The technocratic movement was a social movement in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s that advocated a form of society where the welfare of human beings is optimized by means of scientific analysis and widespread use of technology. Although the movement is not as well known today, it still exists as Technocracy Incorporated, the members of which partake in discussion groups and publish quarterly magazines.
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 ideas for a new social structure. Thorstein Veblen, who wrote the famous Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), was a member of the Technical Alliance.
In 1933, the group became incorporated in the state of New York as a non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organization known as Technocracy Incorporated. Led by 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.
The organization's magazines, The Northwest Technocrat and Technocracy Digest, are 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.
The standard unit for the organization is the chartered Section, consisting of at least fifty members. At Technocracy's height in popularity, many cities contained more than one Section, sometimes as many as a dozen or more. These sections would be the organs that undertook the majority of Technocracy's work, including the research that continued after the Technical Alliance.
The organization receives its funds entirely from dues and donations from its members. Membership is open to any citizen of North America, save politicians, as Technocracy is not a political party, but moreover seeks the abolition of political controls.
Technocracy's Continental Headquarters (CHQ) was originally situated in New York. It has moved several times through its history, and is currently located in Ferndale, Washington. Another legal corporation called Technocracy Incorporated exists and it formats and presents material from the Technical Alliance. (CHQ) 44.94 -93.29
European movement
There is no direct European Technocracy movement, connected to Technocracy from North America. Technocracy was designed for the North American continent, and is not applicable to European use, because they lack the resource base required for a Technocratic approach. That fact is stated in the Technocracy Study Course,and is a part of the conclusions reached in our original energy survey. http://www.google.com/base/a/1264040/D15768569411099866373 Google Base: Technocracy Study Course. original.-- also available here, http://www.technocracynow.org/ There are a group of people from Europe that claim to be 'Technocrats', but their movement is not connected to the Technocracy movement of North America. The Technocracy movement is directly based on the Technocracy Study Course, which is a document created by the Technical Alliance. There is no mention in this document of the predicates of so called European Technocracy, those being things like Proto-technates, Holons, and other terms unconnected to Technocracy ideas. The European site also bases much of its information on bogus information from the mid 1970`s from a document called the T.T.C.D.Faq`a material, that information is from discredited sources, and is unrelated to the design ideas that are stated in the last two chapters of the Technocracy Study Course. http://technocracyinc.org/print.php?p=/FAQ/section7/f1&TC=440bf7a659a432d2ff6e33a0055c1900 The Technocracy Study Course, upon which the basis of Technocracy comes from, specifically says that we are not connected to any other social movements, in Europe or elsewhere. Technocracy does not discourage any people from promoting a Technate for North America though. The reason being, a Technate here would force other areas of the world into sustainability.
Ideas and goals
The Technocratic movement aims to establish a zero growth socio-economic system based upon conservation and abundance as opposed to scarcity-based economic systems like capitalism and the system used by Communist states. A core conclusion reached by the Technocratic movement is that a price system, or any system based on scarcity, is an illogical means of distribution in our technologically advanced world. Technocracy sees established economic, political, and administrative forms as relics of a traditional past.
Technocrats argue that developments in mechanization have caused a massive shift of employment towards the service sector.Vorlage:Fact Further increases in efficiency and productivity mean that most of the tasks performed by human employees could be reduced or eliminated through better management, automation, and centralization. These trends should signal an increase in both production possibilities and leisure time since more can be produced with less human labor. Within a market system, however, increased productivity often leads to downsizing because companies need fewer workers and lower wages because of competition. Consequently, the standard of living falls for many. Thus, Technocrats argue that we are faced with a fundamental paradox: As inexpensive machines become available to replace human labor, they do not make our lives easier; on the contrary, they make them harder. The more we are capable of producing due to technology, the greater the disparities in wealth will become and the potential benefit of technology will be shared less. The basic cause of this problem, in the view of the Technocratic movement, is the fact that we rely on a money-based system to make economic decisions.
As opposed to economists, who define efficiency in terms of maximal allocation of limited resources, in order to provide the most utility to their owners, Technocrats define efficiency in terms of empirical evidence. Efficiency, for a Technocrat, is measured scientifically: a ratio of energy applied for useful work to energy applied in the complete system. Technocrats argue there exists a massive rift between the real world of science and the world of economics. They claim the inputs needed to make most products are in abundance, especially those critical to society's needs like food, shelter, transportation, information, etc. Technocrats argue that most social ills, such as poverty and hunger are due to faulty economics and improper use of technology. They frequently point out that the current price system is wasteful as it utilizes as many resources as possible but can only create scarce products (excludable and rival private goods). Technocrats argue that full use of our technology and resources should be able to produce an abundance.
Technocrats claim that the price system entails a severe lack of purchasing power, and has 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.Vorlage:Fact This debt includes the U.S. national debt, mortgages (see global debt), long term debt, credit debt, and the growing stock market. Technocrats see growing debt as a threat to the stability of capitalism. Technocrats claim that the price system will eventually fail, in which case the movement hopes to have educated enough of the populace in order to peaceably make changes to the economic structure and create a Technate.
An alternative to money: Energy accounting
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 is to ensure equality among the Technate’s citizenry as well as prohibit spending that is beyond the productive capacity of the technocracy. This system is usually referred to as energy accounting.
Technocrats point out that energy accounting is not rationing; it is a way to distribute an abundance and track demand. Everyone would receive an equal, abundant (i.e. far more than they need), amount of energy credits. Technocrats predict that at today's rates of energy conversion, no person will rationally be able to spend all their energy credits.Vorlage:Fact
The North American Technate
The North American Technate is a design and plan to transform North America into a technocratic society. 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. This plan also includes the land area of Mexico, Central America, and the very top of S. America. This land area was chosen because of its resource base.
Urban planning:
Once a technate has been established, the Technocratic movement believes that it should proceed to construct new forms of living environments. These places would have all the facilities needed for a community, including schools, hospitals, shopping malls, waste management and recycling facilities, and public areas.
Urban areas would be connected via a continent-wide transportation network envisioned by Technocracy, which would involve a high speed rail network linking every Urban area, the Continental Hydrology, and air transport. These systems would also be connected to the Technate’s industrial sites for easy transport of goods to consumers, and to all recreational and vacation areas of the continent.
The reason given by the Technocratic movement for all this ambitious restructuring of urban life is that modern cities are often extremely poorly planned and built in a haphazard way leading to major inefficiencies, waste, and large numbers of social and environmental problems. Technocrats believe that rather than trying to solve all these problems within the framework of existing cities, it is best to construct new areas as needed. This would involve recycling resources (e.g. steel, concrete, glass, plastics etc.), which would then go into building the new communities , thus reducing the need to extract and process new materials and lessen environmental damage.
Criticisms of the movement
The movement has not been marketed well since about 1970, More recently the marketing of the ideas has improved. Technocrats would argue that those in power, politicians and heads of corporations, are a form of organized opposition also.
Critics make the following claims regarding technocracy:
- There is no possible way to eliminate the scarcity of products in the modern world.
- The theory that labor time could be drastically reduced at current productivity levels seems seems suspect.
- Technocrats, on the other hand, see these societies as inefficient and wasteful, and argue that the unemployment rate is not an accurate measure of the total amount of people working and the amount of work being performed. In the United States, of those of working age, only 65% participate in the economy,[1] while European countries have an even smaller proportion[2]. Moreover, a significant number of employees work in industries such as finance, advertising, and retail. Many of these jobs would disappear after the transition from a monetary economy to a technocracy, meaning that the "adjusted" unemployment rate (a measure excluding such pecuniary jobs) is much higher than indicated.
- Technology cannot solve all of our problems.
- A Technocratic rebuttal might be the fact that this is irrelevant, as Technocracy can solve more problems more effectively than current governments.
- Naturally scarce things (e.g. gold, or rare gems are impossible to distribute abundantly.
- A Technocratic rebuttal to this criticism might be that under Technocracy, these things would have no greater value than their actual worth in producing other goods or their utility in generating energy. Gold jewelry or rare gems would have no special value other than curio value, due to scarcity. Technocrats argue that in the consumerist societies of today, the majority of what people consume is made by machine, usually in some form of mass production or scientific management; thus, the majority of consumables is subject to complete automation. Naturally scarce things are so scarce that they will not have an effect on a technocratic society.
- A second rebuttal is that many items are only "scarce" due to their controlled limited release, not due to any actual rarity. Many other "valuable" commodities are propped up by similar purposely limited-supply and marketing schemes.
- A Technocratic rebuttal to this criticism might be that under Technocracy, these things would have no greater value than their actual worth in producing other goods or their utility in generating energy. Gold jewelry or rare gems would have no special value other than curio value, due to scarcity. Technocrats argue that in the consumerist societies of today, the majority of what people consume is made by machine, usually in some form of mass production or scientific management; thus, the majority of consumables is subject to complete automation. Naturally scarce things are so scarce that they will not have an effect on a technocratic society.
- Many people believe that human beings are materially selfish and would not be willing to work unless that work gave them some direct material benefit; thus the technate would fail to function due to a shortage of labor.
- Technocrats do not see an unwillingness to work as a problem. They posit that a technocratic society would seek to eventually eliminate the majority of human labor altogether through automation. As for the remaining jobs, technocrats hold that many citizens would continue to work given that they have the skills and/or if they enjoy it.
- As the efficiency of the system continues to increase and advance, the living standard of the Technate would improve, thus yielding a tangible material gain due to a collective work effort.
- Many critics believe that the entire Technocratic system relies on the notion that human want is finite.
- Technocrats, however, make no such claim. Instead, they make no statement regarding human "want", only that the human ability to actually consume is finite. This is exampled by such things as food, or transportation. While one can "own" any amount of cars in a scarcity system, they can only actually "consume" so much transportation; that is, they can only drive (or fly, etc.) for so many hours in a day. Since the very concept of ownership would be different in a Technate, citizens would not own methods of transportation, but only use them to whatever amount they like, limited only by how much they physically can.
Technocracy Incorporated Archived Publications
Archives From Some of Many Past Articles Written From Technocracy Archives available at this link, http://technocracynow.blogspot.com/ Technocracy - The Design of the North American Technate. All this material is open source and it is encouraged that people copy these files for distribution. Technocracy Incorporated, 44.94 -93.29
Books relating to the North American Technocratic movement
- William E. Akin, Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (University of California Press, 1977) ISBN 0-520-03110-5
- Henry Elsner, The Technocrats, Prophets of Automation (Syracuse University Press, 1967)
- Skip Sievert, Beyond the Cloak of Deception (GeoTech 2006)
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. The authors argue that Technocracy gained a fair amount of national press attention in the midst of the Great Depression. Sievert`s book is a collection of Technocratic writings that include two chapters from the Technocracy Study Course, and articles written by various members edited together. Vorlage:Incomplete list
Technocracy in fiction
The animated series Insektors features character Teknocratus as the "chief engineer" to the Yuk society. At one point he creates a computer named Kalkulator, capable of automating a city in a way similar to in a purposed Technate.
The United Federation of Planets in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek franchise bears some similarity to a Technocratic society. Although its economics are rarely discussed in detail, the Federation is almost certainly some form of Post scarcity, moneyless society.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy describes the development of a highly automated society who's economy was based on caloric input/output and had few materials valued based on their scarcity.
Satirical Treatments
The Technocratic movement was the subject of several satires in the 1930s. A special notable "Technocracy Number" of Judge humor magazine illustrated by Dr. Seuss made fun of Technocracy, Inc. and featured satirical rhymes at the expense of Frederick Soddy. In a 1933 Flip the Frog cartoon “Techno-Cracked”, Flip builds a robot to work for him and gets a lesson in unintended consequences.
References
- ↑ U.S. Department of Labor: Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Abgerufen am 9. April 2006.
- ↑ European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions: Labour force participation. Abgerufen am 28. Dezember 2006.
See also
External links
- Technocracy, Inc. Some of the original material.
- [http://www.technocracyvan.ca/ Technocracy Vancouver
- [http://www.technocracynow.blogspot.com/ A blog for Technocracy issues.
- History and Purpose of Technocracy
- Historical Background and Development of Social Security from the U.S. Social Security Administration (see section Technocracy)
- [http://www.technocracyNow.org/ For a copy of the original Technocracy Study Course.
- An article on Energy Accounting