Technocracy Movement

The technocracy movement was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s which favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy and partisan politics. Historians associate the movement with engineer Howard Scott's Technical Alliance and Technocracy Incorporated prior to the internal factionalism that dissolved the latter organization during the Second World War. Technocracy was ultimately overshadowed by other proposals for dealing with the crisis of the Great Depression. The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy. The movement did not fully aspire to scientocracy.

The movement was committed to abstaining from all partisan politics and communist revolution. It gained strength in the 1930s. In 1940, due to opposition to the Second World War, it was banned in Canada. The ban was lifted in 1943 when it was apparent that "Technocracy Inc. was committed to the war effort, proposing a program of total conscription." The movement continued to expand during the remainder of the war, and new sections were formed in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces.

The technocracy movement survived into the 21st century and, , was continuing to publish a newsletter, maintain a website, and hold member meetings. The Technocracy, Inc. web site later had a post on it stating that the site was under renovation, under new ownership, announcing a "Transition Plan 2016", and an online meeting in April 2021. Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, the New Machine, and the Utopian Society of America.

Overview

Technocracy advocates contended that price system-based forms of government and economy are structurally incapable of effective action, and promoted a society headed by technical experts, which they argued would be more rational and productive.Beverly H. Burris (1993)
Technocracy at work
State University of New York Press, p. 28.

The coming of the Great Depression ushered in radically different ideas of social engineering,William E. Akin (1977). ''Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900-1941'', University of California Press, pp. ix-xiii and p. 110. culminating in reforms introduced by the New Deal. By late 1932, various groups across the United States were calling themselves ''technocrats'' and proposing reforms.

By the mid-1930s, interest in the technocracy movement was declining. Some historians have attributed the decline of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal.Frank Fischer (1990). ''Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise'', Sage Publications, p. 86. Historian William E. Akin rejects that thesis arguing instead that the movement declined in the mid-1930s as a result of the failure of its proponents to devise a 'viable political theory for achieving change' (p. 111 ''Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900–1941'' by William E. Akin), although many technocrats in the United States were sympathetic to the electoral efforts of anti-New Deal third parties.

One of the most widely circulated images in Technocracy Inc.'s promotional materials used the example of a streetcar to argue that engineering solutions will always succeed where legislation or fines fail to adequately deal with social problems. If passengers insist on riding on the car's dangerous outer platform, the solution consists in designing cars without platforms.

Origins

The technocratic movement has its origins with the progressive engineers of the early twentieth century and the writings of Edward Bellamy, along with some of the later works of Thorstein Veblen such as ''The'' ''Engineers And The Price System'' written in 1921.Donald R. Stabile, Veblen and the Political Economy of the Engineer: the radical thinker and engineering leaders came to technocratic ideas at the same time, ''American Journal of Economics and Sociology'', Vol, 45, No. 1, 1986, pp. 43-44. William H. Smyth, a California engineer, invented the word ''technocracy'' in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers", and in the 1920s it was used to describe the works of Thorstein Veblen.

Early technocratic organizations formed after the First World War. These included Henry Gantt’s "The New Machine" and Veblen’s "Soviet of Technicians". These organizations folded after a short time. Writers such as Henry Gantt, Thorstein Veblen, and Howard Scott suggested that businesspeople were incapable of reforming their industries in the public interest and that control of industry should thus be given to engineers.

Europe

In Germany before the Second World War, a technocratic movement based on the American model introduced by Technocracy Incorporated existed, but ran afoul of the political system there.

There was a Soviet movement, the early history of which resembled the North American one during the interwar period. One of its leading members was engineer Peter Palchinsky. Technocratic ideology was also promoted in the ''Engineer's Herald'' journal. The Soviet technocrats advanced the scientization of the economic development, management as well as industrial and organizational psychology under the slogan, "the future belongs to the managing-engineers and the engineering-managers.".

Those viewpoints were supported by leading Right Opposition members Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov. The promotion of an alternative view on the country's industrialization and the engineer's role in society incurred Joseph Stalin's wrath. Palchinsky was executed in 1929, and a year later leading Soviet engineers were accused of an anti-government conspiracy in the Industrial Party Trial. A large scale persecution of engineers followed, forcing them to focus on narrow technical issues assigned to them by communist party leaders.

The concept of Tectology developed by Alexander Bogdanov, perhaps the most important of the non-Leninist Bolsheviks, bears some semblance to technocratic ideas. Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings as presented by Zenovia Sochor, imply that he expected a coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society.

United States and Canada

Howard Scott has been called the "founder of the technocracy movement". Near the end of 1919, he started the Technical Alliance in New York. Members of the alliance were mostly scientists and engineers. The Technical Alliance started an "energy survey of North America," which aimed to provide a scientific background from which ideas about a new social structure could be developed.p8-9 (p18-9 of PDF) In 1921, the group broke up before the survey was completed.

In 1932, Scott and others interested in the problems of technological growth and economic change began meeting in New York City. Their ideas gained national attention and the "Committee on Technocracy" was formed at Columbia University, by Howard Scott and Walter Rautenstrauch. The group was short-lived and in January 1933 splintered into two other groups, the "Continental Committee on Technocracy" (led by Harold Loeb) and "Technocracy Incorporated" (led by Scott). Howard P. Segal (2005)
Technological Utopianism in American Culture
Syracuse University Press, p. 123.

Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, The New Machine and the Utopian Society of America, though Bellamy had the most success due to his nationalistic stances, and Veblen's rhetoric, removing the current pricing system and his blueprint for a national directorate to reorganize all produced goods and supply, and ultimately to radically increase all industrial output.Harold Loeb (1933)
Life in a technocracy: what it might be like
p. xv.Howard P. Segal (2005)
American studies: an annotated bibliography, Volume 2
p. 1596.

At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that society could be designed more efficiently by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting').David E. Nye (1992)
Electrifying America: social meanings of a new technology, 1880-1940
pp. 343-344. Technocracy Inc. officials wore a uniform, consisting of a "well-tailored double-breasted suit, gray shirt, and blue necktie, with a monad insignia on the lapel", and its members saluted Scott in public.

Public interest in technocracy peaked in the early 1930s:

Technocracy's heyday lasted only from June 16, 1932, when the ''New York Times'' became the first influential press organ to report its activities, until January 13, 1933, when Scott, attempting to silence his critics, delivered what some critics called a confusing, and uninspiring address on a well-publicized nationwide radio hookup.

Following Scott's radio address from the Hotel Pierre, the condemnation of both him and technocracy in general reached a peak. The press and business people reacted with ridicule and almost unanimous hostility. The American Engineering Council charged the technocrats with "unprofessional activity, questionable data, and drawing unwarranted conclusions".

The technocrats made a believable case for a kind of technological utopia, but their asking price was too high. The idea of political democracy still represented a stronger ideal than technological elitism. In the end, critics believed that the socially desirable goals that technology made possible could be achieved without the sacrifice of existing institutions and values and without incurring the apocalypse that technocracy predicted.

The faction-ridden Continental Committee on Technocracy collapsed in October 1936. Harold Loeb and Howard P. Segal (1996)
Life in a technocracy: what it might be like
p. xv. However, Technocracy Incorporated continued.David Adair (1967)
The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement
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On October 7, 1940, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested members of Technocracy Incorporated, charging them with belonging to an illegal organization. Technocracy is illegal because it seeks to defund governance using the specific tactic of having governance take out loans while diverted the loaned money to the technocracy companies. In 1940 arrested were those who targeted both USA and Canada during World war 2. Joshua Norman Haldeman was arrested at location Regina Canada as the former director of Technocracy Incorporated that tried to attack the USA and Canada governance during World war 2. He was forced into exile and fled to South Africa. Norman Haldeman that attacked USA and Canada is the maternal grandfather of Elon Musk. Elon Musk from South Africa set the record for most governance payments collected while the governance employees he made payments to, took out trillion dollar loans that included record subsidy payments that his company received. The USA national debt went from 9 trillion for all years combined 1776-2007 to 30 trillion during the period Musk collected payments from loans taken out by USA governance. Musk was also the largest political donor in USA governance during this time. Technocracy specific tactic is the contribution of Gold and Diamonds from mines to 300 United States Governance employees that can take out loans. The Gold and diamonds are given in exchange for subsidy payments from USA governance to their company. The specific tactic of technocracy taught by Musk’s grandfather that he was arrested for in 1940 during World war 2.

There were some speaking tours of the US and Canada in 1946 and 1947, and a motorcade from Los Angeles to Vancouver:

Hundreds of cars, trucks, and trailers, all regulation grey, from all over the Pacific Northwest, participated. An old school bus, repainted and retrofitted with sleeping and office facilities, a two-way radio, and a public address system, impressed observers. A huge war surplus searchlight mounted on a truck bed was included, and grey-painted motorcycles acted as parade marshals. A small grey aircraft, with a Monad symbol on its wings, flew overhead. All this was recorded by the Technocrats on 16-mm 900-foot colour film.

In 1948, activity declined while dissent increased within the movement. One central factor contributing to dissent was that "the price system had not collapsed, and predictions about the expected demise were becoming more and more vague". Some quite specific predictions about the price system collapse were made during the Great Depression, the first giving 1937 as the date, and the second forecasting the collapse as occurring "prior to 1940".David Adair (1967)
The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement
p. 111.

Membership and activity declined steadily after 1948, but some activity persisted, mostly around Vancouver in Canada and on the West Coast of the United States. Technocracy Incorporated currently maintains a website and distributes a monthly newsletter and holds membership meetings.

An extensive archive of Technocracy's materials is held at the University of Alberta.

Technocrats' plan

In a publication from 1938 Technocracy Inc. the main organization made the following statement in defining their proposal:

Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population of this continent. For the first time in human history it will be done as a scientific, technical, engineering problem. There will be no place for Politics or Politicians, Finance or Financiers, Rackets or Racketeers. Technocracy states that this method of operating the social mechanism of the North American Continent is now mandatory because we have passed from a state of actual scarcity into the present status of potential abundance in which we are now held to an artificial scarcity forced upon us in order to continue a Price System which can distribute goods only by means of a medium of exchange. Technocracy states that price and abundance are incompatible; the greater the abundance the smaller the price. In a real abundance there can be no price at all. Only by abandoning the interfering price control and substituting a scientific method of production and distribution can an abundance be achieved. Technocracy will distribute by means of a certificate of distribution available to every citizen from birth to death. The Technate will encompass the entire American Continent from Panama to the North Pole because the natural resources and the natural boundary of this area make it an independent, self-sustaining geographical unit.

Calendar

The technocratic movement planned to reform the work schedule, to achieve the goal of uninterrupted production, maximizing the efficiency and profitability of resources, transport and entertainment facilities, avoiding the "weekend effect".Henry Elsner, ''The Technocrats : Prophets of Automation'', Syracuse University Press, 1967

According to the movement's calculations, it would be enough that every citizen worked a cycle of four consecutive days, four hours a day, followed by three days off. By "tiling" the days and working hours of seven groups, industry and services could be operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This system would include holiday periods allocated to each citizen.

Continental accounting system

From the previous research of the Technical Alliance's energy survey of North America, Technocracy Inc. leaders stated that a few key points need to be realized in order for a healthy distribution of resources can be efficiently made.

# Register on a continuous 24-hour time period basis the total net conversion of energy, which would determine
## the availability of energy for continental plant construction and maintenance,
## the amount of physical wealth available in the form of consumable goods and services for consumption by the total population during the balanced load period
# by means of the registration of energy converted and consumed, make possible a balanced load
# provide a continuous 24-hour inventory of all production and consumption
# provide a specific registration of the type, kind, size, etc., of all goods and services, where produced, and where used
# provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual
# allow the citizen the widest latitude of choice in consuming one's individual share of continental physical wealth
# distribute goods and services to every member of the population

The energy certificate and the energy distribution card

Replacing the price system meant figuring out a new means of measuring distribution that also needed to be based on science. This led to the technocrats concluding that measurements by units of energy was the most logical thing to do, although Thorstein Veblen's "The Engineers and the Price System" did not talk about price by energy, nor did William Henry Smyth's technocracy social universals.

Technocrats rationalized that the flow of energy can be what determines a price by energy. With the usage of all forms of energy units, especially having emphasis on the erg and joules. They came up with "energy certificates," which would have a table with the information of a citizen's identification, age, sex, occupation/location, energy allotment, purchases made, the issued date and expiration date of the certificates, formatted in a Dewey Decimal System. Each individual would be issued a booklet of the certificates. This was sometimes called an "energy distribution card."

Technocrats held that the differences between energy accounting and monetary systems are:
* equal allotments of energy
** it was suggested that citizens under the workforce age (25) would still have an allowance of energy totally independent from parents or guardians
** retired citizens(45) would still get their allotments
** citizens out of work would still receive their allotments
* citizens cannot trade or give away certificates. They can only spend energy at verified vendors
* once a purchase is made at a vendor, the energy used is made void; the vendor does not gain the used energy. Therefore there is no circulation of energy or hoarding of energy
* the certificates have an expiration date. Any energy not used will become void, and on a given date the citizen will receive their new allotment of energy. Once again no citizen can hoard energy
* certificates are directly tied to an individual's ID. Therefore it cannot be stolen or used by someone else

Computerization

The term "computer" wasn't used much by Howard Scott, but when it was, he used it with great optimism. Scott said technocracy's C.A.S., energy certificates, and Dewey decimal system were a more paper-based way of tracking computation; the IBM computers were exactly the kind of devices a C.A.S. would want to deploy. Scott insisted that "one of the big troubles with all of this is that your computers is going to do away with your accountants and your engineers, and it is also going to do away with your executives, as well as the blue collar and the white collar, so more power to all of the computer control mechanisms."

A year after Scott's passing, Chile started Project Cybersyn, a computerized system intended to track the economy. Philosophies of computerized government also popped up; see cyberocracy. Engineers are the central profession of technocracy's foundation, so claiming that they too will be replaced by automation is a big deal coming from a technocrat. Over the years, software for computer-aided design and the 2022 revolution of large language models brought hysteria that engineers and software developers would be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Growth curves

Justification for such a radical economy was heavily demonstrated through technocracy's growth curves of economic equilibrium.

Their chart of "Irreversible Physical Trends Shape America's Destiny," was a continuation of the Technical Alliance's energy survey of North America, with the graph being created by the Committee of Technocracy. Upon completion, the energy survey was approximately going to have 3,000 charts finished, with every field of industry being analyzed.

According to Dr. Rautenstrauch the committee found that the formulas technocracy worked out from business enterprise, greatly resembled the biological growth curves charted by Raymond Pearl's "Studies in Human Biology." The committee compared the Pearl-Reed equation to several major growth charts from U.S. industries; fitting similarly.

A foundation of technocracy's arguments was made with said chart. What it shows is that pre-industrial revolution civilization primarily generated its consumer goods from human energy—human labor. And after the industrial revolution happened, a flip in dynamic changed. Resulting in greater energy output with less human toil. Machinery enable for more efficient work without human muscle. To the technocrats, this shift of equilibrium was going to lead to rapid technological unemployment with no plan for the price system to navigate distribution of wealth to the unemployed population.

The technate

Technocracy looked for large areas with bountiful resources to enable self sufficiency. A "technate" is practically a large body of land governed by a technocracy that only needs minimal trade.

Technocrats had a strong belief in continentalism. Scott mentioned that in the case of forming a North American Technate would be like forming a federation or union under the guidance of technocracy. Areas engaging in continentalism are the U.S.S.R and the European Union.

Continental hydrology

A radical plan to transform the technate's mode of transportation was to have total control over all rivers and lakes across the continent. Travel by ship was faster than car or train at the time. The continental hydrology would end up linking several rivers. It also aimed to help monitor erosion of the country, generate power, and be educational for students.

This plan faced criticism for being a project that would destroy several habitats.

Technocracy organization

Technocracy laid out a grand scheme to organize a new government. There are a few distinct layers; the continental director, continental board, special sequences, functional sequences, and area board.

All directors are appointed from top down, with the only exception being the continental director, because no position is above it; the continental director is chosen from area control by the continental board.

The continental directors help oversee the continent. Additionally, the continental director can be thrown out should two-thirds of the continental board say so.

The continental board consists of the area control.

Technocrats wanted to divide the technate into regional divisions for administration, and decided to use the earth's latitude and longitude as a basis for calculating a "quadrangle" setup.

Functional sequences are filled based on what the requirements of the regional division needs are, and can be added or removed as such.

It is in this effort that the technocrats aimed to totally organize both the economic system and the government as a blend of each other. This functional government would then work towards making the continental accounting sSystem a reality.

Practicable Soviet of Technicians

Thorstein Veblen outlined what it would take for engineers to manage a country's economy. Praising the idea that technicians in places of trust is an excellent idea. Veblen concluded that engineers in all fields would need to work together in accounting for all aspects of the industrial system.

Veblen loosely proposed a trilateral administration; three large councils of engineers that would lead into a central council.

* Central directorate
** Executive council of resource engineers
** Executive council of production engineers
** Advisory council of production economists

Veblen also argued that people educated in business would need to be banned from positions of trust. Believing that those who understand traditional economics thought too much like a businessperson and in doing so, bring the inefficient ideals that technocracy is trying to solve.

In point: "By force of habit, men trained to a businesslike view of what is right and real will be irretrievably biased against any plan of production and distribution that is not drawn in terms of commercial profit and loss and does not provide a margin of free income to go to absentee owners. The personal exceptions to the rule are apparently few."

Technocracy vs. socialism

Many comparisons between technocracy and socialist body of thought have been made by various readers. So much so that people often argue that countries such as the U.S.S.R, China, Singapore, and the European Union are technocracies. By definition of what the technocrat theorists argued, technocracy hasn't truly been implemented. There is a distinction between technocrats and socialists.

In Paul Blanshard's publication of "Technocracy and Socialism," he argued that because socialists don't want liberal democracy, that doesn't mean they'd want a technocracy. Socialists still very much want voting. From the socialist's perspective, all workers should have a say in their organization. This would including the technocrats valued technician. Blanshard also believed that replacing the price system is not yet worth the risk, because technocracy has not fully detailed out how energy accounting would work.

Paul Temple's "A Totalitarian Fantasy-Technocracy, Fascism, and the war," made personal attacks on Howard Scott as he believed that Scott acted like a dictator, and that Scott's propaganda was too close to a typical fascist to be taken seriously. Temple points out that technocrats don't make the distinction of representative democracy under capitalism from a direct democracy under socialism.

"Technocracy and Marxism" by William Z. Foster and Earl Browder asserts that communists (as taught from Lenin and Stalin) have already realized all the issues technocrats have pointed out, years before. Howard Scott makes a bold claim that pre-industrial revolution philosophies have become totally irrelevant due to technology making a new need for a new philosophy; Foster & Browder disagree. They also point out that basing price by energy rejects the socialists measurements labor theory of value, claiming that this action is using an arbitrary unit (the erg) and was just switching one unit for another.

H. G. Wells seemed to argue for both socialism and technocracy. When Wells had a conversation with Joseph Stalin he insisted that the technical intelligentsia have begun to realize that capitalistic society has created lots of problems in all social classes. Which would bring a scientific perspective to a revolution. Stalin was not so convinced, as during previous revolutionary action those in fields of science and engineering have been more complacent than willing to help a working class movement.

Howard Scott believed that there was distinction between technocracy and socialism. He's made the provocative statement — "As far as technocracy's ideas are concerned. We're so far left that we make communism look bourgeois." Scott also criticized communism as "not being radical enough," as every socialist country still used the price system. Howard Scott has also said "the red technocrats" during a meeting; further solidifying that technocracy while not socialism was on the left.

Art representations of technocracy

The technocracy movement has made way for various pieces of artwork, from illustrations, and photography, to video games, and music.

Technocracy Inc.'s general aesthetics

Card-carrying members were issued a monad lapel pin or patch, and would wear gray suits during events and meetings. They were encouraged to paint their cars gray as well. A few published technocracy books are mainly gray. The chosen color of technocracy, is gray. Howard Scott viewed a repetition of an official uniform would help spread a national identity for technocrats, and pique onlookers curiosity into the movement.

A common theme with technocracy's publications are images of industrial equipment's and factories.

Technocracy also had other items with propaganda slogans on them, such as the case with the following technocracy match covers.

Technocrat robots

Illustrations of robots as representations of technocrats.

One of the technocrats' magazines featured a humanoid robot, with the cover showing the robot as a destructive force. Inside the magazine it shows the same robot overseer of civilization, and a robot is also representative of a technocrat from a cartoon artwork for a birthday card, although the artist seems to be confused as to what a technocrat is.

An apparently anti-technocracy article that seems to claim that technocrats incorrectly call industrial machinery is a "curse." Hence, the robot dinosaur destroying a city.

Influence in literature

Some science fiction has featured the term technocracy or a society governed by technical experts, which has resulted in both modern popularity in favor of a technically run society, and fear of a technically run society.

Isaac Asimov

After Howard Scott's passing, Technocracy Inc. was failing to keep their relevancy. In efforts to gain popular attention the organization tried to interact with any writers expressing techno-utopian ideas with the hope that gaining them as members would also convince their audience to investigate technocracy. These efforts included writing to Isaac Asimov, although there does not appear to be information as to whether or not Asimov responded to Technocracy Inc.'s letters.

For some time Asimov was a member of the Futurians, a science fiction club based in New York, some of the members of which were reportedly interested in technocracy. This interest would be short-lived, however, as after obtaining a copy of the technocracy study course, they determined that it was no different from "progressive Stalinism". There is no available information confirming if Asimov took part in reading the study course.

See also

* Abundance
* Continentalism
* Cybernetics
* Cyberocracy
* Scientism
* Scientocracy
* Technocracy
* Technological utopianism
* Thermoeconomics
* The Engineers and the Price System
* The Venus Project
* Positivism
* Post-scarcity

References

External links

Official site
* David Adair (1970). !-- https://core.ac.uk/outputs/56367658 -->https://core.ac.uk/works/34613790 The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement@ CORE (research service)
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Schools of economic thought