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April 38, #17 ->
Where Are The Technocrats of Yesteryear?
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Technocracy ->
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The Northern Technocrat ->
April 38, #17 ->
Where Are The Technocrats of Yesteryear?
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Published in:
- Rochester Commerce, February 18, 1935.
- The Northern Technocrat, April 1938, No. 17
The following article was printed in the periodical `Rochester Commerce' of February 18, 1935. Its correctness has been emphasized by the events of the past three years. It provides further proof of the accuracy of Technocracy's analysis of our Continental problem. Read it. Take another good look at the current American scene. Then hunt up the nearest Technocrat and find out what `The Technocrats of Yesteryear' are doing today! -- Editor.
The Technocrats of yesteryear did not spring into existence coincidently with Columbia University's press release regarding them; neither did they cease to exist when the powers-that-be decided that the Technocrats were not the innocuous academicians they had at first been mistaken to be, and that henceforth the less said about them the better.
The Technocrats of yesteryear were saying:
That the industrial employment in the United States had reached an all-time peak in 1919 and had, been fluctuatingly declining ever since, while production, in the meantime, was increasing, and did not reach its peak until 1929. Such was the rate of technological advance, they were saving, that if 1929 production were resumed with 1929 hours of labor there would still be a standing army, of about 12 million unemployed, and that the, growth trends were such that the number of man-hours per annum required by industry would continue to decrease into the indefinite future.
They were saying further:
That, under a Price System control, the existing industrial mechanism could not be kept in operation except through the continued creation of debt for the purpose of providing the requisite purchasing power to enable the public to buy the goods produced.
That the debt structure itself was premised upon the maintenance of a compound-interest rate of expansion which could only be maintained without dilution through inflation provided industrial production were maintained at a similar rate of compound increment.
That since about 1915 the mean growth curve of industrial production had been progressively flattening while the debt structure had continued in the meantime to go merrily upward at a rate of increase of 5% or more per annum, and that such a discrepancy would lead ultimately to a complete break-down of the debt situation, or else if its expansion were halted, drive the interest rate to zero, with the resulting disruption of the functions of banking, insurance, and other such purely financial institutions, as well as to the undermining of universities, museums, hospitals, and other endowed institutions.
That when business men found it no longer profitable to indulge in the process of further debt creation, it would become necessary for their government to do it for them.
And that the status quo, financial and political, would go from one futile gesture to another (witness the N. R. A., C. C. C., Liberty League, Economy League, etc.) by the the use of purely palliative measures designed to postpone the inevitable facing of the real issues involved, fooling the public all the while by typical Kerensky tactics of camouflaging reactionary measures behind radical terminology.
The Technocrats of today are watching with a certain grim satisfaction the fulfillment of these prophesies.
The army of the unemployed has not been more than slightly decreased and is again on the increase. Industrial production has not been more than slightly revived by governmental priming of the pump to the tune of more than four billion dollars per annum. The relief rolls, as is to be expected, are mounting at an alarming rate until there are now approximately 2O million people depending on federal relief alone. Add to this the 3.5 million people regularly employed by the federal government, together with their families: totaling some 15 millions of people and we have 35 million people depending for their livelihood upon the federal government.
The interest rate is approaching zero. The federal government has become the principal assumor of new debts. This function of government creation of debt, it might be added, to the extent of 4 billion dollars or more per year is for the purpose of making up the deficit in purchasing power resulting from current industrial operation by private business. Were this functional not performed by the government but left to private business and private initiative the current purchasing power would be about 4 billion dollars per annum short of enough to buy a year's output of goods and services and industrial production would go down like a house of cards.
The Technocrats of yesteryear were not proposing a solution for the reason that the crying need of the hour on the part of the American public was to become familiar with the pertinent pacts of the existing social situation, and above all to rid themselves of a fixed faith in an economic Santa Claus.
Now that the American public have incorporated into their thinking a large amount of factual material of which two years ago they were unaware, the Technocrats of today propose a solution:
They propose to so operate the industry of the North American Continent as to provide for every inhabitant of that area complete economic security at the highest standard of living attainable that is compatible with social needs, on the one hand, and with the necessity of conserving limited natural resources, on the other.
Since drudgerous occupation at long hours of labor is socially objectionable, they propose to do all this by means as automatic as can be devised.
They propose to achieve the highest standard of public health attainable through the most advantageous application of modern scientific medical knowledge and research.
They propose to maintain an educational system that will train the entire younger generation indiscriminately as regards all factors other than inherent ability, to man and perform all the necessary functions in the social mechanism.
To do all this requires that society be organized along functional, technological lines in a manner dictated by the requirements of the job itself. The present operating and technical staffs (as opposed to the financial superstructure) of such large functional units as the telephone system, the power system, etc., may be taken to serve as small scale models of what is here envisaged on a large scale. The social organization here considered would embrace the whole range of socially necessary functions, the purely social such as education, public health, entertainment, etc., as well as the industrial functional sequences.
To insure the continuous operation of industry at full-load capacity, and to maintain the high standard of living, postulated requires a mechanism that will distribute the goods to the public at a rate equal to that of industrial production. Such a mechanism is to be found in the physical cost of production, namely, the energy expended in the production of each item of goods and services.
If, in a given year, a certain sum total of energy (equivalent to that contained in a given number of tons of coal) be ear-marked for expenditure in the production of goods and services, this-energy cost can be allocated item by item, to each of the goods and services produced. A purchasing power likewise stated in denominations of energy (kilowatt-hours, calories, etc.) can be issued to the public in an amount per annum equal to the energy allotment ear-marked for expenditure in that time period.
This energy income can be granted to the public in the form of energy certificates which are valid only for the time period for which they are issued and null and void thereafter. They have the further property of being non-interchangeable between individuals. Thus one's income cannot be saved; neither can it be lost, stolen, given or gambled away. It can only be spent by the person to whom issued. There is no necessity that the recipient spend the entire amount he receives provided, as might well be the case, he finds it inconvenient to do so. All incomes continue without interruption until the death of the recipient.
Such is the barest possible outline of Technocracy's blueprint. The implications, social and technical, are many and far-reaching. On the social side, crime, war, poverty, disease and ignorance would largely be abolished; on the technical side, the present junk which we call our industrial equipment and our housing would be replaced by the best that modern science and technology can design and produce.
The Technocrats of tomorrow are expected to make the installation.