Technocracy movement
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The Technocracy movement is a social movement that started in the United States in the early 20th. century and advocates a form of society where the welfare of human beings is optimized by means of scientific analysis and widespread use of technology. Today the movement exists as Technocracy Incorporated,[1] whose members partake in discussion groups and publish quarterly magazines.
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[edit] 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".
[edit] History
According to historian William E. Akin, technocracy has its origins in the progressive engineers of the late 19th century, and the works of Thorsten Veblen, such as "Engineers and the price system" written in 1921.
Scientific management[2] was also a popular concept at this time. Howard Scott stated (History and Purpose of Technocracy.. in external links below) that technocracy was not related to the concepts of Scientific management, as Technocrats were not concerned with making Human toil more efficient, but instead wished to eliminate it in favor of Automation.
Josiah Willard Gibbs, a mathematician, engineer and chemist, was described by Howard Scott as the "intellectual forefather of technocracy" for his work on energy determinants. Howard Scott noted that the science behind the ideas of the Technocracy Technate design are based on the work of Willard Gibbs.[3][4]
A variety of groups formed after the First World War concerned with engineering and social theory. These included Henry Gantt’s "The New Machine" and Thorstein Veblen’s "Soviet of Technicians". These organisations folded after a short time. The "Soviet of Technicians" resulted in a series of lectures which Howard Scott attended;[2] Scott started the Technical Alliance in the winter of 1918-1919. Its members were mostly scientists and engineers, and included Veblen. The Alliance started an Energy Survey of North America, which would give a scientific background from which they developed ideas about a new social structure. However the Alliance broke up in the 1920s[5].
William Howard Smyth used the word "technocracy" to describe a government made up of scientists and engineers in the U.S. in 1919. [6]. The view that technical concerns should take precedence developed among engineers such as 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. The word Technocracy is also used to describe the works of Thorstein Veblen[2].
In the winter of 1931, M. King Hubbert joined the staff of Columbia University and met Scott[5]. According to Hubbert, he encouraged Scott to revive the Technical Alliance; the resulting group was formalised in 1933 as Technocracy Incorporated, with Scott as leader.[5] Hubbert was a member of the Board of Governors that founded the organization, and served as Secretary; his membership of and involvement with Technocracy would be investigated in 1943 by his employers, the Board of Economic Warfare[7]. Hubbert, a Geoscientist, would later give his name to the "Hubbert Peak", otherwise known as Peak Oil theory.
The new group sought to implement the findings of the Alliance and create a new kind of society based on energy accounting instead of a monetary system (the technocracy technate design). The group was incorporated in the state of New York in 1933 as a non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organization. Led by Scott, then director-in-chief or "Chief Engineer", the organization promoted its goals of educating people about the Alliance's ideas via a North American lecture tour in 1934, gaining support throughout the depression years.[citation needed] The precedent document of the Technocracy movement is the Technocracy Study Course.
[edit] Organization
The organization has published several magazines throughout its history, including the The Technocrat, The Northwest Technocrat and Technocracy Digest, it currently publishes the North American Technocrat[8] and the movement still continues after more than 70 years of history (for a more complete list of past publications see here [1]).
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.[citation needed] These sections 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. Because of the goal of abolishing political controls, membership is open to any citizen of North America, except politicians.
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.
[edit] Ideas and goals
The Technocracy 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 Technocracy Incorporated is that a price system, or any system based on scarcity, is an illogical means of distribution in our technologically advanced world. Technocracy Incorporated 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.[2] 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 mechanization. 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 people 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 Technocracy Incorporated, 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.
[edit] Energy Accounting: An alternative to money
- See main article: Energy Accounting
Energy Accounting is a hypothetical system of distribution, which would record the Energy used to produce and distribute goods and services consumed by citizens in a Technate. The units of this accounting system would be known as Energy Certificates, or simply Energy Units, these would replace money in a Technate, but unlike traditional money or currencies, energy certificates could not be saved or earned, only distributed evenly among a populace. The amount of consuming power given to each citizen would be calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technate and dividing it equally (minus the maintenance of the infrastructure). The energy units or certificates themselves would probably not have to be physically used by the populace, as the system would be computerised. In energy accounting the Technate would use information of natural resources, industrial capacity and citizen’s purchasing habits to determine how much of any good or service was being consumed by the populace, so that it could match production with consumption (with sustainability in mind).
Some reasons given for the use of Energy Accounting are, to ensure the highest possible standard of living, as well as equality, among the Technate’s citizenry, as well as prohibit expending resources that go beyond the productive or ecological capacity of the technate.[9] Technocrats point out that energy accounting is not rationing; it is a way to distribute an abundance and track demand. Every technate citizen would receive an equal amount of consuming power within the context of sustainability in what Technocrats call a scientific social design.
[edit] The Technate
The term Technate was originated by Technocracy Incorporated to describe the region over which a technocratic society would operate. All resources and industry of this land region would be used to provide an abundance of goods and services to its citizens.
According to technocrats, a Technate cannot simply be set up anywhere like a modern-day country; it has several inherent requirements that must be met in order for it to operate.
- There must be sufficient natural resources to create an abundance.
- There must be a pre-existing industrial and scientific base from which to create the Technate.
- There must be a sufficient amount of qualified personnel to operate this infrastructure to provide an abundance.
According to Technocracy Inc., only the North American continent is currently known to be able to meet these requirements and operate a Technate. That design is called the North American Technate and it is intended to transform North America into a Technocratic society, with an end to the current 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 (many of the details of this plan are presented in the Technocracy Study Course).
The North America Technate would be composed of all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, parts of South America and Greenland, encompassing some 30 modern nations (as well as numerous Non-Self-Governing Territories). If the Technate were set up today, it would contain nearly 600 million citizens and its total land area would be over 26 million square km (making it the largest nation on Earth). Its territorial claims would stretch from the North Pole in the north to the Equator in the south and from the Caribbean in the east, to the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean in the west.
[edit] Urbanates: A technocratic replacement for cities
Once a technate has been established, Technocrats propose to construct a new form of living environment called Urbanates. An Urbanate is essentially an assembly of buildings where people live and work. These places would have all the facilities needed for a community, including schools, hospitals, shopping areas, waste management and recycling facilities, sports centres, and public areas.
Technocrats envision Urbanates to be something akin to resorts with an environmentally friendly design. Getting around in an Urbanate would be inherently easy with efficient mass transit.
Urbanates would be connected via a continent-wide transportation network envisioned by Technocracy, which would involve a High-speed rail network linking every Urbanate, and a Continental Hydrology (a Canal network), 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 Technocrats for all this restructuring of urban life is that modern cities are often extremely poorly planned and built in a haphazard way leading to major inefficiencies and waste. Technocrats propose that older urban areas, presently lived in, be gradually recycled for their resources. This would involve recycling (e.g. steel, concrete, glass, plastics, etc.), which would then go into building state of the art Urbanates. It is reasonable to assume that historic structures would be preserved.
[edit] Criticisms of the movement
Technocrats themselves would argue that those in power, politicians and boards of corporations, are a form of organized opposition as a Technate design eliminates a Political system and the corporate system also. The movement claims that this opposition has helped spread a negative connotation to the term technocracy and the ideas associated with it.
Critics make the following claims regarding technocracy:
- There is no possible way to eliminate the scarcity of products in the modern world, especially given the large variety that exists today.
- The theory that labor time could be drastically reduced at current productivity levels seems extremely suspect given the low unemployment rate in modern Western societies.
- 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 number 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,[10] while European countries have an even smaller proportion.[11] 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.
- It may be argued that although perfect scientific management would result in good governance, the limitations of human managers will produce imperfect management, which might be less efficient than other systems like democracy. Poor governance might result from abuse of power, managers' limited knowledge of the system, and internal conflict among decision-makers, for example. Of course, these arguments have never been tested with respect to technocracy per se, as no nation-scale technocracy has been implemented.
[edit] Technocracy in fiction and culture
Science fiction writer Howard Waldrop's short story "You Could Go Home Again" postulates an alternate history where a technocratic government came to power in the United States, resulting in many historical differences, including World War II having never happened. However, Waldrop never intended for the story to be an accurate depiction of Technocracy, instead only borrowing elements from it as a backdrop for his story.
The United Federation of Planets in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek franchise bears some similarity to a Technocratic society[original research?]. 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 whose economy was based on caloric input/output and had few materials valued based on their scarcity, thus bearing some similarities to Technocratic ideas.
Charles Stross has described science fiction itself as "the fictional agitprop arm of the Technocrat movement" which "carried on marching in lockstep into the radiant future even after Technocracy withered in the 1930s."[12]
In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers, a technocratic coup attempt is described as having been undertaken but failed in the last days of a destructive global war. Referring to the attempt, a character remarks:
the so-called 'Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent men run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is not itself a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. –Major Reid in Starship Troopers, p.143 [13]
[edit] Satirical treatments
The Technocracy 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.[citation needed] In a 1933 Flip the Frog cartoon, Techno-Cracked, Flip builds a robot to work for him and gets a lesson in unintended consequences.
[edit] See also
- Technocracy (bureaucratic)
- M. King Hubbert
- Technical Alliance
- Technocracy Incorporated
- Willard Gibbs
- Howard Scott
- Monad (Technocracy)
- Post scarcity
- Techno-utopia
- Techno-utopianism
- Technorealism
- Jacque Fresco
- Planned economy
[edit] External links
- Technocracy Incorporated (Official Website)
- Historical Background and Development of Social Security from the U.S. Social Security Administration (see section Technocracy)
- History and Purpose of Technocracy
[edit] References
- ^ Authenticity Official Technocracy Incorporated Website stating their authenticity
- ^ a b c d Akin, William E. (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03110-5.
- ^ History and Purpose of Technocracy by Howard Scott
- ^ The Origins of Technocracy. From the Technocracy Movement website - Scott's statement is on the video
- ^ a b c Questioning of M. King Hubbert, Division of Supply and Resources, before the Board of Economic Warfare (PDF) (1943-04-14). Retrieved on 2008-05-04.p8-9 (p18-9 of PDF)
- ^ Raymond, Allen (1933). What is Technocracy?.
- ^ Hubbert investigation (1943), p41 (p50 of PDF)
- ^ What are we?. Technocracy Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
- ^ Energy Accounting An article on Energy Accounting as proposed by Technocracy Inc.
- ^ U.S. Department of Labor. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Retrieved on 2006-04-09.
- ^ European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Labour force participation. Retrieved on 2006-12-28.
- ^ Charlie's Diary: Let's put the future behind us
- ^ Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. New York: Ace, 1987. p.143 (originally published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1959.)
