Defending Technocracy

[Havet]

There seem to be a lot of folks out here who are suspicious of the technocratic movement and its main ideas. I saw a website which explains Anarcho-technocracy pretty well, and I hope to clear some doubts by posting this. I pretty much agree with what's being said here, and I look forward discussing what will be posted below.

Bolded parts are high-lighted for an easier read. Enjoy.

Anarcho-technocracy is the theory of Direct Action on Things. It is anarchist, inasmuch as it states that all government over men must be replaced by the administration of things; it is technocratic, in that it contends this administration can be encompassed, in this era of increasing technological complexity, only by the technicians. It comprises the other political theories, which in reality, if not avowedly, all have the same end in view. In particular, it comprises and furthers democracy, our own brand of political theory.

Democracy is not the rule of the majority of the people over a minority, which inevitably becomes the rule of a minority over the majority, a rule over the people; it is not self-government, the rule of the people over the people, which is a physical impossibility -- it is the rule of all the people, over something else, something other than and outside the people.

There is only one thing outside the people to be ruled -- that is their material environment, that part of that environment transformed in industry, the machines. Democracy becomes inevitably Industrial democracy. In doing this it transforms political terms, methods, institutions. It transforms politics itself -- from politics, which is a matter of the government of men, into technics, which is a matter of the Government of Things.

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Now below you will find a very peculiar and interesting explanation of what was anounced above:

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Democracy can't see this role it plays. All it can see, at its best, is full human power. But that power is blind, misdirected -- it is expressed indiscriminately on both men and things. It needs the insight of anarchism, a later development in political thought, which realises that no political power should be imposed on men... Democracy in lifting the people to power makes the people free. Democracy merges then into anarchy, the demand for full human freedom. The democrat, to the extent that he carries his theory to its conclusions, is, and must be an anarchist. Freedom and power are not mutually opposed -- they are identical. Freedom is power. Moreover this real power must take a form which they both dread -- that is dictatorship. We hate dictatorship. But that is only because all dictatorships we have known have been tyrannies over men, over us. It is the height of folly to oppose dictatorship, when we are the dictators, when it is our dictatorship -- and when it is imposed only on things. We can be a ruthless, arbitrary and as autocratic as we like -- with this subject "class." What is needed, as contradictory as the terms may seem, is a fully human, a democratic dictatorship. One that does not impose its power on any human being whatsoever -- an Anarchist Dictatorship. Anarchism, not realising how closely bound it is to democracy, thinks it must oppose any sort of power, but in actuality it seeks it. It found it, in the workers -- in syndicalism. And so we had the programme, Anarcho-syndicalism. But since then technology has transformed work and the workers out of all recognition. Machines are "the workers" to-day. We are all keeping machines out of jobs. And the only effective human personnel, the key personnel, are the scientists -- the technicians. We might know an axe, or a hammer, or sickle; but we wouldn't know the components of the uranium atom if we saw them. We can't see them -- they are concepts of physics, mathematics.

Machines need no wages. Moreover, they need no bureaucracy -- no manpowers, police, clerks, snivel servants -- to drive them to work. The technicians abolish the State, as we know it, simply by abolishing us -- as slaves.

We dread the technicians as a new ruling class. But we do not need to be the new ruled class. We must resist them, and the regrettable fact is that we may have to, for the technician, in common with most of the rest of us, is conditioned to accept some form of control over human beings as necessary in any regime. But in that conditioning he ceases to be a technician in the strict sense of the word. We must strengthen his own innate interest and theory, as a technician, in things, so that he will control things exclusively. But the trouble is we tend to despise his interests and values. It is the fashion to sneer at productivity. But what greater value is there? The man who can make a pot, or grow a turnip, or open an atom, is worth more than all the priests, all the politicians, all the psychologists who ever existed. This holds despite all the falsifications of the last 50,000 years. Productivity will hold as a value as long as man lasts. It will be superseded only when man becomes more than man, when he is superman; when it is succeeded in our scale of values by creativity. But the politicians, and their idiot apes, the Lawrences, Aldous Huxleys, Mumfords, Toynbees -- all our "thinkers" sneer at scientific production. The only sphere in which productivity reigns is that wherein it is not needed -- in the mass production, in the reproduction of humankind. Well, the technician counts that out, too. He doesn't need large populations to do his bidding. And we don't. We want a small society -- one of quality, not quantity, in which every human being can be powerful and free. We need a small society, as Greek society was small. And like the Greeks we need slaves, a vast politically subject "class" to rule. We have this in things, in the forces of organised matter, in the machines.

The engineers must rule. Who else could rule in a machine age -- the Golden Philosopher King? All the political philosophies from Plato to Marx must be shot on to the scrap heap. We tend to think of technocracy as a crank cult of the thirties. This is tragic stupidity. A decade or two is nothing in the march of events. And there have never been enough cranks in the world.

Of course, in adopting technocracy, in adapting it to our needs we must dissociate it from its present advocates. Its original theory is weak. And in practice it has gone the way of all human organisations. It has swung into line behind American nationalism. It would organise the material resources of the North American continent, and not a global abundance.

Source: Technocracy.net: The Politics of Things (http://en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=137)

Thoughts?

EDIT: I will only reply in defense of what I call "mutualist technocracy", the belief that technicians will be in charge of repairing and improving the machines society depends upon, with free access to acquire such knowledge (as in no artificial monopolies or restrictions except those of natural supply and demand) and likely democratic decision between technicians, in a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.

[syndicat]

you're proposing essentially a system of rule by the bureaucratic class. this will inevitably require a state, just as capitalism or any class society does. within corporate capitalism, the bureaucratic class includes managers, cops, judges, industrial engineers (who design jobs and work flows), and high end engineers who work with management (such as systems architects), top accounts (such as the big 4 accountancy firms), HR experts, "business development" specialists, lawyers, finance officers.

prior to the 1890s there were virtually nil engineers. that's because technical know how was in the heads of skilled workers. the "scientific management" movement that began between 1890s thru 1920 advocated taking decision-making and technical expertise away from the shopfloor and its concentration in the hands of management and professionals tied to management.

This occurred due to the class struggle in manufacturing. "Scientific management" is a management technique in the class war.

In principle there is no reason that technical know how should not remain the collective possesion of workers. This would require however that the educational system be systematically changed, away from being the class tracking system that now exists, which funnels children of the working class into highly controlled, dead end jobs, or a minority of them into more skilled jobs.

The elite classes like to imagine that things like scores on tests (used in the class tracking scheme) and grades are a sign of "merit." This is a fraud. They are a sign of class privilege. Parents who are highly educated and who work jobs where they do planning and design and decision making acquire knowledge, vocabularies which their children are exposed to, they have high incomes so they can put their kids into montessori schools at age 2 and in general pay for access to learning environments. they have things like books and internet connections in the home. all these things affect things like test scores and grades. it's been know for decades that standardized test scores correlate with class background.

"technocracy" is based on the elitist notion that there are certain people who are innately superior, and who thus should be in charge of technical decision making and planning and so on.

to talk about "administration of things" is a rank obfuscation. any such decision making will be about allocation of scarce resources, and who controls this will ensure higher benefit for themselves. who controls this is exercizing power over others.

[Invincible Summer]

I'm wondering though - the article seems to be saying that technicians will "only" be in control of technology/production and not people. However, since these technologies and production are part of everyone's everyday lives, would these technicians - to some extent - be in control of the lives of people?

I'm not going to take the "DICTATORSHIP RAHHH!" stance, just asking an honest (albeit possibly simple) question.

[Havet]

you're proposing essentially a system of rule by the bureaucratic class. this will inevitably require a state, just as capitalism or any class society does.

What part of the whole "democratic rule" explanation did you miss?


prior to the 1890s there were virtually nil engineers. that's because technical know how was in the heads of skilled workers. the "scientific management" movement that began between 1890s thru 1920 advocated taking decision-making and technical expertise away from the shopfloor and its concentration in the hands of management and professionals tied to management.

Yes...


In principle there is no reason that technical know how should not remain the collective possesion of workers. This would require however that the educational system be systematically changed, away from being the class tracking system that now exists, which funnels children of the working class into highly controlled, dead end jobs, or a minority of them into more skilled jobs.

Who said it wouldn't?


The elite classes like to imagine that things like scores on tests (used in the class tracking scheme) and grades are a sign of "merit." This is a fraud. They are a sign of class privilege. Parents who are highly educated and who work jobs where they do planning and design and decision making acquire knowledge, vocabularies which their children are exposed to, they have high incomes so they can put their kids into montessori schools at age 2 and in general pay for access to learning environments. they have things like books and internet connections in the home. all these things affect things like test scores and grades. it's been know for decades that standardized test scores correlate with class background.

This is correct, but fairly irrelevant towards the topic at hand.


"technocracy" is based on the elitist notion that there are certain people who are innately superior, and who thus should be in charge of technical decision making and planning and so on.

Technocracy is based on the "elitist" notion that only people who know about something should be allowed to screw around with it.

Would you prefer that some farmers in Mongolia voted how to manage the industrial steel factories of North America? Does this sound rational to you?


to talk about "administration of things" is a rank obfuscation. any such decision making will be about allocation of scarce resources, and who controls this will ensure higher benefit for themselves. who controls this is exercizing power over others.

I suggest you re-read this part:


We dread the technicians as a new ruling class. But we do not need to be the new ruled class. We must resist them, and the regrettable fact is that we may have to, for the technician, in common with most of the rest of us, is conditioned to accept some form of control over human beings as necessary in any regime. But in that conditioning he ceases to be a technician in the strict sense of the word. We must strengthen his own innate interest and theory, as a technician, in things, so that he will control things exclusively. But the trouble is we tend to despise his interests and values. It is the fashion to sneer at productivity. But what greater value is there? The man who can make a pot, or grow a turnip, or open an atom, is worth more than all the priests, all the politicians, all the psychologists who ever existed.

[LeftSideDown]

It is anarchist, inasmuch as it states that all government over men must be replaced by the administration of things; it is technocratic, in that it contends this administration can be encompassed, in this era of increasing technological complexity, only by the technicians.

So it would replace politicians with technicians? I really don't see this as much of a change.


Democracy is not the rule of the majority of the people over a minority, which inevitably becomes the rule of a minority over the majority, a rule over the people; it is not self-government, the rule of the people over the people, which is a physical impossibility -- it is the rule of all the people, over something else, something other than and outside the people.

I don't know, this whole paragraph just seems like it was written by someone who is very confused and is unfamiliar with logic. Seems to me to be full of contradictions.


There is only one thing outside the people to be ruled -- that is their material environment, that part of that environment transformed in industry, the machines.

If you rule the materials (especially of those of survival) you essentially rule humans. Unless you've proven your trustworthiness, efficiency, and superior talent for predicting consumer demand (through the market system), placing you in charge of the direction and control of vast amounts of material wealth seems irresponsible, especially when coupled with the naive belief that this power gives them no power over people.


Freedom is power. Moreover this real power must take a form which they both dread -- that is dictatorship. We hate dictatorship. But that is only because all dictatorships we have known have been tyrannies over men, over us. It is the height of folly to oppose dictatorship, when we are the dictators, when it is our dictatorship -- and when it is imposed only on things. We can be a ruthless, arbitrary and as autocratic as we like -- with this subject "class." What is needed, as contradictory as the terms may seem, is a fully human, a democratic dictatorship. One that does not impose its power on any human being whatsoever -- an Anarchist Dictatorship. Anarchism, not realising how closely bound it is to democracy, thinks it must oppose any sort of power, but in actuality it seeks it. It found it, in the workers -- in syndicalism. And so we had the programme, Anarcho-syndicalism. But since then technology has transformed work and the workers out of all recognition. Machines are "the workers" to-day. We are all keeping machines out of jobs. And the only effective human personnel, the key personnel, are the scientists -- the technicians. We might know an axe, or a hammer, or sickle; but we wouldn't know the components of the uranium atom if we saw them. We can't see them -- they are concepts of physics, mathematics.

The whole thing is silly. "Dictatorship is bad because its been bad historically, but ours will be good!" Honestly, I've already shown how control over objects is essentially control over people and giving it to scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and others that fall under "technician" just seems like a suggestion for the sake of suggestion.

[Havet]

I'm wondering though - the article seems to be saying that technicians will "only" be in control of technology/production and not people. However, since these technologies and production are part of everyone's everyday lives, would these technicians - to some extent - be in control of the lives of people?

I'm not going to take the "DICTATORSHIP RAHHH!" stance, just asking an honest (albeit possibly simple) question.

Yes, but you must not forget, there will be equal access for someone to pursuit the path of a technician, and likely technicians among themselves will decide matters democratically.

If those two points are not followed, then yes, technicians could very well have an enormous control of people's lives, becoming the new ruling class.

[syndicat]

if all workers posssess engineering know how and are equals in the running of their industries, why talk about "rule of engineers" rather than "rule of workers"?

also, not all people are workers. but democratic social self-management means we all participate not only making the rules for society, but also in deciding what we want produced. technical know how is relevant only in coming up with proposals for means, not in determining what is produced. determining what is produced, if a society is to generate human well being, has to depend on what the people who will use and consume products want.

[Havet]

So it would replace politicians with technicians? I really don't see this as much of a change.

You don't? Don't you find an engineer much more valuable than a bureaucrat?


I don't know, this whole paragraph just seems like it was written by someone who is very confused and is unfamiliar with logic. Seems to me to be full of contradictions.

Could you elaborate?


If you rule the materials (especially of those of survival) you essentially rule humans. Unless you've proven your trustworthiness, efficiency, and superior talent for predicting consumer demand (through the market system), placing you in charge of the direction and control of vast amounts of material wealth seems irresponsible, especially when coupled with the naive belief that this power gives them no power over people.

Ah, well, seems some explanations are due. I am not a marxist technocract. I think I could best be described as a mutualist technocract. I do not support the centralization of power into the hands of technicians, or any other group of people, which is why when replying to Helios I included the points of free access (as in no artificial monopolies or restrictions except those of natural supply and demand) and democratic control.

Obviously a group of technicians could never be able to predict consumer demand if they are not open to feedback and competition.

[Havet]

if all workers posssess engineering know how and are equals in the running of their industries, why talk about "rule of engineers" rather than "rule of workers"?

Are engineers, by any chance, not workers as well?


also, not all people are workers. but democratic social self-management means we all participate not only making the rules for society, but also in deciding what we want produced. technical know how is relevant only in coming up with proposals for means, not in determining what is produced. determining what is produced, if a society is to generate human well being, has to depend on what the people who will use and consume products want.

Here we enter the realms of politics. I am not a marxist technocrat. I think that everyone can decide what is to be produced by engaging in an anti-capitalist free-market, an environment where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.

[Demogorgon]

This is just confusing science and science fiction. People have this really weird idea of what science is with some people thinking that science is some sort of magical entity that can do all sorts of wonderful stuff. In truth it is a form of methodology, scientists seek to use their knowledge and reason to achieve their goals.

Those with a weird fetish for "science" seem not to realise this. For instance the first thing to do is realise the limits of what you are working with and what is and is not possible. Not to mention that in order to do something properly you need to understand it.

Which is why I laugh at this ridiculous notion of having "technicians" running what amounts to economic activity (production to meet people's demands). This seems to be be based on the notion that technicians are great at what they do, so they will be great at something completely different, it is an utter non sequitur.

[Havet]

This is just confusing science and science fiction. People have this really weird idea of what science is with some people thinking that science is some sort of magical entity that can do all sorts of wonderful stuff. In truth it is a form of methodology, scientists seek to use their knowledge and reason to achieve their goals.

Those with a weird fetish for "science" seem not to realise this. For instance the first thing to do is realise the limits of what you are working with and what is and is not possible. Not to mention that in order to do something properly you need to understand it.

Which is why I laugh at this ridiculous notion of having "technicians" running what amounts to economic activity (production to meet people's demands). This seems to be be based on the notion that technicians are great at what they do, so they will be great at something completely different, it is an utter non sequitur.

Sorry if I did not make myself clear:


there will be equal access for someone to pursuit the path of a technician, and likely technicians among themselves will decide matters democratically.

If those two points are not followed, then yes, technicians could very well have an enormous control of people's lives, becoming the new ruling class.

I think you, me and LeftSideDown can agree that technicians could never be trustuworthy enough, efficient enough and have a superior talent so that they could predict the whole of consumer demand.

In theory technicians are only there because machines need improvements and repairs. What the machines actually produce and output is up to society to determine, either democratically or through a market system.

[Demogorgon]

I am not arguing (here) that the Technicians would be "untrustworthy" (though I have had plenty to say on that issue elsewhere) but that they would be unqualified. We are not simply talking about technicians managing machines (what do you think happens now) but them controlling the economic process of production in an effort to meet demand. Technicians are not trained to do this and the skills they possess are totally different to those needed to manage economic activity.

While I accept that some of the proposals from Technocrats here have been rather more sophisticated than this (though still flawed), this proposal here is just absurd. Whoever wrote it has a very strange understanding of what both economics and "science" consists of.

And that is before I even get to the silliness of the "machines can do all the work" proposal, it would be smashing if it were true, but we simply aren't technologically advanced for that. You sometimes see the defenders of this say "oh but we generate energy to produce far more than we do now, that proves we are producing far under our potential", but that is just another problem with this view. Energy cannot be used as an economic measurement, not to mention of course, that you can generate all the energy in the world, but you are always going to be limited in how you can use it.

[Havet]

I am not arguing (here) that the Technicians would be "untrustworthy" (though I have had plenty to say on that issue elsewhere) but that they would be unqualified. We are not simply talking about technicians managing machines (what do you think happens now) but them controlling the economic process of production in an effort to meet demand. Technicians are not trained to do this and the skills they possess are totally different to those needed to manage economic activity.

I do not remmember where it is being proposed that technicians are the ones in charge of trying to meet demand. From what I posted:


But since then technology has transformed work and the workers out of all recognition. Machines are "the workers" to-day. We are all keeping machines out of jobs. And the only effective human personnel, the key personnel, are the scientists -- the technicians. We might know an axe, or a hammer, or sickle; but we wouldn't know the components of the uranium atom if we saw them. We can't see them -- they are concepts of physics, mathematics.


And that is before I even get to the silliness of the "machines can do all the work" proposal, it would be smashing if it were true, but we simply aren't technologically advanced for that. You sometimes see the defenders of this say "oh but we generate energy to produce far more than we do now, that proves we are producing far under our potential", but that is just another problem with this view. Energy cannot be used as an economic measurement, not to mention of course, that you can generate all the energy in the world, but you are always going to be limited in how you can use it.

Of course it is silly, but there are currently restrictions on the levels of automation that can be reached, mainly due to a primitivist presence of luddite arguments coupled with nationalism. Not to mention all the economic aparatus (monopolies, lobbies, favours) behind this current economic setup.

But certainly you will agree, that to the extent that machines outperform human labor, they should replace it in order to free it to more productive endeavors in which human labor is indeed irreplaceable.

[Dean]

EDIT: I will only reply in defense of what I call "mutualist technocracy", the belief that technicians will be in charge of repairing and improving the machines society depends upon, with free access to acquire such knowledge (as in no artificial monopolies or restrictions except those of natural supply and demand) and likely democratic decision between technicians, in a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.
Ahh, you still support centralization of economic power. Figures.

[Havet]

Ahh, you still support centralization of economic power. Figures.

Are you wearing broken 3D glasses, comrade?

[syndicat]

Are engineers, by any chance, not workers as well?

not all. many engineers are part of the bureaucratic class. but so what? you're evading my point.

My claim is that all workers are capable of mastering a science-based engineering education, to varying degrees of skill, and can participate in collective decision-making and they must if they are to free themselves from oppression. That's because the decisions about what goes on in workplaces directly and immediately affects the people who work there, and in particular, decisions about what technologies to use. Some technologies are more worker friendly than others, some are more dangerous than others, some expose workers to dangerous chemicals and so on.



Originally Posted by syndicat
also, not all people are workers. but democratic social self-management means we all participate not only making the rules for society, but also in deciding what we want produced. technical know how is relevant only in coming up with proposals for means, not in determining what is produced. determining what is produced, if a society is to generate human well being, has to depend on what the people who will use and consume products want.


Here we enter the realms of politics. I am not a marxist technocrat. I think that everyone can decide what is to be produced by engaging in an anti-capitalist free-market, an environment where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.
Any "free market" governed economic arrangement will tend to create a class system in which workers will be subordinate. And in a free market firms will obtain what they have the power to obtain...and there will be no guarantee this has anything to do with "equivalent amounts of labor" (however you propose to measure that).

[Havet]

not all. many engineers are part of the bureaucratic class. but so what? you're evading my point.

My claim is that all workers are capable of mastering a science-based engineering education, to varying degrees of skill, and can participate in collective decision-making and they must if they are to free themselves from oppression. That's because the decisions about what goes on in workplaces directly and immediately affects the people who work there, and in particular, decisions about what technologies to use. Some technologies are more worker friendly than others, some are more dangerous than others, some expose workers to dangerous chemicals and so on.

Ok, here's the my main argument:

Do you find it rational that medics are engaged in the democratic process of maintenance and incrementation of steel mills, for example?


Any "free market" governed economic arrangement will tend to create a class system in which workers will be subordinate. And in a free market firms will obtain what they have the power to obtain...and there will be no guarantee this has anything to do with "equivalent amounts of labor" (however you propose to measure that).

What proof do you offer to validate such statement?

[Demogorgon]

I do not remmember where it is being proposed that technicians are the ones in charge of trying to meet demand. From what I posted:

I was talking about the article in context of Technocracy's general arguments. The article doesn't make it entirely clear, though it certainly eludes to it, but Technocrats propose that people be issued with Energy Credits that they "spend" on the goods and services they want and this is used as a means of tracking demand for different goods and services. They then propose a "technate" sorts through this data and finds the most efficient means of producing what is demanded.

The problem is of course this is an economic concern, not a concern of the "hard" sciences. Therefore requesting "technicians" do it is like asking a brain surgeon to check the structural integrity of a building. She might be very good at what she does, but that doesn't mean she is automatically qualified to do anything.

I really don't think people advocating this have properly thought through what calculating all this would mean anyway. I asked a technocrat once how the technate would calculate how to assign resources in the most efficient way and was told it would be done through "careful calculation". I asked what these calculations would be and he was completely stumped. I rather got the impression that he had been thinking along "science can do all sorts of cool shit" lines, rather than looking at practicalities.


Of course it is silly, but there are currently restrictions on the levels of automation that can be reached, mainly due to a primitivist presence of luddite arguments coupled with nationalism. Not to mention all the economic aparatus (monopolies, lobbies, favours) behind this current economic setup.

But certainly you will agree, that to the extent that machines outperform human labor, they should replace it in order to free it to more productive endeavors in which human labor is indeed irreplaceable.
Production should become more automated, when it can yes. But that is a long way from what the Technocrats are dreaming of. Automation increased by an incredible amount during the twentieth century, but people still work long hours. That is because of course that capitalism requires the rewards of increased productivity almost always be taken as a consumption increase than a leisure increase (which I might add shows that Capitalism fails to meet peoples desires as most report they would prefer at least some increase in leisure). I have argued very forcibly that we should seek to take some of our reward for increasing productivity in the form of increased leisure but that also means acknowledging a trade off.

Technocrats seem to dream of far more goods and services and far less working hours. You can't have both. In the short run you might be able to make sufficient efficiency savings so as to increase both leisure and consumption and over time you could continue to distribute further gains in productivity between leisure and consumption-as I believe we should. However that means the amount we can consume will increase at a lower rate than it would if we continued to work the hours we do now. We have to acknowledge that sometimes we can't just have the best of all worlds.

[syndicat]

Do you find it rational that medics are engaged in the democratic process of maintenance and incrementation of steel mills, for example?

What is your point? I'm not saying that everyone should know everything.

I'm saying that, in each given industry, the people who work there can have a level of expertise and skill pertaining to the work that goes on there sufficient to be roughly equal to the skill and expertise of others, at least to the point that they have enough expertise and skill that they can participate meaningfully in decisions about organization and planning and products and so on.

So the people work in a hospital can be educated, say, to the level of para-medicals at least, or have some area of expertise in regard to some other aspect of the work that is done there, and so on through the various industries. But this does not require that the skill and expertise of everyone in different industries is the same or even that in a particular industry everyone's skill and expertise is the same because it might be about a different area.

Now, in regard to how markets work as a transmission belt of class oppression. If you have competing collectives in a market, all dependent on the capacities they can marshall in the market, people who already have concentrated expertise, credentials, management experience, marketing savvy etc will have particularly important skills for the success of the firm and can use this as a lever to obtain higher perks, including control over aspects of decision-making as well as higher remuneration.

Firms lacking these forms of expertise would tend to be defeated in competition, so this gives those who have such expertise and "human capital" a means to obtain a dominant position.

To see this in practice consider the Mondragon cooperatives or the old Yugoslav market self-management. In both kinds of firms the managers and high end professionals were entirely dominant over manual workers.

[Havet]

I was talking about the article in context of Technocracy's general arguments. The article doesn't make it entirely clear, though it certainly eludes to it, but Technocrats propose that people be issued with Energy Credits that they "spend" on the goods and services they want and this is used as a means of tracking demand for different goods and services. They then propose a "technate" sorts through this data and finds the most efficient means of producing what is demanded.

The problem is of course this is an economic concern, not a concern of the "hard" sciences. Therefore requesting "technicians" do it is like asking a brain surgeon to check the structural integrity of a building. She might be very good at what she does, but that doesn't mean she is automatically qualified to do anything.

I really don't think people advocating this have properly thought through what calculating all this would mean anyway. I asked a technocrat once how the technate would calculate how to assign resources in the most efficient way and was told it would be done through "careful calculation". I asked what these calculations would be and he was completely stumped. I rather got the impression that he had been thinking along "science can do all sorts of cool shit" lines, rather than looking at practicalities.

Those are certainly important worries. I never even heard of Energy Credits until now. I don't know if this can be of relevance to the topic, but have you checked my Cincinnati Time Store Thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/heard-cincinnati-time-t132444/index.html?t=132444)? It offers alternative currency, with records of increased efficiency.


Production should become more automated, when it can yes. But that is a long way from what the Technocrats are dreaming of. Automation increased by an incredible amount during the twentieth century, but people still work long hours. That is because of course that capitalism requires the rewards of increased productivity almost always be taken as a consumption increase than a leisure increase (which I might add shows that Capitalism fails to meet peoples desires as most report they would prefer at least some increase in leisure). I have argued very forcibly that we should seek to take some of our reward for increasing productivity in the form of increased leisure but that also means acknowledging a trade off.

Technocrats seem to dream of far more goods and services and far less working hours. You can't have both. In the short run you might be able to make sufficient efficiency savings so as to increase both leisure and consumption and over time you could continue to distribute further gains in productivity between leisure and consumption-as I believe we should. However that means the amount we can consume will increase at a lower rate than it would if we continued to work the hours we do now. We have to acknowledge that sometimes we can't just have the best of all worlds.

I agree; we should always be as realistic as possible. I agree with pretty much all your post, thanks for the input!

[Skooma Addict]

Anarcho-technocracy is the theory of Direct Action on Things. It is anarchist, inasmuch as it states that all government over men must be replaced by the administration of things; it is technocratic, in that it contends this administration can be encompassed, in this era of increasing technological complexity, only by the technicians. It comprises the other political theories, which in reality, if not avowedly, all have the same end in view. In particular, it comprises and furthers democracy, our own brand of political theory.

Democracy is not the rule of the majority of the people over a minority, which inevitably becomes the rule of a minority over the majority, a rule over the people; it is not self-government, the rule of the people over the people, which is a physical impossibility -- it is the rule of all the people, over something else, something other than and outside the people.


I don't understand the first paragraph. What is "the administration of things" that is "managed by technicians." This certainly does not seem anarchist to me in any way.

The second paragraph is just flat out wrong. Democracy, to the extent that its participants to not participate voluntarily is indeed the rule of the majority over the minority.



Democracy can't see this role it plays. All it can see, at its best, is full human power. But that power is blind, misdirected -- it is expressed indiscriminately on both men and things. It needs the insight of anarchism, a later development in political thought, which realises that no political power should be imposed on men... Democracy in lifting the people to power makes the people free. Democracy merges then into anarchy, the demand for full human freedom. The democrat, to the extent that he carries his theory to its conclusions, is, and must be an anarchist. Freedom and power are not mutually opposed -- they are identical. Freedom is power. Moreover this real power must take a form which they both dread -- that is dictatorship. We hate dictatorship. But that is only because all dictatorships we have known have been tyrannies over men, over us. It is the height of folly to oppose dictatorship, when we are the dictators, when it is our dictatorship -- and when it is imposed only on things. We can be a ruthless, arbitrary and as autocratic as we like -- with this subject "class." What is needed, as contradictory as the terms may seem, is a fully human, a democratic dictatorship. One that does not impose its power on any human being whatsoever -- an Anarchist Dictatorship. Anarchism, not realising how closely bound it is to democracy, thinks it must oppose any sort of power, but in actuality it seeks it. It found it, in the workers -- in syndicalism. And so we had the programme, Anarcho-syndicalism. But since then technology has transformed work and the workers out of all recognition. Machines are "the workers" to-day. We are all keeping machines out of jobs. And the only effective human personnel, the key personnel, are the scientists -- the technicians. We might know an axe, or a hammer, or sickle; but we wouldn't know the components of the uranium atom if we saw them. We can't see them -- they are concepts of physics, mathematics.

Machines need no wages. Moreover, they need no bureaucracy -- no manpowers, police, clerks, snivel servants -- to drive them to work. The technicians abolish the State, as we know it, simply by abolishing us -- as slaves.

We dread the technicians as a new ruling class. But we do not need to be the new ruled class. We must resist them, and the regrettable fact is that we may have to, for the technician, in common with most of the rest of us, is conditioned to accept some form of control over human beings as necessary in any regime. But in that conditioning he ceases to be a technician in the strict sense of the word. We must strengthen his own innate interest and theory, as a technician, in things, so that he will control things exclusively. But the trouble is we tend to despise his interests and values. It is the fashion to sneer at productivity. But what greater value is there? The man who can make a pot, or grow a turnip, or open an atom, is worth more than all the priests, all the politicians, all the psychologists who ever existed. This holds despite all the falsifications of the last 50,000 years. Productivity will hold as a value as long as man lasts. It will be superseded only when man becomes more than man, when he is superman; when it is succeeded in our scale of values by creativity. But the politicians, and their idiot apes, the Lawrences, Aldous Huxleys, Mumfords, Toynbees -- all our "thinkers" sneer at scientific production. The only sphere in which productivity reigns is that wherein it is not needed -- in the mass production, in the reproduction of humankind. Well, the technician counts that out, too. He doesn't need large populations to do his bidding. And we don't. We want a small society -- one of quality, not quantity, in which every human being can be powerful and free. We need a small society, as Greek society was small. And like the Greeks we need slaves, a vast politically subject "class" to rule. We have this in things, in the forces of organised matter, in the machines.

The engineers must rule. Who else could rule in a machine age -- the Golden Philosopher King? All the political philosophies from Plato to Marx must be shot on to the scrap heap. We tend to think of technocracy as a crank cult of the thirties. This is tragic stupidity. A decade or two is nothing in the march of events. And there have never been enough cranks in the world.

Of course, in adopting technocracy, in adapting it to our needs we must dissociate it from its present advocates. Its original theory is weak. And in practice it has gone the way of all human organisations. It has swung into line behind American nationalism. It would organise the material resources of the North American continent, and not a global abundance.

I don't like it when people write like this. They attempt to make an argument and a motivational speech at once, and then the whole thing becomes too difficult to follow. As far as I understand them, I see no reason whatsoever for believing that the dreams of a technocrat would be established in an anarchist society. This is especially true for the ones who believe in replacing the markets price system (which is completely natural) with some form of energy accounting (which is not natural and would require a government to implement).

[Demogorgon]

Those are certainly important worries. I never even heard of Energy Credits until now. I don't know if this can be of relevance to the topic, but have you checked my Cincinnati Time Store Thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/heard-cincinnati-time-t132444/index.html?t=132444)? It offers alternative currency, with records of increased efficiency.

I know about the Cincinnati Time Store, but it isn't really relevat here. The point is the energy credits which are part of the system of "Energy Accounting" at the core of Technocracy. As I said earlier I do not believe it has merit owing to the fact that energy is not a valid means of calculating this kind of activity.

[Havet]

What is your point? I'm not saying that everyone should know everything.

I'm saying that, in each given industry, the people who work there can have a level of expertise and skill pertaining to the work that goes on there sufficient to be roughly equal to the skill and expertise of others, at least to the point that they have enough expertise and skill that they can participate meaningfully in decisions about organization and planning and products and so on.

So the people work in a hospital can be educated, say, to the level of para-medicals at least, or have some area of expertise in regard to some other aspect of the work that is done there, and so on through the various industries. But this does not require that the skill and expertise of everyone in different industries is the same or even that in a particular industry everyone's skill and expertise is the same because it might be about a different area.

Ok, I think I can agree with most of this.


Now, in regard to how markets work as a transmission belt of class oppression. If you have competing collectives in a market, all dependent on the capacities they can marshall in the market, people who already have concentrated expertise, credentials, management experience, marketing savvy etc will have particularly important skills for the success of the firm and can use this as a lever to obtain higher perks, including control over aspects of decision-making as well as higher remuneration.

Yes


Firms lacking these forms of expertise would tend to be defeated in competition, so this gives those who have such expertise and "human capital" a means to obtain a dominant position.

Yes; however, that dominant position is not eternal, nor does it rely on force. Lack of artificial restrictions will enable others with new forms of expertise to also emerge and outcompete. At some point some sort of equilibrium will be reached between the different competing businesses in a given market, but such equilibrium is not final given that there is no use of force in restricting the barrier to entry to a market, or enforcing a monopoly position.


To see this in practice consider the Mondragon cooperatives or the old Yugoslav market self-management. In both kinds of firms the managers and high end professionals were entirely dominant over manual workers.

So here are my questions:

- How is the result of self-management firms in a capitalist society representative of the result of self-management firms in a non-capitalist society?
- What is the problem with having high-end professionals instead of manual workers, if those professionals are more productive and efficient, thus saving costs and time, than manual workers?

[Technocrat]

I believe this is the Technocracy group that Dimentio is a part of, whereas Technocrat seems to hold a different position that, IMO, isn't quite as agreeable.

If you would state your objections clearly I could address them.

[Technocrat]

This is especially true for the ones who believe in replacing the markets price system (which is completely natural) with some form of energy accounting (which is not natural and would require a government to implement).

Ridiculous. The market system is no more natural than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior that has existed for thousands of years. In fact, people lived without markets for 99% of their history on this planet.

[Technocrat]

The problem is of course this is an economic concern, not a concern of the "hard" sciences. Therefore requesting "technicians" do it is like asking a brain surgeon to check the structural integrity of a building. She might be very good at what she does, but that doesn't mean she is automatically qualified to do anything.

People lived without economists for 99% of their history on earth. Economists are not necessary.


I really don't think people advocating this have properly thought through what calculating all this would mean anyway. I asked a technocrat once how the technate would calculate how to assign resources in the most efficient way and was told it would be done through "careful calculation". I asked what these calculations would be and he was completely stumped. I rather got the impression that he had been thinking along "science can do all sorts of cool shit" lines, rather than looking at practicalities.

Maybe you just didn't understand his explanation. Do you know that industries frequently do these kinds of calculations already? It's called total-systems planning or optimization and they do it with computer models and a variety of other methods. It's as simple as comparing plans A, B and C and seeing which one produces the best results for a given set of goals. Technocracy would actually make things far less complex than they are now by taking money out of the equation.


Production should become more automated, when it can yes. But that is a long way from what the Technocrats are dreaming of. Automation increased by an incredible amount during the twentieth century, but people still work long hours. That is because of course that capitalism requires the rewards of increased productivity almost always be taken as a consumption increase than a leisure increase (which I might add shows that Capitalism fails to meet peoples desires as most report they would prefer at least some increase in leisure). I have argued very forcibly that we should seek to take some of our reward for increasing productivity in the form of increased leisure but that also means acknowledging a trade off.

A work week of 10 hours would not be unreasonable if we eliminated all of the unnecessary work that people are now engaged in as a result of the price system (because they have to sell their labor).


Technocrats seem to dream of far more goods and services and far less working hours. You can't have both. In the short run you might be able to make sufficient efficiency savings so as to increase both leisure and consumption and over time you could continue to distribute further gains in productivity between leisure and consumption-as I believe we should. However that means the amount we can consume will increase at a lower rate than it would if we continued to work the hours we do now. We have to acknowledge that sometimes we can't just have the best of all worlds.

Of course you can have more goods and services with less working hours. That's what happens every time automation and production technology improves.

[Skooma Addict]

Ridiculous. The market system is no more natural than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior that has existed for thousands of years. In fact, people lived without markets for 99% of their history on this planet.

Markets arise completely naturally through interacting individuals pursuing their own self interest. If you accept trade as being natural (which it is, as the division of labor benefits everyone), and you believe in the regression theorem of money (which is theoretically solid and has a tremendous amount of empirical evidence to support it), then you will conclude that the markets price system is natural. It was not implemented by some central authority.

Any kind of widespread energy accounting system would in fact require a central authority to implement.

[anticap]

This is especially true for the ones who believe in replacing the markets price system (which is completely natural) with some form of energy accounting (which is not natural and would require a government to implement).
Ridiculous. The market system is no more natural than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior that has existed for thousands of years. In fact, people lived without markets for 99% of their history on this planet.

:thumbup1:

To quote someone from practically the polar opposite camp of a technocrat (I believe he's something of a primitivist, or close enough):


If you want a tight definition, natural means in symbiosis with nature, and nature means the totality of symbiotic life on Earth, and symbiotic means related in ways that are mutually beneficial and beneficial to the whole, where wider benefit takes precedence. Defining "beneficial" pushes the limits of our impoverished language, but I'm going to say generating autonomous and diverse aliveness. And if you don't know what aliveness means, look harder.

I dare say that our friend Olaf the Misesite, or any of his comrades, would have a hard time reconciling "markets" (which, as we all know, is simply code for capitalism, used by pro-capitalists who are eager to distance themselves from it, lest they be pressed to defend it and all its horrors) with that definition of "natural."


the division of labor benefits everyone

This chestnut raises my ire perhaps more than any other, as it has led to more misery than one could ever quantify, and to more death than any regime or ideology one can name, no matter how they far they inflate the numbers.

[Skooma Addict]

This chestnut raises my ire perhaps more than any other, as it has led to more misery than one could ever quantify, and to more death than any regime or ideology one can name, however they might inflate their numbers.


Wait, so you don't think the division of labor benefits everyone? Socialists are against the division of labor?

[Jazzratt]

EDIT: I will only reply in defense of what I call "mutualist technocracy", the belief that technicians will be in charge of repairing and improving the machines society depends upon, with free access to acquire such knowledge (as in no artificial monopolies or restrictions except those of natural supply and demand) and likely democratic decision between technicians, in a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.

Trying to ham-fistedly weld the ideas of mutualism onto technocracy is utterly insane. There are very few absolute fundamentals to technocracy but one of them is the complete rejection of price systems - therefore markets and trade of any kind are right out. That's why energy accounting exists, as an alternative to market exchanges.

I'm not overly interested in getting sucked into yet another discussion on technocracy itself, because trying to wade through demomorons pig-ignorant bollocks saps my will to live but I'm mordbidily fascinated as to why you thought the free-market had anything to do with a distributive system like technocracy.

[Technocrat]

Markets arise completely naturally through interacting individuals pursuing their own self interest. If you accept trade as being natural (which it is, as the division of labor benefits everyone), and you believe in the regression theorem of money (which is theoretically solid and has a tremendous amount of empirical evidence to support it), then you will conclude that the markets price system is natural. It was not implemented by some central authority.

Any kind of widespread energy accounting system would in fact require a central authority to implement.

I didn't say the price system wasn't "natural", what I said was that it isn't any more natural than any other social system which humans have used throughout history.

You are drawing false conclusions. Just because we have a price system today does not make it any more "natural" than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior. Markets have existed for less than 10,000 years while humans have existed for more than 250,000 - do the math.

And division of labor doesn't necessarily imply a market system as you seem to suggest.

[Skooma Addict]

You are drawing false conclusions. Just because we have a price system today does not make it any more "natural" than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior. Markets have existed for less than 10,000 years while humans have existed for more than 250,000 - do the math.

The markets price system emerges when a marketable commodity begins to be used as a means of indirect exchange. This process will occur after barter has taken hold on a society, as it has in almost every society throughout the world. It is not a culturally conditioned as it emerged spontaneously in every corner of the globe.

And the fact that humans have existed for a longer period of time than markets proves nothing. Has agriculture existed for 250,000 thousand years?

Edit: I just realized I missed part of your post.


I didn't say the price system wasn't "natural", what I said was that it isn't any more natural than any other social system which humans have used throughout history.

Ok, it emerged spontaneously, how about that. I hate arguments over whether or not something is "natural" or not since the term is sort of vague. I could claim that murder is natural after all.


And division of labor doesn't necessarily imply a market system as you seem to suggest.

Even though I think your proposals would result in the disintegration of the division of labor, I accept (and hope) that you can at least want to maintain the division of labor.

[syndicat]

- How is the result of self-management firms in a capitalist society representative of the result of self-management firms in a non-capitalist society?
- What is the problem with having high-end professionals instead of manual workers, if those professionals are more productive and efficient, thus saving costs and time, than manual workers?

An authentic socialism would be an arrangement where there is collective self-management by workers but it would not be a market-governed society and would require a massive change in the educational system to focus especially on an enriched education for working class kids and a massive adult education program to democratize expertise and develop skills broadly within the working class. Thus we don't leave it to chance or what is inherited from class society what the distribution of "human capital" is. we consciously work to ensure that each worker has the skill and expertise to participate effectively in decision-making.

This imposes a certain cost on the economy as a whole because education is a public good. In this respect it's like social provision of free health care for everyone. In each it is a requirement of justice because it is a requirement of positive freedom, which includes the development and sustaining of one's abilities.

The problem with the capitalist division of labor, that tends to concentrate expertise and decision-making into the hands of the few is that it is both unjust because a denial of positive freedom and leads to class oppression but is also inefficient because a failure to develop the potential of the working class is a form of waste.

The concentration of decision-making authority and expertise into a bureaucratic class does not happen because it is more efficient. It happens because it's a management technique in the class war, it 's about power, a way to control labor, and also a way to reduce costs by reducing as many jobs to as little skill as feasible. A large part of the role of the bureaucratic class is a kind of police role, keeping workers under control and working as hard as possible. In reality this is bureaucratic bloat. It's a form of inefficiency as well as injustice.

Within capitalism efficiency only has an effect on firms to the degree it affects expenses or revenue. If firms can force workers to work harder but pay them the same, they make more profits. The increased human cost to the workers doesn't enter the capitalist balance sheet because it's not a cost the firm pays.

[Che a chara]

I don't see why some aspects of technocracy wouldn't work in the future, but only in certain fields should such a system be implemented (fields of technological advance and maybe health and safety and social care). And those who are willing to involve themselves in this must be willing to understand that it works near from the top down and also limits the worker to that one particular field as opposed to Marx's vision of hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon and criticising after dinner etc...

[Dimentio]

There seem to be a lot of folks out here who are suspicious of the technocratic movement and its main ideas. I saw a website which explains Anarcho-technocracy pretty well, and I hope to clear some doubts by posting this. I pretty much agree with what's being said here, and I look forward discussing what will be posted below.

Bolded parts are high-lighted for an easier read. Enjoy.

Anarcho-technocracy is the theory of Direct Action on Things. It is anarchist, inasmuch as it states that all government over men must be replaced by the administration of things; it is technocratic, in that it contends this administration can be encompassed, in this era of increasing technological complexity, only by the technicians. It comprises the other political theories, which in reality, if not avowedly, all have the same end in view. In particular, it comprises and furthers democracy, our own brand of political theory.

Democracy is not the rule of the majority of the people over a minority, which inevitably becomes the rule of a minority over the majority, a rule over the people; it is not self-government, the rule of the people over the people, which is a physical impossibility -- it is the rule of all the people, over something else, something other than and outside the people.

There is only one thing outside the people to be ruled -- that is their material environment, that part of that environment transformed in industry, the machines. Democracy becomes inevitably Industrial democracy. In doing this it transforms political terms, methods, institutions. It transforms politics itself -- from politics, which is a matter of the government of men, into technics, which is a matter of the Government of Things.

---

Now below you will find a very peculiar and interesting explanation of what was anounced above:

---

Democracy can't see this role it plays. All it can see, at its best, is full human power. But that power is blind, misdirected -- it is expressed indiscriminately on both men and things. It needs the insight of anarchism, a later development in political thought, which realises that no political power should be imposed on men... Democracy in lifting the people to power makes the people free. Democracy merges then into anarchy, the demand for full human freedom. The democrat, to the extent that he carries his theory to its conclusions, is, and must be an anarchist. Freedom and power are not mutually opposed -- they are identical. Freedom is power. Moreover this real power must take a form which they both dread -- that is dictatorship. We hate dictatorship. But that is only because all dictatorships we have known have been tyrannies over men, over us. It is the height of folly to oppose dictatorship, when we are the dictators, when it is our dictatorship -- and when it is imposed only on things. We can be a ruthless, arbitrary and as autocratic as we like -- with this subject "class." What is needed, as contradictory as the terms may seem, is a fully human, a democratic dictatorship. One that does not impose its power on any human being whatsoever -- an Anarchist Dictatorship. Anarchism, not realising how closely bound it is to democracy, thinks it must oppose any sort of power, but in actuality it seeks it. It found it, in the workers -- in syndicalism. And so we had the programme, Anarcho-syndicalism. But since then technology has transformed work and the workers out of all recognition. Machines are "the workers" to-day. We are all keeping machines out of jobs. And the only effective human personnel, the key personnel, are the scientists -- the technicians. We might know an axe, or a hammer, or sickle; but we wouldn't know the components of the uranium atom if we saw them. We can't see them -- they are concepts of physics, mathematics.

Machines need no wages. Moreover, they need no bureaucracy -- no manpowers, police, clerks, snivel servants -- to drive them to work. The technicians abolish the State, as we know it, simply by abolishing us -- as slaves.

We dread the technicians as a new ruling class. But we do not need to be the new ruled class. We must resist them, and the regrettable fact is that we may have to, for the technician, in common with most of the rest of us, is conditioned to accept some form of control over human beings as necessary in any regime. But in that conditioning he ceases to be a technician in the strict sense of the word. We must strengthen his own innate interest and theory, as a technician, in things, so that he will control things exclusively. But the trouble is we tend to despise his interests and values. It is the fashion to sneer at productivity. But what greater value is there? The man who can make a pot, or grow a turnip, or open an atom, is worth more than all the priests, all the politicians, all the psychologists who ever existed. This holds despite all the falsifications of the last 50,000 years. Productivity will hold as a value as long as man lasts. It will be superseded only when man becomes more than man, when he is superman; when it is succeeded in our scale of values by creativity. But the politicians, and their idiot apes, the Lawrences, Aldous Huxleys, Mumfords, Toynbees -- all our "thinkers" sneer at scientific production. The only sphere in which productivity reigns is that wherein it is not needed -- in the mass production, in the reproduction of humankind. Well, the technician counts that out, too. He doesn't need large populations to do his bidding. And we don't. We want a small society -- one of quality, not quantity, in which every human being can be powerful and free. We need a small society, as Greek society was small. And like the Greeks we need slaves, a vast politically subject "class" to rule. We have this in things, in the forces of organised matter, in the machines.

The engineers must rule. Who else could rule in a machine age -- the Golden Philosopher King? All the political philosophies from Plato to Marx must be shot on to the scrap heap. We tend to think of technocracy as a crank cult of the thirties. This is tragic stupidity. A decade or two is nothing in the march of events. And there have never been enough cranks in the world.

Of course, in adopting technocracy, in adapting it to our needs we must dissociate it from its present advocates. Its original theory is weak. And in practice it has gone the way of all human organisations. It has swung into line behind American nationalism. It would organise the material resources of the North American continent, and not a global abundance.

Source: Technocracy.net: The Politics of Things (http://en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=137)

Thoughts?

EDIT: I will only reply in defense of what I call "mutualist technocracy", the belief that technicians will be in charge of repairing and improving the machines society depends upon, with free access to acquire such knowledge (as in no artificial monopolies or restrictions except those of natural supply and demand) and likely democratic decision between technicians, in a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free-market.

Technocracy of the European variety has some similarities with mutualism, given that the technate is divided in autonomous holons. The difference is of course that there ain't no money inside the technate, it is working according to energy accounting instead.

Not to be an arrogant, condescending prick. The technocratic movements in existence today are widely different from one another, but I have never heard of any form of technocratic movement which is advocating free-market mutualism. If you think there should exist one, go on and invent one. But don't claim such schools exist.

[Demogorgon]

People lived without economists for 99% of their history on earth. Economists are not necessary.

They've lived without technicians for much the same amount of time. You are not being very convincing here.


Maybe you just didn't understand his explanation. Do you know that industries frequently do these kinds of calculations already? It's called total-systems planning or optimization and they do it with computer models and a variety of other methods. It's as simple as comparing plans A, B and C and seeing which one produces the best results for a given set of goals. Technocracy would actually make things far less complex than they are now by taking money out of the equation.

The calculations a firm is making are primarily economic in character. You seem to be living in a world where everything is much simpler than it is. Calculating the the technical side of resource allocation is only part of a much larger economic planning process.

As an aside incidentally, as firms become larger, they also become more wasteful, so your argument that we could graft this onto an even larger scale and become more efficient is again, not very convincing.


A work week of 10 hours would not be unreasonable if we eliminated all of the unnecessary work that people are now engaged in as a result of the price system (because they have to sell their labor).

Presuming that people work an average forty hour week, you are saying that around 75% of all work done is unnecessary. Prove it.

List the most major examples of unnecessary work and we can see if you are right.


Of course you can have more goods and services with less working hours. That's what happens every time automation and production technology improves.
No it doesn't. As I stated, what usually happens is that both goods produced and hours worked increase. If you want to take some of the productivity bonus in the form of increased leisure, you will have to sacrifice some of the increased goods.

[Dimentio]

They've lived without technicians for much the same amount of time. You are not being very convincing here.

The calculations a firm is making are primarily economic in character. You seem to be living in a world where everything is much simpler than it is. Calculating the the technical side of resource allocation is only part of a much larger economic planning process.

As an aside incidentally, as firms become larger, they also become more wasteful, so your argument that we could graft this onto an even larger scale and become more efficient is again, not very convincing.

Presuming that people work an average forty hour week, you are saying that around 75% of all work done is unnecessary. Prove it.

List the most major examples of unnecessary work and we can see if you are right.

No it doesn't. As I stated, what usually happens is that both goods produced and hours worked increase. If you want to take some of the productivity bonus in the form of increased leisure, you will have to sacrifice some of the increased goods.

The Wuppertal institute did a study in 1990, discussing the economic capacity of the then EC territory. They reached the conclusion that the production could be halved while the life standards could be doubled, which is an indication that 75% of all human labour (at least in developed countries) is unnecessary and could be phased out. The study was called "Factor Four".

http://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/concepts/12-f4.html

[Demogorgon]

The Wuppertal institute did a study in 1990, discussing the economic capacity of the then EC territory. They reached the conclusion that the production could be halved while the life standards could be doubled, which is an indication that 75% of all human labour (at least in developed countries) is unnecessary and could be phased out. The study was called "Factor Four".

http://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/concepts/12-f4.html
From what I can see it looks like an argument that wasting less resources can achieve the goal in question. Which is fair enough, but the trouble is, these studies always underestimate the logistics of doing so and always overestimate (often by a great deal) the benefits. Until it is possible to see some direct evidence that this kind of improvement is feasible, I have to remain sceptical.

ANyway, what I really want is some concrete examples. That is an explanation of what jobs are unnecessary.

[Dimentio]

From what I can see it looks like an argument that wasting less resources can achieve the goal in question. Which is fair enough, but the trouble is, these studies always underestimate the logistics of doing so and always overestimate (often by a great deal) the benefits. Until it is possible to see some direct evidence that this kind of improvement is feasible, I have to remain sceptical.

ANyway, what I really want is some concrete examples. That is an explanation of what jobs are unnecessary.

I am in agreement that concrete examples are needed. Technocracy is entirely untested and we don't know what by-effects it would yieled. Hence, we in the European movement are advocating field testing before the actual "switch". That's why we want to establish a proto-technate before establishing the real thing.

[Demogorgon]

I am in agreement that concrete examples are needed. Technocracy is entirely untested and we don't know what by-effects it would yieled. Hence, we in the European movement are advocating field testing before the actual "switch". That's why we want to establish a proto-technate before establishing the real thing.
That is perfectly reasonable, but you should still have some notion going into the test of exactly what you will do. To ignore Technocrat's musings for a moment, what jobs do you think can or will be eliminated?

[Havet]

Trying to ham-fistedly weld the ideas of mutualism onto technocracy is utterly insane. There are very few absolute fundamentals to technocracy but one of them is the complete rejection of price systems - therefore markets and trade of any kind are right out. That's why energy accounting exists, as an alternative to market exchanges.

When I speak of price, it doesnt necessarily imply dollars or gold or any other commodity. It can be labor (http://www.revleft.com/vb/heard-cincinnati-time-t132444/index.html). And you cannot reject trade:


Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both.

Even in a commune, there is trade occuring. Workers exchange their labor, collectively, for a good or service, according to need. Trade can only disapear when tyranny and oppression become the norm.


I'm not overly interested in getting sucked into yet another discussion on technocracy itself, because trying to wade through demomorons pig-ignorant bollocks saps my will to live

Could you show me some of your previous discussions with him, regarding this topic? I'm interested in looking at them.

[Havet]

Not to be an arrogant, condescending prick. The technocratic movements in existence today are widely different from one another, but I have never heard of any form of technocratic movement which is advocating free-market mutualism. If you think there should exist one, go on and invent one. But don't claim such schools exist.

Oh sure, I did not claim that such school exist. I was probably the first human being on history to use the term. I have also never heard of a technocratic movement advocating free-market mutualism. My disclaimer was directed towards those who would attack technocratic arguments, and I was hoping I could adress those arguments from a different angle. That's all.

[RGacky3]

Even in a commune, there is trade occuring. Workers exchange their labor, collectively, for a good or service, according to need. Trade can only disapear when tyranny and oppression become the norm.

Thats not the way it works.

Lets say you live with a bunch of other people in a house as roommates, say 5 people, people do different things, sometimes one guy with do the dishes, and sometimes someone else will, things get done based on waht needs to get done who can do it and what everyone consideres fair, its not an exachange based situation, and that is under capitalism, where all of them pay rent and work for a wage.

From each according to his ability to each according to his need is not trade its a whole new system, that is ultimately what we are aiming for.

As far as technocracy itself, its a waste of time in my opinion, it suffers from the same problems utopian socailists suffered in the pre Marx time, they were trying to engineer societies, which is impossible and counter productive.

[Jazzratt]

When I speak of price, it doesnt necessarily imply dollars or gold or any other commodity. It can be labor (http://www.revleft.com/vb/heard-cincinnati-time-t132444/index.html).
Right but price systems, no matter the currency [i.e no matter if they are capitalist or "socialist" in nature], are inefficient and give rise to inequality. That is, again, why technocracy has EA and other logically based resource distribution systems.



And you cannot reject trade:



Even in a commune, there is trade occuring. Workers exchange their labor, collectively, for a good or service, according to need.
Perhaps I misworded myself then for it does oppose the large scale trade of goods for profits. For example you could probably babysit for a friend in exchange for whatever and that level of trade would be acceptable. If you set up a business where you provided such a service in order to hoard resources (which is eventually the aim of all profit) then that would be less acceptable.


Trade can only disapear when tyranny and oppression become the norm.
Always good to end on a rhetorical flourish like that. Are you going to back that argument up with a choice Rand quote again?



Could you show me some of your previous discussions with him, regarding this topic? I'm interested in looking at them.
I haven't been in one for ages, so finding one would involve rooting back through the raw sewage of the OI archives. However there have been a couple of recent discussions here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/defence-technocracy-t132613/index.html) and here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/technocracy-and-communism-t130829/index.html?t=130829) that I didn't really post in but which went into great detail of both criticisms and defenses of technocracy. Demomoron can't help but post the same "technocracy is science fiction" dross that he always comes out with, I suspect it's a compulsive thing.

[Havet]

Thats not the way it works.

Lets say you live with a bunch of other people in a house as roommates, say 5 people, people do different things, sometimes one guy with do the dishes, and sometimes someone else will, things get done based on waht needs to get done who can do it and what everyone consideres fair, its not an exachange based situation, and that is under capitalism, where all of them pay rent and work for a wage.

That is a house example, and we were talking of the means of production


From each according to his ability to each according to his need is not trade its a whole new system, that is ultimately what we are aiming for.

It is trade: I contribute to the commune according to my ability, I receive the benefits according to my need.


As far as technocracy itself, its a waste of time in my opinion, it suffers from the same problems utopian socailists suffered in the pre Marx time, they were trying to engineer societies, which is impossible and counter productive.

Is democracy, by any chance, not a form of social engineering?

[Havet]

Right but price systems, no matter the currency [i.e no matter if they are capitalist or "socialist" in nature], are inefficient and give rise to inequality. That is, again, why technocracy has EA and other logically based resource distribution systems.

"Capitalist" price systems are indeed inefficient and give rise to inequality. Do you have empirical proof that "socialist" price systems give rise to inequality? Because I have proof of the exact opposite.


Perhaps I misworded myself then for it does oppose the large scale trade of goods for profits. For example you could probably babysit for a friend in exchange for whatever and that level of trade would be acceptable. If you set up a business where you provided such a service in order to hoard resources (which is eventually the aim of all profit) then that would be less acceptable.

How is the aim of all profit to hoard resources?


Always good to end on a rhetorical flourish like that. Are you going to back that argument up with a choice Rand quote again?

Just look at a history book. Humans have been around for roughly 300,000 years, and trade has only really intensified in the last 10,000 years. Do you think we have done better in the last 290,000 years than in the last 10,000 years?

[Skooma Addict]

Also, as a piece of honest advice, you guys really need to come up with a name other than "Technocracy."

[Havet]

Also, as a piece of honest advice, you guys really need to come up with a name other than "Technocracy."

Why? Have you been listening too much techno, lately?

[Skooma Addict]

Lol, nah, I am not a techno fan. It is just that "Technocracy" sounds like you guys want us all to be like the robots from the Terminator series or something like that. Idk, I can't help but chuckle when I hear the term.

[RGacky3]

That is a house example, and we were talking of the means of production

I understand, but its the principle, unfortunately the house example is the only one most people can relate to because almost everything nowerdays is market based, I could go back to native American tribes, I could go back to tribal villages, I could go to collectives and the such, but I use the house example because everyone can relate to that. The point is that exchange based economics is not the only way.


It is trade: I contribute to the commune according to my ability, I receive the benefits according to my need.


Its not trade because what you recieve is not based on what you contribute.


Is democracy, by any chance, not a form of social engineering?

Not in the sense I was talking about. Its a natural process. What I ment was trying to design an actual system, in other words like the utopians did, and the way technocrats do, rather than base things on principles and fight for those.

[Demogorgon]

Demomoron can't help but post the same "technocracy is science fiction" dross that he always comes out with, I suspect it's a compulsive thing.
Largely because what you are going for is. The sort of thing I see suggested is based on a view of science that simply isn't accurate. Basically a view that qualification in one scientific discipline makes one qualified to do all sorts of things. When I read some of this stuff I think of the kind of thing you get in "soft" science fiction where science is passed off as being able to do things more akin to magic than actual science.

If I am wrong, then naturally you will be able to provide evidence, a proper detailed explanation of how a certain form of science can be reapplied to economic activity along with detailed projections of the results thereof. Such a thing would ideally be produced by somebody knowledgeable in the field of science they propose to apply to economic activity and also be reasonably knowledgeable about what they propose to apply it to.

If that can be presented I will naturally reevaluate my views. Thus far I have been disappointed however and have been offered frankly laughable suggestions like energy can be used a s a reasonable means of calculating and tracking economic activity.

Anybody can say it would be nice if something would work. It is another thing entirely to suggest something that actually will work.

[Demogorgon]

Lol, nah, I am not a techno fan. It is just that "Technocracy" sounds like you guys want us all to be like the robots from the Terminator series or something like that. Idk, I can't help but chuckle when I hear the term.
Well actually what it reminds me of is Government by non-political bureaucrats. That is the normal meaning of the term anyway. You often here of "technocratic government" such as the one in Italy in the early nineties that was put in place to re-write Italian electoral law after the crisis there.

I have to say giving your movement a name that commonly refers to something else probably isn't that good an idea.

[Havet]

I understand, but its the principle, unfortunately the house example is the only one most people can relate to because almost everything nowerdays is market based, I could go back to native American tribes, I could go back to tribal villages, I could go to collectives and the such, but I use the house example because everyone can relate to that. The point is that exchange based economics is not the only way.
OK


Its not trade because what you recieve is not based on what you contribute.

*sigh*... Let me repeat the definition of trade once more:

"Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both."

IF the definition of trade were: "Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both, wherein parties receive based on contribution." then you would be correct. But that is not the definition. So deal with it.


Not in the sense I was talking about. Its a natural process. What I ment was trying to design an actual system, in other words like the utopians did, and the way technocrats do, rather than base things on principles and fight for those.

Calling something "natural" is a vague excuse of an argument. So drop it.

Technocracy is also based on principles; reread the OP and you will find them.

[Dimentio]

That is perfectly reasonable, but you should still have some notion going into the test of exactly what you will do. To ignore Technocrat's musings for a moment, what jobs do you think can or will be eliminated?

I believe that in long-term, most industrial floor-jobs would be phased out, no matter what. I am also in the belief that the service sector also will experience automatisation in the future. For us though, it is not so much about abolishing work as about abolishing waste. It is a complete waste for example with two supermarkets close to one another. Or with two cell-phone companies which have two different teams of engineers putting the same games in their software.

We think more in terms of minimisation than abolishing work really. We cannot know when, but we know we will reach a point where machines could replace most of the more monotonous and labour-intensive jobs.

[Dimentio]

About trade. It is virtually impossible to trade in a technate, due to the fact that you cannot trade production capacity which you have allocated. If a shoe factory has the capacity to produce 50 000 shoes in one month and 70 000 in the next month, it cannot at any single point produce 120 000 shoes unless it is expanded.

Energy credits cannot be saved over a consumption period. Neither could they be hoarded, exchanged or subjected to inflation or deflation. They only represent production capacity, not "value".

[Dermezel]

I notice the people in the Workers' States- China, Cuba, North Korea- are all for technology, whereas the bourgeoisie have developed an extremely mystical, pseudo-scientific culture.

Scientific Socialists are Pro-Science. Hence the Goddamn phrase.

[Havet]

About trade. It is virtually impossible to trade in a technate, due to the fact that you cannot trade production capacity which you have allocated. If a shoe factory has the capacity to produce 50 000 shoes in one month and 70 000 in the next month, it cannot at any single point produce 120 000 shoes unless it is expanded.

Energy credits cannot be saved over a consumption period. Neither could they be hoarded, exchanged or subjected to inflation or deflation. They only represent production capacity, not "value".

Ahem, please take the time to study and understand the definition of trade:

"Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both."

I'll be dammed, but aren't workers exchanging their labour for services in a technocratic society? Aren't technicians exchanging their knowledge (intellectual labour) for services in the technocratic commune, even if according to need, not buying power?

[Dermezel]

Ahem, please take the time to study and understand the definition of trade:

"Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both."

I'll be dammed, but aren't workers exchanging their labour for services in a technocratic society? Aren't technicians exchanging their knowledge (intellectual labour) for services in the technocratic commune, even if according to need, not buying power?

Socialist economies are post-trade, meaning based on overall utility instead of exchange-value that is based on labor.

I.e. like the scientist who cured Polio, Jonas Salk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

You are lucky he wasn't greedy and gave his cure out to the world for free. It probably saved your life.

In a post-trade economy we would support research with subsidization and State funding because it leads to an increase in everyone's quality of life.

And researchers would in return release their data for free.

[Havet]

In a post-trade economy we would support research with subsidization and State funding because it leads to an increase in everyone's quality of life.

And researchers would in return release their data for free.

In return = Exchange = trade

[Dermezel]

In return = Exchange = trade

Well you are using a very loose sense of the word trade that goes against what most economists and everyday language means.

Marx for example defined trade as consisting of exchange-value, which is based on labor. Labor is of course an irrational standard of economic value, since it means weird things like sick people have to work harder for medicine. But in capitalism that's what rules the day- wages, wealth, etc- is based on exchange-value and not use value (whether it is their own work earned via wages, or someone else's work that has been expropriated) . That is why no company now at days will give away its medicine for free- that could be of great utility for society but where's the profit?

Socialism can replace such trade with overall utility.

[Havet]

Well you are using a very loose sense of the word trade that goes against what most economists and everyday language means.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:+trade&hl=pt-PT&defl=de&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&sa=X&oi=definel&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CAsQpQMoAA&defl=cs&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=2&defl=ko&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=3&defl=es&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=4&defl=fr&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=5&defl=nl&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=6&defl=en&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade

[Technocrat]

That is perfectly reasonable, but you should still have some notion going into the test of exactly what you will do. To ignore Technocrat's musings for a moment, what jobs do you think can or will be eliminated?

Let's start with the entire financial sector. Then we'll move on to the service sector. Since we have a "service economy" you could say that service jobs account for a great deal of the work being done. These "service jobs" are no more immune to automation than any other job that requires a routine series of steps.

[Technocrat]

The markets price system emerges when a marketable commodity begins to be used as a means of indirect exchange. This process will occur after barter has taken hold on a society, as it has in almost every society throughout the world. It is not a culturally conditioned as it emerged spontaneously in every corner of the globe.

It is culturally conditioned because people aren't born knowing how to use money.


And the fact that humans have existed for a longer period of time than markets proves nothing. Has agriculture existed for 250,000 thousand years?

What is your point? That in order to have agriculture we need a Price System? Are you a capitalist?


Ok, it emerged spontaneously, how about that. I hate arguments over whether or not something is "natural" or not since the term is sort of vague. I could claim that murder is natural after all.

What I said is that the Price System is not any more natural than any other culturally conditioned pattern of behavior. This means that people could function just as well in a non-market system as in a market system. If you think otherwise, you are aligning yourself with free-market libertarians on the conservative right.


Even though I think your proposals would result in the disintegration of the division of labor, I accept (and hope) that you can at least want to maintain the division of labor.

No, I don't propose eliminating the division of labor but I think that material reward shouldn't be contingent on one's work.

[Technocrat]

Largely because what you are going for is. The sort of thing I see suggested is based on a view of science that simply isn't accurate. Basically a view that qualification in one scientific discipline makes one qualified to do all sorts of things.

You are continuously wrong because your interpretation is incorrect. We have tried to point out where your interpretation is incorrect so that you can correct your mistake, but you just cling to this false interpretation so that you can carry on with your pointless arguing. I suspect that you just want to argue for some reason.

Re-posted from another thread, emphasis added:


Originally Posted by Noxion
"Hierarchy is necessary" - I really think this is context-dependant. Arbitrary hierarchy that encompasses the whole of society and is based on wealth or power is demonstrably oppressive and sub-optimal, but hierarchy confined within a certain domain, such as within an Engineering Guild, is justified and useful. The Chief Engineer is the go-to person for a major construction project, but beyond that he has the same amount of power as the rest of us."

[Dermezel]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:+trade&hl=pt-PT&defl=de&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&sa=X&oi=definel&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CAsQpQMoAA&defl=cs&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=2&defl=ko&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=3&defl=es&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=4&defl=fr&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=5&defl=nl&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=6&defl=en&ei=h5LMS5iVNIjb-Qb2vuHuBA&oi=definel&ct=&cd=7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade

From your own sources:
Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_%28economics%29), services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_%28economics%29), or both.


I've already gone over how exchange value= labor. And how labor is an irrational standard of value compared to social utility.

[Havet]

From your own sources:


I've already gone over how exchange value= labor. And how labor is an irrational standard of value compared to social utility.

You're just going back and forth and you're still missing the point.

you used the word "in return", which means exchange. You claimed that exchange is not a common term to describe trade, and I proceeded to show how in most dictionaries exchange IS indeed used to describe trade. You were using the majoritarian argument that if most dictionaries use a term, then that is the term that should be followed. Why then are you switching rethoric and claiming that only Marx's definition is good?

[Dermezel]

You're just going back and forth and you're still missing the point.

you used the word "in return", which means exchange. You claimed that exchange is not a common term to describe trade, and I proceeded to show how in most dictionaries exchange IS indeed used to describe trade. You were using the majoritarian argument that if most dictionaries use a term, then that is the term that should be followed. Why then are you switching rethoric and claiming that only Marx's definition is good?

No, I said your use of the term is not what normal people or economists mean.

By trade people do not usually mean stuff given away for free, or supported by a network of government programs. The government paying someone to do research via tax dollars, and that person then having to give away his research for free would not be considered trade by most people. People do not consider Welfare "trade" even though it has great social utility.

And I didn't change anything. Marx argued that trade implies an "exchange" of labor, which is what most people mean.

[Demogorgon]

Let's start with the entire financial sector. Then we'll move on to the service sector. Since we have a "service economy" you could say that service jobs account for a great deal of the work being done. These "service jobs" are no more immune to automation than any other job that requires a routine series of steps.
Talk me through the service jobs that you think can be automated. I think you will rapidly find that it isn't so easy.

You are continuously wrong because your interpretation is incorrect. We have tried to point out where your interpretation is incorrect so that you can correct your mistake, but you just cling to this false interpretation so that you can carry on with your pointless arguing. I suspect that you just want to argue for some reason.

Re-posted from another thread, emphasis added:
That has nothing to do with my point. My argument was that expertise in engineering confers no expertise on economic activity as they are different disciplines that work in a different manner.

I was going for the naive view of what science is, not your authoritarianism. Though as an aside other Technocrat's here should probably clarify whether they are on the side of Dimentio's Democratic, Libertarian Technocracy against whom the arguments are merely practical and against Technocrat's Technocracy, which ought to be opposed even if it could work.

[Dermezel]

Technocrat is ignoring the point that most revolutionary innovation and discovery is horizontal, not vertical. Darwin discovered natural selection by reading Malthus. Jared Diamond is a biologist. Karl Marx primarily studied philosophy.The internet was first made for military reasons. The jet engine was first made for trains. The steam engine started as a water pump. The reason why this is so, is because it is easier to take one innovation or discovery made in one field and apply it to another, as opposed to everyone just rediscovering everything anew. Imagine if physics did not use mathematical innovations.

Being an expert does not necessarily even mean you will contribute the most to your given field.

Without democracy, with people only told to specialize, technological development would slow to a crawl.

[Havet]

No, I said your use of the term is not what normal people or economists mean.

By trade people do not usually mean stuff given away for free, or supported by a network of government programs. The government paying someone to do research via tax dollars, and that person then having to give away his research for free would not be considered trade by most people. People do not consider Welfare "trade" even though it has great social utility.

All right, I understand your point


And I didn't change anything. Marx argued that trade implies an "exchange" of labor, which is what most people mean.

Let's look at the commune situation one more.

I enter a commune. I contribute (collectively), according to my ability, say, in producing bread. Such action of my part, constitutes labour. All the other folks in the commune contribute in some other way, collectively, through their labour, by creating energy, clothes, etc for all the other people needs. There is an exchange of labour going on: labour is exchanged from ability according to need. Do you not agree with this?

[Dermezel]

All right, I understand your point



Let's look at the commune situation one more.

I enter a commune. I contribute (collectively), according to my ability, say, in producing bread. Such action of my part, constitutes labour. All the other folks in the commune contribute in some other way, collectively, through their labour, by creating energy, clothes, etc for all the other people needs. There is an exchange of labour going on: labour is exchanged from ability according to need. Do you not agree with this?

No I don't. Not on a large scale because there are certain people who can't work and they shouldn't just be tossed to the wolves. Sick people or handicapped people or children or the elderly.

Second, I base it on utility, not labor. If someone doesn't work as much, but say, is smart enough to cure cancer, I consider their contribution greater then someone who worked harder but doesn't achieve the same level of results. The emphasis is on results, not work.

Third, most production now at days is based on machinery, not labor. Simply put, we can pretty much give everyone a great quality of life on social programs, and demand barely any labor, or just increase say how much you get a little based on what you work and things would probably still run pretty efficiently.

I do not idealize labor. In fact I see labor as somewhat of a negative thing and think people should have to work less. I am for giving people more free time, not less.

[Dimentio]

Ahem, please take the time to study and understand the definition of trade:

"Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both."

I'll be dammed, but aren't workers exchanging their labour for services in a technocratic society? Aren't technicians exchanging their knowledge (intellectual labour) for services in the technocratic commune, even if according to need, not buying power?

Only indirectly. People would not receive their energy credits on the virtue of labour, but on the virtue of being citizens of the technate. Of course, if it is shown that a lot of people are slacking, the system could be modified into a semi-flat system where people receive a minimum income + labour-determined energy credits.

[Havet]

No I don't. Not on a large scale because there are certain people who can't work and they shouldn't just be tossed to the wolves. Sick people or handicapped people or children or the elderly.

Sure, but those are only a minority


Second, I base it on utility, not labor. If someone doesn't work as much, but say, is smart enough to cure cancer, I consider their contribution greater then someone who worked harder but doesn't achieve the same level of results. The emphasis is on results, not work.

Completely agree here, though I also think social utility is tied heavily with intellectual labour.


third, most production now at days is based on machinery, not labor. Simply put, we can pretty much give everyone a great quality of life on social programs, and demand barely any labor, or just increase say how much you get a little based on what you work and things would probably still run pretty efficiently.

Interesting, so are you a technocrat then?


I do not idealize labor. In fact I see labor as somewhat of a negative thing and think people should have to work less. I am for giving people more free time, not less.

I agree, but you do realize that when I say labor, I mean both physical and intellectual labor, right?

[Havet]

Only indirectly. People would not receive their energy credits on the virtue of labour, but on the virtue of being citizens of the technate. Of course, if it is shown that a lot of people are slacking, the system could be modified into a semi-flat system where people receive a minimum income + labour-determined energy credits.

Right, but do notice that the definition of trade does not include "on the virtue of". If it included that part, then you would be absolutely correct.

[Technocrat]

Technocrat is ignoring the point that most revolutionary innovation and discovery is horizontal, not vertical. Darwin discovered natural selection by reading Malthus. Jared Diamond is a biologist. Karl Marx primarily studied philosophy.The internet was first made for military reasons. The jet engine was first made for trains. The steam engine started as a water pump. The reason why this is so, is because it is easier to take one innovation or discovery made in one field and apply it to another, as opposed to everyone just rediscovering everything anew. Imagine if physics did not use mathematical innovations.

Being an expert does not necessarily even mean you will contribute the most to your given field.

Without democracy, with people only told to specialize, technological development would slow to a crawl.

What does this have to do with anything I've said? Where am I "ignoring the point that most revolutionary innovation is horizontal"?

[Dermezel]

Sure, but those are only a minority

You know minority doesn't necessarily mean few in number right? As a political/sociological group it can also mean a group that is less powerful. Women count as a minority for this reason.


Completely agree here, though I also think social utility is tied heavily with intellectual labour.

Computers, AI, calculators, etc. displace intellectual labor. In fact they've already developed a robotic scientist and it is making drug discoveries:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/robot_scientist_promises_to_dig_up_new_drugs



The EU-funded IQ Project (http://iq.ijs.si/) has endowed a laboratory robot with innovative data mining and knowledge discovery techniques in a step towards automating the scientific process. The resulting "robot scientist" is the first computer system capable of originating its own experiments, physically performing them, interpreting the results and then repeating the cycle (see press release (http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/id/90390)).


Endowing robots with advanced artificial intelligence and data mining techniques is of great interest in genomics, where data are being generated much faster than they can be effectively analyzed. Currently, when a new drug is sought pharmacological researchers conduct a blind study of tens or hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds to relate the structure of a chemical compound to its pharmacological activity.
Exhaustive testing like this is time-consuming, costly and generally has to be repeated each time a new drug is sought. The robot scientist holds great promise to significantly reduce the time and cost of new drug discovery.


A 2004 Nature article (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6971/full/nature02236.html) by the same group highlighted the concept behind the current prototype. The robot will now be put to work at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/robotsci/) to search for compounds that could be effective in treating malaria and schistosomiasis, so-called Third World diseases that are the focus of only limited research by commercial drug companies.

The robot is faster, more efficient, makes fewer mistakes and does it all for one-third the cost of a normal scientist.

Believing machines will never displace intellectual labor is simply human vanity.

[Technocrat]

Talk me through the service jobs that you think can be automated. I think you will rapidly find that it isn't so easy.

Why don't you try coming up with an example of a service job that can't be automated (or simply eliminated through improved efficiency), otherwise we'll be here all day.


That has nothing to do with my point. My argument was that expertise in engineering confers no expertise on economic activity as they are different disciplines that work in a different manner.It has everything to do with your point. You said "just because someone is good at science doesn't mean they will be good at other things", implying that I'm saying something along those lines.


I was going for the naive view of what science is, not your authoritarianism. Though as an aside other Technocrat's here should probably clarify whether they are on the side of Dimentio's Democratic, Libertarian Technocracy against whom the arguments are merely practical and against Technocrat's Technocracy, which ought to be opposed even if it could work.You are really confused.

The difference between NET and the NA plan is that NET's system is confederate in political matters and federate in matters relating to production. This means member nations could retain their state governments for legislation not relating to production.

The NA plan is a federal system, meaning the member nations' state governments would be dissolved upon formation of the Technate.

[Havet]

The robot is faster, more efficient, makes fewer mistakes and does it all for one-third the cost of a normal scientist.

That is incredible!


Believing machines will never displace intellectual labor is simply human vanity.

I don't believe that. But someone had to design those machines. And someone will improve them. And someone will have to repair them. Human labour, whether physical or intellectual, will never disappear.

[Dermezel]

I don't believe that. But someone had to design those machines. And someone will improve them. And someone will have to repair them. Human labour, whether physical or intellectual, will never disappear.


And a machine can't do that why?

[Havet]

And a machine can't do that why?

Because we do not have the knowledge or technology to design inventing machines to apply in all industries, sciences and arts.

[Dermezel]

Because we do not have the knowledge or technology to design inventing machines to apply in all industries, sciences and arts.

You don't think computers could ever have that knowledge? I don't know, but to me it seems like they are getting pretty close. I mean most designing already takes place on the computer.

When companies designs a new car, they use a computer. When they design a new house, they use a computer. When Industrial Engineers plan a production line, they use the Advanced Industrial Algorithm.

And these production lines might be roboticized, and producing even better computers.

[Dimentio]

If Hayenmill thinks that energy accounting is exchange, then he may think so.

If you want to learn more about it, I'll suggest you go to www.technocracynet.eu

[Technocrat]

I think we will need people for things like scientists, doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, etc for quite some time. Technocracy isn't talking about a science fiction society where everything is done by robots. There will still be plenty of work for people to do, but it will be work that people want to do rather than routine, mundane work.

[RED DAVE]

"Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both."When a worker exchanges their labor power for money is that trade according to your definition?

RED DAVE

[Dermezel]

I think we will need people for things like scientists, doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, etc for quite some time. Technocracy isn't talking about a science fiction society where everything is done by robots. There will still be plenty of work for people to do, but it will be work that people want to do rather than routine, mundane work.

They already have a robot scientist that has discovered new genes: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html



April 2, 2009 -- The discovery of 12 new functions for genes in one of the most studied organisms in the world wouldn't be news, except that scientists didn't discover them. A robot named Adam designed, carried out and discovered the new gene functions.



"Our goal is to make science more efficient," said Ross King, a professor of biology and computer science at the University of Wales and author of a new paper in this week's issue of Science detailing Adam's work.
"If we had computers designing and carrying out (http://dsc.discovery.com/technology/im/autonomous-robots-bongard.html) experiments we could get through many more experiments than we currently can," said King, adding "robots don't need to take holidays."


The 10-year-old Adam, which is housed at Aberystwyth University in the U.K., might replace humans eventually, but it doesn't look like one (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/08/toddler_tec.html). From the outside Adam is 45 cubic meters of elongated white plastic instruments.


Inside Adam sits a biological library of more than 12,000 chilled petri dishes. Each dish contains a different yeast strain with various genes removed from them. With its various mechanical tools (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/16/robot-lover.html), Adam can grab the petri dishes, remove a sample of yeast, grow it, clean it and analyze the results of the experiment.


Adam actually discovered more than 12 new gene functions. When King and his colleagues compared the functions of all the genes Adam found, they realized that some of them had previously been described. So Adam had independently confirmed those results.


Adam is still a prototype, but King's team hopes their next robot, Eve, will help boost the search for new drugs to combat diseases such as malaria.
"This system is still a prototype," explained King. "The first car wasn't as efficient as a horse."


Adam and Eve not only have the hardware to physically manipulate objects, they also have advanced artificial intelligence systems (http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot6.htm) that let them make their own decisions and then act on those decisions, without help from their human creators.


In another article in the current issue of Science, scientists from Cornell University trained a computer to watch the natural world and to come up with its own natural laws, or instances where something will always happen. Specifically, the scientists programmed the computer, which had no prior knowledge of physics, to independently produce the laws of energy and motion using a simple pendulum.


The funny thing is about your objection that this will not happen in the near future is- it already happened.

[Dimentio]

I see an explosion in robot technology.

[Havet]

When a worker exchanges their labor power for money is that trade according to your definition?

RED DAVE

In some cases it is trade. In others it is exploitation. It depends on the voluntary nature of the transaction.

[RED DAVE]

Since we're over here in OI, where Technocracy belongs, let's cut out the bullshit.

There no evidence, beyond the subjective statements of its adherents, that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology.

Basically, we are assured that after the revolution, the workers will choose Technocracy to structure the new society. Meanwhile, the Technocrats will have played no role in the active revolution as they play no political role in this pre-revolutionary period.

Dimentio represents some kind of social democratic or cooperative kind of Technocracy, where a Technocratic enclave will be built that will out perform capitalism and some how that will further the revolution. He has stated that the workers should buy up, say, 25% of capitalism and build Technocracy within it.

Technocrat, a person with no political experience, asserts that Technocracy is somehow biologically determined. Thus, he represents a more right-wing, authoritarian branch of this belief system. He asserts that there are natural male hierarchies, which we disturb at our peril and Technocracy is the fulfillment of these hierarchies.

And now we have a new branch: mutualist Technocracy. If the term mutualism is historically accurate, this stems from Proudhon's notion of socialism as, basically, cooperative units of small producers, farmers and craftsmen.

So I ask you: what does any of this have to do with revolution as generally conceived of on this board? This belief system has no political strategy or tactics; has a horrendously flawed notion of class, and its people just seem to want to wait around for the reins of power to drop into their laps after a revolution in which they will have played little or no role.

Rots of ruck.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

You have misinterpreted the strategy of the European Movement. The technate is not going to build capitalism on the inside, but technocracy. The sad thing though is that before we reach total self-sufficiency, we would be compelled to export products to the non-technate world in order for us to gain machinery, products and so on. The goal is not to build the future world, but to build the movement for the future world.

You could agitate, scream and demonstrate until your face turns red. No matter how sympathetic the people are finding you, they won't do a revolution, at least not in a developed society like the United States where most people are relatively content with their situation. Even if they are doing a revolution, it is not certain they would find your alternative ideal. You could scream, scream and scream until your face turns red, organise campaigns 26 hours a cycle. At the end of the day, the people want examples to follow. Attractive examples that be.

[Demogorgon]

You have misinterpreted the strategy of the European Movement. The technate is not going to build capitalism on the inside, but technocracy. The sad thing though is that before we reach total self-sufficiency, we would be compelled to export products to the non-technate world in order for us to gain machinery, products and so on. The goal is not to build the future world, but to build the movement for the future world.

You could agitate, scream and demonstrate until your face turns red. No matter how sympathetic the people are finding you, they won't do a revolution, at least not in a developed society like the United States where most people are relatively content with their situation. Even if they are doing a revolution, it is not certain they would find your alternative ideal. You could scream, scream and scream until your face turns red, organise campaigns 26 hours a cycle. At the end of the day, the people want examples to follow. Attractive examples that be.I agree that people are going to want to know what potential alternatives exist to capitalism before they are persuaded to overthrow it. Nobody likes to buy a pig in a poke after all. So it is perfectly reasonable to put thought into planning a sort of goal to be aimed for.

Of course there are two main things that one has to do in order to be credible in this. Firstly, the alternative must be credible obviously enough and secondly it must have a feasible way of getting from here to there. To do that I think you have to accept that new societies develop in the womb of the old to paraphrase Marx. That I think should guide our thought. So we can see Communism in embryo whenever we see people demand more democracy or a greater say in the workplace or a fairer share of the fruits of their labour and whatnot. Looking for signs of Technocracy is harder.

So in short we need a credible vision and secondly we need some evidence that it can emerge as you wish. As to the former I have been very dismissive to some Technocrats here on the basis that they don't understand what science is and have totally unrealistic explanations of what it can do (hence my sci-fi jibe). You don't seem to have that problem so your position is stronger and our disagreement on feasibility may largely centre on the possibility of Energy Accounting.

Presuming you are right and I am wrong on that, it is a case of trying to prove firstly that there is fertile ground for technocracy and that society can naturally develop into it in a way that is consistent with the way human society has been observed to develop through history.

[RED DAVE]

You have misinterpreted the strategy of the European Movement. The technate is not going to build capitalism on the inside, but technocracy. The sad thing though is that before we reach total self-sufficiency, we would be compelled to export products to the non-technate world in order for us to gain machinery, products and so on.Translation: you will build capitalism. Same problem that every coop runs into. That's why these are not revolutionary activities.


The goal is not to build the future world, but to build the movement for the future world.But there is no indication that you are building either.


You could agitate, scream and demonstrate until your face turns red. No matter how sympathetic the people are finding you, they won't do a revolution, at least not in a developed society like the United States where most people are relatively content with their situation.Uhh, what makes you think that most people are "relatively content?


Even if they are doing a revolution, it is not certain they would find your alternative ideal. You could scream, scream and scream until your face turns red, organise campaigns 26 hours a cycle. At the end of the day, the people want examples to follow. Attractive examples that be.Where did you get this idea? The "examples" are in the revolutionary process where people come to understand the necessity for seizing control of the institutions that govern their lives and substituting new ones. The issue is not the "form" of the revolutionary institutions as the "content." Technocracy's fantasies about the form of post-revolutionary industry are devoid of, and in fact negate, revolutionary content.

And considering that your mini-technate is going to engage in capitalist economic relations, what kind of example are you presenting anyway?

RED DAVE

[Havet]

And now we have a new branch: mutualist Technocracy.

It's not a branch. I just made up the term. It seems, however, that i'm a good advertiser ^^

[Bud Struggle]

So in short we need a credible vision and secondly we need some evidence that it can emerge as you wish.

This in a nutshell is my problem with Communism. All good in theory. Actually great in theory--but do you think a world wide upheaval will produce a fair and equitable planet?

I think the chance of that (given the amount of chances Revolutions have already taken) is slim.

That's where the Technocrats are dead on right. Let's try something--let's use the best technology and the best socio logy and TRY THINGS OUT and if they work--fine. And if they don't? Let's try them again till they do.

Let's make a science out of good living.

[Dimentio]

Translation: you will build capitalism. Same problem that every coop runs into. That's why these are not revolutionary activities.

But there is no indication that you are building either.

Uhh, what makes you think that most people are "relatively content?

Where did you get this idea? The "examples" are in the revolutionary process where people come to understand the necessity for seizing control of the institutions that govern their lives and substituting new ones. The issue is not the "form" of the revolutionary institutions as the "content." Technocracy's fantasies about the form of post-revolutionary industry are devoid of, and in fact negate, revolutionary content.

And considering that your mini-technate is going to engage in capitalist economic relations, what kind of example are you presenting anyway?

RED DAVE

Internally, the proto-technate is going to utilise energy accounting and labour credits. It is not one coop, but several coops which basically are parts of the same extended network. We already have operations on-going. Now the matter is to coordinate and expand them.

The Open Source Movement could be defined as a form of technocracy, which has been enormously successful I am ready to add.

I think that even if people in America today in general hate the system, the first instinct they have is to try to somehow go back into the 50's, 60's and early 70's "golden age of capitalism". Thus, even if your party somehow is winning power in a glorious revolution with masses waving red flags and storming the White House, it is not very likely that the people who would follow you would envision what kind of society you are wanting to build, and neither could you see how far they are ready to want to change society.

I am in agreement that Technocracy is a very small grouping of movements at the moment. My personal reason for supporting it is basically that I am worried about the content of the programmes which other alternative movements are presenting. I think Energy Accounting represents a fresh alternative to planned economies and market economies. I also like syndicalism a lot.

If people see that there are viable alternatives, they could be mobilised.

[Dimentio]

I agree that people are going to want to know what potential alternatives exist to capitalism before they are persuaded to overthrow it. Nobody likes to buy a pig in a poke after all. So it is perfectly reasonable to put thought into planning a sort of goal to be aimed for.

Of course there are two main things that one has to do in order to be credible in this. Firstly, the alternative must be credible obviously enough and secondly it must have a feasible way of getting from here to there. To do that I think you have to accept that new societies develop in the womb of the old to paraphrase Marx. That I think should guide our thought. So we can see Communism in embryo whenever we see people demand more democracy or a greater say in the workplace or a fairer share of the fruits of their labour and whatnot. Looking for signs of Technocracy is harder.

So in short we need a credible vision and secondly we need some evidence that it can emerge as you wish. As to the former I have been very dismissive to some Technocrats here on the basis that they don't understand what science is and have totally unrealistic explanations of what it can do (hence my sci-fi jibe). You don't seem to have that problem so your position is stronger and our disagreement on feasibility may largely centre on the possibility of Energy Accounting.

Presuming you are right and I am wrong on that, it is a case of trying to prove firstly that there is fertile ground for technocracy and that society can naturally develop into it in a way that is consistent with the way human society has been observed to develop through history.

It is probably not likely that a technate could be developed organically to replace the current form of global capitalism. There needs to be combined social, economic and political activism of a massive degree to make it true. But the first and primary goal is to see where the principles could be improved and if they work.

But there is no one in the European Movement who is in the delusion that we during six months could transform all of Europe into a technate. Even if we got the political power tomorrow, it would take decades to fully install the technate. We believe in a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. Civilisations with a top-down approach (the Incan Empire, the USSR) has often collapsed into pieces during their first setbacks.

[Dermezel]

I see an explosion in robot technology.

http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_707.html

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q289/Dermezel/world_robot_population_2008.png


The contest between the capitalist and the wage-labourer dates back to the very origin of capital. It raged on throughout the whole manufacturing period. [112] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n112) But only since the introduction of machinery has the workman fought against the instrument of labour itself, the material embodiment of capital. He revolts against this particular form of the means of production, as being the material basis of the capitalist mode of production.



This distinction is self-evident. If it be said that 100 millions of people would be required in England to spin with the old spinning-wheel the cotton that is now spun with mules by 500,000 people, this does not mean that the mules took the place of those millions who never existed.



The instrument of labour, when it takes the form of a machine, immediately becomes a competitor of the workman himself. [116] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n116) The self-expansion of capital by means of machinery is thenceforward directly proportional to the number of the workpeople, whose means of livelihood have been destroyed by that machinery. The whole system of capitalist production is based on the fact that the workman sells his labour-power as a commodity. Division of labour specialises this labour-power, by reducing it to skill in handling a particular tool. So soon as the handling of this tool becomes the work of a machine, then, with the use-value, the exchange-value too, of the workman’s labour-power vanishes; the workman becomes unsaleable, like paper money thrown out of currency by legal enactment. That portion of the working-class, thus by machinery rendered superfluous, i.e., no longer immediately necessary for the self-expansion of capital, either goes to the wall in the unequal contest of the old handicrafts and manufactures with machinery, or else floods all the more easily accessible branches of industry, swamps the labour-market, and sinks the price of labour-power below its value. It is impressed upon the workpeople, as a great consolation, first, that their sufferings are only temporary (“a temporary inconvenience"), secondly, that machinery acquires the mastery over the whole of a given field of production, only by degrees, so that the extent and intensity of its destructive effect is diminished. The first consolation neutralises the second. When machinery seizes on an industry by degrees, it produces chronic misery among the operatives who compete with it. Where the transition is rapid, the effect is acute and felt by great masses. History discloses no tragedy more horrible than the gradual extinction of the English hand-loom weavers, an extinction that was spread over several decades, and finally sealed in 1838. Many of them died of starvation, many with families vegetated for a long time on 2½ d. a day. [117] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n117) On the other hand, the English cotton machinery produced an acute effect in India. The Governor General reported 1834-35:


“The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching the plains of India.”



No doubt, in turning them out of this “temporal” world, the machinery caused them no more than “a temporary inconvenience.” For the rest, since machinery is continually seizing upon new fields of production, its temporary effect is really permanent. Hence, the character of independence and estrangement which the capitalist mode of production as a whole gives to the instruments of labour and to the product, as against the workman, is developed by means of machinery into a thorough antagonism. [118] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n118) Therefore, it is with the advent of machinery, that the workman for the first time brutally revolts against the instruments of labour.



The instrument of labour strikes down the labourer.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S5

As Marx notes it took a great deal of effort for the proletariat to realize that capitalism was the enemy and not machinery itself.

[Dermezel]

Last I want to note that there was a brief Golden Age, between capitalism and feudalism, when machinery played an almost exclusively progressive role of freeing peasants from their toil:



In England, serfdom had practically disappeared in the last part of the 14th century. The immense majority of the population [1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch27.htm#n1) consisted then, and to a still larger extent, in the 15th century, of free peasant proprietors, whatever was the feudal title under which their right of property was hidden. In the larger seignorial domains, the old bailiff, himself a serf, was displaced by the free farmer. The wage-labourers of agriculture consisted partly of peasants, who utilised their leisure time by working on the large estates, partly of an independent special class of wage-labourers, relatively and absolutely few in numbers. The latter also were practically at the same time peasant farmers, since, besides their wages, they had allotted to them arable land to the extent of 4 or more acres, together with their cottages. Besides they, with the rest of the peasants, enjoyed the usufruct of the common land, which gave pasture to their cattle, furnished them with timber, fire-wood, turf, &c. [2] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch27.htm#n2) In all countries of Europe, feudal production is characterised by division of the soil amongst the greatest possible number of sub-feudatories. The might of the feudal lord, like that of the sovereign, depended not on the length of his rent-roll, but on the number of his subjects, and the latter depended on the number of peasant proprietors. [3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch27.htm#n3) Although, therefore, the English land, after the Norman Conquest, was distributed in gigantic baronies, one of which often included some 900 of the old Anglo-Saxon lordships, it was bestrewn with small peasant properties, only here and there interspersed with great seignorial domains. Such conditions, together with the prosperity of the towns so characteristic of the 15th century, allowed of that wealth of the people which Chancellor Fortescue so eloquently paints in his “Laudes legum Angliae;” but it excluded the possibility of capitalistic wealth.


The prelude of the revolution that laid the foundation of the capitalist mode of production, was played in the last third of the 15th, and the first decade of the 16th century. A mass of free proletarians was hurled on the labour-market by the breaking-up of the bands of feudal retainers, who, as Sir James Steuart well says, “everywhere uselessly filled house and castle.” Although the royal power, itself a product of bourgeois development, in its strife after absolute sovereignty forcibly hastened on the dissolution of these bands of retainers, it was by no means the sole cause of it. In insolent conflict with king and parliament, the great feudal lords created an incomparably larger proletariat by the forcible driving of the peasantry from the land, to which the latter had the same feudal right as the lord himself, and by the usurpation of the common lands. The rapid rise of the Flemish wool manufactures, and the corresponding rise in the price of wool in England, gave the direct impulse to these evictions. The old nobility had been devoured by the great feudal wars. The new nobility was the child of its time, for which money was the power of all powers. Transformation of arable land into sheep-walks was, therefore, its cry. Harrison, in his “Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicles,” describes how the expropriation of small peasants is ruining the country. “What care our great encroachers?” The dwellings of the peasants and the cottages of the labourers were razed to the ground or doomed to decay. “If,” says Harrison, “the old records of euerie manour be sought... it will soon appear that in some manour seventeene, eighteene, or twentie houses are shrunk... that England was neuer less furnished with people than at the present... Of cities and townes either utterly decaied or more than a quarter or half diminished, though some one be a little increased here or there; of townes pulled downe for sheepe-walks, and no more but the lordships now standing in them... I could saie somewhat.” The complaints of these old chroniclers are always exaggerated, but they reflect faithfully the impression made on contemporaries by the revolution in the conditions of production. A comparison of the writings of Chancellor Fortescue and Thomas More reveals the gulf between the 15th and 16th century. As Thornton rightly has it, the English working-class was precipitated without any transition from its golden into its iron age.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch27.htm


Simply put, machinery and technology and economic infrastructure had developed to a point where a peasant, even with his small plot of land, could live well and had plenty of free time.


But the feudal Lords feared this, as it could lead to their downfall, and loss of political power. So they employed the capitalists to expropriate the peasantry.


Hence the age of Bourgeoisie and Proletariat had begun.

[Havet]

Simply put, machinery and technology and economic infrastructure had developed to a point where a peasant, even with his small plot of land, could live well and had plenty of free time.

Good point. Kevin Carson also released a book of his own regarding this subject recently. Check it out here (http://www.mutualist.org/id116.html).

[Dermezel]

Good point. Kevin Carson also released a book of his own regarding this subject recently. Check it out here (http://www.mutualist.org/id116.html).

Awesome. Just read the first couple lines and already it looks pretty good. Thanks.

I like how he divides areas by technology and not just crap like "Classical Age" or "Renaissance", etc. Division by things like Steam Power vs. Electrical is more concrete and scientific.

[RED DAVE]

Q20- What is the evidence that dominance hierarchies are biologically determined?
Dominance hierarchies are not 'biologically determined'. What is determined biologically is that there will be a dominance hierarchy. You are confusing the two. Am I crazy, or is Techno's response a pure attempt at a snowjob? Am I missing something?

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Am I crazy, or is Techno's response a pure attempt at a snowjob? Am I missing something?

RED DAVE

I'd say you're missing quite a lot.

One's position in a dominance hierarchy isn't biologically determined (though biology plays a role). What is biologically determined is the human tendency to organize in a dominance hierarchy. This isn't bad if the hierarchy is based on principles of egalitarianism.

[Dermezel]

I'd say you're missing quite a lot.

One's position in a dominance hierarchy isn't biologically determined (though biology plays a role). What is biologically determined is the human tendency to organize in a dominance hierarchy. This isn't bad if the hierarchy is based on principles of egalitarianism.

Actually Evolutionary Psychology states that our Ancestral Evolutionary Environment is Egalitarian. Hunter-Gatherers are pretty egalitarian, because no single person has the resources to enforce hierarchy. You need professional soldiers for that, and you can't afford that in a group of 100-200 people where everyone has to hunt and gather to survive.

[RED DAVE]

What is biologically determined is the human tendency to organize in a dominance hierarchy.Please give us a source for this assertion.

RED DAVE

[Dermezel]

Please give us a source for this assertion.

RED DAVE

LOL. U know you aren't gonna get a source.

[Dimentio]

Please. Even if Technocracy Incorporated do hold a lot of wild assertions, what Technocrat is saying is mostly his own elaborations. Could we not let that issue rest, since it hardly has anything to do with North American technocracy and nil with European technocracy.

[RED DAVE]

Please. Even if Technocracy Incorporated do hold a lot of wild assertions, what Technocrat is saying is mostly his own elaborations.(1) Why should we consider Technocracy a revolutionary ideology if it holds a lot of "wild assertions"? (2) Actually, I think that Techno is a perfect example of a Technocrat with his bizarre combination of arrogance, ignorance and conservative belief system.


Could we not let that issue rest, since it hardly has anything to do with North American technocracy and nil with European technocracy.First, I am not convinced that it has nothing to do with the North American Technocracy.

Second, I think it has a lot to do with your European group and your entire approach to politics. For starters, why do you basically treat Techno as a colleague if he's so far off the wall?

RED DAVE

[Demogorgon]

To be fair to Dimentio, I think his attitude to Technocrat is more a hope that if he ignores him, he will go away. I have resolved to treat them differently, dismissing Technocrat's pseudo-fascism as the trash it is and criticising Dimentio on much more respectful grounds arguing the firstly Energy Accounting is flawed and secondly there is no clear means by which Technocracy can be readily achieved.

Of course that leaves us with the elephant in the room of how to class the third group of Technocrats here whose backing for it seems to be based firstly on ignorance of economics but more tellingly ignorance of science, the "wow that science stuff can do all sorts of cool shit" style of thing that leads them to think that the solution to everything is "science" with no idea what that actually entails. They are the ones who I throw the sci-fi jibe at, and I've had to apologise in the past for throwing Dimentio in with them. Anyway the problem is that they seem to be happy to view both sorts of Technocracy as being akin to their position, and while that is probably more ignorance than anything else, does indicate a crossover.

[RED DAVE]

To be fair to Dimentio, I think his attitude to Technocrat is more a hope that if he ignores him, he will go away. I have resolved to treat them differently, dismissing Technocrat's pseudo-fascism as the trash it is and criticising Dimentio on much more respectful grounds arguing the firstly Energy Accounting is flawed and secondly there is no clear means by which Technocracy can be readily achieved.Basically correct. I believe that D's notion of Technocracy is basically a weird form of social democracy, with no political history and no concept whatsoever of political practice.


Of course that leaves us with the elephant in the room of how to class the third group of Technocrats here whose backing for it seems to be based firstly on ignorance of economics but more tellingly ignorance of science, the "wow that science stuff can do all sorts of cool shit" style of thing that leads them to think that the solution to everything is "science" with no idea what that actually entails. They are the ones who I throw the sci-fi jibe at, and I've had to apologise in the past for throwing Dimentio in with them. Anyway the problem is that they seem to be happy to view both sorts of Technocracy as being akin to their position, and while that is probably more ignorance than anything else, does indicate a crossover.The point is, of course, that Technocracy, in both branches is inimical to socialism.

It's interesting that in the H.G. Welles scifi file, "Thing to Come," (which you must see if you haven't) the society that emerges from WWII (which lasts 40 years) and worldwide plague is technocracy: the explicit rule of the engineers. In the end, there is a revolt of the people against how fucking elitist and boring the whole thing is (with impeccable art deco cities) and the only escape for the Technocrats is to other planets.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Second, I think it has a lot to do with your European group and your entire approach to politics. For starters, why do you basically treat Techno as a colleague if he's so far off the wall?

RED DAVE

We are not working like trotskyists and stalinists. For the most, we tend to ignore technocratic organisations which either don't want to cooperate or have authoritarian stripes. We see it as a waste of time to attack other organisations.

[RED DAVE]

First, I am not convinced that it has nothing to do with the North American Technocracy.No response from either Dimentio or Technocrat


Second, I think it has a lot to do with your European group and your entire approach to politics. For starters, why do you basically treat Techno as a colleague if he's so far off the wall?
We are not working like trotskyists and stalinists.I should say not. But that doesn't necessarily speak in your favor.


For the most, we tend to ignore technocratic organisations which either don't want to cooperate or have authoritarian stripes. We see it as a waste of time to attack other organisations.I think that doing such ignoring is not a luxury you can afford. Because as you do so, others, such as myself, will automatically, with justice, consider you to be part of the same movement, which you are.

No, why do you tolerate this linking of yourself and Norther American Technocracy and Technocrat if you're fundamentally different?

The only way you can avoid this is to engage in a systematic critique of their and your ideology and practice in order to demonstrate differences, if any. You don't do that; hence, it's reasonable to assume that the underlying similarities are greater than any differences, which is what many people, myself included, believe to be the case.

Neither your faction of Technocracy nor Technocrat's has any political practice that would separate you in the sense that Marxists understand practice. You both use the same bizarre panacea for social ills: energy accounting. You have never extricate dyour concept of social/economic structure from his.

And, of course, niether of you have demonsgtrated in the slightest that you constitute a revolutionary ideology as it is defined here.

Welcome to Other Ideologies, where you belong

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

You might have noticed that I'm still a mod here, as Jazzratt is still an admin ^^

There is nothing wrong with energy accounting as a panacea. I wonder if you even have understood what it is ^^

[RED DAVE]

You might have noticed that I'm still a mod here, as Jazzratt is still an admin ^^

There is nothing wrong with energy accounting as a panacea. I wonder if you even have understood what it is ^^This is not a website for panacea's. It's a website for revolutionaries.

Let me ask you this: are you a revolutionary in the sense that it is generally understood around here: calling for and working for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working class. When you make remarks like this, I doubt it:


Thus, even if your party somehow is winning power in a glorious revolution with masses waving red flags and storming the White House, it is not very likely that the people who would follow you would envision what kind of society you are wanting to build, and neither could you see how far they are ready to want to change society.I could set up a quiz about how many "errors" there are in this bizarre quote.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Please. Even if Technocracy Incorporated do hold a lot of wild assertions, what Technocrat is saying is mostly his own elaborations. Could we not let that issue rest, since it hardly has anything to do with North American technocracy and nil with European technocracy.

Good point - my views on sociobiology have little to do with what we're talking about. I think others are trying to sidetrack the conversation.

[Technocrat]

Please give us a source for this assertion.

RED DAVE

Why not respond to any of the papers I've linked to in this thread.

[Technocrat]

To be fair to Dimentio, I think his attitude to Technocrat is more a hope that if he ignores him, he will go away. I have resolved to treat them differently, dismissing Technocrat's pseudo-fascism as the trash it is and criticising Dimentio on much more respectful grounds arguing the firstly Energy Accounting is flawed and secondly there is no clear means by which Technocracy can be readily achieved.

Of course that leaves us with the elephant in the room of how to class the third group of Technocrats here whose backing for it seems to be based firstly on ignorance of economics but more tellingly ignorance of science, the "wow that science stuff can do all sorts of cool shit" style of thing that leads them to think that the solution to everything is "science" with no idea what that actually entails. They are the ones who I throw the sci-fi jibe at, and I've had to apologise in the past for throwing Dimentio in with them. Anyway the problem is that they seem to be happy to view both sorts of Technocracy as being akin to their position, and while that is probably more ignorance than anything else, does indicate a crossover.

Demo just continues to idiotically ignore everything I've said to him, so what's the point of even responding to this nonsense?

Demo and I are on the same side regarding Technocracy in general, he is just with NET. NET has a different approach for Europe and that makes sense.

[Technocrat]

Actually Evolutionary Psychology states that our Ancestral Evolutionary Environment is Egalitarian. Hunter-Gatherers are pretty egalitarian, because no single person has the resources to enforce hierarchy. You need professional soldiers for that, and you can't afford that in a group of 100-200 people where everyone has to hunt and gather to survive.

No, it's an egalitarian hierarchy. Read the papers I've linked to in the thread before making erroneous replies.

[RED DAVE]

Please give us a source for this assertion.
Why not respond to any of the papers I've linked to in this thread.Why not, instead of being the arrogant representative of a tiny cult, do the right thing and present what you've got?

You can bluster all you want, Techno, but you are a nonrevolutionary on a revolutionary website. You have little of no concrete political experience. The burden of proof lies with you.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Why not, instead of being the arrogant representative of a tiny cult, do the right thing and present what you've got?

You can bluster all you want, Techno, but you are a nonrevolutionary on a revolutionary website. The burden of proof lies with you.

RED DAVE

I've provided proof which you've chosen to ignore.

[RED DAVE]

I've provided proof which you've chosen to ignore.Humor me, kiddo. Post some text with links.

By the way, joined any left-wing groups, unions or radical organizations lately?

RED DAVE

[Jazzratt]

Of course that leaves us with the elephant in the room of how to class the third group of Technocrats here whose backing for it seems to be based firstly on ignorance of economics but more tellingly ignorance of science, the "wow that science stuff can do all sorts of cool shit" style of thing that leads them to think that the solution to everything is "science" with no idea what that actually entails.

The thing is that I've not spoken to anyone that thinks even remotely like this. Some of us may have an ignorance of economics but we don't propose every problem be solved by "science!" Certainly we don't ignore it, but it's not the only part of our thinking; otherwise we would be proposing the dictatorship of technicians everyone thinks we do. The way you talk about us it's as if we'd suggested that anyone with a science background would immediatly be recorded more respect and we'd end up with ludicirous situations where medical doctors would have as much or more say in the design of their hospital as architects.


Anyway the problem is that they seem to be happy to view both sorts of Technocracy as being akin to their position, and while that is probably more ignorance than anything else, does indicate a crossover.
Again, as I have a sneaking suspicion that you lump me into the 3rd group, I can say we're generally much more sympathetic to DImentio's flavour of technocracy. Most of the technocrats on revleft are members or sympathisers of the NET and a goodly proportion of them are from the ACT holon. We do support technocrat sometimes, however, because he does share a lot of our ideology (Energy Accounting and that).

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Of course that leaves us with the elephant in the room of how to class the third group of Technocrats here whose backing for it seems to be based firstly on ignorance of economics but more tellingly ignorance of science, the "wow that science stuff can do all sorts of cool shit" style of thing that leads them to think that the solution to everything is "science" with no idea what that actually entails.

Since I guess I'm in that "third group" of technocrats you mention, it's clear that you haven't paid any attention to a fucking word I've written, choosing instead to make hasty generalisations and set up strawmen for you to knock down.

Speaking for myself, I make the majority of my proposals in the S&E forum because that's where they belong, but I hardly ever see you there. If you have a problem with any of my ideas, criticise them as and when I make them, instead of skulking in other forums and sniping at a distorted parody of your own making.

What is needed is constructive criticism, not ideologically-driven attacks. Sometimes I fucking despair of the left - new ideas aren't attacked on the basis of their flaws, but because they do not conform to exacting specifications to a particular pre-formulated worldview, whether that worldview is some variation of Marxism or anarchism. Same shit, different colour.


They are the ones who I throw the sci-fi jibe at, and I've had to apologise in the past for throwing Dimentio in with them. Anyway the problem is that they seem to be happy to view both sorts of Technocracy as being akin to their position, and while that is probably more ignorance than anything else, does indicate a crossover.

We (that is, us technocrats) agree on generalities but disagree on particulars, plus it's kind of hard not to support each other when we're being attacked on all sides.


It's interesting that in the H.G. Welles scifi file, "Thing to Come," (which you must see if you haven't) the society that emerges from WWII (which lasts 40 years) and worldwide plague is technocracy: the explicit rule of the engineers. In the end, there is a revolt of the people against how fucking elitist and boring the whole thing is (with impeccable art deco cities) and the only escape for the Technocrats is to other planets.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. HG Wells wasn't talking about the kind of Technocracy that any on this site advocate. It's a work of fiction, intended to tell a story. Yet for some reason it is considered a valid argument against technocracy!

Consider what would happen if someone were to use George Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm as an argument against communism, or the Toronto police strike as an argument against anarchism.

The double standard irritates me no end! Yet I understand why it exists - Technocracy is a "new kid on the block" and we all know the typical human reaction to that which is new and unfamiliar. But that doesn't make it any more acceptable.

[RED DAVE]

Technocracy is a "new kid on the block" and we all know the typical human reaction to that which is new and unfamiliar. But that doesn't make it any more acceptable.Technocracy is a very old kid on the block. It has been knocking around since the 1920s. It has been commented on by Marxists in the past. It's flaws were and are obvious.

You are not the bearers of "new and unfamiliar" ideas. You are dragging behind you stuff that was bullshit in the 30s and is bullshit now. Various people have presented historical evidence, concrete critiques, exposed gaping flaws in your belief system, but you persist. Fine; cool. But don't be expected to be treated as the new kid on the block when actually you're the old guy who's been hanging around the same street corner since before WWII. And he's still wearing the same dark suit he wore when he was a chauffeur for that poseur Howard Scott.

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Technocracy is a very old kid on the block. It has been knocking around since the 1920s.

Not compared to Marxism, and certainly for this site Technocracy is new.


It has been commented on by Marxists in the past. It's flaws were and are obvious.

Only to ideologues like you with an axe to grind.


You are not the bearers of "new and unfamiliar" ideas. You are dragging behind you stuff that was bullshit in the 30s and is bullshit now. Various people have presented historical evidence, concrete critiques, exposed gaping flaws in your belief system, but you persist.

You've provided nothing but irrelevant bullshit. I don't give a fuck about Howard Scott's personal opinions or what HG Wells thought of a political system of his own making.


Fine; cool. But don't be expected to be treated as the new kid on the block when actually you're the old guy who's been hanging around the same street corner since before WWII. And he's still wearing the same dark suit he wore when he was a chauffeur for that poseur Howard Scott.

If we're going purely by age, then Marxism is out of date by over a century. But I don't judge ideas by their age, only their relevance. Marx and some of the people who came after him had some worthwhile things to say, but the nuggets of theoretical gold have been buried under the mountains of shit produced by party political hacks.

How many times does it have to be hammered into your thick-as-shit head that technocracy does not stand or fall on the merits of a particular individual?

[Dimentio]

Since it is obvious that RED DAVE's agenda is to ignore the diversity of the technocratic movement and literally all work that has been undertaken by technocrats during this decade, including EOS and Sector X, I believe that I could reach an agreement with him to not agree over what technocracy is and isn't. If we say that I started to loudly disagree with and attack Technocrat, he would very much be pleased, since it is for him to judge what people who belong here on this site and who doesn't.

Instead of repeating all my answers to him, I would like to mention to everyone that they should look into the thread in Politics to see the discourse exchange which we have had, as well as in this thread.

Ui and have a nice day, RED DAVE. ^^

[Dimentio]

This is not a website for panacea's. It's a website for revolutionaries.

Let me ask you this: are you a revolutionary in the sense that it is generally understood around here: calling for and working for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working class. When you make remarks like this, I doubt it:

I could set up a quiz about how many "errors" there are in this bizarre quote.

RED DAVE

The bizarre quote is a joke. I'm apologising if you have a hard time to understand irony. Given my consequent politeness towards you due to your age, and your continuous misinterpretations, insults and belligerent attitude, I think it is only fair that you would have to accept some jabs now and then.

The revolution is unlikely to happen at Revleft nevertheless. It would most likely happen out in the real world when it starts. If someone is using bizarre analogies it is you. Perhaps you belong to that sadly not so rare species of internet warriors who are constantly turning their fantasies into reality. Hayenmill, a restricted user who nevertheless is pretty nice, started a thread on technocracy here, since he is unable to do so in the open forum. It is not like the thread in the Politics forum was moved here because of technocracy being an opposing ideology. As for EOS's opposingness, by all means, if EOS is an opposing current, then anarcho-syndicalism and syndicalism would be opposing currents too. ^^

[Dermezel]

(1) Why should we consider Technocracy a revolutionary ideology if it holds a lot of "wild assertions"? (2) Actually, I think that Techno is a perfect example of a Technocrat with his bizarre combination of arrogance, ignorance and conservative belief system.


Well currently the US, I don't know about Europe, but here we are in a very unscientific, technophobic mindset. I mean something like 40% of people believe in Young-Earth Creationism.

[RED DAVE]

NHow many times does it have to be hammered into your thick-as-shit head that technocracy does not stand or fall on the merits of a particular individual?Technocracy has been demonstrated to be a nonrevolutionary ideology (a) by its history, by which I mean its past practice, (b) by its ideology past and present, (c) by its current practice.

The contributions of one individual, presumably Howard Scott, are not the crucial problem. The problem is the cranky, nonrevolutionary system that he devised and that, for some reason, has come to roost here at RevLeft.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Since it is obvious that RED DAVE's agenda is to ignore the diversity of the technocratic movement and literally all work that has been undertaken by technocrats during this decade, including EOS and Sector X, I believe that I could reach an agreement with him to not agree over what technocracy is and isn't. If we say that I started to loudly disagree with and attack Technocrat, he would very much be pleased, since it is for him to judge what people who belong here on this site and who doesn't.I am quite aware of the diversity within Technocracy. I am also of the opinion that the differences are far outweighed by the similarities.

RED DAVE

[Demogorgon]

Since I guess I'm in that "third group" of technocrats you mention, it's clear that you haven't paid any attention to a fucking word I've written, choosing instead to make hasty generalisations and set up strawmen for you to knock down.Well the actual truth is I had forgotten all about you when I had written that post, but if you want to include yourself in that group, be my guest.


Speaking for myself, I make the majority of my proposals in the S&E forum because that's where they belong, but I hardly ever see you there. If you have a problem with any of my ideas, criticise them as and when I make them, instead of skulking in other forums and sniping at a distorted parody of your own making.
I have little interest in that section. Both because I find the study of human activity-particularly economics-more interesting that the natural sciences and because certain people in there have such a strange view of science and what it is that I just role my eyes and leave them to it.

But when the subject comes up elsewhere, of course I am going to make a point, especially when the stuff being proposed moves over from simply being unscientific but profoundly flawed in terms of politics and economics. If you are going to make daft statements about politics on a political board, you must expect a response.


What is needed is constructive criticism, not ideologically-driven attacks. Sometimes I fucking despair of the left - new ideas aren't attacked on the basis of their flaws, but because they do not conform to exacting specifications to a particular pre-formulated worldview, whether that worldview is some variation of Marxism or anarchism. Same shit, different colour.

This is not an ideological attack. I have explained to those Technocrats willing to actually debate their views that energy consumption is irrelevant to calculating economic activity and have given several examples as to why this is. If you want to respond to them, be my guest, but ignoring them or joining in with Technocrat and saying "economics doesn't matter" does not count for a real argument.

Of course when people just want to make arguments that are little more than "it would be nice if x, therefore x", there isn't much more you can say.


We (that is, us technocrats) agree on generalities but disagree on particulars, plus it's kind of hard not to support each other when we're being attacked on all sides.

Technocrat has been attacked for-amongst other things-defending inequality as fundamental to humanity and being to the ultimate advantage of us all. Can you think why we might find that a bit objectionable here? Of course given Howard Scott's influences it is no surprise whatsoever than an adherent of his might think that, but we are still going to attack that view very strongly when it raises its head here.

[RED DAVE]

(1) Why should we consider Technocracy a revolutionary ideology if it holds a lot of "wild assertions"? (2) Actually, I think that Techno is a perfect example of a Technocrat with his bizarre combination of arrogance, ignorance and conservative belief system.
Well currently the US, I don't know about Europe, but here we are in a very unscientific, technophobic mindset. I mean something like 40% of people believe in Young-Earth Creationism.If you're comparing Technocracy with Young-Earth Creationism, you won't get an argument from me. :D

RED DAVE

[Bud Struggle]

I just want to say thatks to everyone on this thread both pro and con--you've given me a lot better understanding of what Technocracy is and isn't. :)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Technocracy has been demonstrated to be a nonrevolutionary ideology (a) by its history, by which I mean its past practice, (b) by its ideology past and present, (c) by its current practice.

You just run into exactly the same problem. Anarchist and communist organisations have said and done unsavoury things in the past, but that is no reason to write off either ideology. None of us are angels.

Not only that, but past performance is not a sure-fire predictor of future activity.


The contributions of one individual, presumably Howard Scott, are not the crucial problem. The problem is the cranky, nonrevolutionary system that he devised and that, for some reason, has come to roost here at RevLeft.

I'm really sorry that you have such a frankly bizarre bee in your bonnet about us, but I find your accusations of bad faith to be most vexing.


Well the actual truth is I had forgotten all about you when I had written that post, but if you want to include yourself in that group, be my guest.

I have little interest in that section. Both because I find the study of human activity-particularly economics-more interesting that the natural sciences and because certain people in there have such a strange view of science and what it is that I just role my eyes and leave them to it.

But when the subject comes up elsewhere, of course I am going to make a point, especially when the stuff being proposed moves over from simply being unscientific but profoundly flawed in terms of politics and economics. If you are going to make daft statements about politics on a political board, you must expect a response.

Of course I expect a response, that's the whole point of posting in the first place. But I also expect the response to be at least somewhat relevant.


This is not an ideological attack. I have explained to those Technocrats willing to actually debate their views that energy consumption is irrelevant to calculating economic activity and have given several examples as to why this is. If you want to respond to them, be my guest, but ignoring them or joining in with Technocrat and saying "economics doesn't matter" does not count for a real argument.

If energy consumption is irrelevant to economic activity, then that only points to the fundamental bankruptcy of economics and its irrelevance to a sustainable civilisation, and Technocrat is correct in his assessment.


Of course when people just want to make arguments that are little more than "it would be nice if x, therefore x", there isn't much more you can say.

Technocrat has been attacked for-amongst other things-defending inequality as fundamental to humanity and being to the ultimate advantage of us all.

Inequality is not the same thing a pecking order, as Technocrat has repeatedly explained.


Can you think why we might find that a bit objectionable here? Of course given Howard Scott's influences it is no surprise whatsoever than an adherent of his might think that, but we are still going to attack that view very strongly when it raises its head here.

If you think Technocrat is incorrect, then by all means criticise him. What I object to is the smearing of Technocracy in general and the frequent misrepresentation of what it is.

[Demogorgon]

If energy consumption is irrelevant to economic activity, then that only points to the fundamental bankruptcy of economics and its irrelevance to a sustainable civilisation, and Technocrat is correct in his assessment.

No, that's your problem, you simply don't seem to understand the way economic activity (that is to say producing, distributing and consuming goods and services) works. It is primarily focussed on human effort along with other factors like the long term impact of using resources and so forth. You seem to think that working out how much energy is used will tell you anything, but it tells you absolutely nothing, because there are different types of energy and different ways it can be used. It isn't as if you can say "right, we have so much energy, how are we going to divvy it up", because the energy you have for powering cars for instance cannot simply be redirected to feeding people.

Quite apart from that, do you realise how monumentally absurd it sounds for somebody who knows nothing about the subject to declare that "economics doesn't matter"? It sounds like some backwoods young earth creationism saying "science doesn't matter" and it simply destroys the credibility of the person making the argument.

Incidentally, as an aside, if economics indeed doesn't matter, then there is no way to prove that workers are exploited. Your only argument against capitalism comes down to it not being ecologically sustainable, but that takes you outwith the realm of leftist politics because you are no longer seeking empowerment of working people


Inequality is not the same thing a pecking order, as Technocrat has repeatedly explained.
Well in the first instance it probably is, you can't have an egalitarian society without equality of political and economic power. Technocrat doesn't have a problem with that because he isn't egalitarian and wants what amounts to a particularly authoritarian state. You however state your political convictions as being anarchist, so advocating hierarchy is ridiculous in your case.


If you think Technocrat is incorrect, then by all means criticise him. What I object to is the smearing of Technocracy in general and the frequent misrepresentation of what it is.Technocrat advocates class collaboration. If that is fundamentally with Technocracy then say so clearly and we can move on. But if it is, stop sticking up for him. So long as you associate your views with those of his, then we are going to have to presume there is some connection between his rubbish and at least some forms of Technocracy.

in way of comparison, if I started sticking up for someone who claimed that North Korea was some sort of worker's paradise then you might be justified in thinking that my views were sympathetic to that position, wouldn't you? If I wished to disassociate myself from that position I would have to clearly state that I do not in any way think that North Korea is a worker's paradise. Similarly you have become associated with an individual with very odious views, are your views in line with his or not?

[Dimentio]

For the quantillionth time:

Energy accounting isn't about energy in the form of electricity. It is simply about the production capacity on the macro-level. No one has proposed that food and fuel are directly interchangeable for example. You have chosen to misinterpret what energy accounting is about. It isn't electric power, fuels or any singular production unit, but basically the entire production capacity of a given society divided on the individuals.

[Demogorgon]

For the quantillionth time:

Energy accounting isn't about energy in the form of electricity. It is simply about the production capacity on the macro-level. No one has proposed that food and fuel are directly interchangeable for example. You have chosen to misinterpret what energy accounting is about. It isn't electric power, fuels or any singular production unit, but basically the entire production capacity of a given society divided on the individuals.
That is precisely my point. There is no such thing as overall production capacity. If it were possible to simply base all production on electricity then energy accounting would be possible, but as you quite rightly acknowledge it isn't.

So I suppose to give a very simplified account of why Energy Accounting won't work, it is because it assumes to allocate shares of the overall production capacity, when no such thing exists.

[Dimentio]

That is precisely my point. There is no such thing as overall production capacity. If it were possible to simply base all production on electricity then energy accounting would be possible, but as you quite rightly acknowledge it isn't.

So I suppose to give a very simplified account of why Energy Accounting won't work, it is because it assumes to allocate shares of the overall production capacity, when no such thing exists.

There is an overall production capacity, even if it is very indirect. The main limiting factor is time. You could basically "trade off" the time for producing item X with item Y, even if they are produced in widely differing manners. Hence, it is possible to determine the full production capacity of a closed system.

[RED DAVE]

There is an overall production capacity, even if it is very indirect. The main limiting factor is time. You could basically "trade off" the time for producing item X with item Y, even if they are produced in widely differing manners. Hence, it is possible to determine the full production capacity of a closed system.Fabulous that as someone who is allegedly a revolutionary, and who supposedly believes in the revolutionary role of the working class, you don't mention the role of labor or the role of labor power in the production process.

Who do you think works the fucking machines or provides the services and is therefore the active source of all value, anyway?

RED DAVE

[Havet]

Who do you think works the fucking machines or provides the services and is therefore the active source of all value, anyway?

RED DAVE

The machines...? Why do you think it's called Technocracy?

[Demogorgon]

There is an overall production capacity, even if it is very indirect. The main limiting factor is time. You could basically "trade off" the time for producing item X with item Y, even if they are produced in widely differing manners. Hence, it is possible to determine the full production capacity of a closed system.
Not necessarily. I mean say the demand for cars outstrips the supply, but the supply of clothes is outstripping the demand. There seems little credible way to change the resources for producing clothes to those needed to make cars, short of creating new car plants and retraining people who make clothes. And while that can be done, it is a bit late for the person who in good faith believed that because they had the necessary energy credits for a car they could go and get one.

To go back to the bigger picture though, it was a claim of the original Technocrats when they did their Energy Survey that it took x horse power to produce all the goods and services in North America but North America could produce y horsepower with y>x. Therefore they concluded that North America could quite easily produce much more than it were currently. Anyone who makes a claim like that and can't see the severe flaws in their thinking has to be taken with a pinch of salt at least.

[Dimentio]

Fabulous that as someone who is allegedly a revolutionary, and who supposedly believes in the revolutionary role of the working class, you don't mention the role of labor or the role of labor power in the production process.

Who do you think works the fucking machines or provides the services and is therefore the active source of all value, anyway?

RED DAVE

Our goal is to minimise the amount of labour. It seems very plausible that we would be able to fully eliminate the human involvement with production on the factory floor, as well as in many services in the near future.

[Dimentio]

Not necessarily. I mean say the demand for cars outstrips the supply, but the supply of clothes is outstripping the demand. There seems little credible way to change the resources for producing clothes to those needed to make cars, short of creating new car plants and retraining people who make clothes. And while that can be done, it is a bit late for the person who in good faith believed that because they had the necessary energy credits for a car they could go and get one.

To go back to the bigger picture though, it was a claim of the original Technocrats when they did their Energy Survey that it took x horse power to produce all the goods and services in North America but North America could produce y horsepower with y>x. Therefore they concluded that North America could quite easily produce much more than it were currently. Anyone who makes a claim like that and can't see the severe flaws in their thinking has to be taken with a pinch of salt at least.

We believe that it is plausible that Europe could sustain all the demand for goods and services without an exchange system in effect. Abundance's never absolute, but it could very well be relative. Besides, a lot of the demand today is generated by planned obsolence and the social pressure to possess trendy products.

To see if our hypothesis is holding water, we are assembling a map over the production capacity within different sectors in Europe. What technocrats have claimed - which you have misinterpreted - is that there in North America was an ability to meet all the needs within each sector, if capitalism was to be abolished from the equation. We are conducting an energy survey today to see if there is relative abundance within the borders of Europe.

[RED DAVE]

[I]f capitalism was to be abolished from the equation.Uhh, just how do you suggest that that little mathematical operation take place?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Uhh, just how do you suggest that that little mathematical operation take place?

RED DAVE

We are not talking about the abolition of capitalism per se, but about the operational capacity of an entire system if the inhibiting factors of capitalism and the price mechanisms were to be abolished.

When we'll talk about the fall of capitalism in the real, tangible world...

Most North American technocrats think that capitalism will abolish itself simply by collapsing. There I agree with them.

Most of them also believe that the people somehow magically will choose technocracy then. There I disagree with them.

If capitalism was to self-destruct, most likely due to breaking the carrying capacity of the Earth's biosphere, the world would tumble down into a more primitive social level (not necessarily technologically more arcane, but a lot more brutal), with warlordism and gangsterism replacing capitalism.

Therefore, I am of the opinion that there is a desperate need to abolish capitalism before it is able to self-destruct.

Now, lets see how you choose to misinterpret this entry in order to froth ;)

[RED DAVE]

Most North American technocrats think that capitalism will abolish itself simply by collapsing. There I agree with them.In other words, you see no independent role for the working class in overthrowing capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Demogorgon]

To see if our hypothesis is holding water, we are assembling a map over the production capacity within different sectors in Europe. What technocrats have claimed - which you have misinterpreted - is that there in North America was an ability to meet all the needs within each sector, if capitalism was to be abolished from the equation. We are conducting an energy survey today to see if there is relative abundance within the borders of Europe.
The answer obviously is that there isn't. Should an energy survey show up abundance then it will simply indicate that the results provided fail to match up to the real world.

The counter-argument to that is obviously the capitalism inefficiently allocates resources and whatnot, which you have quite rightly pointed out. The trouble of course is that I find it a magnificent stretch to say that it wastes to the extent you think it does.

Really though, why is it exactly you use energy as your measure? It is such an arbitrary choice. Howard Scott thought it would work because he grossly misunderstood the difference between economics and the natural sciences. But why do you use it?

[Dermezel]

The Cliffites who run this forum have simultaneous technophobic and technophilac members, because the Cliffite philosophy itself is incoherent.

[Dimentio]

In other words, you see no independent role for the working class in overthrowing capitalism.

RED DAVE

Have I said that there is an impossibility? No. What I am challenging is the inevitability of that scenario. It is very likely that capitalism will fall just like the ancient slavery-based societies fell, by decomposition. Before that though, it is highly advisable that the working class or someone else is overthrowing capitalism, due to the fact that a post-capitalist world following an implosion wouldn't be the best of worlds.

To Demogorgon:

We think that production capacity is a very good foundation to calculate what is possible and what isn't possible. Energy Accounting is simply one of the simpler forms, which also could be used to a great deal to calculate exactly the cost of waste or environmental degradation for example by seeing how that would affect future production capacity.

[Dermezel]

Have I said that there is an impossibility? No. What I am challenging is the inevitability of that scenario. It is very likely that capitalism will fall just like the ancient slavery-based societies fell, by decomposition. Before that though, it is highly advisable that the working class or someone else is overthrowing capitalism, due to the fact that a post-capitalist world following an implosion wouldn't be the best of worlds.


This "independent" role is an accusation he can make no matter what because it is purely subjective. It comes from the bizarre philosophy of Tony Cliff who argues that the Proletariat do not need "parties" to take political power. The whole "Neither Washington or Moscow" arrangement which lead to:

- The Cliffites supporting the CIA backed mujahideen in Afghanistan.

- Neutrality in the Korean War.

- Supporting the fall of the USSR

- Preventing an alliance between the Proletariat here and the Workers' States, in direct contradiction to Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist principles. Particularly with their prejudiced attitude towards China, and their cowardly attitude towards North Korea.

I'm surprised they haven't supported the Iraq War seeing as Saddam could be viewed as "State Capitalist" but then, the Cliffites tend to go whatever way the popular political winds blow.

They are also, for this reason, Labor Chauvinist, in direct contradiction to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm):



First part of the paragraph: "Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture."



Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. the above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.



Let us now leave the sentence as it stands, or rather limps. What could one have expected in conclusion? Obviously this:



"Since labor is the source of all wealth, no one in society can appropriate wealth except as the product of labor. Therefore, if he himself does not work, he lives by the labor of others and also acquires his culture at the expense of the labor of others."


Instead of this, by means of the verbal river "and since", a proposition is added in order to draw a conclusion from this and not from the first one.

And Lenin did likewise in Left-Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder.

Because they reject the need for a Party leadership they are reduced to weird ideas like the raw strength of the proletariat will win the day, by sheer economic might, regardless of of strategy or political conditions. It will happen by magic.

Never mind Marx said this was an ultimately losing and defensive strategy only important for moralistic reasons. This is because so much value will always transfer away from the laborer to the machine:



The economists tell us, to be sure, that those laborers who have been rendered superfluous by machinery find new venues of employment. They dare not assert directly that the same laborers that have been discharged find situations in new branches of labor. Facts cry out too loudly against this lie. Strictly speaking, they only maintain that new means of employment will be found for other sections of the working class; for example, for that portion of the young generation of laborers who were about to enter upon that branch of industry which had just been abolished. Of course, this is a great satisfaction to the disabled laborers. There will be no lack of fresh exploitable blood and muscle for the Messrs. Capitalists – the dead may bury their dead. This consolation seems to be intended more for the comfort of the capitalists themselves than their laborers. If the whole class of the wage-laborer were to be annihilated by machinery, how terrible that would be for capital, which, without wage-labor, ceases to be capital!



But even if we assume that all who are directly forced out of employment by machinery, as well as all of the rising generation who were waiting for a chance of employment in the same branch of industry, do actually find some new employment – are we to believe that this new employment will pay as high wages as did the one they have lost? If it did, it would be in contradiction to the laws of political economy. We have seen how modern industry always tends to the substitution of the simpler and more subordinate employments for the higher and more complex ones. How, then, could a mass of workers thrown out of one branch of industry by machinery find refuge in another branch, unless they were to be paid more poorly?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch09.htm


The power of labor forever declines before raw machine might, but the Cliffite full of bravado will not recognize this because, fearing "Party" leadership, and hence blocking all chance for an effective political campaign, he must believe in an "independent" Workers revolt. One that is leaderless. One that lacks a political party or strategy. One that is based on raw human might.

The results look a lot like Polish cavalry charging German tanks.

[RED DAVE]

The Cliffites who run this forum have simultaneous technophobic and technophilac members, because the Cliffite philosophy itself is incoherent.Boo, boo, Tony Cliff's zombie gonna get your ass!

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

No, that's your problem, you simply don't seem to understand the way economic activity (that is to say producing, distributing and consuming goods and services) works. It is primarily focussed on human effort along with other factors like the long term impact of using resources and so forth. You seem to think that working out how much energy is used will tell you anything, but it tells you absolutely nothing, because there are different types of energy and different ways it can be used. It isn't as if you can say "right, we have so much energy, how are we going to divvy it up", because the energy you have for powering cars for instance cannot simply be redirected to feeding people.

I'll try to make this simple for you:

The only thing that is happening under Energy Accounting (I prefer the term Resource Accounting for reasons I've explained already but which you've apparently ignored), is that money is no longer being used.

Since industries already have to keep track of their resource consumption (so they know how much to buy), all that is happening when you remove money from the equation is the removal of an unnecessary layer of complexity. The addition of money doesn't make the allocation of resources any easier - in fact it makes it more difficult. The only information you need for resource allocation is supply and demand, both of which can be measured directly without the use of money (in fact money cannot be used as a direct measurement of either).

So can you please explain to all of us why you think money is necessary?


Well in the first instance it probably is, you can't have an egalitarian society without equality of political and economic power. Technocrat doesn't have a problem with that because he isn't egalitarian and wants what amounts to a particularly authoritarian state. You however state your political convictions as being anarchist, so advocating hierarchy is ridiculous in your case.You haven't understood a single word I've said. You don't have any idea what I've been advocating or what I stand for. If you understood a single thing I've said you would know that what I've been describing isn't "authoritarian" at all. Pecking orders aren't authoritarian. In fact the only "egalitarian" societies to have ever existed - hunter-gatherer societies - had pecking orders.

My political position is clearly displayed in my signature and I'd appreciate it if you would drop the bullshit accusations of authoritarianism.

[Technocrat]

The counter-argument to that is obviously the capitalism inefficiently allocates resources and whatnot, which you have quite rightly pointed out. The trouble of course is that I find it a magnificent stretch to say that it wastes to the extent you think it does.


We could easily run our entire society (North America) on 1/3rd or less the energy and resources it now consumes (while still achieving a higher standard of living for every person). This could be easily demonstrated by looking at transportation and housing alone.

[RED DAVE]

In other words, you see no independent role for the working class in overthrowing capitalism.
Have I said that there is an impossibility? No.No, but you haven't mentioned it, either. Considering that the predominant theories around here involve the role of the working class in the overthrow of capitalism, your position hardly seems revolutionary.


What I am challenging is the inevitability of that scenario. It is very likely that capitalism will fall just like the ancient slavery-based societies fell, by decomposition.In other words, again, you do not see the conscious action of the working class as a primary force in the end of capitalism.


Before that though, it is highly advisable that the working class or someone else is overthrowing capitalismThe working class or someone else? Who would that be?


due to the fact that a post-capitalist world following an implosion wouldn't be the best of worlds.To say that you're politically confused is like saying that dogs have tails.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

My political position is clearly displayed in my signature and I'd appreciate it if you would drop the bullshit accusations of authoritarianism.Talk is cheap. Revolutionaries are as revolutionaries do. All we see you doing is distorting evolutionary psychology, embracing authoritarian schemas and flacking for a crackpot accounting scheme.

Tell us, oh revolutionary, what revolutionary activities have you engaged in that make your use of the word as your signature anything other than a joke?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

No, but you haven't mentioned it, either. Considering that the predominant theories around here involve the role of the working class in the overthrow of capitalism, your position hardly seems revolutionary.

In other words, again, you do not see the conscious action of the working class as a primary force in the end of capitalism.

The working class or someone else? Who would that be?

To say that you're politically confused is like saying that dogs have tails.

RED DAVE

Is it heretical to claim that capitalism could collapse by any other means than a concious overthrowal? :lol:

Capitalism could end in numerous ways, amongst them a working class revolution. As it looks today though, I would say that it is one of the more unlikely scenarios for a transition from capitalism. Some sort of internal collapse seems more plausible. Now, I do not advocate that we should wait for the collapse. On the contrary! I think the collapse of capitalism by its own weight would herald the establishment of a more primitive and brutal social system, and that we would need to abolish capitalism before it is too late.

You are quite cute, do you know it? :blushing:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No, that's your problem, you simply don't seem to understand the way economic activity (that is to say producing, distributing and consuming goods and services) works. It is primarily focussed on human effort...

Which requires energy.


along with other factors like the long term impact of using resources and so forth.

Which technocratic designs take into account, as evidenced here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/determination-post-scarcity-t99194/index.html?t=99194), in which not only energy and materials are taken into account, but human factors such as literacy etc.


You seem to think that working out how much energy is used will tell you anything, but it tells you absolutely nothing, because there are different types of energy and different ways it can be used. It isn't as if you can say "right, we have so much energy, how are we going to divvy it up", because the energy you have for powering cars for instance cannot simply be redirected to feeding people.

I don't think it's as difficult as you seem to be making out - to use your example, a lot of the energy wasted in fueling private motor vehicles could be more productively utilised in powering farm machinery or freight vehicles, both uses of which have a direct impact on society's ability to feed people.


Quite apart from that, do you realise how monumentally absurd it sounds for somebody who knows nothing about the subject to declare that "economics doesn't matter"?

No doubt an astrologer could make a similar accusation.


It sounds like some backwoods young earth creationism saying "science doesn't matter" and it simply destroys the credibility of the person making the argument.

It would if economics were a science.


Incidentally, as an aside, if economics indeed doesn't matter, then there is no way to prove that workers are exploited.

As if the only way workers are exploited was through lack of sufficient monetary remuneration! What about alienation, in which workers are divorced from the production process in any meaningful way, or imperialism, in which a region's resources are exploited for the benefit of people half a world away with the locals seeing little if any benefit?


Your only argument against capitalism comes down to it not being ecologically sustainable, but that takes you outwith the realm of leftist politics because you are no longer seeking empowerment of working people

You don't think environmental degradation is a process that is ultimately disempowering for the working class?


Well in the first instance it probably is, you can't have an egalitarian society without equality of political and economic power. Technocrat doesn't have a problem with that because he isn't egalitarian and wants what amounts to a particularly authoritarian state.

Again you are confusing the informal pecking order, which Technocrat claims arises on an ad hoc basis, with institutionalised political hierarchy.


You however state your political convictions as being anarchist, so advocating hierarchy is ridiculous in your case.

Hierarchy in political power, yes. But an engineer has more authority than me when it comes to engineering matters.


Technocrat advocates class collaboration.

Quotes please.


If that is fundamentally with Technocracy then say so clearly and we can move on. But if it is, stop sticking up for him. So long as you associate your views with those of his, then we are going to have to presume there is some connection between his rubbish and at least some forms of Technocracy.

In my estimation, none of the terrible things which you accuse Technocrat of are fundamental to Technocracy, and I further believe that some if not all of the accusations are unsubstantiated and based on misunderstandings.


in way of comparison, if I started sticking up for someone who claimed that North Korea was some sort of worker's paradise then you might be justified in thinking that my views were sympathetic to that position, wouldn't you?

As terrible as North Korea apparently is, I think anyone would be justified in defending it against smears. Same thing with Technocrat's Technocracy.


If I wished to disassociate myself from that position I would have to clearly state that I do not in any way think that North Korea is a worker's paradise. Similarly you have become associated with an individual with very odious views, are your views in line with his or not?

Again, what "odious views" are these, that is those which have not been misrepresented?

[Demogorgon]

Which requires energy.

Yes, but that doesn't have the relevance you seem to think it does, not least because the degree of human effort involved might not even correspond to the amount of energy expended. At least not on a short or medium term basis.

think it's as difficult as you seem to be making out - to use your example, a lot of the energy wasted in fueling private motor vehicles could be more productively utilised in powering farm machinery or freight vehicles, both uses of which have a direct impact on society's ability to feed people.

In that case possibly, though Technocracy hits a brick wall there too when it tries to explain how it will reallocate the resources. There are two ways by which you can make people to make less use of private vehicles. The first is that you can make the cost of using them sufficiently greater than using other means of transport that people will use those other forms of transport or else place legal restrictions on using private transport.

Technocracy will greatly struggle to do the first because if it is basing its economy on energy accounting it can;t inflate the price of cars and petrol to a large enough level to persuade people to use other means, so it is going to have to use coercive legal means. And how will it do that without some kind of authority empowered to do the same?


It would if economics were a science.

And there you show your ignorance again, because economics is definitely a science. It is a science of human behaviour as you would know if you had ever made any attempt to learn something about it rather than simply pontificate. Why do you think we mock the Austrians here so much for abandoning a scientific approach to the discipline?

Your problem is that you think only the natural sciences are "real science" and then ridiculously conclude on that basis that there is no true science studying human behaviour and attempt to apply natural science to studying it when the methadology used there does not work.

And quite apart from anything else, you start to sound like the Tory gutter press who try to undermine any attempt to understand society by undermining all study of the same.

In your signature you claim to embrace "reason". In what possible way is that consistent with dismissing vast sources of information you have never made any attempt to understand because they fail to correspond with your ideology? Talking like this just makes you look like a petty ideologue and no more credible than the aformentioned backwoods creationist preacher.


As if the only way workers are exploited was through lack of sufficient monetary remuneration! What about alienation, in which workers are divorced from the production process in any meaningful way, or imperialism, in which a region's resources are exploited for the benefit of people half a world away with the locals seeing little if any benefit?

All economic arguments, I am afraid. But you have just said economics is useless, so we can't address them. Or perhaps you would like to retract that statement?


You don't think environmental degradation is a process that is ultimately disempowering for the working class?

I do, but I don't think it is an argument for a more egalitarian society. I mean we could deal with environmental degradation with the boogeyman policies that VG1917 keeps bringing up to try and brush the whole affair under the carpet. Now I certainly don't think that would be a very good idea, because I want an egalitarian society specifically. You have rejected any type of argument that can get you there, so you have no reason to prefer an elitist solution to environmental problems to an egalitarian one.

And as you have dismissed economics, you can't even claim there is a separate working class (economics is needed to identify them), so you can't bring up their specific well being independently of people in general.


Again you are confusing the informal pecking order, which Technocrat claims arises on an ad hoc basis, with institutionalised political hierarchy.

Technocrat wants an entrenched mechanism of nomination from below, appointment from the top (an idea that was lifted straight from fascist Italy BTW where it was the means of selecting a large number of public offices) with an arbitrary two thirds requirement to remove anyone above you. Precisely how much more institutionalised can one get?


Hierarchy in political power, yes. But an engineer has more authority than me when it comes to engineering matters.

Possibly true. I have more authority than an engineer when it comes to economic matters however, which is where you want to place engineers in charge in practice. Fortunately however I have no desire to be put in a position of control over either engineers nor anyone else.

I'm not an anarchist of course, I acknowledge that political institutions capable of exercising power need to exist and be able to enforce their power. However I am very insistent that all these institutions be as democratic as possible and no privileged class be allowed to exist.


Again, what "odious views" are these, that is those which have not been misrepresented?
We've gone through many of them, but how about when I described the political workings of the fascist "corporations" to him in order to get him to realise the connection to the stuff he was getting his views from and he simply responded that he didn't see the problem with them.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yes, but that doesn't have the relevance you seem to think it does, not least because the degree of human effort involved might not even correspond to the amount of energy expended. At least not on a short or medium term basis.

How so? Humans generally need an optimum intake of calories to effectively undertake mental or physical labour, and that can be measured, can it not?


In that case possibly, though Technocracy hits a brick wall there too when it tries to explain how it will reallocate the resources. There are two ways by which you can make people to make less use of private vehicles. The first is that you can make the cost of using them sufficiently greater than using other means of transport that people will use those other forms of transport or else place legal restrictions on using private transport.

Or, moving out of the monetary/legal paradigm which economics has chained itself to, you could engineer away the use of private motor vehicles to a large degree by changing the layout and design of population centres to one which encourages walking and public transport (http://www.revleft.com/vb/ultimate-urbanate-plan-t112088/index.html?t=112088&).


Technocracy will greatly struggle to do the first because if it is basing its economy on energy accounting it can;t inflate the price of cars and petrol to a large enough level to persuade people to use other means, so it is going to have to use coercive legal means. And how will it do that without some kind of authority empowered to do the same?

If people can reach their amenities with a 10-minute walk or short tram ride, then private motor vehicles, at least within urban centres, will go the way of the horse and buggy.


And there you show your ignorance again, because economics is definitely a science. It is a science of human behaviour as you would know if you had ever made any attempt to learn something about it rather than simply pontificate. Why do you think we mock the Austrians here so much for abandoning a scientific approach to the discipline?

If it is a science of human behaviour, then why does it ignore the vast majority of human behaviour which has at best only a tangential relation to matters of exchange or value? Economics doesn't tell us the whys or hows of love, friendship, or silly things like that. It reduces us to consumers and producers, measured by "value" which fluctuates according to purely self-referential rules rather than the actual availability of energy and materials.


Your problem is that you think only the natural sciences are "real science" and then ridiculously conclude on that basis that there is no true science studying human behaviour and attempt to apply natural science to studying it when the methadology used there does not work.

It's called psychology.


And quite apart from anything else, you start to sound like the Tory gutter press who try to undermine any attempt to understand society by undermining all study of the same.

Sociology is a broad and rich field, and it would be remiss of me to simply reject it, hence I don't.


In your signature you claim to embrace "reason". In what possible way is that consistent with dismissing vast sources of information you have never made any attempt to understand because they fail to correspond with your ideology? Talking like this just makes you look like a petty ideologue and no more credible than the aformentioned backwoods creationist preacher.

Doubtless there are nuggets of gold even in the shitheaps of economics, and maybe I'll get round to digging eventually. But since you mentioned preaching, "by their fruits ye shall know them"; the fruits of economics are rotten and good only for tossing as far as I can see.


All economic arguments, I am afraid. But you have just said economics is useless, so we can't address them. Or perhaps you would like to retract that statement?

Those are arguments centred around social fulfilment and resources, not money.


I do, but I don't think it is an argument for a more egalitarian society. I mean we could deal with environmental degradation with the boogeyman policies that VG1917 keeps bringing up to try and brush the whole affair under the carpet. Now I certainly don't think that would be a very good idea, because I want an egalitarian society specifically. You have rejected any type of argument that can get you there, so you have no reason to prefer an elitist solution to environmental problems to an egalitarian one.

The reason is pragmatic - in any re-organisation of society, if the new structure is elitist, then the odds are good that I would end up at the bottom of the ladder. Hence it is in my direct self-interest to advocate an egalitarian society.


And as you have dismissed economics, you can't even claim there is a separate working class (economics is needed to identify them), so you can't bring up their specific well being independently of people in general.

You don't need to be an economist to recognise that there is a class of people who sell their labour.


Technocrat wants an entrenched mechanism of nomination from below, appointment from the top (an idea that was lifted straight from fascist Italy BTW where it was the means of selecting a large number of public offices) with an arbitrary two thirds requirement to remove anyone above you. Precisely how much more institutionalised can one get?

For technical management, not social management. Also, establishing what is most effective is why I think a zetetic approach to technocracy is essential; it may turn out that in practice a two-thirds majority for removal is too much, or too little. Perhaps nomination/appointment to positions should be subject to or replaced with competitive examinations, possibly with some kind of modulation to take into account previous performance/experience/completion of projects.

In any case, I'm open-minded about the actual mechanisms involved, as long as they achieve the goal of selecting the most competent applicant for a technical position.


Possibly true. I have more authority than an engineer when it comes to economic matters however, which is where you want to place engineers in charge in practice. Fortunately however I have no desire to be put in a position of control over either engineers nor anyone else.

The decision to commence (or cancel) a project is a political one and hence would be decided in the appropriate political manner, but the actual undertaking would be the province of the relevant scientist/engineer/agriculturalist/whatever.


I'm not an anarchist of course, I acknowledge that political institutions capable of exercising power need to exist and be able to enforce their power. However I am very insistent that all these institutions be as democratic as possible and no privileged class be allowed to exist.

Yes, political institutions. I am talking about hierarchy in technical institutions.


We've gone through many of them, but how about when I described the political workings of the fascist "corporations" to him in order to get him to realise the connection to the stuff he was getting his views from and he simply responded that he didn't see the problem with them.

I'd have to actually look at the exchange myself to be sure, but I suspect that in this case, Technocrat agrees with the means but not the ends.

[Demogorgon]

How so? Humans generally need an optimum intake of calories to effectively undertake mental or physical labour, and that can be measured, can it not?

Yes, but it is only relevant in so far as working out how much food people need. It won't actually tell you anything else about the overall economy though.


Or, moving out of the monetary/legal paradigm which economics has chained itself to, you could engineer away the use of private motor vehicles to a large degree by changing the layout and design of population centres to one which encourages walking and public transport (http://www.revleft.com/vb/ultimate-urbanate-plan-t112088/index.html?t=112088&).

Yes and here you hit an enormous problem. We already have urban centers. What are you going to do, tear them all down and start from scratch?


If people can reach their amenities with a 10-minute walk or short tram ride, then private motor vehicles, at least within urban centres, will go the way of the horse and buggy.

Unfortunately not. In many places you can get about quite easily with a short walk or train journey or whatever) and yet people still drive. Speaking for myself, I, who have never driven, have argued many times with friends and family who insist on driving when there is perfectly good public transportation to use. I agree it is plain silly, but people still use their cars even though it is more expensive, more stressful and barely any quicker.

If it didn't happen everywhere, I might say it was the weather, but that does lead me to another point. In places where it rains a lot (like Glasgow for instance as I can well testify), people are going to be very reluctant to abandon cars altogether, particularly in the winter. You need to take things like this into account.


If it is a science of human behaviour, then why does it ignore the vast majority of human behaviour which has at best only a tangential relation to matters of exchange or value? Economics doesn't tell us the whys or hows of love, friendship, or silly things like that. It reduces us to consumers and producers, measured by "value" which fluctuates according to purely self-referential rules rather than the actual availability of energy and materials.
You have misunderstood economics completely. For one thing you have missed the fact that there are different schools within it using different methodology. Though I must say with the exception of certain idiots all the schools regard "materials" as you put it as a central question.

As for the question of explaining things like love friendship and so on...

It's called psychology.

Bingo. But that is approaching human behaviour from a different direction and studies a different aspect of it.

Attempts to merge economics and psychology have been made, but have not been very successful as a rule.

As an aside, I've seen a certain Technocrat claim that psychology would be one of the many things unneeded in his brave new world.


Doubtless there are nuggets of gold even in the shitheaps of economics, and maybe I'll get round to digging eventually. But since you mentioned preaching, "by their fruits ye shall know them"; the fruits of economics are rotten and good only for tossing as far as I can see.

Then you haven't seen very much of it. Like all sciences economics does not have all the answers and there are disputes over the different methodologies and obviously most, if not all, have a political axe to grind which doesn't help, but to say it is almost all useless shows that you have seen little if any of it.

BTW, in a sense your energy accounting is pure economics-not very good economics granted, but still pure economics-so if economics is "only for tossing" you will have to toss your own theory as well.


Those are arguments centred around social fulfilment and resources, not money.

You are showing your strange understanding of economics again. My first economics teacher had a saying he drummed into us over and over until we got the message: "economics has nothing to do with money". That was a deliberate exaggeration of course because economics does study money, but that is only one aspect of it and it certainly is not central to it.

You sound like you are arguing based on a stereotype of economics you have heard that has little to do with the actual study.


The reason is pragmatic - in any re-organisation of society, if the new structure is elitist, then the odds are good that I would end up at the bottom of the ladder. Hence it is in my direct self-interest to advocate an egalitarian society.

Maybe, but it isn't a very convincing argument until you can show that there is an egalitarian means to achieve it. Which without economics, you cannot.


You don't need to be an economist to recognise that there is a class of people who sell their labour.

You certainly don;t have to be an economist to make an easily observable economic statement, but it is still an economic statement. If you are going to get rid of economics entirely, then we have to presume that that statement is meaningless.


For technical management, not social management. Also, establishing what is most effective is why I think a zetetic approach to technocracy is essential; it may turn out that in practice a two-thirds majority for removal is too much, or too little. Perhaps nomination/appointment to positions should be subject to or replaced with competitive examinations, possibly with some kind of modulation to take into account previous performance/experience/completion of projects.

In any case, I'm open-minded about the actual mechanisms involved, as long as they achieve the goal of selecting the most competent applicant for a technical position.

The decision to commence (or cancel) a project is a political one and hence would be decided in the appropriate political manner, but the actual undertaking would be the province of the relevant scientist/engineer/agriculturalist/whatever.

Yes, political institutions. I am talking about hierarchy in technical institutions.

I shouldn't need to explain this on a leftist board, but so called technical institutions are political institutions because anything that involves the distribution of resources or directs human activity is political. A capitalist can (and almost invariably will) argue that they believe in democracy and advocate democratic Government (in reality polyarchy, but let's not trip up there), but the workplace is not a political institution so democracy does not apply there.

You are saying more or less the same thing because first of all you have rejected democratic management of the economy and moreover have removed the "experts" you want put in charge of these things from proper political accountability. That puts them in a position to form a privileged class and dominate political decision making.

[RED DAVE]

Technocrat wants an entrenched mechanism of nomination from below, appointment from the top (an idea that was lifted straight from fascist Italy BTW where it was the means of selecting a large number of public offices) with an arbitrary two thirds requirement to remove anyone above you. Precisely how much more institutionalised can one get?
For technical management, not social management.And here we have it, folks, the fallacy at the heart of Technocracy: that "technical management" can be separated from "social mangement." This is a socially policy propagated during the late 19th and early 20 centuries when the bourgeoisie created a class or engineers/technocrats who, allegedly, possessed specialized knowledge that was above the reach of the average working stiff. Fact is, in any working situation, industrial or otherwise, the collective knowledge of the workers far exceeds any engineer, technocrat or boss. And should some highly specialized knowledge be required, the workers as a group certainly have the brains to choose someone.

This 2/3 bullshit is authoritarian and undemocratic and an excuse for the engineers/bosses to retain their power.


Also, establishing what is most effective is why I think a zetetic approach to technocracy is essential; it may turn out that in practice a two-thirds majority for removal is too much, or too little. Perhaps nomination/appointment to positions should be subject to or replaced with competitive examinations, possibly with some kind of modulation to take into account previous performance/experience/completion of projects.Fascinating that as a supposed revolutionary, none of your possibilities is democratic workers control.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

In a society where everyone are engineers, it would certainly be some form of participatory technocracy which in fact would give the individual far more autonomy than collective decision-making, given that anyone could decide for themselves what groups they want to be a part of or not.

[RED DAVE]

In a society where everyone are engineers:confused:


it would certainly be some form of participatory technocracy which in fact would give the individual far more autonomy than collective decision-making, given that anyone could decide for themselves what groups they want to be a part of or not.Wriggling and squealing to avoid that fact that you advocate an anti-socialist, anti-working class belief system.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

:confused:

Wriggling and squealing to avoid that fact that you advocate an anti-socialist, anti-working class belief system.

RED DAVE

The idea about a dichotomy between workers and engineers is false and is perpetuating the idea that capitalist production relations will continue to exist in a post-capitalist technate. Most people who will be working inside a technate will be engineers, or at least belong to the category which is doing engineering.

Where have you got the idea that I am wriggling and squealing from? I find you quite enjoyable, due to your total lack of ability to engage in a civilised discussion.

[Havet]

Where have you got the idea that I am wriggling and squealing from? I find you quite enjoyable, due to your total lack of ability to engage in a civilised discussion.

Lol, this politeness of exchanging insults is gold.

[Invincible Summer]

:confused:


What's so confusing about the "working class = engineers" thing? It's sort of akin to the "working class = vanguard," really.

[Technocrat]

Not necessarily. I mean say the demand for cars outstrips the supply, but the supply of clothes is outstripping the demand. There seems little credible way to change the resources for producing clothes to those needed to make cars, short of creating new car plants and retraining people who make clothes. And while that can be done, it is a bit late for the person who in good faith believed that because they had the necessary energy credits for a car they could go and get one.


You are talking about matching production with consumption. The use of a money-based market system doesn't make solving this problem any easier, it only makes it more difficult (as I have repeatedly attempted to explain to you). As I said earlier, the only information you need to calculate resource allocation is supply and demand, and the only way to measure these is directly (by tally), not with money. Money is not a direct a measurement of anything. Since it is not a measurement, you have to have a direct count of supply and demand (consumption and production), even if you are using a money-based system. Money just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to managing resources. For example, if you wanted to match the production of cars with the consumption of cars, you could look at the amount of money spent on cars, but this wouldn't be accurate because prices change and the value of money itself changes. It would be better to just look at the number of cars sold. Market (ie money-based) economics is not only harmful, it's unnecessary.

[Technocrat]

In that case possibly, though Technocracy hits a brick wall there too when it tries to explain how it will reallocate the resources. There are two ways by which you can make people to make less use of private vehicles. The first is that you can make the cost of using them sufficiently greater than using other means of transport that people will use those other forms of transport or else place legal restrictions on using private transport.

1. determine the use value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value)of what is being consumed (this is easy to do since use values are all objective)
2. determine the most efficient way of providing everyone with what they are consuming, with consumption being the use values found in step 1.

The successful execution of the idea (Technocracy) depends on sufficiency of resources to provide everyone with as much as they can consume, with consumption being determined by use values.

In the case of cars, people wouldn't own them in a Technate but would be able to use one whenever they wanted, and a variety of models could be made available that would all be designed to provide the highest performance at the lowest possible cost. You would just get in a car, drive somewhere, and leave it wherever when you were done. The carsharing staff would handle maintenance and refueling. The design of urbanates, the proposed replacement for cities in a Technate, would eliminate most of the need for a car anyway. With this system everyone would get to use a car whenever they wanted, thus their consumption demands as defined by use values would be met.

[Technocrat]

The idea about a dichotomy between workers and engineers is false and is perpetuating the idea that capitalist production relations will continue to exist in a post-capitalist technate. Most people who will be working inside a technate will be engineers, or at least belong to the category which is doing engineering.

Correct - due to the simple fact that these are the people who know how to design, build, and operate the machinery and infrastructure (which is all the Technate is concerned with controlling).

There wouldn't be some separate, elite class of engineers. Education would be given to everyone and everyone would be given an opportunity to pursue a career of their choosing.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yes, but it is only relevant in so far as working out how much food people need. It won't actually tell you anything else about the overall economy though.

What else needs to be worked out? Energy for travel? That can be calculated too. Housing? Again, measurable. It's not the deep dark mystery you seem to be making it out to be.


Yes and here you hit an enormous problem. We already have urban centers. What are you going to do, tear them all down and start from scratch?

Current urban centres will be subject to wear and tear; when they get sufficiently run down, we can rip them down and replace them with something better and cheaper to build and maintain, which can be undertaken during the hopefully brief period of scarcity communism that I reckon would be necessary to establish the technate.


Unfortunately not. In many places you can get about quite easily with a short walk or train journey or whatever) and yet people still drive. Speaking for myself, I, who have never driven, have argued many times with friends and family who insist on driving when there is perfectly good public transportation to use. I agree it is plain silly, but people still use their cars even though it is more expensive, more stressful and barely any quicker.

That's because walking and public transport still play second fiddle in contemporary cities, even in those considered to have excellent provisions for same, such as London.


If it didn't happen everywhere, I might say it was the weather, but that does lead me to another point. In places where it rains a lot (like Glasgow for instance as I can well testify), people are going to be very reluctant to abandon cars altogether, particularly in the winter. You need to take things like this into account.

See the Urbanate design I linked to in my previous post. The habitation and service levels would be protected from the elements.


You have misunderstood economics completely. For one thing you have missed the fact that there are different schools within it using different methodology. Though I must say with the exception of certain idiots all the schools regard "materials" as you put it as a central question.

Do any of them reject money? Because money is a completely inadequate system for managing the wealth of society.


As for the question of explaining things like love friendship and so on...
Bingo. But that is approaching human behaviour from a different direction and studies a different aspect of it.

Attempts to merge economics and psychology have been made, but have not been very successful as a rule.

Would it be cheeky of me suggest that the problem was on the economic half of the equations? :lol:


As an aside, I've seen a certain Technocrat claim that psychology would be one of the many things unneeded in his brave new world.

I think that would depend on the nature of the psychology in question, don't you? I certainly don't think we need psychologists to tell us what kinds of mind are acceptable and which are not; see Oppositional Defiant Disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder), which seems to me be nothing less than the pathologisation of rebellious attitudes, especially among American youth.

However, we do need to know what makes the human mind tick.


Then you haven't seen very much of it. Like all sciences economics does not have all the answers and there are disputes over the different methodologies and obviously most, if not all, have a political axe to grind which doesn't help, but to say it is almost all useless shows that you have seen little if any of it.

I'm not overly concerned with the internecine squabbles of economists; I'm more concerned about what happens when their half-baked ideas are put into practice.


BTW, in a sense your energy accounting is pure economics-not very good economics granted, but still pure economics-so if economics is "only for tossing" you will have to toss your own theory as well.

If that is the case, not then that I did not completely dismiss economics entirely. Rather I am dismissive of those which involve money.


You are showing your strange understanding of economics again. My first economics teacher had a saying he drummed into us over and over until we got the message: "economics has nothing to do with money". That was a deliberate exaggeration of course because economics does study money, but that is only one aspect of it and it certainly is not central to it.

You sound like you are arguing based on a stereotype of economics you have heard that has little to do with the actual study.

If money is not central to the question of economics, whence come the bloated monstrosity that is the financial sector? They seem to do little more than manipulate money, and grim-faced people appear on the telly to predict doom and gloom whenever that sector is in trouble, for whatever banal reason.


Maybe, but it isn't a very convincing argument until you can show that there is an egalitarian means to achieve it. Which without economics, you cannot.

You certainly don;t have to be an economist to make an easily observable economic statement, but it is still an economic statement. If you are going to get rid of economics entirely, then we have to presume that that statement is meaningless.

Fine; point taken. My problem is not with economics per se, but with money and contemporary society's obsessive focus on it.


I shouldn't need to explain this on a leftist board, but so called technical institutions are political institutions because anything that involves the distribution of resources or directs human activity is political. A capitalist can (and almost invariably will) argue that they believe in democracy and advocate democratic Government (in reality polyarchy, but let's not trip up there), but the workplace is not a political institution so democracy does not apply there.

You are saying more or less the same thing because first of all you have rejected democratic management of the economy and moreover have removed the "experts" you want put in charge of these things from proper political accountability. That puts them in a position to form a privileged class and dominate political decision making.

How? The decision to undertake a project is not theirs to make. If for example the citizens of a Technate demand more power, various plans can presented representing alternative options (nuclear, solar, hydro etc), including the option to not go ahead with anything and tighten belts instead, if there is a change of heart.


And here we have it, folks, the fallacy at the heart of Technocracy: that "technical management" can be separated from "social mangement." This is a socially policy propagated during the late 19th and early 20 centuries when the bourgeoisie created a class or engineers/technocrats who, allegedly, possessed specialized knowledge that was above the reach of the average working stiff.

The fact is that technology is advancing far quicker than the ability of a single human to master even a small fraction of it.


Fact is, in any working situation, industrial or otherwise, the collective knowledge of the workers far exceeds any engineer, technocrat or boss.

Bollocks. Having worked in light industry myself, I and my co-workers may have known how to operate the machinery and conduct minor repairs and troubleshooting, but for major repairs and retooling we had to call someone in, another worker who had the required knowledge and expertise.


And should some highly specialized knowledge be required, the workers as a group certainly have the brains to choose someone.

Yeah, someone who's qualified and knows what they're doing. In other words, one of those dreaded engineers or "technocrats" whom you loathe so much.


This 2/3 bullshit is authoritarian and undemocratic and an excuse for the engineers/bosses to retain their power.

It's optional as far as I'm concerned. Did you not read my post?


Fascinating that as a supposed revolutionary, none of your possibilities is democratic workers control.

How do I know that when you say "democratic workers control" that it's anything but a mantra, trotted out as part of some formulaic Marxist ritual but unlikely to see the light of day?

[RED DAVE]

In the case of cars, people wouldn't own them in a Technate but would be able to use one whenever they wanted, and a variety of models could be made available that would all be designed to provide the highest performance at the lowest possible cost. You would just get in a car, drive somewhere, and leave it wherever when you were done. The carsharing staff would handle maintenance and refueling. The design of urbanates, the proposed replacement for cities in a Technate, would eliminate most of the need for a car anyway. With this system everyone would get to use a car whenever they wanted, thus their consumption demands as defined by use values would be met.Fabulous that in the absence of any democratic decision-making, you've got it all worked out in your head. Does it occur to you that its a little strange that you, with no work experience, and, I gather, not even an undergraduate degree, attached to no political organization, with no political experience, have the solution to all the problems of production?

Try introducing this at a meeting of the first union you join. Be sure to provide coffee to keep people awake.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

The decision to undertake a project is not theirs to make. If for example the citizens of a Technate demand more power, various plans can presented representing alternative options (nuclear, solar, hydro etc), including the option to not go ahead with anything and tighten belts instead, if there is a change of heart.Nonsense, again. You have made it very clear that what you call technical decisions, allocations of resources among others, come from above. It would take 2/3 of an entire "sequence" to change its direction, which is dictatorship from above, with a democratic fig leaf.


And here we have it, folks, the fallacy at the heart of Technocracy: that "technical management" can be separated from "social management." This is a socially policy propagated during the late 19th and early 20 centuries when the bourgeoisie created a class or engineers/technocrats who, allegedly, possessed specialized knowledge that was above the reach of the average working stiff.
The fact is that technology is advancing far quicker than the ability of a single human to master even a small fraction of it.True. And that's why we need workers democracy to deal with it.


Fact is, in any working situation, industrial or otherwise, the collective knowledge of the workers far exceeds any engineer, technocrat or boss.
Bollocks. Having worked in light industry myself, I and my co-workers may have known how to operate the machinery and conduct minor repairs and troubleshooting, but for major repairs and retooling we had to call someone in, another worker who had the required knowledge and expertise.Learn to read before you post. I said "the collective knowledge of the workers." Actually, you made my point.



And should some highly specialized knowledge be required, the workers as a group certainly have the brains to choose someone.
Yeah, someone who's qualified and knows what they're doing. In other words, one of those dreaded engineers or "technocrats" whom you loathe so much.Your contempt for the workers just oozes out of your pores. (By the way, I'm the son of an engineer who was also a highly skilled craftsman. It was he who first told me, in the 1950s, about Technocracy and what bullshit it was.)


It's optional as far as I'm concerned. Did you not read my post?Nice. Optional dictatorship. Time to make up your mind.


Fascinating that as a supposed revolutionary, none of your possibilities is democratic workers control
How do I know that when you say "democratic workers control" that it's anything but a mantra, trotted out as part of some formulaic Marxist ritual but unlikely to see the light of day?Well, dude, I've got 50 years as a socialist. I don't think I have to prove my sincerity to you. You, on the other hand, having embraced a crack-pot, anti-working class ideology, with fascist overtones, and a shitty history, have a lot to prove.

RED DAVE

[Dermezel]

The objective class position of workers in society makes their struggle for power possible, but it does not guarantee success. The workers are best able to fight when they are politically armed against the false conceptions that paralyse their capacity for struggle, and when they are alerted, at every step of the way, to the dangers that threaten them. This is the task of revolutionary leadership. Panglossian assurances that the ‘‘objective logic’’ of the class struggle will automatically lead the workers to reject false ideas, and act out their role in accordance with some predetermined ‘‘Marxist’’ script is, in the end, a rationale for abdicating the struggle for Marxist consciousness within the working class.



Such rationales are not new in the history of the socialist movement. Lenin’s Bolshevik party was forged in struggle against a doctrine known as ‘‘economism’’ or the ‘‘spontaneity of the masses.’’ According to the economists, the day-to-day economic struggles of the class would somehow lead to the ‘‘historically inevitable’’ triumph of socialism. In rejecting such doctrines, Lenin counterposed the need to organize the politically conscious minority of the class into a vanguard party committed to combat bourgeois consciousness in the working class and win influence for the revolutionary program. Mandel’s pronouncements to the effect that the workers ‘‘interests’’ and not their ‘‘ideological values’’ will determine their day-to-day behavior have far more in common with economism than with Leninism, a legacy the USec falsely claims.


http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no8/no08east.html


Anyone here calling to an actual Technocracy, that means rule by engineers and such, is living in a fairy tale. Likewise anyone here who is arguing that technology automatically benefits the masses, without Socialism, is ignoring the scientific analysis of the economy.


That being said, the Cliffites, while not as harmful as that, are misleading the workers, and feeding backwards attitudes and superstitions by not recognizing the need to advocate Science, Technology and Strategy among the Proletariat:



In a working class such as that in the United States, large sections of the workers are very backward indeed. But they are backward from the standpoint of the historic interests represented by the proletarian vanguard. They are forward in terms of bourgeois ideas. Religion, alcoholism, male chauvinism and the most virulent forms of racism are predominant manifestations in the absence of class struggle and without the presence of a proletarian vanguard. The workerists refuse to see all this and instead see a pure, uncontaminated, isolated proletariat. At the same time they see the vanguard party as a mixture of radical workers and radical intellectuals who may not be so declassed.


http://www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/LeninVanguard/LVP%20Robertson%20to%20Spartacus-BL.htm



It’s a little awkward to know what to say about that. The idea that the whole class, in all its sectional, racial, national backwardness, is to be the jury to decide questions of revolutionary strategy is appalling. In a trade union, which is a kind of economic united front, or in a political united front it is of course necessary for all of the participants who act to offer freely their criticism. But the idea that workers who follow priests, workers who are Stalinists, workers who belong to social-democratic parties should put pressure on in order to determine the policy of the revolutionary Marxists is an idea that will maintain the power of the bourgeoisie until a thermo-nuclear bomb eliminates the question.


They believe in the magical power of raw numbers and sheer labor even in the age of nuclear weapons.

[Dimentio]

No technocrat is a blind believer that technology is a liberator no matter what. But we share the conviction that technology, properly utilised, could enhance the lives of human beings. What we want is a rational management of the planet's resources, to allow all human beings to achieve equal access to the means of production.

[Dermezel]

No technocrat is a blind believer that technology is a liberator no matter what. But we share the conviction that technology, properly utilised, could enhance the lives of human beings. What we want is a rational management of the planet's resources, to allow all human beings to achieve equal access to the means of production.

Well the only way to do that is to apply a Scientific analysis to society itself. Just as Karl Marx did.

[Dimentio]

Well the only way to do that is to apply a Scientific analysis to society itself. Just as Karl Marx did.

That is another one of our foundations and why we are calling ourselves technocrats.

[RED DAVE]

No technocrat is a blind believer that technology is a liberator no matter what. But we share the conviction that technology, properly utilised, could enhance the lives of human beings. What we want is a rational management of the planet's resources, to allow all human beings to achieve equal access to the means of production.No, what Technocracy wants is management by the engineers and technicians who, as servants of the bourgeoisie, have helped to produce the current fuck up. A truly rational management of modern technology is worker management, which you do not believe in.

The management of resources and industry is not, at heart, a technical task. It's a social task. The technical aspects are secondary. What is critical is the relations of work, the class relations, at the heart of industry, and service, where the worker sells their labor power.

Technocracy utterly ignores this and goes off into it little accounting schemes without taking into account the fundamental power relationships of class society. That's why they have to fuck around with hierarchies, 2/3 votes and all the rest of the crap, or you have to strenuously deny that that's what they're at.

Once the fundamental antagonism of society, that of capital and labor, not mankind and technology, is recognized, then schemes like Technocracy fall into place: attempts to ignore this fundamental relationship and substituting for it bullshit about technology.

This is why Technocracy has nothing to say about the current political situation in the world that is peculiar to its ideology and can be derived from it. It is also why Technocrats avoid political activity: because, eschewing notions of class power, they can have no concept of agencies of change.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

The objection to the 2/3rd requirement for removal is just plain stupid. Red Dave keeps endlessly parroting, without grounds, that this feature of Technocracy makes it a fascist authoritarian system.

Why should someone be removed from their job just because they are disliked? With a simple majority it is much easier to remove someone with a smear campaign. This is because with a majority vote people tend to polarize into two groups defined along easily distinguishable lines. With a 2/3rd majority you basically guarantee that people will only be removed if they fail to perform their duties (remember that all positions in a Technate would be functionally vital). The fact that a simple majority vote can be easily swayed with emotional manipulation is the reason why a simple majority isn't sufficient in every situation.

This is just the system that Technocracy, Inc. proposed. I'm with Noxion, I'm flexible when it comes to the actual mechanisms used so long as they place the right person in the right job.

[Dimentio]

No, what Technocracy wants is management by the engineers and technicians who, as servants of the bourgeoisie, have helped to produce the current fuck up. A truly rational management of modern technology is worker management, which you do not believe in.

The management of resources and industry is not, at heart, a technical task. It's a social task. The technical aspects are secondary. What is critical is the relations of work, the class relations, at the heart of industry, and service, where the worker sells their labor power.

Technocracy utterly ignores this and goes off into it little accounting schemes without taking into account the fundamental power relationships of class society. That's why they have to fuck around with hierarchies, 2/3 votes and all the rest of the crap, or you have to strenuously deny that that's what they're at.

Once the fundamental antagonism of society, that of capital and labor, not mankind and technology, is recognized, then schemes like Technocracy fall into place: attempts to ignore this fundamental relationship and substituting for it bullshit about technology.

This is why Technocracy has nothing to say about the current political situation in the world that is peculiar to its ideology and can be derived from it. It is also why Technocrats avoid political activity: because, eschewing notions of class power, they can have no concept of agencies of change.

RED DAVE

There is no 2/3 recall vote within the European Technate. A simple majority is enough to recall any technate operative at any level of the organisation.

I believe that every worker is a potential engineer, and that engineering as a practice is a creative act which ought to be central to any future society.

[RED DAVE]

There is no 2/3 recall vote within the European Technate. A simple majority is enough to recall any technate operative at any level of the organisation.(1) Why is the 2/3 recall vote a fundamental principle of Technocracy in the first place. (Techno defends it.)

(2) Why did you reject this fundamental principle, given the general principles of Technocracy?


I believe that every worker is a potential engineer, and that engineering as a practice is a creative act which ought to be central to any future society.Actually, it's going to be just the other way around.

In spite of their provincialism and generally backward world views and conservative politics and life-styles, I think that some engineers stand a fairly good chance of becoming half-way decent workers. That is as soon as they drop their elitism and their generally subservient attitude towards authority (and move out of the suburbs :D).

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

(1) Why is the 2/3 recall vote a fundamental principle of Technocracy in the first place. (Techno defends it.)

As I've said already, I'm flexible as to the actual mechanisms that place people in their jobs so long as they put the right person in the right job. I just happen to believe that the system proposed by Technocracy, Inc. is the most sound system for doing this, and I've stated my reasons why (see my previous post). Basically, a simple majority vote is too easily swayed by emotional manipulation.


In spite of their provincialism and generally backward world views and conservative politics and life-styles, I think that some engineers stand a fairly good chance of becoming half-way decent workers. That is as soon as they drop their elitism and their generally subservient attitude towards authority (and move out of the suburbs :D).

RED DAVEI don't disagree with this - what I've been saying all along is that engineers would become workers, and workers would become engineers.

[Technocrat]

How do I know that when you say "democratic workers control" that it's anything but a mantra, trotted out as part of some formulaic Marxist ritual but unlikely to see the light of day?


Well, dude, I've got 50 years as a socialist. I don't think I have to prove my sincerity to you.

Doesn't this kind of prove Noxion's point?

[RED DAVE]

(1) Why is the 2/3 recall vote a fundamental principle of Technocracy in the first place. (Techno defends it.)
As I've said already, I'm flexible as to the actual mechanisms that place people in their jobs so long as they put the right person in the right job.If my memory serves me well, you're backpeddling. You weren't "flexible" a few weeks ago.


I just happen to believe that the system proposed by Technocracy, Inc. is the most sound system for doing this, and I've stated my reasons why (see my previous post). Basically, a simple majority vote is too easily swayed by emotional manipulation.Thank you for your faith in the workers ability to decide their own destiny. Why don't you peddle your papers somewhere else?


In spite of their provincialism and generally backward world views and conservative politics and life-styles, I think that some engineers stand a fairly good chance of becoming half-way decent workers. That is as soon as they drop their elitism and their generally subservient attitude towards authority (and move out of the suburbs http://www.revleft.com/vb/../../revleft/smilies/biggrin.gif).
I don't disagree with this - what I've been saying all along is that engineers would become workers, and workers would become engineers.No, Techno, you're whistling a new tune. You've had your ass kicked so many times around here, that you're either changed your mind or you've learned how to fake it.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

(1) Why is the 2/3 recall vote a fundamental principle of Technocracy in the first place. (Techno defends it.)

(2) Why did you reject this fundamental principle, given the general principles of Technocracy?

Actually, it's going to be just the other way around.

In spite of their provincialism and generally backward world views and conservative politics and life-styles, I think that some engineers stand a fairly good chance of becoming half-way decent workers. That is as soon as they drop their elitism and their generally subservient attitude towards authority (and move out of the suburbs :D).

RED DAVE

1. Because Technocracy Incorporated hold every tiny detail to be of essential value for some reason unknown.

2. Because EOS isn't working the same way.

[Demogorgon]

What else needs to be worked out? Energy for travel? That can be calculated too. Housing? Again, measurable. It's not the deep dark mystery you seem to be making it out to be.

No, the point is that it won't tell you anything. Already you have demostrated why. The energy required for human effort and the energy required for housing and whatnot are unrelated.


Current urban centres will be subject to wear and tear; when they get sufficiently run down, we can rip them down and replace them with something better and cheaper to build and maintain, which can be undertaken during the hopefully brief period of scarcity communism that I reckon would be necessary to establish the technate.

You are being hugely unrealistic here. What you are talking about is rebuilding just about every city on earth entirely anew. That isn't a case of putting better features in as wear and tear requires, your proposal doesn't allow for ad hoc replacements. Not to mention you are left with all sorts of other practical problems like people who don't want to leave their homes for the sake of the grand new plan and all the rest.

And even once you have torn down the existing cities, have you considered the further difficulties afterwards. In Berlin for instance they had to rebuild the entire city after the war. I mean that literally. Apart from some outlying areas it was all destroyed. They patched up some buildings of historical value and then created the entire city anew. Yet they were still constrained by some basic practicalities. They couldn't redo all the subway tunnels for instance and had to make the city similar in layout to the old one. So while they certainly got to change it a lot, a complete redo was out of the question. And that is using an example of a city that was already rather modern in its design. Now imagine trying to redo London from scratch. Or Rome.

Also I am more than a little sceptical of planned cities, truth be told. These wonderful plans are drawn up and look great on paper.

And then the city is built and you end up with Canberra.


That's because walking and public transport still play second fiddle in contemporary cities, even in those considered to have excellent provisions for same, such as London.

I don't know about that. From my experience of London, anyone who wants to drive in it needs their head examining and-appalling signposting notwithstanding-getting around by public transport is quick and easy. The fact people still drive-even after congestion charging-shows a pretty deep attraction to the car. Now if the Underground was made free and congestion charges were raised, I suspect you might persuade more people out of their cars. But still you will get people driving. Don't ask me to explain what is going through people's heads, but I have been informed by those that like driving that there is an attachment to the car that I am simply overlooking.


Do any of them reject money? Because money is a completely inadequate system for managing the wealth of society.

Yes.

Though you might want to be careful by what you mean by "money". In the broad sense as it is often meant when money is considered, Energy Accounting would be a kind of money. Don't forget that the nature of money has undergone drastic changes before, so having something different doesn't necessarily take you into a new category altogether.


Would it be cheeky of me suggest that the problem was on the economic half of the equations? :lol:

It would be a reasonable point. But not, I think, a correct one. The reason it didn't work was because the two disciplines work in a different manner and seek to achieve different things. Trying to merge them means compromising the proper methodology of both.

It is a bit like the way that your attempt to merge economics and natural science isn't working.


I think that would depend on the nature of the psychology in question, don't you? I certainly don't think we need psychologists to tell us what kinds of mind are acceptable and which are not; see Oppositional Defiant Disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder), which seems to me be nothing less than the pathologisation of rebellious attitudes, especially among American youth.I don't want to get too deeply into this. Psychology has been abused certainly, and there have been and are, attempts to use it to try and change natural behaviour that society stigmatises.

However!

On this board there has been a faction of thinking that has abused psychology and made ridiculous claims about it. There was an idiot of a member on this board (who was definitely not a Technocrat for the record) who claimed that mental illness did not exist and attempts to treat schizophrenia amongst other things were a violation of the rights of the sufferers to experience their delusions. Rather a lot of people went along with that.

Claiming that kind of rubbish isn't on IMO.


If money is not central to the question of economics, whence come the bloated monstrosity that is the financial sector? They seem to do little more than manipulate money, and grim-faced people appear on the telly to predict doom and gloom whenever that sector is in trouble, for whatever banal reason.

You are confusing the study of economics with the present economy. The said "bloated monstrosity" is a relatively recent phenomenon and has emerged out of the insane Friedmanite monetarism promoted by Thatcher and Reagan and the rest.

Of course the current monetary system has always necessitated banking, so to some degree or another we have had to tolerate this kind of thing, and that is why the current monetary system needs to go.

Anyway the point is that the study of money is part of the discipline of economics but only a part. It is a far wider discipline. It would best be described as the study of making, distributing and consuming goods and services.


How? The decision to undertake a project is not theirs to make. If for example the citizens of a Technate demand more power, various plans can presented representing alternative options (nuclear, solar, hydro etc), including the option to not go ahead with anything and tighten belts instead, if there is a change of heart.
In any system, the supposed "administrators" whose role it is to simply enact decisions made by the political process end up wielding huge power of their own. The archetypal example is the British civil service, though the Italian one could be an even better example. Supposedly neutral professional administrators carrying out tasks assigned to them by the political process end up running the show to a large extent. The only way to counter this tendency is to increase the scope of democratic decision making.

By this I don't mean placing unqualified politicians in the decision making role, at least no more than necessary, because that leads sometimes to idiotic decisions, but more often to the "experts" continuing to rule. Rather a good system might be that whenever you have decisions to be made, you could summon a random panel of citizens who would be informed of the issue at hand and hear the advice of the experts, but make the final decision themselves, or in particularly important cases, refer the decision to the entire population, but that is not always necessary.

This kind of decision making has been shown to work very well as it escapes both the elitism of letting "experts" make decisions and also means that the entire population does not need to inform themselves of every detail of every issue. Indeed in what is usually a sign that a very good idea has emerged, the political right in a number of places have started to attack the idea pretty systematically.

At any rate, it seems to me to be far preferable to any system of authority by "experts".

[Dimentio]

With all respect, Nox did not say that all cities simultaneously should be torn down. He said that the process might take decades or centuries. Housing needs to be sustainable.

Besides, the income of people in a technate is not determined by their labour efforts, but by the fact that they are citizens of the technate.

[Demogorgon]

With all respect, Nox did not say that all cities simultaneously should be torn down. He said that the process might take decades or centuries. Housing needs to be sustainable.

Besides, the income of people in a technate is not determined by their labour efforts, but by the fact that they are citizens of the technate.
I know what he said, but I was responding that they would have to be, because you can't build a planned city on an ad hoc basis. By this I mean that if you proceed by adding a little bit here and a little bit there as time goes by you just end up with what we have, because that is how current cities came to be.

To achieve a planned city, you have to do it in a oner, more or less.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Nonsense, again. You have made it very clear that what you call technical decisions, allocations of resources among others, come from above. It would take 2/3 of an entire "sequence" to change its direction, which is dictatorship from above, with a democratic fig leaf.

Allocations of resources on a technate-wide level should be determined by what the citizens want to focus on. When that focus is democratically decided and a project is chosen, then and only then do the technical decisions dominate, subject to the continued approval of the citizenry.


True. And that's why we need workers democracy to deal with it.

The best way to build a bridge isn't decided by a vote. The demand required to get one built in the first place however, can and should be democratically decided. There's no point building or maintaining infrastructure that is unwanted.


Learn to read before you post. I said "the collective knowledge of the workers." Actually, you made my point.

That worker was also an engineer. The two are not mutually exclusive, you seem to be advancing this frankly bizarre false dichotomy between engineers and other workers.


Your contempt for the workers just oozes out of your pores. (By the way, I'm the son of an engineer who was also a highly skilled craftsman. It was he who first told me, in the 1950s, about Technocracy and what bullshit it was.)

My "contempt" for the workers is a figment of your imagination.


Nice. Optional dictatorship. Time to make up your mind.

A dictatorship wouldn't bother with democracy at all, so you're blithering. I'll "make up my mind" when the results come in.


Well, dude, I've got 50 years as a socialist. I don't think I have to prove my sincerity to you. You, on the other hand, having embraced a crack-pot, anti-working class ideology, with fascist overtones, and a shitty history, have a lot to prove.

I'm taking into account the history of Marxism as a whole, not just your unbecoming conduct on this forum.


No, the point is that it won't tell you anything. Already you have demostrated why. The energy required for human effort and the energy required for housing and whatnot are unrelated.

How on Earth are they unrelated? Are you seriously trying to suggest that humans produce the same quality and quantity of labour regardless if they are decently housed or not?


You are being hugely unrealistic here. What you are talking about is rebuilding just about every city on earth entirely anew. That isn't a case of putting better features in as wear and tear requires, your proposal doesn't allow for ad hoc replacements. Not to mention you are left with all sorts of other practical problems like people who don't want to leave their homes for the sake of the grand new plan and all the rest.

The idea is that to start we tear down the shittiest housing/areas, the sort of stuff nobody in their right mind would miss, and build a whole number of Urbanates in their place which can house the equivalent to the population previously housed in shit. Urbanates have smaller populations than the vast majority of cities, so they can replace cities in a piecemeal fashion (taking into account the most likely possible future additions to the Urbanate cluster), also allowing us to improve the design of urbanates due to the practical experience of the residents. The urbanate as a whole may be katascopically planned, but the layouts of the individual lots are up to the occupants to decide.

This flexibility combined with the ability to learn from experience and thus deliver more desireable, efficient and human-centred habitation should be enough to convince most people. But even then, it would be entirely possible for people to choose to live "off the grid" in self-sufficient farming communities, which would have increasing amounts of space to choose from as cities are replaced by Urbanates interspersed with vertical farms, orchards etc.


And even once you have torn down the existing cities, have you considered the further difficulties afterwards. In Berlin for instance they had to rebuild the entire city after the war. I mean that literally. Apart from some outlying areas it was all destroyed. They patched up some buildings of historical value and then created the entire city anew. Yet they were still constrained by some basic practicalities. They couldn't redo all the subway tunnels for instance and had to make the city similar in layout to the old one. So while they certainly got to change it a lot, a complete redo was out of the question. And that is using an example of a city that was already rather modern in its design. Now imagine trying to redo London from scratch. Or Rome.

The benefit of the Urbanate design is that it is pretty independant of pre-existing infrastructure below the regional level. An Urbanate wouldn't use the pre-existing subway network, it would have it's own self-contained transport system(s). This also means they can be built on new ground in more favourable locations, but due to its compact size will have less impact on the local environment than an equivalent settlement of anascopic design.


Also I am more than a little sceptical of planned cities, truth be told. These wonderful plans are drawn up and look great on paper.

And then the city is built and you end up with Canberra.

Well, Canberra was built under a Price System, presumably using Price System assumptions and subject to Price System limitations. However, I'm not familiar with Canberra's shortcomings in particular, but one general problem with planned cities that I know of is avoided in the Urbanate design; that of cookie-cutter housing.


I don't know about that. From my experience of London, anyone who wants to drive in it needs their head examining and-appalling signposting notwithstanding-getting around by public transport is quick and easy. The fact people still drive-even after congestion charging-shows a pretty deep attraction to the car. Now if the Underground was made free and congestion charges were raised, I suspect you might persuade more people out of their cars. But still you will get people driving. Don't ask me to explain what is going through people's heads, but I have been informed by those that like driving that there is an attachment to the car that I am simply overlooking.

Well, don't forget that London isn't some self-contained island - it's a major city surround by signficant areas of suburbs where car ownership is high. I'm not surprised that people still drive in to London when the place is surrounded by a major motorway as well as very car-centric towns like my very own Slough.


Yes.

Though you might want to be careful by what you mean by "money". In the broad sense as it is often meant when money is considered, Energy Accounting would be a kind of money. Don't forget that the nature of money has undergone drastic changes before, so having something different doesn't necessarily take you into a new category altogether.

Well, I take money to mean in this case to be something that has exchange value, can be stolen or used as a bribe, that sort of thing.


It would be a reasonable point. But not, I think, a correct one. The reason it didn't work was because the two disciplines work in a different manner and seek to achieve different things. Trying to merge them means compromising the proper methodology of both.

It is a bit like the way that your attempt to merge economics and natural science isn't working.

I disgaree that it "isn't working", for the simple fact that humans are as much a part of nature as everything else.


I don't want to get too deeply into this. Psychology has been abused certainly, and there have been and are, attempts to use it to try and change natural behaviour that society stigmatises.

However!

On this board there has been a faction of thinking that has abused psychology and made ridiculous claims about it. There was an idiot of a member on this board (who was definitely not a Technocrat for the record) who claimed that mental illness did not exist and attempts to treat schizophrenia amongst other things were a violation of the rights of the sufferers to experience their delusions. Rather a lot of people went along with that.

Claiming that kind of rubbish isn't on IMO.

Fair enough. There are people who genuinely suffer from their mental conditions, and the done thing should be to help them as best we can. But I think the current socioeconomic climate can serve to pervert this noble goal.


You are confusing the study of economics with the present economy. The said "bloated monstrosity" is a relatively recent phenomenon and has emerged out of the insane Friedmanite monetarism promoted by Thatcher and Reagan and the rest.

Of course the current monetary system has always necessitated banking, so to some degree or another we have had to tolerate this kind of thing, and that is why the current monetary system needs to go.

Out of curiosity, what do you think we should replace it with?


Anyway the point is that the study of money is part of the discipline of economics but only a part. It is a far wider discipline. It would best be described as the study of making, distributing and consuming goods and services.

Alright, I've conceded that.


In any system, the supposed "administrators" whose role it is to simply enact decisions made by the political process end up wielding huge power of their own. The archetypal example is the British civil service, though the Italian one could be an even better example. Supposedly neutral professional administrators carrying out tasks assigned to them by the political process end up running the show to a large extent. The only way to counter this tendency is to increase the scope of democratic decision making.

I don't think you can make a fair comparison between a combination of elitist representative "democracy" and a bunch of bureaucrats and beancounters on one hand that has a specific history, and a combination of a horizontal democracy and a meritocratic system limited solely to the domain of technical affairs on the other.


By this I don't mean placing unqualified politicians in the decision making role, at least no more than necessary, because that leads sometimes to idiotic decisions, but more often to the "experts" continuing to rule. Rather a good system might be that whenever you have decisions to be made, you could summon a random panel of citizens who would be informed of the issue at hand and hear the advice of the experts, but make the final decision themselves, or in particularly important cases, refer the decision to the entire population, but that is not always necessary.

That depends on the nature and scope of the decision to be made, I would think. If it involves anything subjective then democracy should be involved somewhere appropriate in the decision-making process.


This kind of decision making has been shown to work very well as it escapes both the elitism of letting "experts" make decisions and also means that the entire population does not need to inform themselves of every detail of every issue. Indeed in what is usually a sign that a very good idea has emerged, the political right in a number of places have started to attack the idea pretty systematically.

I've had similar feelings with regards to Technocracy - it's been attacked from both the left and right, so we must be doing something right! :lol:


At any rate, it seems to me to be far preferable to any system of authority by "experts".

As a description of Technocracy, "[a] system of authority by 'experts'" is at best extremely naive and simplistic and at worst an outright misrepresentation, depending.

[RED DAVE]

've had similar feelings with regards to Technocracy - it's been attacked from both the left and right, so we must be doing something right!So is the war in Iraq and Obama. So that doesn't mean shit.

Just for fun, what is the attitude and actions of Technocracy with regard to the current situation in Arizona, where a racist anti-immigration law has been passed? What actions do Techncracy organizations intend to take, based on the principles of Technocracy, to help combat this vicious law ?

RED DAVE

[Havet]

So is the war in Iraq and Obama. So that doesn't mean shit.

Just for fun, what is the attitude and actions of Technocracy with regard to the current situation in Arizona, where a racist anti-immigration law has been passed? What actions do Techncracy organizations intend to take, based on the principles of Technocracy, to help combat this vicious law ?

RED DAVE

Just for fun, what do you plan to do about it?

[Technocrat]

If my memory serves me well, you're backpeddling. You weren't "flexible" a few weeks ago.

Your memory doesn't serve you well.


Thank you for your faith in the workers ability to decide their own destiny. Why don't you peddle your papers somewhere else?Thank you for your blind faith in majority rule. Fully 50% of the American public believes Jesus is returning in the next 50 years (recent poll). Yeah, let's leave all major decisions up to the Jesus crowd. Real smart idea, there.

I wonder if you've ever actually worked with the general public.


No, Techno, you're whistling a new tune. You've had your ass kicked so many times around here, that you're either changed your mind or you've learned how to fake it.

RED DAVENo, you've just had your head so far up your ass that you can't hear anything I've said to you. I clearly stated from the very beginning that workers would become engineers and engineers would become workers.

[RED DAVE]

Just for fun, what is the attitude and actions of Technocracy with regard to the current situation in Arizona, where a racist anti-immigration law has been passed? What actions do Techncracy organizations intend to take, based on the principles of Technocracy, to help combat this vicious law ?
Just for fun, what do you plan to do about it?I am a contact of several revolutionary organizations that are writing, organizing demos, etc. In the union I belong to, there will be a resolution, which I will advocate for, which will, if passed, impose a boycott of all union-sponsored activities inside Arizona.

Now, it's Technocracy's turn.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

I clearly stated from the very beginning that workers would become engineers and engineers would become workers.Then refresh our memories from your earlier posts if in fact you did.

And, by the way, since you still fancy yourself a revolutionary, what concrete revolutionary acts have you engaged in recently? (To save you the effort of throwing the question back at me, I have engaged in antiwar activities (demos, etc.), union organizing and am planning, in accordance with various organizations, soe actions against the new, racist law in Arizona.)

Again, what are you and Technocracy doing?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

I know what he said, but I was responding that they would have to be, because you can't build a planned city on an ad hoc basis. By this I mean that if you proceed by adding a little bit here and a little bit there as time goes by you just end up with what we have, because that is how current cities came to be.

To achieve a planned city, you have to do it in a oner, more or less.

The new cities won't be as large, but will be built in close proximity to one another.

[Demogorgon]

How on Earth are they unrelated? Are you seriously trying to suggest that humans produce the same quality and quantity of labour regardless if they are decently housed or not?

No, you evidently misread me there. I meant that the energy required for feeding people and the energy required for housing are different things coming from different sources. Therefore you can't just add them together to get an energy cost.


The idea is that to start we tear down the shittiest housing/areas, the sort of stuff nobody in their right mind would miss, and build a whole number of Urbanates in their place which can house the equivalent to the population previously housed in shit. Urbanates have smaller populations than the vast majority of cities, so they can replace cities in a piecemeal fashion (taking into account the most likely possible future additions to the Urbanate cluster), also allowing us to improve the design of urbanates due to the practical experience of the residents. The urbanate as a whole may be katascopically planned, but the layouts of the individual lots are up to the occupants to decide.It is almost impossible to replace something piecemeal over a long period of time while building towards an ultimate goal as apart from anything else, you have to make sure your newly built areas fit in with existing infrastructure. And if you are planning on things like replacing existing metros and things, it will probably just bee too difficult.

Plus you are overlooking the fact that people change their minds, new technology is invented and so on. Suppose a city can be replaced with your urbanates over a fifty year period (it will probably take longer, but let's say fifty). Over the course of that time, new plans will emerge, new technology will be discovered, architectural trends will change and by the time you get to the end of the fifty years the stuff built at the beginning won't be much use anymore.

That incidentally, is precisely why current cities look the way they do. Urban planning is a huge field in of itself and planners do have great ideas about where cities should go, but because cities usually have to be redone piecemeal, they can never achieve all that they want to.


Well, Canberra was built under a Price System, presumably using Price System assumptions and subject to Price System limitations. However, I'm not familiar with Canberra's shortcomings in particular, but one general problem with planned cities that I know of is avoided in the Urbanate design; that of cookie-cutter housing.

the problems that Canberra ran into were twofold I think. One was that the experts who were in charge of building it couldn't agree on anything and ended up squabbling amongst themselves. (A problem Technocracy in general is going to have to deal with, the idea that experts can simply work out what is best to be done and do it is very naive. Put three experts in a room and you will get four different suggestions on how to do something.) But the biggest problem I think was they were too focussed on their big ideas. They wanted to intersperse buildings with parkland and so forth and there are lots of trees in the city and it does look attractive. The trouble is that that makes everything further apart, making walking impractical, not to mention of course that Australia is very hot.

Now you will say of course that your plan does not make that mistake and it doesn't make that one, but I just use it as an example of the best laid plans...


Well, don't forget that London isn't some self-contained island - it's a major city surround by signficant areas of suburbs where car ownership is high. I'm not surprised that people still drive in to London when the place is surrounded by a major motorway as well as very car-centric towns like my very own Slough.

Well I have no idea what transport is like outside of London proper. I can tell you though that in Glasgow you can get from anywhere in the metropolitan area by train quite easily, but people still use cars.


Well, I take money to mean in this case to be something that has exchange value, can be stolen or used as a bribe, that sort of thing.

The trouble with that definition is that it covers almost anything. Cigarettes being the obvious example, but like I say you could take almost anything in the room you are sitting in right now and give it that definition.


I disgaree that it "isn't working", for the simple fact that humans are as much a part of nature as everything else.

We are, but that doesn't mean that our economic interaction can be studied the same way as electricity or atoms can or whatever. Different things have different ways of looking at them.


Fair enough. There are people who genuinely suffer from their mental conditions, and the done thing should be to help them as best we can. But I think the current socioeconomic climate can serve to pervert this noble goal.

Almost certainly, but that is not the same as saying the whole thing can be done away with.


Out of curiosity, what do you think we should replace it with?

That is a question that deserves a much more detailed answer than I can give right now. But in short, I am not convinced that any one single replacement should simply be set in stone, though I do believe most proposed alternatives are likely to work only at a fairly local level. By this I mean Labour Credits, time limited currency and so on. I think local areas should be encouraged to experiment with these.

On the larger scale though, you have to look at the way money has developed and what it has become and see where it can go. My view is the goal for the time being should be the abolition of private banking, getting rid of the financial markets and so on and having a certain amount of new credit enter the economy each year calculated according to economic conditions that can be issued to all people as a basic income or whatever.

In the long run of course, the goal is the abolition of money, but I see that as being quite a distant prospect, so for the time being removing financial markets, creating a debt free economy and removing money as a source of power should be the goal.


I don't think you can make a fair comparison between a combination of elitist representative "democracy" and a bunch of bureaucrats and beancounters on one hand that has a specific history, and a combination of a horizontal democracy and a meritocratic system limited solely to the domain of technical affairs on the other.

I believe it to be a reasonable comparison. The point is that in Britain for instance the decision making power is meant to sit entirely with Parliament and the Government that is responsible to it. The Civil Service should carry out its will without discrimination. However in practice the Civil Service exercises huge influence of its own.

I believe that any system that has a significant entity without fully democratic accountability is bound to the same fate.


That depends on the nature and scope of the decision to be made, I would think. If it involves anything subjective then democracy should be involved somewhere appropriate in the decision-making process.

Of course that leads to the question of what isn't an objective decision.


I've had similar feelings with regards to Technocracy - it's been attacked from both the left and right, so we must be doing something right! :lol:

Well being attacked from the left isn't such a good thing. Besides at any rate I don't recall Sarkozy for instance dedicating most of a speech attacking Technocracy as he did with the suggestion I made.

[Technocrat]

No, the point is that it won't tell you anything. Already you have demostrated why. The energy required for human effort and the energy required for housing and whatnot are unrelated.

WHY are we still talking about this? Energy Accounting is a part of Resource Accounting!


You are being hugely unrealistic here. What you are talking about is rebuilding just about every city on earth entirely anew. That isn't a case of putting better features in as wear and tear requires, your proposal doesn't allow for ad hoc replacements. Not to mention you are left with all sorts of other practical problems like people who don't want to leave their homes for the sake of the grand new plan and all the rest. You still aren't listening - no surprise there. Cities aren't static things. In reality they are decaying and being built up all the time. So, as old parts of the city decay you replace them with urbanates. Tear down dilapidated and sub-par housing and replace it with urbanates. What is so difficult to understand here? Urbanates are like really large apartment buildings with facilities for everyday living built in. I can think of several parts of the city I live in right now that are sufficiently run down to be replaced. This kind of large-scale development is going on in China right now.


And even once you have torn down the existing cities, have you considered the further difficulties afterwards. In Berlin for instance they had to rebuild the entire city after the war. I mean that literally. Apart from some outlying areas it was all destroyed. They patched up some buildings of historical value and then created the entire city anew. Yet they were still constrained by some basic practicalities. They couldn't redo all the subway tunnels for instance and had to make the city similar in layout to the old one. So while they certainly got to change it a lot, a complete redo was out of the question. And that is using an example of a city that was already rather modern in its design. Now imagine trying to redo London from scratch. Or Rome.We aren't talking about replacing European cities as they are already well adapted to Mass transit (for the most part) and have considerably higher efficiency than suburbs. Urbanates are intended to be a replacement for the wasteful and unsustainable suburban sprawls. Urbanates are not intended to replace our best loved historic cities.


Also I am more than a little sceptical of planned cities, truth be told. These wonderful plans are drawn up and look great on paper. If you think planning is the problem, then you have never been to any sprawling suburban town in America.


I don't know about that. From my experience of London, anyone who wants to drive in it needs their head examining and-appalling signposting notwithstanding-getting around by public transport is quick and easy. The fact people still drive-even after congestion charging-shows a pretty deep attraction to the car. Now if the Underground was made free and congestion charges were raised, I suspect you might persuade more people out of their cars. But still you will get people driving. Don't ask me to explain what is going through people's heads, but I have been informed by those that like driving that there is an attachment to the car that I am simply overlooking.People's attraction to the car is largely cultural, enforced by advertising and sexy images in movies. In Japan for example, car ownership is now considered passe for the most part.


Though you might want to be careful by what you mean by "money". In the broad sense as it is often meant when money is considered, Energy Accounting would be a kind of money. Don't forget that the nature of money has undergone drastic changes before, so having something different doesn't necessarily take you into a new category altogether.Energy Accounting is not a form of money. God damn it, I can't believe I have to go over this AGAIN.

Money has the following properties: it can be saved, it can be exchanged, and it is not a physical measurement of anything.

Energy Accounting has none of the above properties.


Anyway the point is that the study of money is part of the discipline of economics but only a part. It is a far wider discipline. It would best be described as the study of making, distributing and consuming goods and services.That is the old definition of economics - in modern terms, "economics" is an ideology that is taught at universities, where students are taught things that can be proven false via behavioral and social science (eg rational man).

[Technocrat]

So is the war in Iraq and Obama. So that doesn't mean shit.

Just for fun, what is the attitude and actions of Technocracy with regard to the current situation in Arizona, where a racist anti-immigration law has been passed? What actions do Techncracy organizations intend to take, based on the principles of Technocracy, to help combat this vicious law ?

RED DAVE

Another bullshit question from Red Dave. We've already explained to you how Technocracy is not an ideology.

I've tried being civil with you, but you're just a cranky old man who doesn't want to admit that just MAYBE he doesn't know everything. I'll respond as I see fit, but frankly I have better things to do with my time then encourage your trolling.

[Technocrat]

Now you will say of course that your plan does not make that mistake and it doesn't make that one, but I just use it as an example of the best laid plans...

This is the same crap that conservative libertarians in the United States like to parrot. They like to argue against all forms of government planning, insisting that if we get rid of government planning that the "invisible hand" of the market will magically provide for us. Bullshit. They also think that money is necessary for the functioning of society as you do. You would get along well with these people, I think.

[Havet]

I am a contact of several revolutionary organizations that are writing, organizing demos, etc. In the union I belong to, there will be a resolution, which I will advocate for, which will, if passed, impose a boycott of all union-sponsored activities inside Arizona.

Sorry, I didn't mean what will your union do. I'm asking what you will do personally.

[Dimentio]

Sorry, I didn't mean what will your union do. I'm asking what you will do personally.

Here I would actually like to defend RED DAVE, even though I am aware that he is not going to be grateful. Collective action is the only kind of action which is efficient when individuals belonging to groups which have been made weak by society are confronting powerful groups.

One problem which is evident in libertarianism is the asocial focus on individual action, which is what has rendered libertarian projects like "The Free State" inefficient. Another example is the transhumanist but heavily anarcho-capitalist-affiliated Order of Cosmic Engineers, which decided to not pursue their goals since none of their members individually possessed the means to accomplish them.

I read the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and wrinkled my forehead when she described the "evil" of Ellsworth Toohey, with that he always gave money to charity organisations but never to poor people individually. For libertarians, altruism seems to be more about posing to be "good" than to actually accomplish any results (a trait which unfortunately is very common even in general society). Of course, for Ayn Rand, it would probably have been evil too to give money to beggars, since the beggars deserve to beg due to their "inferiority".

[RED DAVE]

Another bullshit question from Red Dave. We've already explained to you how Technocracy is not an ideology.Technocracy most certainly is an ideology. It is a belief system about psychology, sociology, economics, etc. You're attempts to pass it off as something else is because you can't deal with Technocracy's history or its current practice. It's hisotry is shady, and its current practice is nill.


I've tried being civil with you, but you're just a cranky old man who doesn't want to admit that just MAYBE he doesn't know everything.Sonny boy, I don't know everything, but when it comes to politics, history, etc., you don't play ball in the league of most people around here due to your lack of experience or knowledge. You're a college kid with no background in left-wing politics, and little or no knowledge or marxism, and you think you can run your mouth off as if you know something.


I'll respond as I see fit, but frankly I have better things to do with my time then encourage your trolling.Don't stick around on my account.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Technocracy is not an ideology.
An ideology is a set of ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea) that directs one's goals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goals), expectations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectations), and actions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actions). An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare worldview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldview)), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology#In_everyday_society) below) and several philosophical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical) tendencies (see Political ideologies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology#Political_ideologies)), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a 'received consciousness' or product of socialization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialization)).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Technocracy most certainly is an ideology. It is a belief system about psychology, sociology, economics, etc. You're attempts to pass it off as something else is because you can't deal with Technocracy's history or its current practice. It's hisotry is shady, and its current practice is nill.

It's not an ideology and just because you say it is doesn't make it so. I've addressed all of your idiotic crap and don't feel like going over it again.


Sonny boy, I don't know everything, but when it comes to politics, history, etc., you don't play ball in the league of most people around here due to your lack of experience or knowledge. You're a college kid with no background in left-wing politics, and little or no knowledge or marxism, and you think you can run your mouth off as if you know something.

Now who's being elitist?


Don't stick around on my account.

RED DAVEThanks, I definitely won't.

[Technocrat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

RED DAVE

Yeah, if you didn't have your head up your ass you'd see how Technocracy does not fit the definition. Technocracy is not a 'way of looking at things'. Technocracy is no more of an ideology than the instructions for operating your DVD player.

[Dimentio]

Yeah, if you didn't have your head up your ass you'd see how Technocracy does not fit the definition. Technocracy is not a 'way of looking at things'. Technocracy is no more of an ideology than the instructions for operating your DVD player.

That is kolzenism, that be.

Sure that technocracy is an ideology, just not all-encompassing. I think that is one of the beauties which all technocratic schools have in common. There is no grand plan for how people should think, feel and act, just ideas on how to create a fair and rational access to the means of production for all human beings.

[Technocrat]

That is kolzenism, that be.

Sure that technocracy is an ideology, just not all-encompassing. I think that is one of the beauties which all technocratic schools have in common. There is no grand plan for how people should think, feel and act, just ideas on how to create a fair and rational access to the means of production for all human beings.

We already had this discussion - an ideology is different from a blueprint. By definition, an ideology includes a "grand plan for how people should think, feel and act".

[Dimentio]

We already had this discussion - an ideology is different from a blueprint. By definition, an ideology includes a "grand plan for how people should think, feel and act".

Not necessarily. It is just sounding complicating when you make it such an important point to pin-point out that it isn't an ideology when it would clearly have the implications of an ideology. Moreover, what is wrong with having an ideology?

[RED DAVE]

Yeah, if you didn't have your head up your ass you'd see how Technocracy does not fit the definition.So says the post-adolescent social theorist with about as much political experience as my shih-tzu. (He's been on some antiwar demos.)


Technocracy is not a 'way of looking at things'. Technocracy is no more of an ideology than the instructions for operating your DVD player.You have demonstrated over and over again how Technocracy encompasses a set of psychological beliefs, sociological beliefs, political beliefs, etc It's an ideology. The reason you lie about this is that you want to make your crackpot belief system immune to ideological criticism. Rots of ruck, sonny boy

By the way, a social system is made of a complex of class and individual relations. It cannot be meaningfully compared to a piece of machinery, schmuck.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

So says the post-adolescent social theorist with about as much political experience as my shih-tzu. (He's been on some antiwar demos.)

Do I need to point out the blatant ad hominem nature of this statement?


You have demonstrated over and over again how Technocracy encompasses a set of psychological beliefs, sociological beliefs, political beliefs, etc It's an ideology. The reason you lie about this is that you want to make your crackpot belief system immune to ideological criticism. Rots of ruck, sonny boy

By the way, a social system is made of a complex of class and individual relations. It cannot be meaningfully compared to a piece of machinery, schmuck.

RED DAVEBy the way, an ideology by definition contains ideas about how people should think, feel, and act - which is not present in Technocracy at all. Technocracy is a means to an end - the end being a sustainable abundance for everyone with a minimum input of labor. An ideology would be the belief system that leads one to believe that this is a desirable end.

Why is Red Dave permitted to call me a schmuck, and how is this any different from me calling him a fucking idiotic washed up curmudgeon, for example?

Pretty sad how one as old as you would resort to name calling.

[RED DAVE]

So says the post-adolescent social theorist with about as much political experience as my shih-tzu. (He's been on some antiwar demos.)
Do I need to point out the blatant ad hominem nature of this statement?No, but what you might realize is that it's the truth. What political experience, after all, have you had that makes you think you can run your mouth the way you do. Frankly, when it comes to politics, you don't know shit.


You have demonstrated over and over again how Technocracy encompasses a set of psychological beliefs, sociological beliefs, political beliefs, etc It's an ideology. The reason you lie about this is that you want to make your crackpot belief system immune to ideological criticism. Rots of ruck, sonny boy.

By the way, a social system is made of a complex of class and individual relations. It cannot be meaningfully compared to a piece of machinery, schmuck.
By the way, an ideology by definition contains ideas about how people should think, feel, and act - which is not present in Technocracy at all. Technocracy is a means to an end - the end being a sustainable abundance for everyone with a minimum input of labor. An ideology would be the belief system that leads one to believe that this is a desirable end.What you have, as someone above pointed out, is an incomplete ideology (like most ideologies).

The very fact that you think that you don't have an ideology is part of your ideology which, you think, makes you immune to that kind of criticism. Well, you ain't immune.


Why is Red Dave permitted to call me a schmuck, and how is this any different from me calling him a fucking idiotic washed up curmudgeon, for example?You think you can come to a revolutionary website with a belief system right out of the 1920s and 30s and have people accept it and you on its and your terms. Ain't gonna happen, sonny boy.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

You think you can come to a revolutionary website with a belief system rigtht out of the 1920s and 30s and have people accept it and you on its and your terms. Ain't gonna happen, sonny boy. Y

RED DAVE


This post is entirely incomprehensible, given that trotskyism too is a belief system from the 1920's. :lol:

[RED DAVE]

You think you can come to a revolutionary website with a belief system rigtht out of the 1920s and 30s and have people accept it and you on its and your terms. Ain't gonna happen, sonny boy.[/QUOTE\][QUOTE=Dimentio]This post is entirely incomprehensible, given that trotskyism too is a belief system from the 1920's.Nice try, but no cigar. Trotskyism, as an ideology, or as a subideology of Marxism, constantly engages the world and is capable of alteration and modernization. Technocracy as an ideology, especially as Technobrat espouses it, does not engage the world and is, therefore, not really capable of change.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

a bunch of bullshit

Let's see... Red Dave likes to harp on my 'lack of accomplishment'.

Now, Red Dave has been a socialist for 50 years - something he's very proud of.

Now, can we honestly say that we are any closer to realizing socialism then we were 50 years ago? No, we cannot. If anything, the nation has moved further to the right.

So, using Red Dave's own line of reasoning, he himself is a failure. Socialism is no closer to being realized today than it was 50 years ago, therefore Red Dave is a failure (post hoc, ergo propter hoc).

I suspect that Red Dave's constant internet trolling is a psychological coping mechanism to help him deal with his own sense of failure.

[Technocrat]

We have already been over how Technocracy is not an ideology since it does not offer any grand plan for directing one's ideas, beliefs, and actions. Anyone still repeating "technocracy is an ideology" is engaging in blatant trolling.

Technocracy is a plan for achieving a particular goal - a sustainable abundance for everyone with a minimum input of labor. The desirability of the goal itself is determined by one's ideology, but the means for achieving that goal are distinct from one's ideology. Technocracy is the means - not the ideology.

I've posted my political compass scores in my signature to clear up any possible confusion over my ideology... which is left-libertarian.

If you wanted to represent this graphically, you would draw a circle labeled "left-libertarian" or "anarchist-communist". Within that circle you would draw a smaller circle labeled "Technocracy".

[RED DAVE]

We have already been over how Technocracy is not an ideology since it does not offer any grand plan for directing one's ideas, beliefs, and actions. Anyone still repeating "technocracy is an ideology" is engaging in blatant trolling.You can protest as much as you want, but it's an ideologyh. It has a "grand plan" for directing society, which requires a very bizarre set of beliefs to accept.


Technocracy is a plan for achieving a particular goal - a sustainable abundance for everyone with a minimum input of labor. The desirability of the goal itself is determined by one's ideology, but the means for achieving that goal are distinct from one's ideology. Technocracy is the means - not the ideology.Sorry, kiddo, but the underpinnings of your plan and your plan itself, plus the method for accomplishing that plan, plus an organization all add up to an ideology.


I've posted my political compass scores in my signature to clear up any possible confusion over my ideology... which is left-libertarian.First of all, the political compass is something many people, such as myself, do not accept because it has no action component. People can answer questions as they please. It's action that counts.

Second of all, we're not considering your personal stance. We're considering Technocracy. All we need is the phrase: "nomination from below; selection from above" to get a pretty good bead on your ideology.


If you wanted to represent this graphically, you would draw a circle labeled "left-libertarian" or "anarchist-communist". Within that circle you would draw a smaller circle labeled "Technocracy".The top-down, authoritarianism of Technocracy probably make it some kind of bizarre conservative utopianism.

Keep on sputtering kid. And when you decide to do something with your ideology besides posting here, but all means let us know.

RED DAVE

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I agree with RED DAVE's comments. Technocracy is pretty crazy.

It's a monarchy or a theocracy with a nicer title.

[RED DAVE]

I agree with RED DAVE's comments. Technocracy is pretty crazy.

It's a monarchy or a theocracy with a nicer title.The above individual is a psycho troll. Please ignore his posts.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

You can protest as much as you want, but it's an ideologyh. It has a "grand plan" for directing society, which requires a very bizarre set of beliefs to accept.

Sorry, kiddo, but the underpinnings of your plan and your plan itself, plus the method for accomplishing that plan, plus an organization all add up to an ideology.

First of all, the political compass is something many people, such as myself, do not accept because it has no action component. People can answer questions as they please. It's action that counts.

Second of all, we're not considering your personal stance. We're considering Technocracy. All we need is the phrase: "nomination from below; selection from above" to get a pretty good bead on your ideology.

The top-down, authoritarianism of Technocracy probably make it some kind of bizarre conservative utopianism.

Keep on sputtering kid. And when you decide to do something with your ideology besides posting here, but all means let us know.

RED DAVE

I'd like to see some kind of substantiated argument other than your baseless ad hominem and straw man bullshit that you parrot endlessly.

[RED DAVE]

You can protest as much as you want, but it's an ideology. It has a "grand plan" for directing society, which requires a very bizarre set of beliefs to accept.

Sorry, kiddo, but the underpinnings of your plan and your plan itself, plus the method for accomplishing that plan, plus an organization all add up to an ideology.

First of all, the political compass is something many people, such as myself, do not accept because it has no action component. People can answer questions as they please. It's action that counts.

Second of all, we're not considering your personal stance. We're considering Technocracy. All we need is the phrase: "nomination from below; selection from above" to get a pretty good bead on your ideology.

The top-down, authoritarianism of Technocracy probably makes it some kind of bizarre conservative utopianism.

Keep on sputtering kid. And when you decide to do something with your ideology besides posting here, by all means let us know.
I'd like to see some kind of substantiated argument other than your baseless ad hominem and straw man bullshit that you parrot endlessly.I've made a series of points. With your bizarre, antirevolutionary ideology, you can't refute them. The burden of proof is on you.

RED DAVE

[joesub007]

Get ready for everything to change. No politics, no bureaucrats, no bosses.

Cybernetic systems and scientists will make politics, markets and "going to work" obsolete

check out the zeitgeist movement and the venus project on youtube.

[Dimentio]

Get ready for everything to change. No politics, no bureaucrats, no bosses.

Cybernetic systems and scientists will make politics, markets and "going to work" obsolete

check out the zeitgeist movement and the venus project on youtube.

Welcome by the way. A bit random and propagandistic, but true. I actually wondered when I bicycled from downtown this morning when zeitgeisters would start to appear here.

Sadly, nothing could change by the merit of itself alone.

[joesub007]

True, society is so corrupt by power, greed and animalistic dominance that a competitive system produces that the softer human virtues of friendship and solidarity is looked upon as "effeminate" and "weak"

Mind you that this was produced long ago with religious nonsense, insecurity and a brutal culture which encourages violence and child abuse. I doubt this will ever change until catastrophe strikes. Child abuse as "punishment" never works as well as prison abuse of inmates as "punishment". It just produces progressively more disturbed individuals. I have very little hope that these neanderthal knuckle draggers would ever learn the difference between vengeance vs. rehabilitation or punishment vs. therapy.

[Dermezel]

Get ready for everything to change. No politics, no bureaucrats, no bosses.


A socialist movement needs a Vanguard Party for strategic purposes. As for no politics, that is obviously a slogan that is used by the ruling classes in order to keep people ignorant and apathetic. Someone will have the power.

[Technocrat]

I've made a series of points. With your bizarre, antirevolutionary ideology, you can't refute them. The burden of proof is on you.

RED DAVE

No, you've made a series of baseless accusations, ad hominem attacks, straw men, and red herrings. You have never responded with an on-topic, coherent, thought-out argument. I suspect that you don't even know what a logical argument is.

[RED DAVE]

No, you've made a series of baseless accusations, ad hominem attacks, straw men, and red herrings. You have never responded with an on-topic, coherent, thought-out argument. I suspect that you don't even know what a logical argument is.Why don't we get down to basics: Why should we consider you a revolutionary?

RED DAVE

[joesub007]

A socialist movement needs a Vanguard Party for strategic purposes. As for no politics, that is obviously a slogan that is used by the ruling classes in order to keep people ignorant and apathetic. Someone will have the power.

Of course in the early periods of transition to a resource base economy a political party may be necessary, but you will always be playing with fire when you let political power get into the hands of an unaccountable group of people governing society.

Further, society is far too complex to be governed entirely by any one central political authority anymore than a modern airliner is able to be designed and manufactured by any one single engineer no matter how intelligent.

In the end the transition to a fully resource based economy would have to based on a "political" party that would agree that it would need to abolish itself in the future as soon as possible in favor of a council of scientists and engineers making non-political decisions with the assistance of machines and computers.

Otherwise you will find yourself quickly devolving back into Capitalism or worse. If you're ultimate aim is the establishment of a hereditary monarchy based upon a loyal "party" of yes-men then the transition period won't be necessary and you'll be fooling everybody as well as wasting everybody's time.

[RED DAVE]

In the end the transition to a fully resource based economy would have to based on a "political" party that would agree that it would need to abolish itself in the future as soon as possibleWhere did you get this fantasy?


in favor of a council of scientists and engineers making non-political decisions with the assistance of machines and computers.Oh, I see. Too many episodes of "Star Trek.": Science Officers and all that.

Dude, there is no such thing as "non-political decisions." Allocations of resources are all political decisions.

RED DAVE

[joesub007]

Oh, I see. Too many episodes of "Star Trek.": Science Officers and all that.

Dude, there is no such thing as "non-political decisions." Allocations of resources are all political decisions.

Prove the assertion that all decisions are political.

We are all made of matter and in the end we all end up in the grave. So tell me what's the point of life? What is ethics? Is slavery ethical? What about theft? Is murder ethical? For that matter what is "ethics".

Is basic ethics the axiom that the good (less pain more pleasure) of the majority outweighs the good of the minority? Maybe the opposite is true? In that case why be a revolutionary?

The good of the minority is certainly what we have right now, so why even complain? Just listen to your boss, make him/her rich (in monetary terms) and shut up about it already.

[anticap]

we all end up in the grave

Prove this. Prove that the sun will rise tomorrow.

[joesub007]

Prove this. Prove that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Not necessary for me personally. Historical proof already provided.
search youtube for "Carl Sagan - Cosmos - Eratosthenes"

Travelled across international dateline and watched the sky go from light to dark.

Pretty sure we are not living in a dream world of a gigantic computer simulation.

[RED DAVE]

Prove the assertion that all decisions are political.First of all, I didn't say that alldecisions are political. I said, all decisions of allocation of resources are political. Now since those are decisions as to who gets what, who does what and how they do it (albeit from a class point of view), those decisions are obviously a function of class politics.


We are all made of matter and in the end we all end up in the grave. So tell me what's the point of life? What is ethics? Is slavery ethical? What about theft? Is murder ethical? For that matter what is "ethics".Someone never got past the first week of Philo 101.


Is basic ethics the axiom that the good (less pain more pleasure) of the majority outweighs the good of the minority? Maybe the opposite is true? In that case why be a revolutionary?If you really want to discuss the four or more propositions you just stated, I suggest you start a thread in Philosophy.


The good of the minority is certainly what we have right now, so why even complain? Just listen to your boss, make him/her rich (in monetary terms) and shut up about it already.Happy May Day, Comrade.

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Dude, there is no such thing as "non-political decisions." Allocations of resources are all political decisions.

RED DAVE

This isn't a reply to Red Dave specifically, since I know anything I say will be lost on him.

The above statement by Red Dave is true only in a scarcity-based situation. In a situation of resource abundance, allocating resources is a mere matter of accounting and scientific planning.

Remember, 'abundance' means an amount of resources greater than could be physically consumed (not owned).

[joesub007]

First of all, I didn't say that alldecisions are political. I said, all decisions of allocation of resources are political. Now since those are decisions as to who gets what, who does what and how they do it (albeit from a class point of view), those decisions are obviously a function of class politics.

I don't make it a habit of tailing the working class. Actually, I don't make it a habit of tailing anybody. There are as many psychopaths, crazies and scumbags in the "working class" as there are in the merchant class or the investor class. You can say this is the consequences of false class consciousness, but the fact is that there are no classes that are entirely homogeneous in ideology, philosophy, outlook of life or approach to problem solving.

Most of the population of North America for example are drifting toward biblical fundamentalism, narcotics and television pop culture. If the general population is indeed comprised in it's majority of the working class then shouldn't we from democratic principles give them more churches, drugs and mindless sitcoms? :lol:

Sure, I mean it's fun for while until you run out of fuel and resources and then it's everybody for himself fighting for the last scrap of usable unrecycled, unrecyclable junk spewed out from our consumer driven, profit driven, planned obsolescence "civilization" of mass menial labor factories, but I'm pretty sure everybody wants to avoid that situation if it is at all possible.

From an entirely neutral, objective and scientific approach then I would ask you whether or not you would think a person of a working class background who is a sociopathic criminal would be anymore valuable than a disgruntled member of the merchant or investor class given that you have a choice in determining the person's actual ethics and philosophy in regards to life and civilization. For example, if you could strap him/her down to a lie detector and ask questions concerning his/her ethics and value system? Not that this would happen anytime soon given that people are neither objective nor scientific, but asking the question from a purely theoretical perspective would a disgruntled member of the merchant or investor class be any more or less valuable in comparison to a sociopathic criminal of a working class background if you could actually have the means to look inside their brains via lie detectors.

[Havet]

This isn't a reply to Red Dave specifically, since I know anything I say will be lost on him.

The above statement by Red Dave is true only in a scarcity-based situation. In a situation of resource abundance, allocating resources is a mere matter of accounting and scientific planning.

Remember, 'abundance' means an amount of resources greater than could be physically consumed (not owned).

I've been struggling with that bolded part for ages, and only NOW i've understand what communists say with "post-scarcity" environment. Thanks for the enlightnement.

[anticap]

Prove this. Prove that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Not necessary for me personally. Historical proof already provided.
search youtube for "Carl Sagan - Cosmos - Eratosthenes"

Travelled across international dateline and watched the sky go from light to dark.

Pretty sure we are not living in a dream world of a gigantic computer simulation.

It looks like my point (the absurdity of your demand on RED DAVE) went right over your head.

At any rate, none of your above statements constitutes proof that we will all die one day, or that the sun will rise tomorrow. If you don't understand why, then, well, fuck it.

[RED DAVE]

First of all, I didn't say that all decisions are political. I said, all decisions of allocation of resources are political. Now since those are decisions as to who gets what, who does what and how they do it (albeit from a class point of view), those decisions are obviously a function of class politics.(edited to eliminate a typo)


I don't make it a habit of tailing the working class.Are you implying that I do?


Actually, I don't make it a habit of tailing anybody.Hooray for Hollywood and you.


There are as many psychopaths, crazies and scumbags in the "working class" as there are in the merchant class or the investor class.Who ever said otherwise?


You can say this is the consequences of false class consciousness, but the fact is that there are no classes that are entirely homogeneous in ideology, philosophy, outlook of life or approach to problem solving.And?


Most of the population of North America for example are drifting toward biblical fundamentalism, narcotics and television pop culture.I dispute your "most." There are distinct countertrends, such as the recent election as president of an allegedly liberal black man.


If the general population is indeed comprised in it's majority of the working class then shouldn't we from democratic principles give them more churches, drugs and mindless sitcoms? :lol:If you don't knw the difference between bourgeois democracy and its various forms of manipulation, including consumerism and working class democracy, I suggest you study up.


Sure, I mean it's fun for while until you run out of fuel and resources and then it's everybody for himself fighting for the last scrap of usable unrecycled, unrecyclable junk spewed out from our consumer driven, profit driven, planned obsolescence "civilization" of mass menial labor factories, but I'm pretty sure everybody wants to avoid that situation if it is at all possible.And?


From an entirely neutral, objective and scientific approach thenHere comes the bullshit.


I would ask you whether or not you would think a person of a working class background who is a sociopathic criminal would be anymore valuable than a disgruntled member of the merchant or investor class given that you have a choice in determining the person's actual ethics and philosophy in regards to life and civilization.Like I said, here's the bullshit.


For example, if you could strap him/her down to a lie detector and ask questions concerning his/her ethics and value system? Not that this would happen anytime soon given that people are neither objective nor scientific, but asking the question from a purely theoretical perspective would a disgruntled member of the merchant or investor class be any more or less valuable in comparison to a sociopathic criminal of a working class background if you could actually have the means to look inside their brains via lie detectors.Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.

RED DAVE

[Havet]

Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.

RED DAVE

Are you serious? :confused:

[joesub007]

Are you implying that I do?

Yes.


Hooray for Hollywood and you.

Hooray for mentally insufficient retards like you to think science and technology has anything to do with hollywood. From an entirely neutral perspective unemotional, detached science has brought more health and comfort to people including the vaunted "working class" then all the fiery passions of all revolutionaries in history combined. Politcally all revolutions are doomed to failure without the means to master the resources it has in it's land base. You complain all you want about it, but it doesn't change a thing.


I dispute your "most." There are distinct countertrends, such as the recent election as president of an allegedly liberal black man.

What does liberalism have to do with putting into place an entirely new socio-economic system? Nothing. It's the same as an emperor enacting laws so as to not beat the slave too harshly and to increase his rations.


If you don't knw the difference between bourgeois democracy and its various forms of manipulation, including consumerism and working class democracy, I suggest you study up.

:rolleyes: People enjoy the freedom to choose the products they consume including absolutely proven toxins if they wish to do so. The failure of prohibition in the 1920's and the failure of the current drug wars has blown holes wide enough for a truck to drive through about the effectiveness of "morality" legislation.

I suppose they are putting in T.V. ads encouraging people to snort cocaine and get stoned on marijuana. :lol: Remember the T.V. ads on saying no to narcotics that will fry your brain using a frying pan and an egg? How effective was that?

Underground churches in "communist" countries have likewise put to rest the effectiveness of the brute force technique of persecuting the religious.


Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.

So you're saying that due to no fault of their own let's have an example of a child born into a rich family. Simply because of the "unfortunate" circumstances of birth and the historical epoch in which the person finds himself in he is guilty by association for the sins of the father.

Or let's take another example. If you have the choice to quit your menial job of physical labor when you come upon enough money to invest on the stock market or mutual funds or whatever financial instrument of speculation. You wouldn't take it because you are a "saint" and will choose to "work your fingers to the bone" to be a martyr for the working class? :laugh:

Next supposing that you were offered a way out by giving you the option of operating machines that are thousand times more powerful than the strongest and toughest manual laborer.

But, all you have to do is to test your truthfulness on another lie detecting machine that you aren't a sociopathic criminal and also allow somebody else that was "rich" to do the same. All they have to do is to prove scientifically on an unbiased, unemotional, non-political machine that they are ethical, honest human beings and they can give up all their class pretensions to operate machines to produce real material wealth none of them alone could produce.

You would oppose all that for the sake of class allegiance even with someone (who belongs to the working class of course :lol:) who would rape your family and kill them brutally with an axe while they're asleep?

Thanks for proving that you are nothing more than crazy mob christians from an earlier epoch.

(Suggestion to do a youtube search for Agora the movie)

Of course Agora Hypatia wasn't a member of the slave (working) class of Roman times, but I'm sure that most of you get the picture.

[RED DAVE]

Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.
So you're saying that due to no fault of their own let's have an example of a child born into a rich family. Simply because of the "unfortunate" circumstances of birth and the historical epoch in which the person finds himself in he is guilty by association for the sins of the father.This is what happens when you buy your irony meter on craigslist. :D

RED DAVE

[Ravachol]

Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.

RED DAVE

Without mixing in the discussion surrounding Technocracy, I sure hope you are sarcastic or are content with making a fool out of yourself.

Class background isn't some 'ethical' trait like race for fuck's sake. We, as communists, are simply the logical extension of one class (the working class) struggling against capital as it is a parasite upon our labor. It has nothing to do with 'honest working class lads' or anything.

Let me pose you this question: Would you prefer a working class fascist over a petit-bourgois Marxist? Class doesn't render one an ethical saint. What can be said is that class determines one's material conditions and thus likely one's ideological positions. We ought not to be considered with silly identity-positions defending every individual action of a member of our class, which would be inane nonsense, but with the overthrow of capital BY and FOR our class.

[RED DAVE]

Without mixing in the discussion surrounding Technocracy, I sure hope you are sarcastic or are content with making a fool out of yourself.Learn to read threads before you jump on.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1738925&postcount=237

RED DAVE

[Technocrat]

Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.

RED DAVE

It's statements like this that demonstrate that Red Dave doesn't have a single ounce of credibility.

[RED DAVE]

Yes. A sociopathic criminal of a working class background is far more valuable than the most benevolent member of the merchant or investor class. Even a serial killer from the working class is worth more due to their class status than, say, a member of the merchant or investor class who gives his or her money away to fund hospitals for AIDS-infected children. Class is what counts. Give me the honest working class mass murderer over the devious philanthropic bourgeois any day.
It's statements like this that demonstrate that Red Dave doesn't have a single ounce of credibility.Congratulations: you're the second jerk to demonstrate that you bought your irony meter on craigslist. Next time, read the subsequent threads.

RED DAVE

[Havet]

Congratulations: you're the second jerk to demonstrate that you bought your irony meter on craigslist. Next time, read the subsequent threads.

RED DAVE

It doesn't help that you suddenly switch from a serious rethoric to a joke. People are slow.

[Dermezel]

All technology should go to the proletariat and zero to the bourgeoisie!

[Dimentio]

All technology should go to the proletariat and zero to the bourgeoisie!

I still wonder how it is a bourgeois proposal to give all human beings equal access to the fruits of technology.

[Dermezel]

I still wonder how it is a bourgeois proposal to give all human beings equal access to the fruits of technology.

They must become proletariat. Equal to us. The only distinction will be merit and then even temporarily as such distinctions will be overwhelmed by technology.

All Power to the Soviets!

[Havet]

All Power to the Soviets!

Are you drunk?

[Dermezel]

Are you drunk?

Was Lenin? was Trotsky? No!

I simply state the obvious. Are you counter-revolutionary?

[Havet]

Was Lenin? was Trotsky? No!

I simply state the obvious. Are you counter-revolutionary?

What's so special about the soviets? What about all the other people on earth?

[Dermezel]

What's so special about the soviets? What about all the other people on earth?

Fucking Bourgeoisie *****. You ever study the Russian Revolution? You give your stupid self away!

[Havet]

Fucking Bourgeoisie *****. You ever study the Russian Revolution? You give your stupid self away!

You're definitely drunk