Technocratic movement
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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.
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[edit] 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 high 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 abolishment 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.
[edit] European movement
Around the year 2005, due to an increase in international activity on the Technocracy portal page[1], a group of Europeans inspired by Technocracy, decided to spread the ideas to the other side of the Atlantic ocean and thus created The Network of European Technocrats, or NET, an autonomous research and education organisation with the goal of undertaking an Energy Survey (similar to the Energy Survey of North America) in order to determine if it is possible to establish a Technate upon the European continent. The organisation is also focused on actually testing the assumptions of the technocratic movement through experimenting and networking.
The main difference from Technocracy Incorporated is that NET is investigating in more decentralised and ecological methods of resource and information distribution than its North American sister organisation. The so-called "holons" which NET is establishing, is clearly a proof of that inclination.
In April 2006, NET was officially registered as an independent association in the Kingdom of Sweden. The provisional headquarters (EHQ) lies in Umeå, Sweden, where the current deputy director Andrew Wallace lives. The current NET director, elected the 25th of september in an online Skype conference, is Mansel Ismay, who is living in Oslo. NET has also established its own portal page[2].
[edit] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.
[edit] 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.[citation needed]
[edit] The North American Technate
The North American Technate is a design and plan to transform North America into a technocratic society after the collapse of capitalism. 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.
[edit] Urbanates: a technocratic replacement for cities
Once a technate has been established, the Technocratic movement believes that it should proceed to construct an entirely new form of living environments 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 malls, waste management and recycling facilities, sports centres, and public areas.
Technocrats wish Urbanates to be something akin to resorts, designed to give each citizen the highest standard of living possible. Getting around in an Urbanate would be inherently easy and efficient. Every kind of major facility would be placed within walking distance of a housing complex, eliminating the need for cars.
Urbanates would be connected via a continent-wide transportation network envisioned by Technocracy, which would involve a high speed rail network linking every Urbanate, 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 start with a clean slate and construct Urbanates. Technocrats propose that all of the old cities in the technate should be gradually abandoned and mined for their resources. This would involve recycling resources (e.g. steel, concrete, glass, plastics etc.), which would then go into building the Urbanates, thus reducing the need to extract and process new materials and lessen environmental damage.
[edit] Criticisms of the movement
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 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 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.[citation needed] 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.
- The movement lacks organization and a clear path.
- Technology cannot solve all of our problems.
- Naturally scarce things (e.g. gold, diamonds, the Mona Lisa) are impossible to distribute equally.
- 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 and diamonds would have no special value due to their scarcity. Technocrats argue that today, nearly everything people consume is made by a machine and in some form mass produced;[citation needed] 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.
- Technocracts 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. Moreover, technocrats believe that those who refuse to work, without sufficient reason, would lose respect in the eyes of their fellow citizens.
- The problem of evolutionary psychology. 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.
[edit] Technocracy Incorporated Publications
- Technocracy Handbook [Technocracy, Inc.], (1939)
- The Sellout of the Ages, Howard Scott, (1941)
- Our Country, Right or Wrong, (1946)
- Continentalism: The Mandate of Survival, (1947)
[edit] Books on the Technocratic movement
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) ISBN 0-520-03110-5
- 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. The authors argue that Technocracy 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.
[edit] Technocracy in fiction
In Frank Herbert's Dune series, the Ixian society is often referred to as the "Technocrats of Ix."
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.
Riders of the Purple Wage, Philip José Farmer's dystopian 1967 science fiction novella, explores some ramifications of a future wherein technology allows everyone's desires to be met, although it was more influenced by the so-called "Triple Revolution Memorandum" than by the Technocratic Movement.
Mage: The Ascension, a popular roleplaying game published by White Wolf, prominently features the Technocracy, aka 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.
[edit] References
- ^ U.S. Department of Labor. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Retrieved on 2006-04-09.
[edit] See also
- Artificial scarcity
- Energy-credits
- Howard Scott
- Jacque Fresco
- M. King Hubbert
- Manna (novel)
- Monad (Technocracy)
- Technocratic views of the Price system
- Techno-utopia
- Techno-utopianism
- Technorealism
- Thorstein Veblen
- Urbanate
[edit] External links
- Technocracy, Inc. (official website)
- Canadian Technocracy website
- Network of European Technocrats A pan-European technocracy organisation based in Sweden.
- History and Purpose of Technocracy
- Video of "Operation Columbia"
- Historical Background and Development of Social Security from the U.S. Social Security Administration (see section Technocracy)
- Technological Continental Design (PDF)
- Technocracy Study Course (PDF)
- An article on Energy Accounting
