: “Unseen, in the Background”: A View from the Security
State 351
Notes 367
PART ONE THE TECHNOLOGY ENTHUSIASTS
2 “Our Knowledge Is in the Holes”: Software Consulting and the
Sweat-Equity Formula, 1968-1977 63
3 “Innovation in a Cold Climate”: Remote Sensing and the
Government Contracting Paradigm, 1971-1980 95
4 “Two Things Went Wrong at Once”: Financial Crises, Mythical
Man-Months, and the Near-Death Experience, 1975-1981 142
PART TWO THE INVESTOR-BUSINESS STRATEGISTS
5 “Unscrambling the Mess”: Financial Restructuring, Management
Discipline, and the Military Contracting Formula, 1981-1987 179
6 “The Systems Vision Was Too Hard”: Investor Strategies, Product
Development, and the Demise of the Manufacturing Vision,
1982-1988 221
7 “One Amorphous Mass”: Systems Integration, Strategic Planning,
and the Search for Liquidity, 1988-1993 245
PART THREE THE SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS
8 “This Company Will Be Sold”: mda’s Public Offering, Orbital’s
Acquisition, and the Dot-Com Bust, 1993-2001 279
9 “Shades of Grey”: 11 September 2001, the Homeland Security
Bubble, and Canada’s Sovereignty Imbroglio, 2001-2008 301
10 “A Lucky Escape”: The Great Recession, Property Information
Divestment, and the Acquisition of a Critical Mass in Satellite
Manufacturing, 2009-2012 334
Conclusion: “Unseen, in the Background”: A View from the Security
State 351
Notes 367
9780773545960
$115.00 CAD
Cloth
