Technocracy Incorporated is one of the great vanishing acts of history. At the peak of its existence, Technocracy Inc. had half a million members in California alone and received extensive press. Today, they are virtually forgotten.
(Above: a Technocracy sign in a Depression-era town)
To over simplify: the goal of Technocracy Inc. was to create a socio-economic system run entirely by engineers. It was founded by Howard Scott, an engineer with dubious credentials.
Above: Technocracy founder Howard Scott
Scott’s basic idea was that all human endeavor could effectively be measured in terms of energy expended. Whatever it took to make anything could be translated into pure ergs and joules. Therefore, the first thing to do was to take a grand energy survey of all the nations industries, a project to which Rautenstrauch actually got Columbia’s venerable president Nicholas Murray Butler to lend his support. Once it was determined how much energy it took to make everything, the nation’s engineers could step in and eliminate the irrational “social motives†in business. That is, all the energy businessmen put into making luxury goodsor profits.
Scott was always vague about just what would happen next. When pressed, he and his associates finally theorized that some sort of scrip, equivalent to the energy the nation used in a year, could be distributed on a perfectly equal basis to all U.S. citizens. To keep everything balanced and that pesky capital from accumulating, people would have to use up their “energy certificates†during the year or see them become worthless. The result, Loeb asserted in a book he rushed into print by early 1933, would be such abundance that no one would have to work more than four hours or so, four days a week. (Source)
Sounds nice. But things got a little creepy.
Above: a fleet of official Technocracy gray cars, from this IWW profile of Scott.
Technocracy’s program gained in popularity over the 1930s and 1940s, with members from all over North America. The organization gave lecture tours, study courses, and held motorcades, where hundreds of official “Technocracy Grey Cars” travelled all over the United States and Canada as part of the organization’s “symbolization” campaign. The Grey Cars sparked fears that Technocracy was a secret society with resources to create a fleet of vehicles in the midst of a depression. In reality, the organization only supplied grey paint so that members could customize their own vehicles. A grey suit became the organization’s uniform, and a red and grey monad its official symbol. (Source)
Names, too, were suspect for some reason so members of the movement in California were designated only by numbers. A speaker at one California rally was introduced only as 1x1809x56! (Source)
Numbers instead of names. Gray cars and uniforms. A completely engineered vision of society. Oh my.
To tie it back to the Dharma Initiative a bit, check out these training videos on YouTube:
They are forgotten, but not gone. Technocracy Incorporated is alive and active today, but their numbers have diminished. Perhaps, as we enter a new depression and a crashing banking system they will be able to rise again. China actually accomplished part of what Technocracy Inc. sought: rule by engineers. As the United States and Europe’s economies melt down, we can no longer use practicality as a justification to avoid Chinese economic and political policies. Technocracy may well be in our future.
More Info:
Official Technocracy Incorporated web site
Kevin Baker’s column on the Reform Party and Technocracy Inc.
Time Magazine article on Scott from 1932.
February 14, 2009 at 9:52 am
They are also the main bad guys in the role-playing game Mage: The Ascension.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_(World_of_Darkness)
February 15, 2009 at 12:44 pm
“I am not a number, I am a free man!”
Fascinating posts and info! 😀
February 23, 2009 at 2:29 am
A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY.
We are trying to FIX a serious problem in our growing civilization.
IT CANNOT BE FIXED!
The first big questions is WHAT WENT WRONG?.
The second big question is WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
Here is a quick and simplistic answer to the first question – WHAT WENT WRONG?.
We must start by understanding the nature of the MONETARY SYSTEM.
The MONETARY SYSTEM is basically a barter system which has evolved into a designed EXCHANGE systems with perceived value based upon relative SCARCITY.
Unfortunately the barter / exchange system which has become an accepted part of the complexity of our growing civilization has two major problems.
The first problem is the concept of interest. Inevitably the steadily compounding growth from interest reached the negatively explosive stage of exponential growth in the early twentieth century.
We are experiencing the results today and THERE IS NO WAY TO TURN BACK.
The second problem is that the monetary system is based upon scarcity and is not able by its nature to handle the equitable distribution of abundance.
In 1911 a line representing the total of all existing and produced goods was crossed by a line representing the growing universal ability of mankind to create abundance.
Coincidentally the two problems peaked together and the result is that we have spent the last hundred years trying to maintain a dying system.
Now here is the good news.
It is in the answer to our second big question – WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?.
It is time for thinking people, communicating worldwide with our wonderful internet, to design and implement –
A NEW SYSTEM FOR THE EQUITABLE DISTIBUTION OF ABUNDANCE.
Let me share an open doorway with you –
I have been living in and observing the worlds past by studying it —
The present through living in it –
And I have explored possible future directions since I first became aware of their existence in the 1940’s.
One concept which caught my early attention was the design for A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY by an engineer by the name of, Howard Scott.
To avoid being associated with concepts and isms like Communism, Socialism, Revolutions etc. , Howard incorporated his concept under U. S. law in 1933 as Technocracy Inc..
I am not involved with or promulgating Tecnocracy specifically but I do draw heavily on its precepts in my thinking.
Technocracy was initially designed for consideration for the U.S. only but it is now timely to update it to be a major part of the overdue one world society.
Please be patient. I am aware of the possible problems that a one world society could encounter with a monetary system but you will be delighted at how natural it is when you enter a world without money.
If I have your attention please contact me at hgillis2@gmail.com —
I will be happy to share my thinking with the following parameters.
New ideas and concepts are birthed by thinkers.
Experts are a second stage, reaching conclusions, correctly and incorrectly, for the management of new ideas and concepts.
I feel that certain words are a part of communication with new thinking and I will be taking the liberty of using italics with these words.
Some examples of these key words are – awareness, possibility thinking, pattern thinking, inertia, tendency, direction – ( positive-negative or good – evil or – ? ), control, greed, power, exponential growth, communication,
I welcome any additions of words or ideas that you may wish to share..
A major concept to become aware of is the negative nature of the monetary system with its incentive to the baser sides of human nature such as greed, power, corruption –
These have been a major factor in the creation of a layered society with the vast majority as economic slaves to the few supposed elite at the top –
The next major point is the critical effect of exponential growth when it is in a negative direction as it has been with the long term growth of the monetary system – upon request I will send you an example of the negative or positive effects of exponential growth – it is a critical part of understanding our present breakdown but it is too long for me to include it in this preamble at this time.
There are many questions and cautions to be observed in approaching any new thinking but I will refer to some great moments in time such as the positive times in the Greek, Roman, Oriental, Arabian and other early societies –also consider the breakthrough in Britain of the Magna Carta and the ensuing formation of the British Parliamentary system – and the birth of the U.S.A. with the design and implementation of the U.S. Constitution – and most recently the design and implementation of the Euro as an example of how we can quickly design and implement a new system when we perceive the need.
The futile attempts over the last 100 years to save and fix a dying system – Our attempts to maintain a dying system have included –
Wars – (some necessary and some not) –starting in 1914 with ensuing prosperity until the crash in 1929 followed by the new deal and recovery with –
WW2 – followed by –
Planned obsellescence (a terrible moral travesty) –
The space race (that back fired when the resulting scientific discoveries produced a surge of abundance) and remember, the money it took to reach the moon was not shot into space – it remained on earth under the control of our worthy? Leaders. The space race was radically reduced and replaced by –
Vietnam, one of the greatest financial wasters of our time until – Our current mid-eastern crisis –
For the thinkers who may wish to join me in this quest, upon request I will send you my description of what life could be like for people born into A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY – I hope you will be as delighted as I am with the possibilities presented with the elimination of the monetary system with no banks, no stock market, no advertising promotion to sell anything – only information about the use of what is available and constantly being discovered by unfettered research, no wars – (after our recovery from the civil war we have no need for wars between our states) – almost no police or prisons – I can go on and I am well aware that all this is beginning to sound like a fantasy dream but take the patience to study and understand possibility thinking and realize that it can be possible to change the nightmare we are living in now to a dream we can all appreciate.
Here is a reality check – we must never try to enter the unrealistic world of striving for perfection – perfection is final – you cannot move in perfection – life should be vibrant with discovery and developing judgment for continuing guidance in positive directions, not perfect but always better.
And finally, as a footnote, I have many other new possibility thoughts I will be happy to share with you if you are interested but for now I want to concentrate on the possibility if creating and implementing A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY. Thank you. hgillis2@gmail.com
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