Mike Cooley (engineer)
Mike Cooley is an Irish-born engineer, writer and former trade union leader who is best known for his work on the social effects of technology, "Socially Useful Production" and "Human Centred Systems". He was involved in workplace activism at the British company Lucas Aerospace in the late 1970s. In 1981, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for "designing and promoting the theory and practice of human-centred, socially useful production."
Cooley was born in Tuam, Ireland, attended the Christian Brothers School and was classmates with Tom Murphy and the trade unionist Mick Brennan. He was an apprentice at Tuam Sugar Factory and later studied engineering in Germany, Switzerland and England gaining a PhD in "Computer Aided Design".
Cooley has held several leadership positions in the field of computer-aided design and was an advisor on numerous public and private sector projects. He was the founding president of the International Research Institute in Human Centred Systems and the international Journal AI & Society, and founding director of the Greater London Enterprise Board. He has published over 100 scientific papers and fifteen books, and has been a guest lecturer at universities in Europe, Australia, the US and Japan. His book "Architect or Bee?" has been translated into six languages.
Work life
The Lucas Plan
In the late 1970s, Mike Cooley was a designer at Lucas Aerospace and chaired the local branch of the technical trade union Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section. He was one of the militant activists behind The Lucas Plan, a radical strategy to avoid workforce layoffs by converting production at Lucas from armaments to civilian products.The plan's aim was to replace weapons manufacture with the development of socially useful goods, like solar heating equipment, artificial kidneys, and systems for intermodal transportation. The goal was to not simply retain jobs, but to design the work so that the workers would be motivated by the social value of their activities. As Cooley put it "the workers are the experts”. The proposals of the alternative plan were not accepted by Lucas management and Cooley was dismissed in 1981, allegedly for spending excessive time upon union business and "concerns of society as a whole". Following his sacking by Lucas he was appointed Technology Director of the GLC and later founded the Greater London Enterprise Board.
Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB): 1982
and Mike Cooley founded the Greater London Enterprise Board in 1982, which was an industrial development and job creation agency set up by the GLC to create employment by investing in the industrial regeneration of London, with the funds provided by the council, its workers' pension fund and the financial markets. During the first two years of the enterprise board's existence the Greater London council provided a total annual budget of around £30 million, made up of some £20 million section 137 funds and £10 million section 3 mortgage loan facilities. Frank Dobson in Hansard wrote in 1985 when GLEB was under threat of closure, "The Government are not worried because the GLEB has been a failure; they are worried because it has been a success".The GLEB became independent in 1986 when the GLC was abolished; it changed its name to Greater London Enterprise and funded its activities from its income.
AI & Society (Founding Chairman): 1987
Mike Cooley was the founding chairman of AI & Society, an international forum for socially responsible technology founded in 1987 that focuses on ‘societal issues"..Publications
''Architect or Bee: 1980''
In 1980, Cooley published Architect or Bee? a critique of the automation and computerisation of engineering work. The book alludes to a comparison made by Karl Marx on the creative achievements of human imagination. According to Orlando Hill, "Mike Cooley’s Architect or Bee? put the case that a new organisation of technology could provide social good rather than profit". He goes on to say: "Cooley argues that if we are going to move from merrily producing commodities to producing goods that people need and want, we must change our attitude towards technology. The technology used today evolved from the concept of the division of labour. In a capitalist system in which the maximization of profit is the sole objective and people are regarded as units of labour-power, the division of labour and fragmentation of skills is absolutely rational and scientific. However, the consequence is the deskilling of workers and alienation from reality. A division between theory and practice is created with a bias towards theoretical knowledge. The skill and practical knowledge of the worker is despised."Cooley's work on human-centered systems and socially useful production was compiled and first published by Shirley Cooley, Mike's wife, in 1980 ; the second edition was published in the US in 1982 by South End Press with an introduction from MIT Professor David Noble and was followed by a new edition published by Hogarth Press in 1987 with an introduction by Anthony Barnett. The current edition was published by Spokesman Books in 2016 and has an introduction by Frances O’Grady the General Secretary of the TUC. The book has been translated into over 20 languages including Finnish, Irish and Chinese.
In Architect or Bee?, Cooley coined the term "human-centred systems" in the context of the transition in his profession from traditional drafting at a drawing board to computer-aided design. Human-centred systems, as used in economics, computing and design, aim to preserve or enhance human skills, in both manual and office work, in environments in which technology tends to undermine the skills that people use in their work.
''Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology : 1992 (Published 2018)''
Mike Cooley's book "Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology" explores the relationship between mankind and technology development. The book analyses the social impact of technology and the dangers of accepting the "one best" scientific idea of progress. According to Adrian Smith, Professor of Technology & Society at the University of Sussex, Cooley looks at "vantage points for realising neglected human purposes – such as creative work and environmental sustainability – through technology." Smith said its chapters "look upon a period of intense restructuring in the industrial manufacturing landscape, whose effects are still felt today".''The Search for Alternatives | Liberating Human Imagination | A Mike Cooley Reader: 1972 to 2007 (Published 2020)''
The Search for Alternatives | Liberating Human Imagination | A Mike Cooley Reader By Mike Cooley,, Foreword by John Palmer and Introduction by Karamjit S Gill; published by Spokesman books. The Search for Alternatives By Mike Cooley is a collection of previously published essays which charts the development of his work from 1972 to 2007. The book compliments his previously published work by showing the breath of his essays and theories."we have become far too smart scientifically to survive much longer without wisdom"
Mike Cooley, The Myth of the Moral Neutrality of Technology
List of books
Film, radio and television
In 1983 Mike Cooley appeared in “Farewell to Work?” produced for Channel Four by Udi Eichler of Brook Productions. On-screen participants included André Gorz, Patrick Minford, Claus Offe and Mike Cooley, and the discussion was chaired by Robert Hutchison. According to the film, technology would "virtually eliminate the manual working class by the end of the century" and displace jobs permanently. Gorz proposes working towards a future in which free time is sustained by a guaranteed minimum income and that production should be confined to essential goods and that people should pursue satisfying and autonomous activities.Mike also features prominently in German filmmaker Harun Farocki's film Wie Man Sieht, which examines the emergence of computerization and its effects on military and managerial uses of innovative technology.
Mike's work was the subject of the TV documentary “Look, No Hands!” in 1988 made for the Equinox Channel Four documentary series. Directed by Christopher Rawlence and produced by Debra Hauer. The film was shown as part of season 1988, Episode 12, on Oct 9, 1988 and also produced as a VHS video.
In 1997, Cooley appeared is "My Education" by John Quinn, an RTE radio series and book published by Town House. The book is a set of interviews with educationalists discussing their own education and features Mike Cooley, Noam Chomsky, Seamus Heaney and Charles Handy among others. Cooley and Quinn also collaborated on “Education for the 1990s”: Three Lectures Given at a Symposium in Radio Telefís Éireann, October 1989.
Cooley appeared in the 2003 Alan Gilsenan documentary "Sing on Forever" about the Irish playwright Tom Murphy, recalling his friendship with Murphy in Tuam.