In defence of Technocracy.

[Technocrat]

NET/EOS have a long-term transitional proposal. The first step involves experimentation and the establishment of a proto-technate which would be autonomous.

Technocracy Incorporated has a variation of the - in my opinion - absolutely idiotic "phoenix syndrome", the delusion that when capitalism collapses by itself, Tech Inc would ride in and save the day.

Well, they did have pretty good success during the Great Depression.

I think there are some problems with NET's plan. If you don't have abundance, and you don't have the automation, then you will have people doing jobs with varying levels of difficulty and receiving the same rationed amount of goods. This is very different from Technocracy, where all jobs would be of relatively equal difficulty due to automation, and everyone would be able to consume as much of whatever they could actually consume.

Now, I'm not saying that a community like NET proposes wouldn't have advantages over the current market system. An experimental community could be used to show people that a planned economy works better - more efficiently - than a money-based one. But I don't think it can be used to model what society would be like in a full blown Technate, where people don't have to work very hard and can consume as much of whatever they want.

[which doctor]

Technocrats are the 21st century equivalent of the Owenites.

[Dimentio]

that is utopian socialism. you cant have a handful of people crafting an economic system with the hopes people will be "converted". you folks have from energy accounting, to technates and urbanates. i mean that seems pretty blueprinty to me

People won't be converted out of any idealistic reason. When we have communities up'n'running, they would join them up because of a better social contract offered to them there. Moreover, the blueprint isn't detailed, its supposed to evolce organically.

[Dimentio]

Well, they did have pretty good success during the Great Depression.

I think there are some problems with NET's plan. If you don't have abundance, and you don't have the automation, then you will have people doing jobs with varying levels of difficulty and receiving the same rationed amount of goods. This is very different from Technocracy, where all jobs would be of relatively equal difficulty due to automation, and everyone would be able to consume as much of whatever they could actually consume.

Now, I'm not saying that a community like NET proposes wouldn't have advantages over the current market system. An experimental community could be used to show people that a planned economy works better - more efficiently - than a money-based one. But I don't think it can be used to model what society would be like in a full blown Technate, where people don't have to work very hard and can consume as much of whatever they want.

We cannot fix relative abundance instantly, but we could fix automatisation, as long as we have access to free electricity and food so we could put the revenue into other areas.

[RED DAVE]

In hopes of clarifying this discussion, I would like to pose a series of questions to people who are, in one way or another, connected to Technocracy.

Q1 - It seems obvious that there are two different factions of Technocracy: North American and European. What is the current relationship between these two factions?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

In hopes of clarifying this discussion, I would like to pose a series of questions to people who are, in one way or another, connected to Technocracy.

Q1 - It seems obvious that there are two different factions of Technocracy: North American and European. What is the current relationship between these two factions?

RED DAVE

The two factions are mostly ignoring one another and continuing with their own business independent from one another. There are hardly any attempts at denunciation from either side, except from a some confused rookies and trolls. According to Technocracy Incorporated, NET/EOS probably isn't a proper technocratic organisation, but we don't care about that. We'll let them play in their pond, and they allow us to play in their one. On the individual level, there could be friendly relationships and a transmission of ideas, but the CHQ of Tech. Inc and the Board of Directors of NET/EOS have not established any contacts whatsoever with one another.

NET/EOS has cooperation with a North American technocratic group named Sector X, and is discussing cooperation with the Zeitgeist splinter groups RBEF and RBOSE.

[RED DAVE]

Q2 - What are the differences between North American Technocracy and European Technocracy with regard to respective belief systems?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Q2 - What are the differences between North American Technocracy and European Technocracy with regard to respective belief systems?

RED DAVE

There are several differences, both in methodology and in terms of the design itself. The North American model is based largely on taylorism and centralised managerial structures reminiscent of a Ford motorcar factory and the Soviet Union. Emphasis is put on the engineer as a sort of vanguard for the people, at least in the visions of Thorstein Veblen and Howard Scott. The North American technocratic movement claims abundance is absolute if everyone could be given the same access to utilities, food, electricity and so on.

The European technocratic movement is proposing a de-centralised model, where the technate is composed of semi-autonomous holons which are interconnected through functional sequences. The sequences are a hierarchy but could only provide guidance and information, while the holons - as organisational groups - are the real agents of the technate. All decisions should be based on the most local level possible. Instead of the engineer, we are putting the process of engineering at the centre. In short, instead of a ruling clique, we would have a ruling set of principles and goals which would be unalterable and limit and define the technate and its various operations.

Moreover, the North American technocratic movement was highly isolationist, confined largely to the USA and Canada, while we are striving for a global technate.

Another difference is that the North American technocratic movement largely ignored social sciences, while we acknowledge that a lot of issues and social problems cannot be solved by technical means, hence we would like the technate to co-exist with a global confederation of autonomous, direct democratic communes which would be responsible for legislation, while the technate would be confined to the control of infrastructure, exctraction, production processes, distribution and recycling.

A third difference is the process of transitionalism. The North American movement had no real plans on how to conduct a transition, building on the idea that when capitalism is failing, the people would choose the technocrats to build up the North American Technate, and it would rise like some form of phoenix from the ashes.

We believe that a transitional process is needed, and that the technate itself must be the agent of its conception.

If you had paid any attention to actually reading our articles, you would have understood these differences by now.

http://en.technocracynet.eu/index.ph...tpage&Itemid=1

[RED DAVE]

Q3 - What social movements have either the North American or European groups actively been involved in since WWII? (Yes, I know the European group is much younger.) For example, have any groups been actively involved in the struggles against McCarthyism, for civil rights in the USA, American labor struggles, against the War in Vietnam, against the US intervention in NIcaragua, against the US invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, US intervention in Kosovo, the current US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.

I am talking about active intervention, not the issuing of public statements.

By the way, (1) I would appreciate it if Technocrat or anyone else allied with the North American movement would comment on these questions. (2) I am asking people involved in Technocracy to answer not because I haven't consulted the various websites, but because I don't want to be accused of misquoting.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

I cannot answer for the North American movement, but we have cooperated with a foreign policy organisation which have a lot of left-wing members at the local university. Apart from that, we have mostly focused on setting up our own movement. We have decided to avoid cooperating with movements which are larger than our own except in areas where we share an interest, out of the legitimate fear that our movement would be swallowed.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah, see, this is problematic because a *collectivized* social order could altogether *transcend* the whole one-person leadership thing, including *all* forms of representative decision-making, like parliamentarism. This is especially the case in our *current* state of technology where each person's *individual* political will can easily be logistically discerned, issue-by-issue, with the aggregate of human need / consumer preference easily pooled into a verbatim mass demand, without any go-betweens or personification whatsoever.

I don't think this is true. Groupthink suggests that the larger the crowd is, the more emotionally manipulative you have to be to control the crowd. This means that the messages that get through to the group are the ones that are the most emotionally manipulative. This only gets worse the larger the group becomes. This leads to faulty decision making. We see this everyday in our current system of "democracy." This is why the republicans have been so successful - they are very good at marketing (emotional manipulation).

Well here you're falling prey to the common problem of current-versus-*planned*. Even *if* the bourgeois social science framework you're referencing is accurate, it *doesn't* mean that it should be our *straightjacket*. What makes a revolutionary a revolutionary is that we're more *willful* than those who would allow the status quo to continue as it is.

Are you more interested in merely *noting* some of the worse group dynamics that we've seen among people, or would you rather be *pro-active* and take a part in *overcoming* some of these pitfalls?

Really, your *emphasis* -- and therefore, much of your political line -- is *so* focused on regurgitating negative historical social situations / dynamics that you're effectively *prescribing* the same. We're *not* supposed to be *academics* here -- we're supposed to be *revolutionaries*.

You've agreed that a formal system of job positions is not required, yet you're clinging steadfastly to this "natural hierarchy" stuff -- it's quite antiquated.

I've agreed that formal job positions are not required for every task, but they would still be desirable for some tasks (such as those requiring a great deal of training).

Or, liberated from the constraints of formal salaries and careers, it would not be difficult to imagine that people would simply *cooperate* at *all* steps in their learning / working processes, so that *no one* would have cause to complain about being "gyped" of their efforts, either for training or in a work role.

*This* is why you're catching accusations of being elitist -- do party-ers complain that they spent too much time practicing dance moves??? No, of course not, because it's what they *want* to do, and they're *free* to do it. There are no complaints that some person "contributed" "too much" or "too little" to a party, because in the end it's a *cooperative* effort -- there may be some work roles involved, but it's all done mutually, for the good of the party.

Talk of "transcending" pecking order is nonsense with no grounding in science - as I said already, these observations of human behavior have been made in a wide range of cultures and socioeconomic systems, and these behaviors have also been observed in lower level animals and animals closely related to us. This suggests that these behaviors are NOT culturally-specific but rather ingrained in our biology. It is impossible to "transcend" one's biology.

Moreover, the reason why revolutionary leftists would even *take offense* to it is because it's worded in such a way as to *assert* this as a *desired* political principle. It's like the difference between noting that the sun is always in the sky during the day, and advancing the worship of the sun as a necessary ritual for survival.

No, it's more like noting that the sun is in the sky during the day, and then advocating the idea that the sun will be in the sky the next day.

Yeah, I agree with your analogy here, and it *bolsters* my previous point -- you're focusing too much on description of *nature*-based phenomena. Politics *isn't* "natural" or "biological" -- it's *intentional*. It's about implementing what we as conscious determiners *want* to see happen -- not how we would "behave" under "natural" conditions.

Would there be any point in "advocating the idea that the sun will be in the sky the next day" -- ??? Is this something worth doing??? Would you consider it to be *political*, along with all of the other nature-based stuff you've been emphasizing?

Here's *another* internal conflict -- you're *agreeing* that a purely reductionistic approach (to economics, society) is problematic, but then you're *clinging* to it and using that ground as a base with which to criticize *emergent*, or *collective* social groupings -- majority rule.

That's not what I'm doing. Majority rule and economic theory depend on the same false premise - homo economicus. If the premise of a theory is false this means that the theory itself is false. People are not rational utility maximizers. Never have been and never will be.

So are we political and revolutionary in order to be "rational utility maximizers" -- ??? Sure, to some extent, but I think what should come first should be * the revolution *. It may not be clean, it may not be pretty, but it needs to happen, first and foremost, so that we can get to a more rational collective state of society. If it takes revealing that most people in the world are disgusted with capitalism and would support its overthrow, then we *need* to be open to "majority rule" (of the working class).

[Meridian]

This is same argument used by economists to justify capitalism. They argue that people are rational utility maximizers, that they will make rational choices in their consumption and other decisions, and that this will allow the market to reach equilibrium. The assumption that people are rational utility maximizers is called rational man and has been falsified for over 60 years. People are not rational utility maximizers.

No, it is called democratic production. It is exactly what capitalists are against. I did not claim anything about the "rationality" of the decisions of local production groups. The goal should not be "rationality", though. It is far too weak a term to even be employed in this context.

[Technocrat]

In hopes of clarifying this discussion, I would like to pose a series of questions to people who are, in one way or another, connected to Technocracy.

Q1 - It seems obvious that there are two different factions of Technocracy: North American and European. What is the current relationship between these two factions?

RED DAVE

I'm not a member of Technocracy, Inc. for the reasons Dimentio mentioned, but I'm still skeptical of the Holons concept because it reminds me too much of failed utopian socialist communes. I understand it would be different but I'm still not 100% sold on the idea. I think in this sense, the North American system may be more revolutionary in nature, since it suggests an immediate end to the price system rather than a gradual transition from within the price system.

[Technocrat]

No, it is called democratic production. It is exactly what capitalists are against. I did not claim anything about the "rationality" of the decisions of local production groups. The goal should not be "rationality", though. It is far too weak a term to even be employed in this context.

Capitalists use the argument of rational man to say that the market will reach equilibrium and will efficiently meet human needs. This has been shown to be false for decades.

Even if you are not claiming anything about the rationality of certain groups, the argument is still the same: that people will inherently do what is in their own best interest if left to their own devices. This is the essence of rational man. Also, I didn't say the goal should be rationality - obviously, I was saying that this description of human behavior is false.

[Technocrat]

Well here you're falling prey to the common problem of current-versus-*planned*. Even *if* the bourgeois social science framework you're referencing is accurate, it *doesn't* mean that it should be our *straightjacket*. What makes a revolutionary a revolutionary is that we're more *willful* than those who would allow the status quo to continue as it is.

Are you more interested in merely *noting* some of the worse group dynamics that we've seen among people, or would you rather be *pro-active* and take a part in *overcoming* some of these pitfalls?

Culture is determined by biology. This means that we cannot "transcend" certain behaviors any more than we can fly by trying to flap our arms. This view will probably get me branded as a heretic, but it is supported by current science.

http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/R...eIsBiology.pdf

This isn't a bad thing - if anything, it fully supports the cause of the left because the view of human behavior emerging from the social sciences suggests that people are not naturally inclined toward Capitalism.

Really, your *emphasis* -- and therefore, much of your political line -- is *so* focused on regurgitating negative historical social situations / dynamics that you're effectively *prescribing* the same. We're *not* supposed to be *academics* here -- we're supposed to be *revolutionaries*.

If the principles of the revolution are not scientifically sound, then it will fail. This is my concern. "Scientifically sound" here also means that which would be supported by people, since anything that doesn't have the support of the people wouldn't work.

Or, liberated from the constraints of formal salaries and careers, it would not be difficult to imagine that people would simply *cooperate* at *all* steps in their learning / working processes, so that *no one* would have cause to complain about being "gyped" of their efforts, either for training or in a work role.

Yes, this makes sense.

*This* is why you're catching accusations of being elitist -- do party-ers complain that they spent too much time practicing dance moves??? No, of course not, because it's what they *want* to do, and they're *free* to do it. There are no complaints that some person "contributed" "too much" or "too little" to a party, because in the end it's a *cooperative* effort -- there may be some work roles involved, but it's all done mutually, for the good of the party.

Yeah, but you really can't compare something like a party which is intrinsically rewarding in itself to something like the aggregate of all work that is done by society, which may not all be fun (and not intrinsically rewarding). This is why each person should receive free access to everything produced by society, and each person should contribute an equal share of time and effort to the work of society, on par with their abilities. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need".

Yeah, I agree with your analogy here, and it *bolsters* my previous point -- you're focusing too much on description of *nature*-based phenomena. Politics *isn't* "natural" or "biological" -- it's *intentional*. It's about implementing what we as conscious determiners *want* to see happen -- not how we would "behave" under "natural" conditions.

Chris, I think you're trying to separate culture from biology too much. All these things that appear to be separate processes are in reality one single process.

Would there be any point in "advocating the idea that the sun will be in the sky the next day" -- ??? Is this something worth doing??? Would you consider it to be *political*, along with all of the other nature-based stuff you've been emphasizing?

A better question would be: "would it be worth it to advocate the idea that the sun won't be in the sky the next day?" but now we're getting kinda abstract.

So are we political and revolutionary in order to be "rational utility maximizers" -- ??? Sure, to some extent, but I think what should come first should be * the revolution *. It may not be clean, it may not be pretty, but it needs to happen, first and foremost, so that we can get to a more rational collective state of society. If it takes revealing that most people in the world are disgusted with capitalism and would support its overthrow, then we *need* to be open to "majority rule" (of the working class).

I agree that a revolution needs to happen first. I've also said that for Technocracy to work it would need to be voted in by majority rule (by a majority vote of all citizens).

[bcbm]

Culture is determined by biology. This means that we cannot "transcend" certain behaviors any more than we can fly by trying to flap our arms. This view will probably get me branded as a heretic, but it is supported by current science.

http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/R...eIsBiology.pdf

uh, the article you link argues against the idea you're trying to promote. on the first page.

[Dean]

Both Technocrat and Dimentio have addressed them in full but still they rattle on. That thread has been spammed to irrelevance with cut n paste jobs on Howard Scott and Technocracy incorporated.

I think it's better to take the debate with a fresh perspective.

I've never seen them addressed. In particular, the notion that a privileged class - that of the engineers - has full control over the means of production is absurd.

In contemporary capitalism, we already see this happening to a degree. There are industries wherein production requires very little labor, and workers are actually compensated well because the company can afford to provide good benefits to have a better working labor force.

But this doesn't empower the entire proletarian class, and if we really do a achieve a state of a diminished, but empowered working class, that will not be a communist state, because only their interests will be represented.

The criticisms are clear and have been issued frequently. I've never seen any decent response to them though.

Please don't assert your own prejudices about us - your defense can't be that "we demand toil." That seems to indicate that you don't believe a decentralized, widespread form of economic and political control is possible.

All of society must have their interests equitably represented in the prevalent mode of production. This won't work with a diminished working class with total control over the means of production.

[Technocrat]

uh, the article you link argues against the idea you're trying to promote. on the first page.

No, it doesn't. What idea do you think I'm trying to promote?

Cultural imperatives are built into our genes. Not only can
culture act proximally to constrain behavior via institutions, skills, values, and so forth, but by
constraining behavior in similar ways over hundreds of millennia it is a major source of ultimate causes of
human "nature."

Culture is taught by motivated human teachers,
acquired by motivated learners, and stored and manipulated in human brains. Culture is an evolving
product of populations of human brains. Humans are adapted to learn and manage culture by the way
natural selection has arranged our brains. Human social learners in turn arrange features of their brains as
they learn from others and the environment.

[Technocrat]

I've never seen them addressed. In particular, the notion that a privileged class - that of the engineers - has full control over the means of production is absurd.

This isn't an accurate description of Technocracy.

All of society must have their interests equitably represented in the prevalent mode of production. This won't work with a diminished working class with total control over the means of production.

The goal of Technocracy is to give each person as much as they are physically capable of consuming of whatever they want, with the lowest possible input of human labor, energy, and resources.

So, it is the goal of Technocracy to fulfill the interests of all people - ie the common interest.

But this doesn't empower the entire proletarian class, and if we really do a achieve a state of a diminished, but empowered working class, that will not be a communist state, because only their interests will be represented.

There won't be a proletarian class or a working class in Technocracy, because the mundane menial work would be automated to the degree possible. Everyone would be given free education and everyone would be a professional of some sort, and everyone would share in any of the "dirty work" that couldn't be automated. Work hours would be reduced to the bare minimum required to produce the goods and services that people require. Those who were unable to work due to disability would suffer no penalty. It would be a classless society.

[bcbm]

No, it doesn't. What idea do you think I'm trying to promote?

you are saying that culture is determined by biology while the article suggests the two influence each other in ways we don't fully understand yet but also rejects an innatist approach. one of their main arguments is that culture alters our biology, which doesn't seem to mesh with your statement that we cannot "transcend certain behaviors."