The technocracy movement was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s which favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy and partisan politics. Historians associate the movement with engineer Howard Scott's Technical Alliance and Technocracy Incorporated prior to the internal factionalism that dissolved the latter organization during the Second World War. Technocracy was ultimately overshadowed by other proposals for dealing with the crisis of the Great Depression. The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy. The movement did not fully aspire to scientocracy.
The movement was committed to abstaining from all partisan politics and communist revolution. It gained strength in the 1930s. In 1940, due to opposition to the Second World War, it was banned in Canada. The ban was lifted in 1943 when it was apparent that "Technocracy Inc. was committed to the war effort, proposing a program of total conscription." The movement continued to expand during the remainder of the war, and new sections were formed in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces.
The technocracy movement survived into the 21st century and, , was continuing to publish a newsletter, maintain a website, and hold member meetings. The Technocracy, Inc. web site later had a post on it stating that the site was under renovation, under new ownership, announcing a "Transition Plan 2016", and an online meeting in April 2021. Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, the New Machine, and the Utopian Society of America.
Overview Technocracy advocates contended that price system-based forms of government and economy are structurally incapable of effective action, and promoted a society headed by technical experts, which they argued would be more rational and productive.Beverly H. Burris (1993). Technocracy at work State University of New York Press, p. 28.
The coming of the Great Depression ushered in radically different ideas of social engineering, culminating in reforms introduced by the New Deal.William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900-1941, University of California Press, pp. ix-xiii and p. 110. By late 1932, various groups across the United States were calling themselves technocrats and proposing reforms.Beverly H. Burris (1993). Technocracy at work State University of New York Press, p. 30.
By the mid-1930s, interest in the technocracy movement was declining. Some historians have attributed the decline of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal.Frank Fischer (1990). Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise, Sage Publications, p. 86. Historian William E. Akin rejects that thesis arguing instead that the movement declined in the mid-1930s as a result of the failure of its proponents to devise a 'viable political theory for achieving change' (p. 111 Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900–1941 by William E. Akin), although many technocrats in the United States were sympathetic to the electoral efforts of anti-New Deal third parties.
One of the most widely circulated images in Technocracy Inc.'s promotional materials used the example of a streetcar to argue that engineering solutions will always succeed where legislation or fines fail to adequately deal with social problems. If passengers insist on riding on the car's dangerous outer platform, the solution consists in designing cars without platforms.
Origins The technocratic movement has its origins with the progressive engineers of the early twentieth century and the writings of Edward Bellamy, along with some of the later works of Thorstein Veblen such as The Engineers And The Price System written in 1921.Frank Fischer (1990). Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise, Sage Publications, p. 84. William H. Smyth, a California engineer, invented the word technocracy in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers",Barry Jones (1995, fourth edition). Sleepers, Wake! Technology and the Future of Work, Oxford University Press, p. 214. and in the 1920s it was used to describe the works of Thorstein Veblen.
Early technocratic organizations formed after the First World War. These included Henry Gantt’s "The New Machine" and Veblen's "Soviet of Technicians". These organizations folded after a short time. Writers such as Henry Gantt, Thorstein Veblen, and Howard Scott suggested that businesspeople were incapable of reforming their industries in the public interest and that control of industry should thus be given to engineers.
Europe In Germany before the Second World War, a technocratic movement based on the American model introduced by Technocracy Incorporated existed, but ran afoul of the political system there.
There was a Soviet movement, the early history of which resembled the North American one during the interwar period. One of its leading members was engineer Peter Palchinsky. Technocratic ideology was also promoted in the Engineer's Herald journal. The Soviet technocrats advanced the scientization of the economic development, management as well as industrial and organizational psychology under the slogan, "the future belongs to the managing-engineers and the engineering-managers".
Those viewpoints were supported by leading Right Opposition members Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov. The promotion of an alternative view on the country's industrialization and the engineer's role in society incurred Joseph Stalin's wrath. Palchinsky was executed in 1929, and a year later leading Soviet engineers were accused of an anti-government conspiracy in the Industrial Party Trial. A large scale persecution of engineers followed, forcing them to focus on narrow technical issues assigned to them by communist party leaders.
The concept of Tektology developed by Alexander Bogdanov, perhaps the most important of the non-Leninist Bolsheviks, bears some semblance to technocratic ideas. Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings, as presented by Zenovia Sochor,Zenovia Sochor (1988). Revolution and Culture: The Bogdanov-Lenin Controversy. Cornell University Press. imply that he expected a coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society.
United States and Canada
Howard Scott has been called the "founder of the technocracy movement". Near the end of 1919, he started the Technical Alliance in New York. Members of the alliance were mostly scientists and engineers. The Technical Alliance started an "energy survey of North America", which aimed to provide a scientific background from which ideas about a new social structure could be developed. In 1921, the group broke up before the survey was completed.William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press. p. 37.William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press. pp. 61–62.
In 1932, Scott and others interested in the problems of technological growth and economic change began meeting in New York City. Their ideas gained national attention and the "Committee on Technocracy" was formed at Columbia University, by Howard Scott and Walter Rautenstrauch.William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press, p. ix. The group was short-lived and in January 1933William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press. p. 96. splintered into two other groups, the "Continental Committee on Technocracy" (led by Harold Loeb) and "Technocracy Incorporated" (led by Scott).Jack Salzman (1986). American studies: an annotated bibliography. Vol. 2. p. 1596.Howard P. Segal (2005). Technological Utopianism in American Culture. Syracuse University Press. p. 123.
Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, American Technocratic League,CAMP TECHNOCRACY - American Technocratic League The New Machine and the Utopian Society of America, though Bellamy had the most success due to his nationalistic stances, and Veblen's rhetoric, removing the current pricing system and his blueprint for a national directorate to reorganize all produced goods and supply, and ultimately to radically increase all industrial output.Harold Loeb (1933). Life in a technocracy: what it might be like. p. xv.Howard P. Segal (2005). American studies: an annotated bibliography. Vol. 2. p. 1596.
At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that society could be designed more efficiently by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting').David E. Nye (1992). Electrifying America: social meanings of a new technology, 1880–1940. pp. 343–344. Technocracy Inc. officials wore a uniform consisting of a "well-tailored double-breasted suit, gray shirt, and blue necktie, with a monad insignia on the lapel", and its members saluted Scott in public.William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press. p. 101.
Public interest in technocracy peaked in the early 1930s:
Following Scott's radio address from the Hotel Pierre, the condemnation of both him and technocracy in general reached a peak. The press and business people reacted with ridicule and almost unanimous hostility. The American Engineering Council charged the technocrats with "unprofessional activity, questionable data, and drawing unwarranted conclusions".William E. Akin (1977). Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocracy Movement 1900–1941. University of California Press. p. 88.
The faction-ridden Continental Committee on Technocracy collapsed in October 1936.Harold Loeb and Howard P. Segal (1996). Life in a technocracy: what it might be like. p. xv. However, Technocracy Incorporated continued.David Adair (1967). The Technocrats 1919–1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement.
On October 7, 1940, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested members of Technocracy Incorporated, charging them with belonging to an illegal organization. One of the arrested was Joshua Norman Haldeman, a Regina chiropractor, former leader of the Regina branch of Technocracy Incorporated in Saskatchewan, and the maternal grandfather of Elon Musk. Another notable former Technocracy Inc. member is Jacque Fresco, who later went on to form Sociocyberneering Inc., and then The Venus Project, advocating for a 'resource based economy'. Other members who contributed greatly to the movement by writing numerous texts and books are the arachnologist Ivie Wilton and Stella K. Block, to whom technocracy inc dedicated a text to the latter, entitled "In Fond Memory: Stella K. Block 1910—1996".
There were some speaking tours of the US and Canada in 1946 and 1947, and a motorcade from Los Angeles to Vancouver:David Adair (1967). The Technocrats 1919–1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement. p. 101.