"The End of Arrogance"

[NecronLord]

How I wish this had become reality. One wonders how different our world would be today. I can only imagine this system to be similar to that of the RTS Total Annihilation.

It'd be nice if it worked. But then, so would Marxism. And so would Libertarian-Capitalism. I for one have some very serious doubts about it working any better than Marxism did.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I don't know how it would work with services either, unless I am just missing something in their literature. I don't know how they would measure it. They give a couple vague answers, but it wasn't really satisfying. Their hope was to phase out a lot of people through mass automation, but even if that were true, I would doubt some things would be amenable to that.

The incentive problem was also another issue. I don't know how you would convince people to do anything if they all were taken care of with a healthy income. It needs some modification, if anything, to pick some of the more practical ideas out.

Their economy somewhat resembles a form of corporativism with the economic components acting as relatively autonomous units. So there's virtually no public oversight or say other than broad goals. Their idea was that businessmen shouldn't be running the industries, and due to the "myth of the engineer" that engineers, scientists running the means of production would create better efficiency. A major failing of this particular model (even if it has useful components to steal) goes back to that total lack of oversight and incentive. They never really mentioned why these people would work at peak efficiency anymore. There's virtually no competition among productive units and everyone gets paid identically no matter what.

Of course, the organization just handwaved the problem away, unfortunately. I think there has to be some way of scaling access based on performance, at least.





Edit: the problem with scott saying violent things was actually one reason the movement split into Technocracy Inc. and the Continental Committee. Not everyone was as bullheaded or liked the authoritarianism. The latter group blended democracy with it and nerfed some of the autonomy, but they kept the basic economic idea. Scott was quite paranoid and he began to say bizarre things as time went on.

Studying the period, I could never get over how so many intelligent people in the group didn't pick up on some of these problems. Even the split didn't produce a much different system. They weren't stupid.

[Darth Smiley]

Total Annihilation? I was getting a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri vibe.

So if one has basically come to the conclusion that our economy's fundamentally flawed, as some people here seem to have, what would you propose to fix it? No one seems to have attempted to answer this, other than that rather flawed energy scheme.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Perhaps you could have a sort of Hybrid system. I am not sure. A system based on a traditional monetary economy and one that is resource-energy based for things amenable to it, such as heavy industry. Modern society is already experimenting somewhat with an energy-cost accounting scheme. It just rather limited at first.

[Darth Wong]

Setting prices of goods and services in terms of their energy consumption would be a really neat idea, if it didn't fly in the face of human nature. The problem is that the law of supply and demand operates regardless of whether regulations permit it. A black market would swiftly spring up where pricing was more closely correlated to demand than it is in the regulated energy-correlated market. Vendors who produced low-energy but high-demand products would be reluctant to sell their products on the open market because they could get far more for them on the black market. People who wished to purchase low-demand but high-energy products would avoid the open market and purchase their items on the black market instead.

It seems easier to regulate personal income (say, through extremely heavy taxation above a certain income) than to regulate prices for goods and services. But of course, in the current American political climate, that would be "punishing success", wouldn't it?

[Darth Smiley]

One has to wonder if there is a level above which more personal income/wealth stops being a significant motivator. What difference does it make that someone is making five hundred thousand or five hundred million dollars a year - it's not like there is a significant increase in living style between the two. Obviously there is the idea of power and prestige associated with larger numbers, but perhaps it is possible to replace those with some sort of prestigious award or title for people as an incentive.

Somehow I suspect such a system would fail - I just can't see anyone willingly giving up any significant amount of money for any sort of award, no matter how prestigious.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Would the black market system be some type of barter economy?

[Nephtys]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that service sector will be vanishing?

Side question: is a service sector (waiting tables, washing cars, processing checks) as valuable in creating wealth, as a manufacturing sector (building cars, constructing ships, fabricating computers and aircraft and electronics)?

Gut says no.

Your gut is not anything vaguely resembling an economist either.

Even back in the 1960s, Services were producing far more of the economy than the industrial sector. Industry still remains growing, and has grown constantly since then. But services right now are some 12 times larger, because they've grown faster.

Don't forget, services includes medical care, scientific research, and goddess knows what else. The idea that 'a hundred dollars of steel' being worth more than a hundred dollars of services is a fiction.

[dragon]

Towards the end of Clinton era the US was actually making headway against the debt and it wasn't untill Bush started screwing up the economy by spending hundreds of billions extra for the his stupid war. Hopefully if we get a democratic president we can strat making headway against the debt again, but trying to keep the dems in power long enough for the debt to be fully erased not going to happen.

[Ryan Thunder]

The problem with this, is a lot of people do useful things, say, most of the service sector, that don't actually produce anything easily measurable in joules. Are these services completely worthless? Of course not. But the means of pricing them in a technate is essentially arbitary or hokum-pseudoscience. As soon as you divorce your kilojoule-dollars from actual energy that can be measured, it has become an ordinary currency, that's just pricing things in a freaky way.

Even if you are, on the face of it, simply pricing things in a funny way, there are still benefits. Such a system would doubtless encourage a booming energy technology industry relying on actual existing currency, as opposed to our bubbly financial sector which presently seems to rely on riches that don't actually exist.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, human labour could be quantified in terms of energy; after all, human bodies use energy when they do work, and even when they're sitting at a desk. You could also try to add some sort of accounting for the work done during prior schooling. The problem (apart from the black market springing up to service supply and demand) is that this system does not account for special skills; a neurosurgeon and a Dairy Queen employee may use similar amounts of energy during their work day, but you can replace a Dairy Queen employee a lot more easily than a neurosurgeon.

[Ryan Thunder]

Actually, human labour could be quantified in terms of energy; after all, human bodies use energy when they do work, and even when they're sitting at a desk. You could also try to add some sort of accounting for the work done during prior schooling. The problem (apart from the black market springing up to service supply and demand) is that this system does not account for special skills; a neurosurgeon and a Dairy Queen employee may use similar amounts of energy during their work day, but you can replace a Dairy Queen employee a lot more easily than a neurosurgeon.

Indeed. I don't think I'd expect service workers to be paid based on how much energy they themselves produced during the day, though that may be a factor. It just doesn't strike me as a good measure of how useful they are. I would expect them to be distributed energy at a rate that would give them similar purchasing power to their present income.

Besides, if we quantify everything in precise terms of how much energy it took to deliver a product to a customer, and then set the price to that number, how does one profit from it? I think that supply and demand would still govern economics, but the stability of the common measure of wealth would make it difficult to have the same kind of problems we have with our current system. Additionally, any sort of inflation in prices would become immediately obvious, because of the fixed value of the currency.

Another benefit that I thought of; you could theoretically earn yourself wealth by turning a crank for long enough. Somebody might make an exercise machine that would store your input energy in batteries for use later. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you might be able to use it to buy yourself a drink later, say. The combination of exercise and profit could encourage people to exercise more often, promoting better physical health.

[Darth Smiley]

The whole idea is beyond silly. No matter what type of currency is used, markets will move toward equilibrium prices and quantities as determined by supply and demand, rendering the whole idea of energy backed currency pointless unless you intend to do away with the entire free market structure. I think it is justified to assert that doing so would be bad idea; command economies have always had consistently weak performance compared to markets economies.

[Ryan Thunder]

The whole idea is beyond silly. No matter what type of currency is used, markets will move toward equilibrium prices and quantities as determined by supply and demand, rendering the whole idea of energy backed currency pointless unless you intend to do away with the entire free market structure. I think it is justified to assert that doing so would be bad idea; command economies have always had consistently weak performance compared to markets economies.

Why does it have to be a command economy? Why can't energy be used as a fixed-value currency?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Indeed. I don't think I'd expect service workers to be paid based on how much energy they themselves produced during the day

In this particular system, they wouldn't be.

Besides, if we quantify everything in precise terms of how much energy it took to deliver a product to a customer, and then set the price to that number, how does one profit from it?

They don't. That's one of the fundamental problems, but key characteristics of the system. And they intentionally designed it that way. There is no profit. There is no private property. In fact, they do you one better. A lot of the common "private items" you might own aren't going to be owned anymore. Want a car? Well, too bad. They intended to do away with it and shift people to mass-transit. Modern cities wouldn't exist either. M. King Hubbert proposed bulldozing them, mining them for useful materials to create urbanates. You would transfer to and from them in public transportation. If you for some reson needed a personal vehicle, they would have garages that you essentially rented them.

Each individual in the economy would get a share of the total production capacity stipulated in energy. These "certificates" were non-transferable, non-savable, etc.

While the Technocrats did have some forward thinking predictions and ideas, Hubbert et al largely held the prejudices of the other engineering progressives of the period, such as Thorstein Veblen and Stuart Chase. Their system was essentially a manifestation of Veblen-style command economy wherein there wasn't a profit motive. They intended to do away with "pecuniary interests" in their creation of a top-down corporative economy. It's therefore improper to think of their currency or system as existing in a capitalist market. It's not, whether or not it works or not. It has only a "market" in a shallow sense. You have the "government" which essentially "owns" everything. They desired a plan for mass automation to eliminate most industrial and menial jobs amenable to it. And then you have the consumers. There are no businessmen, no extra-government owned enterprises. It's all a huge welfare system. Except if you don't work, you get nothing. Incentives are not based on increased income, but some other mysterious entity like medals, awards, public titles, enhanced vacation time or social privileges.

It has some differences, but it's quite similar to Communism. But it has some different philosophical origins, programme for attempting it, and set of values, assumptions.

Think of the Fascist corporativist economy, but run by engineers, technicians, technologists (or any other technical professionals required) under a central Continental Command Structure. There would be a central directorate governed by a board of regents. The regents are sub-directors from each corporate sequence. For example, say you have the chemical producing industry. That's a sector. Other sectors might be transportation. One storage. One maintenance, etc. The society they proposed would have a relatively autonomous pseudo-government that just dealt with economic issues of production, consumer demand, and storage/distribution. Each is headed, manned by technical personnel paid by the government in energy certificates. It's like a giant Amtrack. Not for profit.

Through the tracking division (probably heavily computerized) and other linked sequences, there would be monitoring of everything you consumed 24 hours a day, seven days a way 365 days a year. That information would be collated, computed, stored, and distributed to all manufactures from the retail warehouses. They would then gear production based on the demand. Except again, given the scientists, engineers are in control and their job mandates were efficiency of production, resource conservation, etc, they intended to do away with certain products they deemed "wasteful" and "frivolous" in lieu of standardized models, renting, etc. Housing is one example. NO more individualized housing. They proposed those urbanates consisting of cookie-cutter apartments

Naturally, this does have problems. But none of the engineers who came up with it either cared or saw the problem. Which baffles me, because they weren't stupid, and I am not an engineer, yet I see it.

Another benefit that I thought of; you could theoretically earn yourself wealth by turning a crank for long enough.

Not in this system, no. You misunderstand what they proposed. You wouldn't get the money from people. You would get it from the pseudo-state, and you would get that every "cycle" of production, regardless. Likely, your job they would do away with entirely as frivolous or through automation. You could crank the handle all day, every day of the year, and your income is set. You get no more, no less.

I know. Incentive is a major flaw. I see no way around it, but apparently, they didn't even think of it.

A. I don't see why anyone who was still required would go to work.
B. I don't see why anyone would provide top-notch service or labour (what was required) given there is virtually no competition and no increase in pay based on performance. There is punishment and other forms of incentives, yes, but I am skeptical of how powerful those are.

Edit: the Technocrats were big Behaviourists. M. King Hubbert, for instance, advocated using a type of Skinnerian conditioning, while others advocated genetic manipulation, through the "social control/educational" sequence. The point was post-humanism, eventually. To train and produce people for specific purposes who wouldn't care and would go to assigned positions while the rest of society (who was largely unemployed through automation and rationalization of industry) would lounge around consuming. Think of Brave New World. That was literally their ideal--socially conditioned caste-like system of semi-morons ruled by an elite technocratic unit, kept content through material consumption, unaware of their status.

I used to be a Technocrat until, one, I really thought about it and saw it for what it was. I still consider myself a Technocrat, but I largely disagree with their economic schemes. I respect Hubbert, but disagree with his views. I think Howard Scott was ultimately using the movement and the organization (which was a bit different from the Continental Committee headed by Loeb and Rautenstrauch at Columbia Uni) as a vehicle for personal assumption of power.

Mind you, the unreality of their economic system is also reflected in foreign policy. It couldn't work without a very distinct land-area, from which Hubbert et al studied the resources, energy reserves, etc. It was a continental system encompassing Greenland, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. It was not nationalist. Any country alone could not physically do it.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Sorry for the double post, but I accidentally deleted this part prior to post:


Edit: In this system, you need to think of retail being different too. There wouldn't be a Dairy Queen or a Dairy Queen worker. It would largely be an automated facility that pops out standardized products. Think of a vending machine. Of course, you still need the technician to repair it. But no worker. Bully for him in the system. If they still required workers, they would likely be so conditioned from early childhood to be a drone anyway. Scott and Hubbert remarked, according to Dr. Akin in Technocracy and the American Dream "If you get them early enough" you can "condition them to do almost anything."

Based on job performance and social importance, you would be rewarded in "other ways." But when you spend your "energy certificates" it doesn't go to the worker. There is no exchange of anything. No barter. There is no currency to barter.

Here is a PDF describing it. Just skip the first section and slide down to "Energy Accounting." It hasn't really changed since the 1930s, and it's generally what Hubbert, Scott, Ackerman, and Dal thought up.

http://www.technocracy.org/technocrat/E ... latest.pdf


Edit: The idea behind their system was to balance production and consumption to avoid overproduction and resource waste. They wanted to maximize the efficient use of resources in production of goods.

[Ryan Thunder]

Indeed. I don't think I'd expect service workers to be paid based on how much energy they themselves produced during the day

In this particular system, they wouldn't be.

[...]

I'm not proposing the same system that these so-called Technocrats proposed, however. In the system that I'm proposing, stored (useable) energy would replace currency as a measure of wealth.

Besides, if we quantify everything in precise terms of how much energy it took to deliver a product to a customer, and then set the price to that number, how does one profit from it?

They don't. That's one of the fundamental problems [...]

Among other things, as you described. At that point, they're getting away from the nature of the political system (which is what the word Technocracy should describe) and into their own political goals.

If we define "technocracy" as "a political system where power is held by scientists", then I think "techno-fascism" might be a more accurate name.

[...]The idea behind their system was to balance production and consumption to avoid overproduction and resource waste. They wanted to maximize the efficient use of resources in production of goods.

While I can see the logic in that, I think that their solution sounds like it would be worse than the problem they're trying to solve.

If they are how you describe them, I wouldn't call myself a Technocrat. Not the way they mean it, anyways.

In any event, my system is an economic ideology, rather than a political one, so I wouldn't think it appropriate to give it a name that ended with -ocracy anyways. Energism or Electrism would probably be more accurate for the basic idea. I havn't seen it named, myself, so I'll define it as follows;

electrism
Function: noun
Date: 2008

a : A theory advocating the treatment of stored, useful energy as wealth. b : An economic system characterized by the treatment of useful energy as a universal measure of economic value.

I suppose that would make me an electro-capitalist.