Technocracy

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Most ideologies are based upon an ideal image of how the human being works, of the moral and intellectual qualities of the human being, and the ideal society in which those qualities would thrive. Liberalism views man as a rational egoistical individual, which looks to maximise his happiness, while socialism and communism views man as a naturally cooperative and altruistic being. Conservatism views the man as a self-constrainer, who must repress some of his desires in order to work in the context of society, while fascism wants to unleash the beast within.

Ideologies forms the superstructure of modern politics, just as religion formed the superstructure during the medieval age. Ideology and religion are both marked with assumptions about right and wrong, as well as abstract constructions about the human mind. The medieval caste society, with it's ideals of honour, loyalty, pure poetic love and inborn privilegies, is probably less abstract than the current concept about us being entitled "natural rights" to life, freedom and property [John Locke]. All laws are abstract constructions, because without the use of force, they would be rendered valueless. The same about opinions. A government is not strong because of the opinions of it's ministers, but because of the support of an electoral majority as well as control of the armed forces and the police.

Recently, in the late 18th century, the human civilisation started to move from a low energy society based on self-sustainability and agriculture, into a high energy state based upon increasing industrialisation and utilization of machines. This means that our current society today generates extremely much more energy which means that our production has increased vastly and today gives us an abundance of goods and services. The central problem is not of coures this, but the fact that we are using the resources of the planet in an inefficient manner, a manner in which short-sighted economic growth is put in the high-seat. This does not only adventure our current high energy state, but also the future of life on Earth, which already has been severely affected by the systematic destruction of symbiotic ecosystems. These symbiotic ecosystems are replaced by human made linear ecosystems, made to further the interests of the price system.

The governments in the current world are not only upholding the price system, but also preventing it to reach abundance. Price systems are dependent on scarcity in order to exist, because when an abundance is reached, prices would be lowered so much that the markets for those goods are collapsing. No one would by air for example, because it is abundant. During the great depression, the US government destroyed enormous amounts of both grain and cattle, in order to make the prices rise. Today, the European Union and the USA are dumping their excess production of agricultural products in Africa, thus destroying African agriculture, while European and American consumers are not consuming so cheap grain as they could.

We technocrats are not believing in any abstract concepts about humanity, religion or values. We are simply looking into the physics of the current civilisation, and could see that there is potential for abundance. When we are talking about abundance, we are meaning that there are more production potential than the people possibly could consume [without endangering future consumption]. The current civilisation is a growth civilisation, which is dependent upon carnaging the Earth and destroying it's regeneration capacity. That is not acceptable.

If we want to survive, we should create a civilisation based on resource circulation, where most resources are moving within a closed circulation, and constantly recycled as much as possible. We must make consumption more efficient, and abolish economic growth as the basis of our existence. We must recreate wetlands and natural habitats, if we want to stop the collapse of global biodiversity.

This cannot be accomplished within the framework of the price system.

We technocrats have an alternative to the price system. It is called energy accounting.

Instead of having several companies and other kind of structures which are administrating infrastructure in order to increase their profit, we would have one continental unit, neither administrated by politicians or businessmen, but by the technical experts on their areas - communication, software technology, natural resources, ecology, transport, industry, invention and distribution. This structure, composed of all productive infrastructure + the area which it administrates, would be known as the technate.

The technate won't have any power to create laws, or force people how to behave and what to think. It would only adminsitrate infrastructure, natural resources and distribution. It's operative directives is "the highest possible prosperity for the highest possible amount [of individuals] for the longest time possible".

Each citizen is entitled an energy certifikate. This certifikate is uploaded with energy credits each quarter of a year. The energy credits are distributed on an equal basis to all citizens of the technate. The individual amount is decided by the total production capacity of the technate divided on the number of citizens. The energy credits are not possible to save [over a cycle], to borrow or to accumulate. When they are used, they simply cease to exist. There exists no prices, no profits and no taxes in a technate. Energy credits are based upon a physical value, namely kilo-watt hours, which means that they are not possible to put under inflation.

When the people are using their energy credits, the technate would adapt it's production after usage, and therefore be able to adjust the supply after the demand on a real-time basis.

The technate would automatise so much work as possible, as well as rationalising away works that are dependent on the price system. Therefore, the amount of work hours would be reduced to the level where it is a function of automatisation. This would mean a significantly shorter amount of working time on continental level.

If you are interested into establishing a sustainable society, look into the wikipedia site about the ideology -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocratic_movement

If you are Europeans, I advise you to check out http://spazz.mine.nu/cms , our new website.

What are you thinking?

I agree with this system. I have yet to become aware of any potential flaws other than its title. I say this only as a reflection of perceived cultural undercurrents of this title. How does the term Unicracy sound to you? The term is relatively new, it posseses no negative stigmas, and it embodies the ideologies of your dissertation as well as more spiritual and philosophical aspects.

Again, how do I acquire that Ferrari I want since it is produced in Italy and not in the Tecnocrate?

If their were a surplus of resources, I imagine that everyone who wanted a ferrari could have one. Importation? What is the argument?

I tend to doubt the claim of inefficiency, as the price system by its very nature seeks efficiency. Technocracy is more likely to be inefficient because it will not have the same mechanisms to deal with conflicting desires for limited resources, nor will it have the same flexibilities as the price system. Technocracy is another breed of centralized planning, and like all centralized planning it will fail economically as past experiments in such practices have and it will destroy liberty as human beings are a part of the economy and to plan it is to plan human lives. The environmental problem is something that will exist in every system, the issue is simply how to deal with it, capitalism can have its environmental problems dealt with taxes and such, the only question is how to balance current pleasure and future pleasure, technocracy would prefer fiat and control.

Scarcity is a part of reality, it is ridiculous to say that resources are unlimited and individuals work hard to increase the amount of resources. The idea that the price system wants to waste resources is ridiculous, it is like arguing that individuals like doing things in the least efficient manner. Do they seek that? No, of course not! Planning has not eliminated scarcity in the past, and if anything we have seen that it increases scarcity through poor planning and bad incentives. Did the people of Russia do super-good under their planned utopia? How about China? At least in capitalism if people act idiotically you can ignore them and buy the other product. Technocracy does not leave that open. Frankly, I agree that governments shouldn't have destroyed resources, however, the reason why we had that depression in the first place was that governments created that. They created the debts that sunk the economies, they created the tariffs that disrupted the economies, and they manipulated currency in a manner that killed the economy. The tactics used by countries in that great depression to combat it were horrid, they were blind. Today, the excess is the product of planning, of interventionism and such, it is not a capitalist defect so much as one by government officials who give the farmers extra money that allows them to overproduce. Planners will work to benefit their favored groups and waste is the result, and under technocracy we will find worse not better due to the corruption that lies in all governments.

Technocrats are looking at foolishness, they forget the lessons we have already learned about central planning. Capitalism focuses on growth and seeks it above everything else. Capitalists look at scarcity and create abundance. What other society has had such mass communication? What other society has had an average person owning both a television and one that doesn't explode(at one point one of the largest causes of death in the USSR was fires caused by television explosions). The goal is not to damage the earth, the goal is to allow for people to have what they want. With growth there will be environmental damage and the only question is how to create laws to account for the externality.

If we want to survive we cannot forsake the greater freedom of prices for a technocratic pipe dream. The environment problem has always been in the hands of the government and economists who believe in the price system also tend to believe in the role of government to create the balance between the environment and industry. The idea that technocracy has a magic solution is folly, we have seen "magic solutions" die and crumble taking their people down with them. A planning may not necessarily be better and might easily be much worse, the Soviet Union as a model of planning has shown that tendency as well. Planning doesn't eliminate problems nor anything of that nature, it just makes decisions to take control.

Prices drive the economy efficiently and effectively and technical experts although wise, may easily not seek the good of the individuals for their own goals and purposes and may not do so for the goal of being efficient, as well, because of accountability problems we can easily see a spoilers system come into effect, after all, we already know of incompetent government workers who are supposed to be the experts. Essentially what has been designed is a system of control and the idea that technates will not have any power essentially forgets that one cannot separate the economic life from the rest of him, technates will have sole control over the television, the radio, the newspaper, and the magazines, and it is easy to see what could be done with such a monopoly. The reason why the market works is not on the strength of the business man but rather on the demand of the consumer and technocracy seeks to eliminate the power of the sovereign consumer and destroy the big check that the common man has on big business.

Energy certificates sound sort of like..... communism..... and we have tried that system before and seen it crumble and die. The problem with the energy certificate is that it ruins market incentive systems, I have little reason to go above and beyond what is required to get my energy certificate and therefore it is more likely I won't. When incentives are so poorly designed then failures arise as individuals recognize that they can loaf off. However, there still are prices if there are credits, it is just that they are not free prices and only planned prices, eliminating profits reduces incentive towards efficiency, and taxation is not eliminated, it is just that your certificate already has taxes taken into account, after all, government still needs workers and such and technocracy cannot eliminate that.

Finally, automating things blindly isn't the answer to our problems. Companies try to automate too when it saves them money, however, many companies have realized that automation if improperly applied ends up being more inefficient.

This technocracy, is nothing different from the past and what we will have built will not be sustainable, it will be a rise in corruption, a rise economic failures, a rise in our problems and not a solution. Technocracy cannot deliver the change it promises because it cannot even accept the scarcity that all societies have felt in some resource or another. It sees a false abundance and gives a false promise. The road we will travel under technocracy will be the road to serfdom.
http://www.mises.org/TRTS.htm

I have dealt with technocrats in the past. The idea that this system is based upon the "scientific method" is BS given the fact that economies have a lot of imperfect information involved with them and a lot of subjectivity involved in them, ceterus paribus means a lot in the economy. The nature of production is planned, if it is not controlled by differing individuals then it is a planned economy, and as such the very same issues that exist with a planned economy exist with technocracy. Like the USSR it is incapable of rationally calculating prices due to the sheer complexity of the economy, this is because of the sheer wealth of information and need for putting them together. Price does this naturally, it transmits information as it relays the costs of goods. As well, the whole technocratic idea of pricing is faulty as it does not take into account all of the subjectivity involved in the economy, a baseball game may not have a high energy cost per person however, there is a scarcity inherent in actually going to one which cannot be dealt with through energy accounting, land is similar in this matter as there is no energy cost inherent in giving land, however it must be distributed according to human desires and different land is different in value despite the lack of differences in energy costs. Technically, technocracy isn't a combination of the two, it draws more from the former given the lack of private property and such. A mixed economy is the combination of the 2 different systems. Economists already attempt to do research on the economy, which is why they study statistics and calculus, and although they have played with the various planned economy ideas in the past, they ended up going with the free-market due to the power and strength of the price system.

You are criticising planned economy, which shows that you do not even know what technocracy is. Technocracy is utilising energy accounting, which means that the "planning" is done by the consumer. The technate is supposed to adapt it's production to the consumer. Your examples are rather flawed, because no one would actually own land or means of production in a technate since that would lower the load factors.

We are using two wholly different definitions of scarcity, something which I have elaborated on in technocracyeurope.eu. Scarcity is not something inherent but a function of resource capacity, access and other factors. I agree that access to a baseball game is indeed a scarce commodity, but there is'nt anything in a technocracy whic would ban barter. Instead, we would just distribute most abundant things for free, while letting the people themselves developing systems for interaction with extremely scarce objects or similar things.

But subjective values, according to myself, is just BS.

We need a zero-growth recycling system, not a growth based system today. Otherwise, we would have exhausted the planet soon.

Besides, technocracy is not a mixture of two ideologies, it is an own construction, not based on morality or metaphysics, but on physics.

I have just one question for you Therion,

By impementing this "Technocracy" you're asking tens of thousands of very rich and powerfull people to simply give up thier power and wealth. How do you intend to pull that one off??

The system you propose sounds highly logical. Human beings, however, are not logical. They are greedy and violent. Someone will always want all the money and all the power and to have someone's neck under their boot.
Maybe if humans evolve some more and don't blow ourselves up, it could work someday.
The websight sounds interesting and I plan to read it, though.