Technocracy movement

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Technocracy is a form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in administrative or decision making control.[1] The term came to mean government by technical decision making in 1932.[2]

There were a variety of Technocratic groups and organisations in a number of countries with a number of scientists, writers and others connected to ideas of thermoeconomics, bioeconomics and non-market economics.[3] Some of these ideas developed into the concept of an Energy Accounting based system, as opposed to a price system and the idea of a scientific social design based on thermodynamics. Technocracy Incorporated predominated these groups as to notability and popularity. That group became a popular social movement during the 1930s and is still active today. This group calls itself an educational and research organisation and continues to advocate a technate design for North America.

Contents

[edit] Technocracy design and thermodynamics

Main article: Technocracy technate design and thermodynamics

The use of energy as a unifying concept for social, political and economic analysis reached a zenith with the technocratic movement in the USA and Canada during the 1930s. The Technocracy movement began in 1918 as a group called the Technical Alliance. The Alliance conducted an industrial survey (Energy Survey of North America) in which economic parameters were measured in energy units rather than dollars. Although the Alliance lasted only a few years, the Depression provided fertile ground for the re-emergence of the technocratic movement which used depressed economic conditions as a rallying point for their call for a complete overhaul of existing economic and political institutions. Howard Scott and M. King Hubbert among others formed Technocracy, Inc., and in conjunction with the Industrial Engineering Department at Columbia University, began an empirical analysis of production and employment in North America in energy units. The association with a prestigious university like Columbia combined with Scott’s relationship with the press made Technocracy internationally famous.[4]

Technocrats believe that politicians and businessmen could not manage a complex, rapidly advancing industrial society. The technocrats proposed replacing politicians with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy. This would allow social and economic institutions to reap the full benefits technological progress had made possible. With technical trained people making decisions, they favored the continual replacement of labor with capital and energy, realizing as did Podolinsky and Frederick Soddy that empowering labor with greater quantities of fuel increased the productivity of labor.[5]

The technocratic philosophy assumed that energy was the critical factor determining economic and social development. The Technocrats measured social change in physical terms: the average number of kilocalories used per capita per day. Money would be replaced by energy certificates, the total supply of which would be determined by the total amount of energy used in the production of goods and services.[6]

[edit] History

A sign with a Monad (Technocracy) on the outskirts of a Depression-era town proclaims regular Monday meetings of the local branch of Technocracy. Library of Congress photo.
A large Technocracy Public event at the Hollywood Bowl outdoor Auditorium

According to historian William E. Akin and other historians such as Donald R. Stabile, technocratic ideas have their origins in the progressive engineers of the early twentieth century, along with some of the later works of Thorstein Veblen, a member of the Technical Alliance, such as "Engineers And The Price System" written in 1921.[7]

Frederick Soddy winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1921, was also interested in technocratic ideas, which is evidenced by his publication Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (George Allen & Unwin 1926). Soddy himself, in a newsreel interview taken in his office and laboratory, presented in the early 30's a very nice admission and commendation for the development of Technocratic ideas in the United States.[8] In Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, Soddy turned his attention to the role of energy in economic systems. He criticized the focus on monetary flows in economics, arguing that “real” wealth was derived from the use of energy to transform materials into physical goods and services. Soddy’s economic writings were largely ignored in his time, but would later be applied to the development of biophysical economics and ecological economics in the late 20th century.[9]

Scientific management[10] 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.[8][11] In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the highest possible honor granted by the international scientific community of his day, granted to only one scientist each year: the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, for being "the first to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical, and thermal energy and capacity for external work."[12]

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;[10] Scott started the Technical Alliance in the winter of 1918-1919. Its members were mostly scientists and engineers, and later 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.[13]

William Howard Smyth used the word "technocracy" to describe a form of Industrial democracy[14]. Smyth used the term Technocracy in his 1919 article "'Technocracy'—Ways and Means to Gain Industrial Democracy," in the journal Industrial Management[15] However, Smyth's usage referred to Industrial democracy: a movement to integrate workers into decision making through existing firms or revolution.[16] The term came to mean government by technical decision making in 1932.[17]Schools of thought amongst engineers and economists eventually produced social institutions arguing for purely technical government of society in the 1930s. Some technocratic ideas and concepts are used in the later works of Thorstein Veblen.[18]

Howard Scott in front of Technocracy Inc. Section house RD-11833-2 SHQ in 1942.

In the winter of 1931, M. King Hubbert joined the staff of Columbia University and met Scott.[13] 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.[13] 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.[19] 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 Technical Alliance and create a new kind of society based on Energy Accounting[20] 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]

Today, Technocracy Incorporated members partake in discussion groups, publish quarterly magazines, and advocate for the original concepts of a Thermoeconomics based scientific social design.[21]

[edit] Technocracy and Engineering

Technocracy was one solution to a problem faced by engineers in the early twentieth century. Following Samuel Haber[22] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficiency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century United States.

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.[7]

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.

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 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. Those concepts were taken to another alternative economic level with the proposal of the use of a system called Energy Accounting,[23] that system being not based on a money debt system.[24]

Technocracy Incorporated proposed and proposes, the non monetary system (energy accounting) which uses a post scarcity type of economy as its basis.[20] The Technate design as projected, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing (Urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words, free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship.[25] Everyone would receive an equal amount of consuming power via this Non-market economics, post scarcity method, in theory.

[edit] Views of the price system

The term "price system" is an economic term used by Technocracy Incorporated to describe any economic system whatsoever that effects its distribution of goods and services by means of a system of trade or commerce based on commodity valuation and employing any form of debt tokens, or money and which attempts to balance supply and demand of scarce resources. Except for possible remote and primitive communities, all modern societies use price systems to allocate resources. TechInc advocates a non price system method.[26]

Technocracy, which came to mean government by technical decision making in 1932,[2] is one possible solution to a problem faced by engineers in the early twentieth century. Following Samuel Haber[22] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficiency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century United States.[27] Fundamentally, price systems have been around for as long as there has been an intermediary device used in trade, such as money. From its beginnings as an extension of the barter system, the price system has evolved into the system of global capitalism that is present in the early 21st century.[24] The Soviet Union and other Communist nations were price systems also, as they employed a scarcity based monetary system. Thorstein Veblen, who was a member of the Technical Alliance (the precursor to Technocracy Incorporated), wrote The Engineers and the Price System in 1921, in which he put forth some of his views on the Price System.[18] That book was later used as a reference in the Technocracy Study Course.

Technocracy Incorporated proposed and purposes, a non monetary system of Energy Accounting[23] which uses a post scarcity type of economy as its basis.[20] The Technate design as projected, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing (urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words, free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship.[25]

Howard Scott noted that the science behind the ideas of the Technocracy Technate design are based on the work of Willard Gibbs.[8][11]

[edit] Criticism

It was the ’drastic influence’ that energy quality and availability had on economic development that led M. King Hubbert and Frederick Soddy among others to criticize standard economics or the price system, for its lack of a biophysical basis. Echoing the words of Frederick Soddy written almost a half-century earlier, Hubbert stated:

"...when one speaks of the state of growth of GNP, I haven’t the faintest idea what this means when I try to translate it onto coal, oil, iron, and the other physical quantities which are required to run an industry...the quantity GNP is a monetary bookkeeping entity. It obeys the laws of money. It can be expanded or diminished, created or destroyed, but it does not obey the laws of physics."

Thermoeconomics research dealing with biophysical economics questions the ability of money to come to terms with the operation of our current high energy civilization.[26]

[edit] Technocracy in fiction

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."[28]

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[29]

Notably, democracies of general franchise also failed in the novel's future history.

[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

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[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.com/dictionary/technocracy
  2. ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary 3rd edition (Word from 2nd edition 1989)
  3. ^ Stabile, Donald R. "Veblen and the Political Economy of the Engineer: the radical thinker and engineering leaders came to technocratic ideas at the xzame time," American Journal of Economics and Sociology (45:1) 1986, 43-44.
  4. ^ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics
  5. ^ http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm
  6. ^ http://www.technocracy.org/man%20hours%20and%20distribution.htm
  7. ^ a b Stabile, Donald R. "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 (45:1) 1986, 43-44.
  8. ^ a b c History and Purpose of Technocracy by Howard Scott
  9. ^ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Soddy,_Frederick Soddy, Frederick - Encyclopedia of Earth
  10. ^ a b Akin, William E. (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03110-5. 
  11. ^ a b The Origins of Technocracy. From the Technocracy Movement website - Scott's statement is on the video
  12. ^ Josiah Willard Gibbs - Britannica 1911
  13. ^ a b c "Questioning of M. King Hubbert, Division of Supply and Resources, before the Board of Economic Warfare" (PDF). 1943-04-14. http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/Technocracy1943.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-05-04. p8-9 (p18-9 of PDF)
  14. ^ Raymond, Allen (1933). What is Technocracy?. 
  15. ^ Oxford English Dictionary 3rd edition (Word from 2nd edition 1989)
  16. ^ Oxford English Dictionary 3rd edition (Word from 2nd edition 1989)
  17. ^ Oxford English Dictionary 3rd edition (Word from 2nd edition 1989)
  18. ^ a b The Engineers and the Price System, 1921.
  19. ^ Hubbert investigation (1943), p41 (p50 of PDF)
  20. ^ a b c The Energy Certificate essay by Fezer. An article on energy accounting as proposed by Technocracy Inc. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm Article on alternative system to money 'energy accounting'
  21. ^ http://www.technocracy.org/Trendevents/June_2008_TRENDEVENTS%5B1%5D%5B2%5D%5B2%5D.pdf
  22. ^ a b Haber, Samuel. Efficiency and Uplift Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
  23. ^ a b http://telstar.ote.cmu.edu/environ/m3/s3/05account.shtml Environmental Decision making, Science and Technology
  24. ^ a b R. B. Langan, "I Am The Price System", Great Lakes Technocrat, No. 66 (March/April 1944).
  25. ^ a b Ivie, Wilton A Place to Live: 1955 Technocracy Digest
  26. ^ a b Cutler J. Cleveland, "Biophysical economics", Encyclopedia of Earth, Last updated: September 14, 2006.
  27. ^ "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." Stabile, Donald R. "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 (45:1) 1986, 43-44.
  28. ^ Charlie's Diary: Let's put the future behind us
  29. ^ Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. New York: Ace, 1987. p.143 (originally published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1959.)

[edit] Further reading

  • Val Dusek (2006). "Thorstein Veblen and the Technocracy Movement in the USA and Elsewhere". Blackwell Publishing. pp. 46–48. ISBN 1405111631. 
  • Howard P. Segal (2005). "Technological Utopianism and the Development of Modern American Society". Technological Utopianism in American Culture. Syracuse University Press. pp. 120–124. ISBN 0815630611. 

[edit] External links

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