Technocracy
This page is not about technocratic governance or a social layer conducting a particular type of management, but about 'Technocracy Inc.' a social movement responding to the crisis of U.S. capitalism in the 1930s.
URL = http://www.technocracy.ca/
Context
from Technocracy and the American Dream by William Atkin (1971) [1]:
“Genuine alternatives to existing social organizations seldom appear viable except in times of rapid cultural transformation or crisis. The Great Depression was such a crisis. The valley and the shadow of the depression sorely tempted the country to reject its beliefs and principles. The faith that the twenties had placed in big business and the free marketplace seemed an illusion. At least until the New Deal, representative politics offered little constructive help to those victimized by economic events beyond their control. Traditional culture, with its emphasis on the individual, the local community, and Protestant virtues, had been found wanting previously. Americans might be nostalgic about the cultural values of the past, but reversion to them was hardly likely. The crisis demanded new ways of viewing and organizing society, a new set of values.
One of the first offers of an apparently plausible alternative came from a group of technicians and social engineers who had organized the Committee on Technocracy at Columbia University. When it first reached public attention, the committee was a research organization engaged in compiling a mammoth statistical survey of energy sources in North America. As the chief spokesmen for the group, Howard Scott and Walter Rautenstrauch made their findings known in the fall and winter of 1933-34, and the public responded as if they had touched an exposed social nerve ending. The original technocrats offered a seemingly scientific explanation of America’s ills and increasingly moved toward proposing radical solutions. At the center of their view of America was the paradox of a society victimized by abundance and by technology. The march of science, invention, engineering, and their offspring—the machine and modern technology—possessed the potential for a material utopia. Instead, the workings of the machine operating within the traditional economic framework had brought the depression.
In the technocrats’ minds the ills of the economy were traceable not to the machine per se, but to an inefficient adjustment of the social order to modern high-energy technology. Separating business activities from the actual production and distribution of goods, they attacked the price-wage system, the very heart of capitalism, for creating an inefficiency so disastrous that the country hovered on the brink of an economic apocalypse. The urge to profit prevented the rationalization necessary to adjust the process of production and distribution to the requirements of technological efficiency. This had resulted in ever increasing waste and debt and, most seriously, in the displacement of workers at a cataclysmic rate. Unless America abolished the price system and replaced it with a more rational, efficient, scientific order, technology would “smash” the existing economic structure.
The technocrats urged a doctrine of radical social engineering to meet the crisis. Neither business nor representative government were capable of bringing about the required adjustments, and the dominant institutions and values stood in the path of the massive social engineering project the crisis demanded. The technocrats centered on the technicians—especially engineers, who became, in their minds, the real producers of wealth—as the efficient, scientific, anticapitalistic, elite capable of reorienting the economic order around rational production and distribution. I heirs was a clarion call for technicians to plan and engineer the new order.”
Definition
1.
"Technocracy:
1. An advanced industrial society of continental extent in which the supporting economy uses energy units for measurement and control, in place of the monetary values (money) of the Price System
2. A membership society or movement, originating in North America in 1934, advocating adoption of this concept;
3. A subverted use of the term, in wide use, specifying management or rule by specialized experts rather than by elected representatives or non-specialists."
(https://www.vcn.bc.ca/~monad1/definitions.htm)
2. By Technocracy Inc. :
"Technocracy is a proposal for a steady-state, post-scarcity economic system. It is intended for industrialized nations with sufficient natural, technological, and human resources to produce an economic abundance. Primarily this refers to the continent of North America, but may also apply to other areas today as well if they have acheived certain minimum criteria."
(http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm)
Description
1.
"The use of energy as a unifying concept for social, political and economic analysis reached a zenith with the technocratic movement in the USA and Canada during the 1930s. Led by the flamboyant and energetic Howard Scott, the Technocracy movement began in 1918 as a group called the Technical Alliance. The Alliance conducted an industrial survey of North America in which economic parameters were measured in energy units rather than dollars. Although the Alliance lasted only a few years, the Depression provided fertile ground for the re-emergence of the technocratic movement which used depressed economic conditions as a rallying point for their call for a complete overhaul of existing economic and political institutions. In 1921, Howard Scott and others formed Technocracy, Inc., and in conjunction with the Industrial Engineering Department at Columbia University, began an empirical analysis of production and employment in North America in energy units. The association with a prestigious university like Columbia combined with Scott’s flamboyant relationship with the press made Technocracy internationally famous.
Technocrats believed that politicians and businessmen could not manage a complex, rapidly advancing industrial society. The technocrats proposed replacing politicians with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy. This would allow social and economic institutions to reap the full benefits technological progress had made possible. With technical trained people making decisions, the Technocrats saw no physical limitations on expanding industrial output. They favored the continual replacement of labor with capital and energy, realizing as did Podolinsky and Soddy that empowering labor with greater quantities of fuel increased the productivity of labor.
The technocratic philosophy assumed that energy was the critical factor determining economic and social development. The Technocrats measured social change in physical terms: the average number of kilocalories used per capita per day. Money would be replaced by energy certificates, the total supply of which would be determined by the total amount of energy used in the production of goods and services. Every adult above the age of 25 would receive an equal portion of the total net energy used. People under 25 would receive a special 'maintenance allowance.' Like Soddy, the Technocrats viewed with contempt the interest-bearing ability of regular money, so the energy certificate was to be non-transferable, non-negotiable, non-interest bearing, and had to be used within a specified period of time."
(http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics)
2.
"TECHNOCRACY INC. is a non-profit membership organization incorporated under the laws of the State of New York. It is a Continental Organization.
It is not a financial racket or a political party.
Technocracy Inc. operates only on the North American Continent through the structure of its own Continental Headquarters, Area Controls, Re~onal Divisions, Sections, and Organizers as a self-disciplined, self-controlled organization. It has no affiliations with any other organization, movement, or association, whether in North America or elsewhere. Technocracy points out that this Continent has the natural resources, the physical equipment, and the trained personnel to produce and distribute an abundance. , Technocracy finds that the production and distribution of an abundance of physical wealth on a Continen'tal scale for the use of all Continental citizens can only be accomplished by a Continental technological control- a governance of function- a Technate.
Technocracy declares that this Continent has a rendezvous with Destiny; that this Continent must decide between Abundance and Chaos within the next few years. Technocracy realizes that this decision must be made by a mass movement of North Americans trained and self-disciplined, capable of operating a technological mechanism of production and distribution onthe Continent when the present Price System becomes impotent to operate. Technocracy Inc. is notifying every intelligent a.nd courageous North American that his future tomorrow rests on what he does today. Technocracy offers the specifications and the blueprints of Continental physical operations for the production of abundance for every citizen."
(https://www.technocracyinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Study-Course.pdf)
Attributes of a Technocratic society?
From http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm :
There are many, but a few can be summarized here:
A thoroughly scientific method of control of the technology of our continent.
Democratic controls for all non-technical issues and decisions.
Maximum freedom for all citizens in terms of latitude of purchasing power and personal rights
Removal of methods of scarcity economics such as money, debt, value, and interest.
The elimination of political decision-making from technical affairs
Replacement of these methods with an empirical accounting of all physical resources, products, and services (called Energy Accounting).
Productive capacity many orders of magnitude higher than currently possible, without requiring any new equipment.
Decrease in human labor required to produce these amounts through proper use of automation.
Highest possible standard of living for ALL citizens in terms of income, housing, health care, education, and leisure.
Sustainable resource management through conservation and industrial efficiency
Elimination or vast reduction of various social ills, such as poverty, crime, pollution, insecurity, and disease.
More Information
- Technocracy portal at http://www.technocracy.ca/
- For Beginners, at http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm
- FAQ, at http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/FAQ_Index.htm
- Network of European Technocrats, http://en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?
Key Book to Read
- Andrew Wallace. Technocracy. Building a sustainable society for a post carbon world. NET. ISBN 978-9-1633-1249-6 (http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/technocracy-building-a-new-sustainable-society-for-a-post-carbon-world/15920611?productTrackingContext=author_spotlight_647128_) (http://www.eoslife.eu)