It was late one night, and, after making the rounds of the grimy world of internet sub-culture, I found myself having an instant messaging conversation with my comrade at arms, Barry Greenstein. Barry is a secularist student leader who also has roots in punk rock subculture and hard-core leftist political activism. In short, Barry has been some of the places I’ve been.
Barry and I talk, often into the late night about politics, secularism, and science. But this was one of the early conversations, and we were discussing what we felt was the culmination of our leftist counter-culture experiences. We were discussing, what conclusions we had reached.
One stood out, from Philadelphia and Texas, two guys had decided the same thing.
The unapologetic promotion of technocracy.
Here are some Wikipedia quotes about technocracy:
Technocracy (bureaucratic), a governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected based upon how highly skilled and qualified they are, rather than how much political capital they hold. A form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in control; “technocracy is described as that society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts who justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms of knowledge”
It’s beautiful.
Think about it. Don’t just react.
People who actually know what they are doing: In Charge!
For me there are many ways in which this could play out. One for example could just be more use of scientific panels by the congress. I mean, we have politicians pontificating about things social scientists have actually collected data on. These politicians are often making a priori arguments about how people are in total ignorance.
Let me tell you a brief story about how faith began to die in my mind.
I had just started college, it was about 3 years ago, and I was working in a psychology research lab for professor Jeff Larsen. Jeff asked me how I thought a certain experimental design would work out, I told him.
He asked me, “How do you know that?”
My answer was typical, “That’s just how people are.”
I really believed this, my intuitions had become my compass, and I was unaware how much this blinded me to reality.
Jeff went buck-wild. He assaulted my willingness to abandon all scientific reasoning, he made me conscious of the fact that there are many things which are “empirical questions.” Questions which can be tested to find the answer.
What a beautiful idea.
What an elegant, thoughtful way to find out what is going on.
Imagine if politicians merely felt the same way. If they said to themselves, “well maybe there are scientists out there working on this thing?”
There are many political issues in which science undeniably must be heard: energy policy, pollution laws, medical regulation.
In science we have a rigorous peer review process which is a little like dropping blood in a shark pool. We try to discredit each other, to accuse each other’s work of being meaningless tripe, and consensus is rare. Consensus is, by design, difficult to attain.
Yet we have scientific consensus on many issues, some troubling to the left as much as evolutionary biology troubles the religious right.
But the practice of recent years has been to ignore scientific consensus in politics, in favor of finding the contentious individuals who still tow party lines in their research.
The media has left us believing that there is “right wing” and “left wing” science. This is merely not true. There is only science. And it deserves a bigger role in politics, we as humans would benefit if science had a bigger role in politics.
I actually think this is the real purpose of the Secular Humanist movement. Not by design, I think we have all come into this for different reasons, and we are too many at the organizational level to have any kind of real conspiracy. But still, I think when you take a Secular Humanist ethic and a Naturalist outlook, those two ideas have political consequences.
You start to think about “how things are” is more important than “how things should be.”
How can you believe that we as humans really must make our own way in existence, that we should value each other in principle, and that we have evidence to tell us the truth, without having this affect how you think civilization should be shaped?
You become aware that the way to achieve lofty political goals like a well protected environment in a world with a robust market, can only be achieved by making use of information which is out there, but far beyond the realm of intuition.
Intuition is simply not enough to move forward, we need facts, we need science!
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I wonder why it’s called “technocracy”. The skills and knowledgeability is hardly limited to technology. Seems like a major misnomer.
Ron, your usage of the word technology is too narrow, technology is the application of science.
Rodrigo, I like what you had to say, however, what do you mean by “how it is” is more important than “how it ought to be”?
I personally take the descriptive side a lot, I talk about how things are and then go on to explain my reasoning if I think things should be another way. Is this what you mean? Or are you advocating a naturalistic ideology wherein “how things are” is the ideal?
Bravo, dammit, Bravo! Excellently expressed.
While I agree we need science and people who understand science in positions of power. I’m not sure I would give up on democracy so quickly. And I think you would have to, to implement “technocracy”. Long term planning requires intuition, the ability to see patterns, not just data. I don’t think putting subject matter experts in charge of running things is even rational. Just because someone makes a good system administrator, doesn’t mean they have the qualities needed to run a company.
I am sympathetic to the idea of ‘meritocracy’, but unfortunately human beings are way too tribal in their instincts, its not what you know, its who you know. Thats true in most of human endeavor, even scientists participate in this. In fact this site is based on the tribal idea of ‘like-minded’ people forming a community and working for their collective benefit. I think in the end, we have to look at the way we actually are, and try and leverage ‘the way we are’, not try and impose some ideal, which ignores human nature.
I definitely believe in technocracy within the context of democracy, specifically by having congress and politicians make more use of consulting experts. In Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican War on Science,” he points out that many times in the last century politicians have had well established mechanisms for scientific consultation. There used to even be a panel on scientists strictly committed to advising congress, while the office of the president has had a science adviser since Isenhower.
Think of the Space Race.
So I am not proposing replacing democracy.
I also need to address Tobi’s question about “Things as they are” vs. “Things as they should be.” What I mean by that is that as naturalists we take the current reality on the ground extremely seriously. We can not afford to ignore evidence, in favor of dreaming about the future. We have to figure out how to improve our situation based on accepting things as they are now.
But who would be the technocrats? We still need generalists. Most people that get PHD’s are too specialized, and often approach problems from one (the standard for that field) point of view. I sometimes wish you could get a graduate degree in ’science’, a more generalist approach to many disciplines. (some physics, chem, bio, electronics, a bit of everything). Sure, you aren’t going to make grand breaking research, but you would be better equiped to make decisions on a wide variety of things.
Meritocracy is a beautiful thing.
“Think of the Space Race. ”
Or, perhaps, the Manhattan Project.
Both cases of technocratic thinking at its “best.”
re: technocracy in context of democracy
This is my theory too. Science is essentially meritocratic, like Rodrigo said, dropping blood in a shark tank. Political and scientific truths are reached by entirely different methodologies. Democracy, like science is a process, but it is a different methodology. Science cannot and must not be democratized, and certainly should not be framed in partisan terms. As Rodrigo knows, I don’t think policy makers should be able to appoint experts to their payroll. I think a policy maker should have to go to the relevant academic community and essentially ask for the person who’s most familiar with the subject being addressed, who’s invested their time and effort to be knowledgable in that field. This would basically mean the Academic Establishment becoming a “Fourth Estate”
I’ve also heard the term Meritocracy and seems to fit better
Even the the notion of the meritocracy needs to be reevaluated: the problem with a meritocracy is that it follows the same classical fallout of ethics: you want to know what the good is life, then look to the good man. Not very study; in fact, it’s an assumption of rightness that continues to recycle and rehash throughout the very core of living, voting, and planning.
But yes, look inside humans and get more out of that. That is what makes intuition and institutions so stagnant, willful, and rueful.
I am not so sure that a technocracy would overcome the huddles either.
Furthermore, the notion of merit is formed by group identity: collecting around difference, which has lead to increased racism, class, and all types of modern bourgeois bullshit. Merit is simply a pass used to assert rightness. It’s really isn’t powerful. A more fitting description would be exploitive.
I want to make one thing abundantly clear.
I do not believe in replacing democracy. I don’t think a “meritocratic government” is what we need. I reject this aspect of technocracy.
I guess I should rename this “neo-technorcracy” in fact, be in the wait for a “neo-technocracy” blog post.
In the scientific method, peer review is a huge part of the process. It is the most collective thing you can envision, it is the group destroying the labor of the individual. This process is democratic, in a way.
Everyone who is well-informed gets to critique you, and those critiques are heard by all stakeholders. This is science!
So what I advocate is that the voting process with all of its imperfections is sufficient for producing good politicians, and we need good politicians.
Any one who thinks scientists should rule the world doesn’t know many scientists. They are more often than not self-absorbed social failures.
No, I propose a technocracy in which the scientists are heard by the politicians and the public. A technocracy where science, well presented by scientists, becomes a major and serious part of the political process. That is all.
This is why I am not proposing any meritocracy which we don’t already have. All I am proposing is for a much heavier involvement of scientists.
Is there a way to have both a meritocracy and a democracy at the same time? I think what we really need to do is convince voters that the way to get good representation is to vote for the skilled people with the knowledge to govern effectively, rather than for the guy they’d like to have a beer with. You don’t have to vote for the person who looks like you or talks like you to make it a democracy; you might be better served by electing someone who has – gasp – more expertise than you do.
Great post. You’d probably like my blog. I’d like to see the rise of a Technocrat 3rd party in the USA, along the lines as you’ve described it.
Link please, I would be very interested.
Every day, I feel more and more strongly that some kind of technocratic political movement is the way for secular humanists and naturalists to have real political muscle.
Agreed, Rodrigo. Hopefully Anonymous- I’m looking forward to checking out your blog.
There might be certain conditions requisite for the success of such a party. Decreased polarization, as in the political climate that Eisenhower enjoyed, seems to me to be one. In this respect, Barack Obama may be paving the way for a Neo-Technocratic party to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the government.
1995 Published in: ~ Technocracy Digest, 1st quarter 1996, No. 319 – Information elsewhere as to the link: A new way article
From the official Technocracy Incorporated site archive.
Before, during, and now, after the election of a new batch of politicians, the media continues to flood us with “cutting the deficit” and “balancing the budget” analysis. My comments on these phenomena reflect a background in Technocracy, Inc., an educational, research organization.
Deficit spending has been an important part of our way of life ever since the ’30s. The only change has been its astronomical growth. Our memories are short. During the Great Depression, budget cuts were enacted to reduce deficit spending. What happened? We had a depression within the depression. Deficit spending had to be increased to solve the problem.
Good times, or what were considered good times, and deficit spending, go hand in hand. Without it, the economy would crumble. Now, we are told that deficits will crumble the economy as well. So, we are damned if we deficit and damned if we don’t deficit! In other words, no matter what maneuvers politicians try, the system just won’t work.
What we know, for sure, is that we are in serious trouble. Politicians — collectively and singly — offer no solution, just promises tried before and found wanting then. Bluntly put, politicians are useless. The security of our society depends on doing something drastic, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with deficit spending, balancing the budget, etc.
Our socioeconomic structure, our “Price System”, adequately handled the operation of society during the slow-pace, hand-tool, stoop-labour days of the primitive, agrarian age. Practically everyone had a job, or could get a job. There was no welfare or mass-unemployment. Today, because assembly-line production, computer robotic automation, downsizing, reinventing government, etc., employing the entire workforce is a physical impossibility. Deficit spending has been the linchpin that has maintained the economy, as bad as it is, and has kept it from terminal disaster.
In our high-tech, modern technological age, our Price System manipulations are a tragedy, causing widespread, unnecessary suffering. We must install a design of social operation that is in sync. with our modern times, and take advantage of the technological advances, not leave ourselves punished by them.
Technocracy proposes that we trash our Price System and install a modern technological social design. We are talking about a whole new way of life. Deficit spending, balancing the budget, welfare, unemployment, poverty, taxes, etc. vanish.
Those who study Technocracy’s proposal find its concepts exhilarating. Yes, it’s a whole new way of life. Check it out.
– Jim Deacove
7943-1 Technocracy Section,
Hamilton, Ont.
Copyright © 1995-2009 – Technocracy Incorporated: Technocracy, Inc.