The Anti-Technocracy Forum

Weaknesses of Technocracy

2008-06-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

This Movement Is So Over

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. I think technocracy, as a movement, was attractive as long as there was a growing suspicion that capitalism would not survive the depression - if in fact, it had not caused it. In any event, after World War II evaporated the depression, Technocracy immediately lost its 'bloom'

What are the weaknesses of theocracy and the theocracy movement? In the first place the moment is too obscure to attract much criticism. But knowledgable 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.

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.

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.

Wikipedia

This post has been post-dated due to continued discussion.

Who Can Save Burma?

2007-09-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Well, not the Technocrats from Singaphore, anyways:

Much attention is placed on China and its coming hosting of the Olympic Games as a diplomatic pressure point on the rampant Burmese junta. But there is a group of government businessmen-technocrats in Singapore who will also be closely monitoring the brutality in Rangoon. And, were they so inclined, their influence could go a long way to limiting the misery being inflicted on Burma's 54 million people.

Collectively known as "Singapore Inc", they gather around the $A150 billion state-owned investment house Temasek Holdings, controlled by a member of the ruling Lee family.

With an estimated $A3 billion staked in the country (and a more than $20 billion stake in Australia), Singapore Inc companies have been some of the biggest investors in and supporters of Burma's military junta — this while its Government, on the rare times it is asked, suggests a softly-softly diplomatic approach towards the junta.

When it comes to Burma, Singapore pockets the high morals it likes to wave at the West elsewhere. Singapore's one-time head of foreign trade once said as his country was building links with Burma in the mid-1990s: "While the other countries are ignoring it, it's a good time for us to go in … you get better deals, and you're more appreciated … Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgemental moral high ground."

But by providing Burma's pariah junta with the crucial equipment mostly denied by Western sanctions, Singapore has helped keep the junta and its cronies afloat for 20 years, since the last time the generals killed the citizens they are supposed to protect.

Withdraw that financial support and Burma's junta would be substantially weakened, perhaps even fail. But after two decades of profitable business with the trigger-happy generals and their cronies, that's about the last thing Singapore is likely to do. There's too much money to be made.

Nor is there any hope from China:

Every current regime has its own guilt feelings about their failed past actions that when reminded, struck deep regret and confusion among their leaders. In the current global order, every nation who has a part to play to change the fate of Burma is ruled by either a dimwit or a technocrat.

China, who is dubbed as the regional power in this part of the globe will never lift a finger in favor of Democracy. Remembering its own Tienanmen nightmare and Tibetan occupation, they would rather stay quiet about Myanmar rather than risk exposing its own rotting domestic policies.

Neither will there be any solace from Thailand, which is now ruled by Technocrats.

Technates are soul-less. They just want order, tranquility and productivity.

A Level Playing Field for Technocrats!

2007-01-26T06:41:00.000-08:00

I think I have provided perfectly balanced playing field and discussion table - fair and balanced to the max - for technocrats. I have labored long and hard to establish this site, and who have I really pleased?

But I have found another possibility for those who want to junk our Great Constitution for . . . . something else, maybe a new constitution?

Whatever.

But I feel that a United Technates of America would require some kind of founding document, whatever it might be called.

Anyways, Here's a possible discussion table that might be more equitable or agreeable - if you will - than my humble abodes.

I Give you the United Technates of America.

Augusto Pinochet Is Dead

2006-12-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Gott rot the soul of a man who snatched a people and government from the hands of a democracy, and placed them under the heels of a dictatorship.

Problem #1

2006-11-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere in sites cited below:

The upshot of all this is that the scarcity model of the Price System worked well when there existed a natural scarcity. However, now that technology and rich natural resources have eliminated scarcity, an entirely new economic model is required. We have changed our methods of production from an argrarian model to a technological one, thus we must also change our method of distribution from an agrarian model to a technological one.

There are still natural scarities, some very critical, and some with increasing scarcity:

Petroleum.
Water.

Global competiton for these two resources will sharpen in the decades to come. Hopefully societies will resolve to purchase their share of these resources as opposed to seizing them by force.

I have another problem with this quotation, but the above will do for a start.

My New Symbol

2006-11-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

Skip Sievert says I'm a Cog.

He may be right. But at least I'm moving. And, I'm part of something which is functioning.

Is he moving? Is he functional?

I expect he will answer shortly.

Technocracy and Authoritarianism

2006-11-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

Theodore Adorno figures to have been averse to Technocracy. That's why Skip Sievert did not take up Messenger's cue to discuss Adorno's quotation in The Boonyaratglin Solution:

If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.

Adorno wrote that the concept of reason was transformed into an irrational force by the Enlightenment. As a consequence, reason came to dominate not only nature, but also humanity itself. It is this rationalization of humanity that was identified as the primary cause of fascism and other totalitarian regimes. Consequently, Adorno did not consider rationalism a path towards human emancipation. For that, he looked toward the arts.

Adorno, along with other major Frankfurt School theorists such as Horkheimer and Marcuse, argued that advanced capitalism was able to contain or liquidate the forces that would bring about its collapse and that the revolutionary moment, when it would have been possible to transform it into socialism, had passed. Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched through its attack on the objective basis of revolutionary consciousness and through liquidation of the individualism that had been the basis of critical consciousness.

In the Authoritarian Personality, Adorno predicted one's potential for fascist and antidemocratic leanings and behaviors. These qualities are assessed by a coherent system--the "structure of personality"--which arises out of characteristic experiences in early childhood and the pattern of internal, psychic processing. Hishe development of a measure for fascist tendencies known as the F-scale that is still in use today

Adorno explained the onset of fascist and antidemocratic attitudes from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, and thereby to make a scientific contribution in the struggle against fascism.

Conventionalism -- the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted
Authoritarian Submission -- submission to authorities and authority figures
Authoritarian Aggression -- an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values
Anti-Intraception -- rejection of the subjective, imaginative and aesthetic
Substitution and Stereotypy -- superstition, cliché, categorization and fatalistic determinism
Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power, excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities
Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, putting others down
Projectivity -- the tendency to believe in the existence of evil in the world and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward
Sex -- exaggerated concerns with respect to sexual activity

All of these tendencies are evident in Sievert's statements on this site. That is why Skip did not want to take the discussion on: he was afraid of disclosing his F-factors.

Technates are Neo-Soviets!

2006-10-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

I resume my thankless efforts to find a geopolitical home for technate-advocate Skip Sievert. All paths continue to lead back to Putin's Neo-Soviets. That's not only post-communist Russia but its central Asian satellites.

I give you, Robert Bruce Ware, What Will Come of Anna Politkovskaya's Death? Or, at least an excerpt:

In the North Caucasus, it is no longer the time of the corrupt ex-Soviet elite, who governed many of the republics in the Yeltsin years. Nor is it any longer the day of their charismatic counterweights, such as Dzhokhar Dudaev and Shamil Basaev in Chechnya or Ruslan Aushev in Ingushetia. Rather, this is the dawn of the North Caucasian technocrats.

The emergent technocracy is illustrated nowhere better than in Chechnya's neighboring Republic of Dagestan, where Mukhu Aliev was appointed by Putin earlier this year to be the republic's first president. Though he served for more than a decade as chair of the local parliament, Aliev managed to avoid the factionalism and corruption that undermined Dagestan's nascent democracy. With a doctorate in philosophy and a three-room, Soviet-style apartment, he is seen by most Dagestanis as a principled manager attempting to build a meritocracy while undercutting local corruption.

Maybe Skip's resistance has to do with Stalin's legacy? I was just sitting here wondering to myself, what if Trotsky had got into power? Would he have been able to modernise Russia, and concentrate on attaining internal Weberian bureaucratic ideals? Wouldn't have history would have turned out better? Techocracy would have survived in a better light?

As it is, the idea technocracy has survived only as a quaint obscurism. Look at to what lengths I have been driven to find references in the mainstream? Frankly, I am blue in the face and my patience is about to give out.

Updating:

In the North Caucasus, it is no longer the time of the corrupt ex-Soviet elite, who governed many of the republics in the Yeltsin era. Nor is it any longer the day of their charismatic counterweights, such as Dzhokhar Dudayev and Shamil Basayev in Chechnya or Ruslan Aushev in Ingushetia. Rather, this is the dawn of the North Caucasian technocrats.

The emergent technocracy is nowhere more evident than in Dagestan, where Mukhu Aliyev was appointed by Putin earlier this year to be the republic’s first president. Although he served for more than a decade as chair of the local parliament, Aliyev managed to avoid the factionalism and corruption that undermined Dagestan’s nascent democracy. He is seen by most Dagestanis as a principled manager, who is attempting to build a meritocracy while undercutting local corruption.

There are many comparisons between Aliyev in Dagestan, and ??imuraz ??msurov in North Ossetia. Much like Aliyev, Mamsurov was the speaker of the North Ossetian legislature, who was relatively free of political baggage. Already known for his decency, Mamsurov achieved overwhelming popularity when he declined to have his own two children released from the school in Beslan during the 2004 hostage crisis. How, he asked, would he then be able to look his neighbors in the eye? Less than a year later, Putin appointed him to lead the republic.

A few months after that, Putin appointed Arsen Kanokov to replace Valery Kokov as the head of Kabardino-Balkaria. During Kokov’s fifteen-year rule, the republic was mired in political corruption and economic stagnation. As a wealthy businessman, Kanokov resembles neither Aliyev nor Mamsurov, but he is a step up from his predecessor.

Back in Chechnya, the Kremlin anointed Alu Alkhanov as Chechnya’s president prior to the 2004 election that replaced his assassinated predecessor, Akhmed Kadyrov. A former policeman, Alkhanov is respected by most Chechens as a principled, if not particularly powerful, leader. Alkhanov lacks power vis a vis Kadyrov’s 30-year-old son, Ramzan, who serves as Chechnya’s loyalist premier and leads a militia of several thousand men. The rivalry between Alkhanov and Kazyrov illustrates two Weberian ideal types – “bureaucratic” versus “charismatic” authority.

Ramzan has had a role to play because Chechnya’s government is too weak to support Alkhanov’s bureaucratic approach. Through brute force, Ramzan gets things done, but Ramzan’s brutality was a regular target of Politkovskaya’s exposes.

Shortly after he rose to power in 2004, it was possible to view Ramzan as a necessary evil. Perhaps his brutality was the only realistic alternative to the brutality of Russian-Chechen warfare, on the one hand, and the brutality of Chechnya’s de facto independence on the other. But Politkovskaya never saw the necessity of Ramzan; she just saw the evil.

It is no longer possible to dismiss her point, given the Kremlin’s recent bureaucratic appointments in the region. If the Kremlin can support principled bureaucrats in Dagestan and North Ossetia, and something remotely along those lines in Kabardino-Balkaria, then why can’t it bolster Alkhanov in Chechnya and nudge Ramzan toward the sidelines? However slowly and painfully, Chechnya has stabilized in the past two years, and it will soon be ready for bureaucrats like Alkhanov.

Russian Profile

We're Allied to a Technate!

2006-10-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

We may have a technate as an ally. Here is Paula Newberg's review of Line of Fire:

Musharraf's post-hoc defence of his coup d'état and an angry retort to those who believe he has undercut Pakistan's democratic prospects. Like generals Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia ul Haq before him, he excoriates politicians whom he believes have ruined the country, and refers to the achingly unfinished electoral cycles of the 1990s -- during which prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif twice traded places -- as "sham democracy."

Mostly, however, Musharraf's is a soldier's story that unwittingly illuminates six decades of trying history. His narrative of governmental succession is familiar: Civilians are corrupt, soldiers are not, and when politicians disagree with the army, the army rightly takes over the government . . . .

Musharraf's paternal disinclination to cede control leads him to mimic the civilians he otherwise criticizes. "I do what I think will make my people happy," he notes: To appoint the prime minister he wants, he simply manoeuvres around the rules of parliament . . . .

The Boonyaratglin Solution

2006-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Shining Path leads to Yangon.

Skip Sievert is holiding out for a military coup d'etat as a path toward establishing the United Technates of America. Today, I caught him writing:

The military is thinking of doing some other things to him right now.
I believe Bush is looking over his shoulder and is very nervous .
Could he become the first president of the U.S. to be deposed.?
I hope so.
This guy deserves way more than impeachment.
How about a bloodless coup.?
It will never come to that you say.?
How can we trust those other politicians that are known flunkies for the corporations to do the right thing.?
They are like Bush in that they do not actually care about the American people.
Just who is buttering their bread.

Can Bush go on for another two years.? I doubt it.
If the politicians won`t remove him, the military may.

I would call this the General Sonthi Boonyaratglin solution. It worked in Thailand. Except they promise a restoration of constitional rule within one year - a problem for Sievert.

Most Americans, and I hope all of the American military, would view a military coup in the United States as a worse extra-constitutional solution than the unconstitutional neocon cancer of Rove and Bush and Cheney.

But, if he gets impatient waiting, Skip could always immigrate From Thailand to Burma or Myanmar which is the locus of the most stable and oldest of military dictatorships. Skip's Technates might have a go, there in Yangon.

Utopia & Utopian Thinking

2006-09-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Wikipedia for this definition of Utopia:

Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to the human efforts to create a better, or perhaps perfect society. Ideas which could be/are considered able to radically change our world are often called utopian ideas.

"Utopian" in a negative meaning is used to discredit ideas as too advanced, too optimistic or unrealistic, impossible to realize. Hence, for example, the use by Marxists, of such expressions as "utopian socialism".

It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society. Although some authors have described their utopias in detail, and with an effort to show a level of practicality, the term "utopia" has come to be applied to notions that are too optimistic and idealistic for practical application.

International Goals of the United Technates of America

2006-09-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

S. Sievert says:

Some in our groups are more militant than others. We think there is a possibility that the military may rescue the country one day perhaps, from the politicians.

Can we begin to imagine what might become our foreign policy goals in the Middle East once we are the United Technates of America?

Environmentalism & Technocracy?

2006-09-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the most significant things I have heard Skip Sievert say in my short association with him:

...A price system which is what we have depends on perpetual growth. We believe when the oil runs out soon, or some other thing happens, our growth society will fail, as it should. To much destruction for no other reason than to make money. That is chasing a mirage. A dead end that leads to resource destruction, and our own destruction for no really good reason except to make money. . . .

However, regarding peak oil, global warming, and other environmental issues, there is this criticism (found in Tikkun) of technocratic approaches and how unpalatable and politically unappealing they are for the American people:

Democrats too often turn immediately to technocratic proposals to address climate change—proposals like capping carbon emissions, trading greenhouse gas credits, and increasing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. These are certainly worthwhile initiatives, yet without locating them within a larger value system, they epitomize what authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus call a type of “policy literalism” that often proves unpalatable and uninspiring to the American public. They also perpetuate stereotypes of Democrats as advocates of burdensome regulations and proponents of “big government” (no matter how Orwellian these phrases have become these days).

Couching climate change in the dry language of technocracy narrows the range of sensibilities that people use to relate to public issues and thus undermines the ability of Democrats to fashion a coherent climate change policy grounded fundamentally in moral vision.

Howard Scott?

2006-09-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

Enemy Of The Bourgeoisie

It's interesting, perhaps revealing that Howard Scott's own preferred epithet was Enemy Of The Bourgeoisie. William Sheridan casts doubt as to humankind's willingness to submit to some bureaucrat or bureaucracy's vison of efficient living. It doesn't sound democratic. As a matter of fact it sounds like Technates could only be established through force and maintained through a dictatorship:

Scott's plan was an engineering masterpiece as well as a paragon of responsible environmental management. But it was not congenial to business and political elites, and it was advanced far beyond what the average mentality could comprehend or accept. Scott advocated that people adapt to the requirements of the machine, but most people couldn't get too enthusiastic about that prospect. His plan was first publicized over 60 years ago, but the public seems no more ready to adopt anything like that now than they were then.

But there is an even deeper problem with Scott's plan than a lack of public enthusiasm. As Marshall McLuhan has only recently shown us [Laws of Media], technology has four types of effects on us, and the most troubling of these is the Reversal Effect. What the Reversal Effect shows, is that even a worthwhile innovation (like the concept of efficiency) can be over-used, with the result that the original benefits are eventually offset by accumulating detriments. To his close collaborators, Scott conceded that the implementation of his plan would amount to "a dictatorship of science". Science however, cannot provide the social or personal values upon which either social solidarity or personal fulfillment depend, yet without these attributes no culture can survive.

Practical Question

2006-09-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Here's an article

Why Should I Believe It?
(or)
Eleven Reasons Technocracy Works

Interestingly it's author is the Communist Robot.

The author talks about certain economic conditions prevailing in his utopian "Technates", but shares no information as to how technates are established.

That is to say, how do you get there from here?

Sievert intimates you get there through over throwing liberal democratic constitutions, which is novel thought. Actually, not so much as a novel thought as an unenlightened one: people have been having revolutionary day dreams for several centuries now, without much progress in the betterment of society.

Assuming this utopia is worth the trip - a big assumption - there's got to be a path, right?

Historical Question

2006-09-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Skip says:

Technocracy was the fastest growing social movement of the mid-1930's -why haven't you ever heard of it?

Well, it was a movement in the 30's; I'm not sure it was all that dynamite of a movement. From what I can tell, it sounds like a totalitarian option between communism and fascism.

But if it were such a dynamo in the 30's, why did it a squelched? What stopped it?

In the Beginning . . .

2006-09-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

Skip Sievert says, in Technocracy that the Technocracy movement in North America

has to do with: changing over from a price system which uses money, to an energy debit system, which uses something real, and not an abstract concept to measure things. Technocracy is a philosophical, cultural concept which uses science as a means of creating a different kind of society. The aim of Technocracy is to remove the current price system method. Our present form of government is thereby removed. No more politicians, No more economic system with its roots in the class or caste system. Instead of buying some thing you would use your energy debit card which you have as a right of citizenship. This type of society is based on a secular humanistic approach. Would it be nice if the motivation in our society was not money which measures nothing except an abstract concept called debt ? What do you think ? People in this society always opt for more money, hence almost all choices are based on the false value of the concept of money.~`! What would it be like if technology was freed from the profit motive ? What would it be like if education was not factored using money as a condition. Environmental clean up would not cost any thing if things were not measured in what our society calls money. Money as stated earlier is an abstract concept. -The amount of energy it takes to create a consumer product would be the new way of accounting in a Technate. Change the societal template and society changes. In effect -- change the rules of the game - and the players change their approach in a dramatic way. As we become closer and closer to a societal collapse , I would encourage all and every one to take a look at the real alternative, Technocracy. Are we doomed in the present system ? Yes. Is there hope with a system that is based on the concepts of Technocracy ? Yes. Explore Technocracy. . . .

We Start Where We Will Probably End Up

2006-05-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

With a Zero!