Technocracy (bureaucratic)

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Technocracy : A form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in control; "technocracy is described as that society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts who justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms of knowledge". A governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected based upon how highly knowledgeable they are, rather than how much political capital they hold.

Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable, often while proposing technology-focused solutions. The administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson theorizes that technocrats are primarily driven by their cognitive "problem-solution mindsets" and only in part by particular occupational group interests. Their activities and the increasing success of their ideas are thought to be a crucial factor behind the modern spread of technology and the largely ideological concept of the "Information Society." Technocrats may be distinguished from "econocrats" and "bureaucrats" whose problem-solution mindsets differ from those of the technocrats.^[1]

A technocracy is a form of de facto elitism, whereby the "most qualified" and the ruling elite tend to be the same. These elite are selected through bureaucratic processes on the basis of specialized knowledge, rather than through purely democratic elections or other processes.

[edit] Development of term

The first use of "technocracy" in William Henry Smyth's 1919 article "'Technocracy'—Ways and Means to Gain Industrial Democracy," in the journal Industrial Management (57).^[2] However, Smyth's usage referred to Industrial democracy: a movement to integrate workers into decision making through existing firms or revolution.^[3] The term came to mean government by technical decision making in 1932.^[4] It came into common usage through management theorist James Burnham's 1941 work Managerial Revolution.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The technocratic instinct among engineers and its outcomes

Technocracy is one solution to a problem faced by engineers in the early twentieth century. Following Samuel Haber^[5] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century USA.

Profit-conscious, nontechnical managers of the firm where the engineers work, because of their perceptions of market demand, often impose limits on the projects the engineer desires to undertake; workers do not perform according to the specifications of the engineer's plans; and the prices of all inputs vary with market forces thereby upsetting the engineer's careful calculations. As a result, the engineer loses control over his own little world and must continually revise his plans. To keep his little world secure, the engineer is forced to extend his control over these outside variables and transform them into constant factors.^[6]

Engineers heatedly discussed these issues in US engineering journals and proceedings. Three ideological outcomes were produced. Firstly, Taylorism which integrates price structures into engineering concerns, thus producing scientific management where the capitalist manager and engineer divide control over the production process and working class between themselves. Secondly, building on Taylorism the Soviet Union implemented socialist-Taylorism where economic planning, a political bureaucracy and a technical elite divided control over the economy through institutions like the GOELRO plan or five year plans. While political concerns influenced Soviet planning, and engineers were politically persecuted; the political bureaucracy designed plans so as to achieve technical outcomes, and used production price accounting as a technical, rather than economic measure. Finally, in the United States a view that technical concerns should take precedence developed among engineers such as William Howard Smyth based on the early conception of Industrial democracy which was limited merely to the technical government of firms. This school of thought amongst engineers eventually produced social institutions arguing for purely technical government of society in the 1930s. Technocracy Incorporated which proposes an energy accounting system and a scientific social design for North America would fall under this category.

[edit] Governmental form

A technocratic government is a government of experts designed to ensure administrative functions are carried out efficiently. Technocracy can, in theory, take many forms and incorporate many systems of government. Technocracy may come about as a provisional form of oligarchy, in which the economy is regulated by economists, social policy is decided by political scientists, the health care system is run by medical professionals, with the branches of the government working together and sharing knowledge to maximize the performance of each in as equal a way as is feasible.

Technocracy is often thought of as 'administration of scientists and engineers,' or bringing these groups into power, though this is only one form of Technocracy.

[edit] System of governance

Technocracy can also refer to a system of governance in which laws are enforced by designing the system such that it is impossible to break them. For instance, to prevent people from riding a tram without paying, the carriage's doors could be designed in such a way that a payment was required to open the doors.

The same idea can be applied on much larger scales, with automated public surveillance by semi-intelligent systems that automatically control or limit the actions of individuals to prevent illegal activity. This is called the carceral state, in which the whole state is effectively a Panopticon - a prison with strict rules, where all individuals are supervised to ensure compliance. Author Charles Stross called this a Panopticon Singularity. In this way, the bureaucratic form of technocracy may be an authoritarian system of governance.

The principles of anticipatory design, wayfinding, and B. F. Skinner's vision Walden Two similarly concern authoritarian systems of governance but are based on psychology and conditioning exclusively and not on any intrusive technology to enforce the rules.

Many technocrats would suggest that fear of technology and social change often assume the most oppressive and dystopian of scenarios, pointing to popular media and propaganda in which socialism, democracy, and communism have all been portrayed in an equally dystopian and cautionary light.

[edit] Technocracy in fiction

Mage: The Ascension, a popular roleplaying game published by White Wolf, prominently features the Technocracy, a/k/a the "Technocratic Union," as a shadowy, world-controlling organization similar in principle to (and indeed containing) such conspiracies as the "New World Order," the "Freemasons," and others.

In Frank Herbert's Dune series, the Ixian society is often referred to as the "Technocrats of Ix."

The animated series Insektors features a character, Teknocratus, as the "chief engineer" to the Yuk society. At one point, he creates a computer, Kalkulator, capable of automating a city.

The Archie Sonic Comic features the Dark Legion, an organization of borg-like Echidnas that worship technology as the ultimate pinnacle of their society.

A technocratic elite rule the last human city of Bregna in the 2005 movie Aeon Flux.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] See also

• Groupe X-Crise, formed by French former students of the Ecole Polytechnique engineer school in the 1930s
• Technocracy Incorporated, a US group formed in the 1930s
• Redressement Français, a French technocratic movement founded by Ernest Mercier in 1925q
• New class
• The Revolt of the Masses a book containing a critique of technocracy