Essay author Skip Sievert October-14-09

Technocracy & Progressive liberal theory

What is the Technocracy technate movement?

How does it differ from the Progressive liberal or
Libertarian movement in North America?
More on Technocracy's origin Energy survey of
North America

What is Technocracy? Technocracy movement and an

information site TechnocracyTechnate.org

The term "Price System" is an economic term used by

Technocracy Incorporated to describe any economic system
whatsoever that effects its distribution of goods and services by
means of a system of trade or commerce based on commodity
valuation and employing any form of debt tokens, or money,
and which attempts to balance supply and demand of resources
and purchasing power in a class system using money.
Capitalism, Communism and Socialism all use Price Systems
and are based on the labor theory of value.
Modern economics is rooted in the 18th. century publication of
Adams Smith's Wealth of Nations book published at the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Those ideas hearken
back further to Mesopotamia and the Middle East origins of the
Price System.
Except for possible remote and primitive communities, all
current societies use the price system method to allocate
resources and distribute goods to consumers.
Tech.Inc., a research and educational group, advocates energy
economics, non-market economics, using energy
[28]
accounting.
Energy Accounting is an economic system based on ideas from
the Technocracy Study Course and the Technical Alliance,
which forms the basis of the ideas connected with Technocracy
and thermodynamics. That method is further described as to
origin and history here in the subject of Biophysical economics.
More links to Technocracy related information: Technocracy
technate design. Historic aspects of the technate design
Thermoeconomic concepts of government

Social Movements

The rise of the Technocracy movement occurred around the

transition time of the Hoover administration into that of
Franklin Roosevelts administration.
The Technocrats advocated a non-market economics system
based on energy accounting, and a non political approach
[86]
(biophysical economics) to governance. Technocracy holds
that all politics and all economic arrangements based on the
Price System (i.e., based on traditional economic theory) are
antiquated.
Also, that building a successful modern government can be
based on engineering principles. "Production for use," is meant
as a contrast to production for profit in a capitalist system or
other political Price System.
Production for use became a slogan for many of the radical-left
movements of the era also. Upton Sinclair, among others,
affirmed his belief in "production for use" and the Technocrats
briefly made common cause with Sinclair, and even Huey Long,
in California.
But the Technocrats were not of the political left, as they held
every political and economic system, from the left to the right,
to be unsound, and a throwback to a period of low energy
conversion and hand crafted production, and control of society
to various special interest groups connected with belief systems
rather than using a science approach to problem solving.
Much of what the early Technocrats conceived in their energy
aspects of thinking and systems theory thinking, has been
adopted now by mainstream thought connected to
Environmental and Ecological economics.
Sustainability issues now threaten human survival, and
resource destruction... for the desultory purpose of upholding
an antique social system... has become a threat to humankind.
The technocrats correctly foresaw this development, and
invented a viable alternative social system as a replacement for
a political Price System approach. The technate design is
secular, non partisan and humanitarian and based on equal
consuming rights for all citizens using science methods, with
sustainability, as an underlying concept. The Technocracy
Monad logo represents balance.

As a mass movement its real center was California, where it

claimed half a million members in 1934. Technocracy counted
among its admirers such people as the novelist H.G. Wells, the
author Theodore Dreiser and the economist Thorstein Veblen.
Among the collection of movements of the 1930s, the
Technocracy movement survives into the present day and as a
social movement, ideas connected to restructuring society in
this way, have become notable again. This mostly has
happened because of changes in availability of information, due
[87]
to the internet.

Liberalism or progressive liberal thought

Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals,

neoliberals, or libertarians, support the liberal ideals of freedom
of speech, freedom of the press, and separation of church and
state, but also believe that economic freedom is important, and
that for the government to provide social welfare provisions
[3]
exceeds the legitimate role of government.
The term liberalism, without a qualifier, in the United States
today usually refers to modern liberalism, a political philosophy
exemplified by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, and
Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is a form of social
liberalism, whose accomplishments include the WPA and the
Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Liberals share a belief in individual rights, representative
democracy, and the rule of law.

Technocracy as a non political non oligarchic design

''As far as Technocracy was concerned, both attitudes of the

so-called radical left and reactionary right were all alike, mere
misadventures in the hostilities of the oncoming social conflict.
Technocracy never was for the workers against the capitalists,
or for the capitalists against the workers.''
-- Howard Scott: History and Purpose of Technocracy
``Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two
centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and
in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-
growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the
continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is
incapable of reckoning with problems of
nongrowth: Hubbertpeak M. King Hubbert

``The injection of monetary concepts into all discussions of

national wealth and income wholly confuses the people as to
the actual issues at stake, and furthermore serve as a handy
screen behind which, with a little word juggling, the business-
political operators of the Price System can continue their
profitable activities without being too greatly embarrassed by
outside interference. It is high time that the significance of
national wealth and income be understood by every citizen on
the North American Continent
--Howard Scott

So, the basic ideas of government in a political Price System

are contrary to technocratic ideas. Progressive liberal ideas
mostly are in opposition to technocratic ideas because
technocracy endorses a science based non political
government, sometimes referred to as an administration of
science.
That would mean that referendum voting on issues of opinion,
or ethics (democracy voting) in the form of then making that a
contract or law would not occur in a technate. Instead, our
current type of judiciary would no longer operate and trained
persons would arbiter disputes, violence or sabotage in a
technate. No person could be denied their basic consuming
rights. No group, (faction or special interest) because of
numbers in that group (democracy) could enforce a belief
system by contract.

The following is an essay by Dean D. Cameron, Technate

design: Some basic facts which explains the role of special
interest groups in the political Price System. Another
technocratic explanation of the American Political Price System.

Using our current system will not work in the future for
multiple reasons as this essay connector points out Technate
design, an idea for now. The most glaring reason being energy
conversion and technology methods having replaced the older
concept of human labor, measuring productivity, to gain
purchasing power benefits.
Human labor accounts for very little energy in regard to making
society work in the current high energy conversion level we are
in.
Technology and energy conversion have taken over that role
though we still use an antiquated political price system as a
default societal template to operate society. That ends in real
disaster unless changed, because the political Price System
values money (debt tokens) above all else. As we approached
and have now gone beyond sustainable limits... consequences
mount using this careless method which depends on
exponential growth.

Technology destroys the Price System, an overview video of

this idea, Arvid Pederson on the Technocracy technate design.
A brief history of the Political Price System in regard to contract
society or civil society Money, History & Energy Accounting
A file copy of the unabridged Technocracy Study Course. The
technate design is located in the last two chapters of the T. S.
C.-Pdf.file. Help yourself to a file copy of the Study Course
book, which is open source.
Some further information on the Geo scientist M. King Hubbert
main author of the Technocracy Study Course and author of
Man-hours and distribution M. King Hubbert and an example of
the basic idea of energy accounting Environmental decision
making science and technology.

More general information about the Technocracy Technate

program Technocracy link farm page

A file of this page Technocracy & Progressive Liberal Theory