THe Depression's Coming!

technocrat · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 216

http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=918803

The depression is coming!

Join Technocracy now: prepare for the future

Will you help Us build a better world post-depression?

Surprised

Hopefully, people will come to their senses and become more receptive to the Technocratic ideology when they are starving.

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1089

Freaky shit. But there are dozens of groups and ideologies out there claiming to be the answer. What makes Technocracy any different? What specifically would they do right now to fix our economy?

I think the only reason why we are seeing everything fall apart is not becuase of any one group we have left out. I think it is because of the Bush administration and their terrible performance. I definitely believe that if we had simply had Al Gore as president from 2000 on, none of this would have happened.

technocrat · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 216

I do agree that Bush was a problem. I think he accelerated an already decaying system, but the problem extends well before Bush. We've been heading toward this problem for quite some time with the drive toward privatization, the mishandling of debt, loans, credit, and spending. Many Americans live beyond their means and use credit as "free money," while predatory corporations give out loans to people whom they know are unlikely to be able to pay them back.

The growing distrust of experts and anti-intellectualism has had an impact, I think, as well. We've lost what was great about the progressive era: the positivistic view and support for scientific mangagerialism that is integral to the Technocratic ideology. In a Technocratic society, there would be important meritocratic changes to the political, educational, and economic system.

I would propose, for instance, a new bicameral legislature based on meritocratic principles. There would be a lower house comprised of reps chosen directly by the people and an upper house similar to the House of Lords, but comprised of technical experts in fields relevant to public policy: ethicists, engineers, economists, etc. Each will have its own Technical Soviet within the Upper House and have absolute control over the execution of general policy toward maximization of public welfare and programme efficiency. Bills for general trends of focus, propositions would first come from the lower house and move on to the upper house. If we injected stricter intelligence and expertise standards on political office and restructured the legislature, I think we would have a more competent government that's more efficient in its mandate to promote public welfare.

Another key component is an economic shift to Energy Accounting, which has some important advantages over our current monetary system. Our capitalist model of unlimited growth and mass consumption has serious flaws that have arrived at the current collapse. Energy accounting doesn't base transactions on imaginary money that can be manipulated into thin air. The unit of trade is based on actual correlations to physical resources and the ability to do work (energy). It's a more stable economic system resistant to inflation and deflation and more accurately represents what exists, what can be done.

If scientists had been in charge of science policy and could mandate a switch to, say, nuclear power, more efficient vehicles, and more public transportation public works, we could have been well on the way to fixing many of the underlying problems with our economy and infrastructure, but such is impossible given our current capitalist model.

I don't believe people will change until they are forced to. They need to see the current system tumble down. They narrowly accepted Technocracy once, so I hope they reconsider when the Second Depression hits. The New Deal then ripped off several ideas promoted by Technocrats, so even if they adopted some of the ideas again now, that would be better than nothing. Whatever happens, the current model of capitalism won't work anymore. It's too wasteful, and our current political system exacerbates the problem. Too much populism.

The Technocratic system borrows some of the good elements of progressivist and Corporativist State. I think different groups should be incorporated and have referendum "voice" in the lower house to discuss their needs, interests, etc. Each economic subsector would have a corporate body or representative council exchange information and work with the technical soviet (the upper house) to find ways to maximize efficiency and production in each area, considering the needs of other economic sectors. Overall, each council will be ultimately responsible to the upper house's decision and the execution of those directives.

Members of the upper house are not voted in, but selected on the basis of technical knowledge from their respective professional organizations and work together on joint committees with other engineers et al as well as a representative from one of the economic corporations. The government council will use the corporations to galvanize, organize, and regulate the different economic units according to scientific managerialism.

http://technocracynet.eu/files/etsc1_3.pdf

Technocracy is aimed to solve the problem of "too much democracy."

Kizzume · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:14 am Post subject:

The more I see about Technocracies, the more it makes sense. Putting the people who really make a difference--the scientists, the technicians, etc--on the top makes the most sense.

I agree--people aren't going to change until they are forced to. I'm a bit afraid of the upcoming times. If I thought gangs and violence was bad now, if we have an economic collapse, it's not going to be pretty.

Two companies just went down in the last 5 months--Levitz, who had been around since 1910, and Wilcox dairy farms, who had been around since 1909 (although they're still going to stick to the cage-free egg business). These were really old companies--there are SO many more non-huge-corporate companies that are closing, but those two are ones that are known all over the west coast. It's just not looking good.

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1089

Let's not forget that under Bill Clinton we had a surplus in the economy, the tech boom, and a massive decline in violence. We don't need someone from any specific ideology to make things right. We just need a good leader.

And I would like to disagree that scientists always make the best decisions. Lets not forget that only 15 years ago they were predicting another ice age......and lets not forget that the UN scientists just recently admitted to totally being wrong about the number of people in Africa who have aids.

We've had plenty of elitist theories in the past, and I say no way. I like democracy and I will always fight for it and never give up on it. I think the populace should have a say in what happens to their fates, not an elite few.

Kizzume · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject:

I think that it would be interesting to sort-of combine the two theories--Democratic Technocracy.

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1089

technocrat · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 216

On an unrelated note, the whole "there was global cooling scare" was promoted largely by some greenies, but not by the scientific community. It was blown out of proportion by the media who let them get on a pedestal. Most scientists did not predict massive global cooling. I will get the article on that. It's on another forum.

On topic, the system I propose does utilize democracy. You do vote for legislators and an executive. Just not the upper house of the legislature. It's not without democracy. I support some form of democratic component.

I agree there was a boom during the Clinton years, but the problem stretches far beyond Bush. It was building and decaying the system underneath the bubble. There was a kind of unsustainable prosperity. I think Technocracy can fix that problem. The core problem is the lack of good managerial oversight in the economy, rampant speculation, overconsumption, etc.