Q&A Time, Featuring Revleft's Technocrats!

Post-Scarcity is the key word here. Post-Scarcity is impossible. There will always be a scarcity limit on anything because we know there is one thing scarce beyond reasonable dispute, and that is time.

Its an interesting idea though, sort of a mental exercise for me. :)

This does not address a post-market based society. I assume no market would exist in technocracy, or?

That's not all. There are other things that will remain scarce: status, reputation, leadership roles, popularity (yes, I know these overlap) are all important factors that affect most people. There are also more marginal cases: original works of art, faberge eggs, cashmere curtains etc.. However, these things and time being scarce, for humans, is not an impediment to the system.

In the case of the rare objects, people can simply do without them and have copies if they really want them, perhaps with the originals on public display.

In the case of the social "capital", while people will find them motivating factors (which I think is a good thing), these will be unlikely to have a significant effect on the productive process (apart from, perhaps, ensuring people actually go to work) as people cannot trade abundant things for scarce ones. No one can trade air for popularity or a Ferrari. Just as now, social "capital" will be gained in a reasonably reciprocal way: through deeds and interaction, both of which are also scarce.

Regarding time, that is a little more complex. What also needs to be considered is whose (and indeed what's) time is the problem. Human time? Or machine time? Since machines would be doing most of the grunt work, they are the primary part of the economy. As long as the machines can work fast enough (and they can, as modern industry has historically shown: many factories, even automated ones, are online for much less than 24 hours each day, though there is no technical reason for this (there are market reasons, though, which is an example of the retarding effect of the market)) to produce an abundance of goods in the time they have available, the question of time scarcity is moot. Regarding human time, I assume you refer mostly to scarcity of "free" time, as it can be said that time at works is not "yours". However, since, in the 1930s, the original Technocrats determined that average working hours would be 16 hours per week (for four hours per day for four days per week), I think it would be reasonable to suggest that people will have more free time than they know what to do with, and so use some of it to be productive. Even if it turns out there isn't enough time in a 24 hour cycle (very unlikely), then, to make sure people work, coercion can always be called upon.

There is an important general point about the immaterial, but scarce: they cannot easily be traded in a way similar to the modern Capitalist economy and, even if they were, they would not affect the more "important" parts regarding goods production and distribution. If people have less time than they want to savour everything that a post-scarcity society offers them then that is tough, but it will not harm the productive process or the structure of society. In fact, in placing a limit on the consumptive powers of people, time scarcity may even strengthen the system by lowering the threshold for abundance of other things. Have you ever done linear programming? In it, if you have one constraint that dominates, all other constraints no longer have any effect and, if those other constraints are based upon resources, those resources become "abundant".

There is no market in Technocracy, that is true. A market cannot deal with things that are not scarce: it cannot even trade scarce things with abundant things.

Yes, you are mostly correct. Although, I think most Technocrats wouldn't say "model for economics", because most Technocrats dislike that word. "Model for production and distribution" might be better.

The only real principle that Technocracy has is that it would be desirable to give the highest standard of living possible to all citizens that is indefinitely sustainable. There is no way to determine that this should be our goal through objective means, but there is ample evidence that this is what most people would consider "good". Having defined the goal, we can use objective means to determine the best way of achieving that goal.

I think another thing to note here is that the words "abundance" and "scarcity" are both relative and subjective. That means that they are meaningless without context. For example, if I have food for 10 people, and there are 5 people consuming food, then I have an abundance of food. If I have food for 10 people, and there are 20 people consuming food, then suddenly that same amount of food becomes scarce. The amount of food did not change, it was how the food was being used that determined whether it was scarce or abundant.

When Technocracy says that it could produce an abundance of goods, "abundance" is taken to mean more than could be physically consumed. Obviously not everyone can have a hope diamond, but this type of good is not consumed, it is owned, and is therefore in an entirely different category. There are definite limits as to how much a human being can physically consume. There are no such limits on what a human being can own; they can own an unlimited number of things. For this reason, Technocracy never said that it could give everyone whatever they wanted. It only said that it could produce more than people could consume. Such items as the Hope Diamond could be put on public display or copied as Cult of Reason suggested.

For the 110th time, technocrats do not use terms as scarcity and abundance in the same terminology as economists. Adam Smith's five postulates are helpful in defining a free-market economy, in telling about the incentives for human beings.

What economists mean with scarcity is that scarcity is an absolute since human beings have "limitless needs" and always want to possess more than less of product A.

When technocrats are talking about scarcity, they mean "less than what we could supply the population with during x amount of time". Economists are talking in generals and absolutes, while technocrats are talking about specifics.

For anyone interested, here is the administration chart for the North American Technate, as conceived by Tech, Inc.

Actually, I have a question about that - what exactly is the purpose of the Continental Director?

From the Technocracy Study Course:

"22.4.2 The Continental Control

The Continental Director, as the name implies, is the chief executive of the entire social mechanism. On his immediate staff are the Directors of the Armed Forces, the Foreign Relations, the Continental Research, and the Social Relations and Area Control.

Next downward in the sequence comes the Continental Control, composed of the Directors of the Armed Forces, Foreign Relations, Continental Research, Social Relations and Area Control, and also of each of the Functional Sequences. This superstructure has the last word in any matters pertaining to the social system of the North American Continent. It not only makes whatever decisions pertaining to the whole social mechanism that have to be made, but it also has to execute them, each Director in his own Sequence. This latter necessity, by way of contrast with present political legislative bodies, offers a serious curb upon foolish decisions.

So far nothing has been said specifically as to how vacancies are filled in each of these positions. It was intimated earlier that within the ranks of the various Functional Sequence jobs would be filled or vacated by appointment from above. This still holds true for the position of Sequence Director. A vacancy in the post of Sequence Director must be filled by a member of the Sequence in which the vacancy occurs. The candidates to fill such position are nominated by the officers of the Sequence next in rank below the Sequence Director. The vacancy is filled by appointment by the Continental Control from among the men nominated.

The only exception to this procedure of appointment from above occurs in the case of the Continental Director due to the fact that there is no one higher. The Continental Director is chosen from among the members of the Continental Control by the Continental Control. Due to the fact that this Control is composed of only some 100 or so members, all of whom know each other well, there is no one better fitted to make this choice than they.

The tenure of office of every individual continues until retirement or death, unless ended by transfer to another position. The Continental Director is subject to recall on the basis of preferred charges by a two-thirds decision of the Continental Control. Aside from this, he continues in office until the normal age of retirement. Similarly in matters of general policy he is the chief executive in fact as well as in title. His decisions can only be vetoed by two-thirds majority of the Continental Control.

It will be noted that the above is the design of a strong organization with complete authority to act. All philosophic concepts of human equality, democracy and political economy have upon examination been found totally lacking and unable to contribute any factors of design for a Continental technological control. The purpose of the organization is to operate the social mechanism of the North American Continent. It is designed along the lines that are incorporated into all functional organizations that exist at the present time. Its membership comprises the entire population of the North American Continent. Its physical assets with which to operate consist of all the resources and equipment of the same area."

NET is proposing a different kind of model regarding how centralised the system should be. Recent studies have shown that decentralised systems with autonomous units are actually quite efficient if communication channels are handled properly. Other than that, we will not say that the North Americans are wrong. They are proposing their model, and we are developing ours. Its good with diversity. :)

Doesn't that defy the entire concept of katascopic design?

I think the design of Tech, Inc. does allow for a high degree of local autonomy when making subjective decisions, through the Social Relations Unit and the various Area Controls.

I am not too familiar with the European system. How would it differ from this model?

The European model keeps the functional sequence system.

But for operating projects on local, regional and sectorial level, we set up holons which are composed of the necessary expertise drawn from many different sequences. These holons could in their turn be composed of smaller holons doing their part, and so on. The sequences are mostly used as communication channels. The holons could be studied as autonomous units. The technate and the consumers provide them with the goals, but they are free to find the most resource-efficient way of reaching the goals.

And yes. We have basically scrapped the entire katascopic foundation. ^^

I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what is different about the European system. It seems like the functions performed by the proposed Holons are performed just as well if not better by the Continental Research, the Social Relations Unit and Area Controls.

As far as Katascopic design is concerned, I think it has been demonstrated that katascopic processes are far more efficient than anascopic ones. What if one Holon decided that the most efficient way to perform a given task interfered with the goals of another Holon? This is why you need top-down design.

Under the American system, the various Area Controls receive their instructions from the Area Board, which receives its orders from the Continental Board. The Continental Board is made up of the Directors of the Armed Forces, the Foreign Relations, the Continental Research, and the Social Relations and Area Control.

I cruised around the NET site for a bit looking for more information on the Holons concept but couldn't find anything. Could you point me somewhere?

The articles archive.

I think you should talk to dr. Wallace about our points. He's the expert on that. But I am disqualifying Technocracy Incorporated's view. The best model will prevail in a field test, I could assure you that. ^^

Thanks. I have spoken briefly with Dr. Wallace a couple of times, mainly over PM. He has posted on tech.ca and continues to do so every so often.

From what I can tell, under the European system some items would still be scarce, and labor credits would be used to distribute those items. That seems like just another Price System to me, albeit a more efficient one.

Is there not a specific article you could point me to? I looked through the archive but I guess I will do some more digging.

I don't think anything has been disqualified yet. It is too early to tell. A field test is pretty much impossible with the North American concept, since it is basically an all-or-nothing proposition. However, with katascopic design you know exactly what the end result will be, because every aspect of the design is determined by the katascopic plan ahead of time. With anascopic design you have no idea what the final result will be, which makes a comparison between the two pretty much impossible, doesn't it? The only way to really test that hypothesis would be to have all of North America use the katascopic design for a few years, and then dismantle the system and start over with an anascopic process. In other words there is no practical way to do a "field test" of any kind, at least that I can tell.

You couldn't really compare Europe's anascopic Technate with America's Katascopic Technate, because a European to American comparison is like comparing apples to oranges. They are two different geographic areas with a different set of variables. To test this hypothesis (efficiency of katascopic vs anascopic design) we would have to eliminate these other variables, which is obviously impossible.

That is not a question.

What we are talking about is the transitionary period. Eventually, everything would be distributed through energy credits.

Personally, I think that we never could know the result beforehand. But we could create a structure which is so adaptable that you won't have to tear it down and build it again if things don't go as planned. :)

The theory of value is part of an analysis of capitalism, there would be no value (there would be use-values, but that's the opposite of value) in socialism. Surplus value certainly doesn't originate in the kilowatts of energy used.

Why do technocrats think prices are unable to efficiently allocate resources?