Mike Cooley (engineer)

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 (TASS). He was one of the militant activists behind The Lucas Plan,[7][8] a radical strategy to avoid workforce layoffs by converting production at Lucas from armaments to civilian products.[9]

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.[2] 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”.[10] The proposals of the alternative plan were not accepted by Lucas management and Cooley was 'effectively' dismissed in 1981,[11] allegedly for spending excessive time upon union business[12] and "concerns of society as a whole".[13] After leaving Lucas he was appointed Technology Director of the Greater London Council and later founded[14] the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB).[11]

Ken Livingstone and Mike Cooley[14] founded the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB) 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".[15]

The GLEB became independent in 1986 when the GLC was abolished; it changed its name to Greater London Enterprise (GLE) and funded its activities from its income.[16]

Mike Cooley was the founding chairman of AI & Society, an international forum for socially responsible technology founded in 1987 that focuses on ‘societal issues".(Springer, 2018).

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.[17] 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".[18] 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."[18]

Cooley's work on human-centered systems and socially useful production was compiled and first published by Shirley Cooley, Mike's wife, in 1980 (Hand & Brain publications); 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.[19] The book has been translated into over 20 languages[6] 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.[20] Human-centred systems,[21] 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.[22][23]

Cooley's book Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology (1992; published 2018) explores the relationship between mankind and technology development.[24] The book analyses the social impact of technology and the dangers of accepting the "one best" scientific idea of progress.[25][26] 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".[27]

• Cooley, Mike (1982). Architect or Bee? The human/technology relationship. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-131-4.
• Cooley, Mike (1987). Architect or Bee? The human price of technology. UK: The Hogarth Press. ISBN 0-7012-0769-8.
• Cooley, Mike (1988). Produkte für das Leben statt Waffen für den Tod. Germany: Rowohlt Verlag. ISBN 9783499148309.
• Cooley, Mike (2016). Architect or Bee? The Human Price of Technology. UK: Spokesman Books. ISBN 978-0-85124-8493.
• Cooley, Mike (2018). Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology. UK: Spokesman Books. ISBN 978-085124-878-3.
• Cooley, Mike (2020). The Search for Alternatives, Liberating Human Imagination: A Mike Cooley Reader. UK: Spokesman Books. ISBN 978-085124-8851.