Technocracy Did Its Research

John Darvill

1998

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 3rd quarter 1998, No. 329

TECHNOCRACY INC. is a membership research organization which was incorporated under the State laws of New York in 1933. Prior to that, there was a group of engineers, scientists, and experts in various fields who called themselves the Technical Alliance. They operated from 1918 until 1933. It was as a result of their research that the present membership organization of Technocracy was formed.

Based upon their research, Technocracy Inc. made several statements, at that time, regarding the wellbeing of a social order, or social system, in North America. Among other things, they stated that technology would place an increasing burden on the ability of a Price System to continue to function in North America.

Now, we, Technocracy Inc., define a "Price System" as: "any social system that effects its distribution of goods and services by means of commodity evaluation"; that is, that employs any debt token or money. As the Alliance pointed out, as a form of society becomes more complex, it will be more difficult to exchange goods and services by means of commodity evaluation, for, not only will it present physical problems, but it will also become more and more difficult to keep track of the financial records related to the exchange of goods and services -- related to the exchange of items between various business enterprises, and to maintain records necessary to maintain any kind of business, regardless of it being big or small.

It will also become increasingly difficult to balance this with the production of goods and services. We all know we are in the year 1998, and less than two years from now we will be entering what we call the new Millenium; in other words, the year 2000 will begin.

To give you an idea of some of the problems concerning the Price System, from a monetary point of view, let us examine what is going to happen shortly in Europe, and, will, at the same time, have a tremendous effect on the financial affairs here in North America and other parts of the world.

In 1999, they are going to come out with an economic unit of currency. In other words, there will be one common currency common to most of Europe. At the present time, eleven nations have signed up to take part in the economic monetary units in 1999 -- a short nine months from now.

These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Portugal, and Spain. These countries have committed themselves to taking part in an economic common currency, next year. The Economic Currency Unit (ECU) means you are going to have the added cost of exchange rates.

The things that will have to be up-graded in Europe, prior to 1999, are tax software. All financial statements will have to be re-designed; automatic teller machines will have to be revamped so they will accept two kinds of coins and two types of currency. Historical data, necessary for the records of any large business, will have to be converted, and there will have to be a currency conversion. In other words, they will have to be able to convert currency from national currency to European currency and back again.

It means that the value of the European currency will have to be set against the national currency, so they have until the year 2002 in order to make this economic monetary union work. It means that the European monetary union will set the value of the European currency. They will set the value against various countries which are competing at this time in the economic union. The transition period will be from 1999 to 2003. During that time, business and government will have to deal with two sets of currencies -- the European currency and the local currency. For example, in the case of Germany, they will have to convert the mark into European round numbers, then convert the European currency back into the mark, and round it off again. Now, this is known as "triangulation."

The only problem with this business of triangulation, is that most computer systems today are not designed to handle triangulation. And another problem is, that computers only deal with decimals to two places. Some currencies, like the Italian lira, which is part of this common monetary currency, have no decimal system places whatsoever. Therefore, the Italian system, for all intents and purposes, next year, becomes obsolete. The European Monetary Union states that all systems must account for six decimal places -- which will make most systems in effect at the present time in Europe and North America, obsolete, -- because, as stated, they can only account for two decimal places. This entails horrendous costs, not only in man-power, but also in the necessary calculations which will have to be made.

From a monetary point of view, it has been estimated that it will cost $1.10 for a line of code. And there are billions, literally billions, of lines of codes which have to be converted. This is in Europe, alone, but it is causing a great deal of concern, not only in Europe, but also in other parts of the world. Also, the Federal Reserve in the United States is, likewise, nervous about what will take place between 1999 and 2003. It not only means that the main frame of large computers has to be converted, but, also, all the small businesses with their small personal-type computers have to be converted, if everything is to operate as is planned, and as it is expected.

Now, the Millenium bug, likewise, as you have already heard, for the year 2000, many computers will have to be converted to accept the year 2000. This means that all affected software has to be tested. In most places, most computers will go back to the year 1900, and it has been estimated that it will take 700,000 person-hours to do the necessary conversions to make sure that it works as it should. This, of course, will be detracted from other tasks, and will be immeasurably difficult to keep the economies of Europe and the United States on as healthy a basis as they have been for the last few years. All these person-hours of labour are directed to realigning computer systems, and will not be used for other tasks. And it means that huge sums of money will be used up in the conversion, from the system we have now, to what they expect to have starting next year, and before 2003.

This is typical of a Price System. These problems are not new. These problems are 30 or 40 years old. They have been in existence ever since computers were first introduced on a major scale in North America and Europe, and all across the world. They have known that these things had to be done 30 or 40 years ago when they first started to use computers on a large scale. But, of course, with Price System expediency, they have left it until now so -- a couple of years will go by before anything of any significance is being done about it. In other words, don't put off today what you can put off until tomorrow, and if tomorrow doesn't come soon enough, you put it off for another day until the problem becomes, if not unsurmountable, very tough, indeed.

It would be cheaper, and far more efficient, if we were to think more realistically -- realigning our distribution system from a medium of exchange, based upon money -- to what Technocracy talked about 60-odd years ago -- a method of distribution based upon the conversion of energy.

In today's modern technological society, energy is the prime mover of everything we do. It is conversion of energy into use-forms that is keeping us all alive. A conversion of energy into use-forms enables us to have a relatively high standard of living that we still manage to enjoy here in North America and many parts of Europe.

The more complex a society becomes, the more difficult it becomes to exchange goods and services.

But, the thing that is keeping us going, and is keeping us alive, and keeping this system operating, is energy -- the conversion of energy, into a use-form. And if we were to base our distribution system on the conversion of energy -- the amount of energy it takes to bring us any particular commodity, or to provide us with any particular service -- it would be easier to keep track of what is being produced, what was being consumed, where it was being consumed, how much inventory on hand at any given time, knowing exactly what was being used, what there was a demand for, and things that there was no demand for; so that, if need be, they could be discontinued.

And this is what appears to be a simple proposition at the present time. The more complex a society becomes, the more difficult it becomes to exchange goods and services based upon commodity valuation, and the more uneven, and the more inoperative, a Price System will become. That means: it becomes more difficult to place consumer power in the hands of a sufficient number of people to keep our society operating. As technology becomes more advanced; as technology becomes more efficient; as computers are more able to do the tasks that, up to now, have been done by human beings, the more difficult it will be to place consumer power into the hands of the general public, and the more difficult it will be to maintain a vibrant economy.

Bear in mind that, if we have a productive system which is highly efficient -- turning out goods almost at will in the numbers that are required -- it will become increasingly difficult to get sufficient numbers of people to consume it. And, as more jobs disappear, and as more people are disemployed, the ability to place consumer-power will become more difficult. The problems that we face, today, will become more extreme, and more complicated, and the upheaval that will be caused to a large number of people will increase.