- This article is a movement supporting the use of technology to enhance society. See Technocrat (disambiguation) for other definitions.
The technocratic movement is a social movement that advocates the optimization of the welfare of human beings, by means of scientific analyses. A technocracy is a socio-economic system, one that is based upon abundance, as opposed to scarcity based economies like capitalism or communism. A core conclusion reached by the group is a price system, or any system based on scarcity, is an illogical means of distribution in the technologically advanced world which we live. The movement sees established economic, political and administrative forms as relics of a traditional past. The group uses scientific observations and reasoning to show how a technate is an optimal social structure.
History
Howard Scott started the Technocratic movement as the "Technical Alliance" in the winter of 1918-1919. The Technical Alliance, composed of mostly scientists and engineers, started an energy-survey of the North American continent near the beginning of the 20th century. Many of their conclusions gave a scientific background upon which they based their revolutionary social structure. In 1933, the group became incorporated in the state of New York as a non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organization known as Technocracy Inc. Led by Howard Scott, then director-in-chief (his organizational title was "Chief Engineer"), the organization promoted its goals with a North American lecture tour in 1934, gaining support throughout the depression years. Their magazine, The Technocrat, is still published today and the movement still continues after more than 70 years of history. One of the most notable members of the movement was M. King Hubbert, a geophysicist who proposed the theory which has become known as the Hubbert Peak or peak oil.
To date, two serious studies of the early history of the Technocratic movement have been published:
William E. Akin, Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (University of California Press, 1977)
Henry Elsner, _The Technocrats, Prophets of Automation_ (Syracuse University Press, 1967)
Elsner's account is from a sociological perspective and so might provide more social theory than history. Akin's book is much more detailed, though deals mostly with the intellectual history of the movement. Neither book is terribly critical of the movement, though they both agree that the Technocrats' influence on American history has been negligible. They gained a fair amount of national press attention in the midst of the Great Depression, but their time in the spotlight lasted scarcely a year, from 1932-33. The movement split into rival groups in 1933, and they quickly faded into obscurity.
Errors with the price system
Certain long-term trends support the technocrat’s conclusions. It is a fact that the labor content of production drastically began to fall around 1920, and is continuing to fall today because of increased productivity. In the 1920's, less than 4% of the people of North America produced all foodstuffs, housing and manufactured goods; the majority of the work, in a scientific sense, was being done by machines.
Technological developments in mechanization have caused a massive shift of employment towards the service sector. Further increases in efficiency and productivity means that most of these services could be (and are being) reduced or eliminated by better management, automation, and centralization. These trends, and future trends, should signal an increase in production possibilities. This is, however, not the case, as increased productivity often leads to lay-offs and lower wages because of competition between workers, and the standard of living falls for many or only rises minimally. Human labor has become abundant, replaced by inexpensive machines. Technocrats argue that the more we are capable of producing due to technology, the greater disparities of wealth will become and the less the potential benefit of technology will be shared.
As opposed to economists, who define efficiency in terms of full utilization of resources and using resources in a way that reduces costs, technocrats define efficiency in terms of empirical evidence. Efficiency for a technocrat is a ratio of energy applied for useful work to energy applied in the complete system. Technocrats argue their exists a massive rift between the real world of science and the world of economics. Technocrats argue that the inputs needed to make most products are in abundance, especially those critical to societies needs like food, shelter, transportation, information, etc. Technocrats argue that most social ills are due to economics and improper use of technology. They frequently point out that the current price system is wasteful in that economics seeks to utilize all resources but only creates scarce products, whereas technocrats argue full use of our technology and resources should be able to produce an abundance. Thus, technocrats strongly disagree with the basic economic principle that human wants are infinate.
Significant examples help point out technocracy's perspective. Technocrats state that the price system causes business to create an artificial scarcity of their products. Artificial scarcity is the common management practice of deliberately reducing production to the level at which money is available to pay for the goods (gaining a competitive market value, and thus profitability). Economists would argue that by producing less of certain products, we are able to shift resources to produce another good. Before the industrial revolution, most products and services were naturally scarce due to the limited amount of human resources available. It is obvious to technocrats that social ills such as hunger and poverty are not due to limitations in productivity; the price system causes people to limit how products are distributed, artificially stratifying people into social classes and creating poverty.
Technocrats claim that in the real world the price system and lack of purchasing power have been propped up by wasteful tactics, major patches to the economic system, and increasingly huge amounts of debt, which began to increase exponentially after 1930 (according to some, ever since the Bank of England was founded). This debt includes the national debt, mortgages (see global debt), long term debt, credit debt, and the growing stock market; all things that would have caused severe inflation in the old world economies where products were naturally scarce. Technocrats claim that the price-system will eventually fail because of its contradictions with the real world, in which case the movement plans to have educated enough of the populace in order to peaceably make changes to the economic structure.
Design of a technate
A technate, the so-called name of a technocratic society, consists of many ideas that are explained in detail below.
Division of Political and Technical Decision
All decisions involving the production and distribution of goods and services are determined by a technically gifted structure. The bottom-up structure of this technical administrative body ensures that those who are most qualified belong in the right position. If a person in a high position does not perform their duties well, the persons working directly below can remove them from their position. The goals of the technical administrative body are to provide and maintain efficiency of the industrial production, while continuing to improve and better that system.
Political decisions will be made by a democratically elected leader. The democratic side of technocracy does not deal with physical or scientific decisions. Instead, leaders would deal with moral issues, the design of the technate’s flag, etc. It should also be noted that the economy will be controlled democratically. The population of the Technate would go about their business as consumers, spending their energy credits as they see fit at conveniently located distribution centers or through online catalogues. This would be the democracy in action; all citizens decide what they want produced and what to consume. Technocracy can be summed up, in this sense, to be the most direct form of control of consumption feasible and practical.
Elimination of Money: The Era of Energy Accounting
A primary difference of a technocratic society would be the elimination of the price-system. Since such a simple change would have far-reaching effects on the global economy, the technocrats state they will wait until the price-system fails before implementing their system.
Technocrats state that technology should be used for mankind's benefit. Under the price-system, if a factory that employed 300 fully automates itself and only one employee is needed to inspect the machinery, the amount of money going to consumers drops, as shown by current trends in productivity and real wages. Technocrats argue that technology should reduce the burden of human toil in the populace, and technological displacement should result in a significant reduction of working hours. Money and the price-system, however, stand in the way.
An energy-credit is a hypothetical unit of currency used in a technate. Unlike traditional money, energy-credits cannot be saved or earned, only distributed evenly among a populace. The amount of credit given to each citizen would be calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technate and dividing it equally. The reason for the use of energy-credits serves to ensure equality among the technate's citizenry as well as prohibit spending that is beyond the productive capacity of the technocracy.
It should be noted that energy-accounting is not rationing; it is a way to distribute an abundance and track demand. Never before on the planet has there existed such a system, but it would be similar to giving every person on the continent a billion dollars; even though everyone receives equality in terms of the energy they get, it doesn't matter because everyone gets so much. Technocrats predict that at today's rates of energy conversion, no person will rationally be able to spend all their energy credits.
The system is usually referred to as energy accounting.
The North American technate
The North American technate is a design and plan that is being developed to transform North America into a technocratic society after the collapse of capitalism, or the price system. The plan includes using Canada's rich deposits of minerals and hydro-electric power as a complement to the United States's industrial and agricultural capacity.
Opposition
The movement is too obscure to attract much criticism. However, technocrats themselves would argue that those in "power" (politicians and heads of corporations) are a form of organized opposition. The movement would claim that they have helped spread a negative connotation to the term and any ideologies that seem related to the movement. More so, they say that those in power have spread much propaganda to convince the public that what we have now works well and is the finest form of government and economic system that works. Many people who just learn about the movement stand in opposition because:
- Critics argue that planners in the technocracy cannot detect demand with sufficient accuracy (in a market economy, price signals serve this purpose). Technocrats argue that they would use energy credits to track demand, and that production would be at the hands of the people.
- Proponents of a market economy state that there's no possible way to eliminate the scarcity of products in the modern world, especially with the large variety.
- The theory that 95% of the populace could be unemployed seems extremely suspect given the low unemployment rate in modern capitalist societies, especially in light of the history of such societies since the development of this theory in the early 20th century. Technocrats, on the other hand, see such societies as inefficient and wasteful, and feel that technologically driven unemployment should decrease the hours that people would be spent laboring.
- Removing the price system and ridding an area of capitalism are impractical and potentially disastrous.
- Some people would argue that the movement is too closely related to communism
- Some argue that technology cannot solve all of our problems. Technocrats argue that most of our problems are caused by misuse of technology, and conversely, proper use would eliminate most of our problems.
- The movement makes an assumption that the price system environment of scarcity causes poor human behavior. Opponents suggest the movement relies on a highly idealised and perfect humananity. The movement does not take into account negative emotions: greed, jealousy, contempt, revenge, etc. Technocrats argue that human behavior will reach this idealized state because people would be living in a world of abundance. Technocrats find it hard to believe that someone would steal their neighbor’s television in a technate because they could just get their own.
- Opponents say that the movement lacks organization and a clear path.
- Some argue that people too easily accept the movement because it offers things like equal distribution of productive capacity and more vacation time without any concrete evidence.
- Opponents argue that naturally scarce things (gold, diamonds, the Mona Lisa) are impossible to distribute equally. Technocrats argue that today, mostly everything people consume is made by a machine and in some form mass produced; naturally scarce things are so scarce that they will not have an effect on the technate.
- Opponents also maintain that human beings are essentially selfish and that a vast majority of human beings would choose not to work at all in a society of abundance, so many so that the technate itself would fail to function given the small number that would work for the good of society. Technocrats counter this by saying that the culture and values of the technate would discourage this type of laziness and that no citizen would risk the public shame that would go along with refusal to work, the shame being due to the implication that the unruly citizen is happy freeloading off of the technate. Also, the educational system of the technate would encourage each individual to find what he or she is good at, and it would instill a strong work ethic into each citizen.
Claimed Misconceptions
The group claims that many of its ideals are misconstrued by people who have the preconception that technocracy is rule by a technical elite. This is not so. Technocrats state that the name technocracy is not a dictatorship of scientists but rather rule by skill — τέχνη (techne) in Greek means skill or craft; κράτος (cratos) means rule or authority. Scientists would hold positions in society but would only dictate laws if it were one of their aptitudes. Technocracy is simply a tool for social and economic interactions and does not grant political power to those involved. In the end, a person's daily freedoms would be uninhibited.