The Price System vs. The Environment

A Message To Environmental Groups

Stephen L. Doll

1990

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 4th quarter 1991, No. 325

Adapted from a lecture delivered to the Volusia-Flagler, Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club, October 24, 1990.

No one ever said being a Technocrat would be easy, particularly when attempting to present Technocracy's program for a technological social design to a group of environmentalists who are, justifiably, more apt to think of technology in terms of the buzz of chain saws and outpourings of hazardous waste. After all, up to the present, the misuse of technology to satisfy the demands of a resource-hungry monetary system can realistically be blamed for much of the environmental degradation we are witnessing.

But let's think about the upside of technology, the application of science to industry, for a moment. Technology is, like it or not, the inevitable means for dealing with the needs of increasing population. Through technology, not-withstanding the destruction to the planet, we are enjoying a life-style unparalleled in history. We're living longer, producing more food (even though we destroy horrendous amounts of it to keep the prices up), curing diseases, reaching for the stars. And, in the process, we have brought about a state of affairs that demands a total re-alignment of thought when considering our Earth, our use of it, and our roles as citizens of a civilized society.

Since the introduction of the steam engine to industry, as Americans have pillaged, plundered and profited their way across the continent, a change has been taking place, something unprecedented in history. Man-hours was for so many centuries the primary means of production and was the only means by which the majority of people received consuming power. And this was in the form of wages that were irreversibly being replaced by machine-hours. Statistics show that employment in the productive sector, measured in terms of man-hours per unit of production, peaked in the mid-1920s, and has been steadily declining ever since. At the same time, through automation, the flow of goods was increasing. This presented the unsettling situation of too many goods with not enough consuming power.

This "curse of abundance" had the effect of devaluing the goods; this may be seen by comparing the two facts: that air is free while the Mona Lisa is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars -- abundance destroys value, while scarcity creates it. Additionally, the distribution system of commodity valuation that Technocracy calls the Price System, is based on the premise of measuring resource in terms of a non-measurable medium of exchange that expands and contracts according to human opinion. It is for this reason that we are witnessing the degradation of much of our planet, as we trade off tangible resource for non-real dollars.

It was questioning the significance of this progression of events that gave rise to the research team called the Technical Alliance in 1919, and its successor, the membership organization called Technocracy Inc. in 1933, whose purpose is to continue the research started by those technical experts, and to make known to the public at large its findings and its plan for a Technocratic society, a functional governance of production and distribution of abundance through science. So it may be said that there are two Technocracies: the design, and the organization.

Environmental groups invariably look to political figures and processes to harmonize the interaction of self-serving man and uncompromising nature. Such measures are doomed to failure, as are all attempts to govern physical science by means of the non-realities of opinion and desire.

No gaggle of political figures, movie stars or astronauts, can come close to the galaxy of technical experts that came together under the directorship of Howard Scott in the Technical Alliance. Electrical wizard Charles Steinmetz, economist Thorstein Veblen, and forester Benton McKaye were among the luminaries who met to study the phenomenon of social change wrought by technology, the most cataclysmic turn of events in the history of mankind since the introduction of agriculture. The progress of this process may be seen in Technocracy's three-curve chart, which is presented as a base for an understanding of these physical changes. The extent of this process is yet to be understood by politicians and financiers who look to the vanishing past for direction.

This is not to say that all politicians are bad. They're just impotent. Some of them do the best they can within the narrow parameters business and special interest committees allow them. But very few can be relied upon to fly a 747 or fix a toaster. These are technical matters, best handled by people who are trained in the fields they are dealing with.

And so, as Technocracy finds, the increasing array of problems, social and environmental, that confront North America today, the majority of them due to the fact that we simply refuse to change our methodology in accordance with our changing times. Technocracy states that, technically speaking, there is no reason that these problems must exist in a land that has the resources, the technology, and the trained personnel to provide every citizen with an optimum standard of living, with a minimum of personal effort and minimum wastage of resource. But finance and politics are techniques of the past that are clung to fanatically, preventing an intelligent social decision.

A technologist deals with problem and solution. Business steps in and starts weighing profit margins. Politicians step in and start counting votes. Hence, compromise, half-measures, and an interminable series of expensive band-aids.

What all this boils down to is that we have raped the planet primarily to support the demands of an inefficient social system. And now, judging by recent developments, that is in no enviable state. We are approaching a crisis point at which we will simply not be able to pay the price business demands in exchange for saving us from the mess it has created.

So where do we go from here? This is where Technocracy comes in.

There are certain measures we must take to ensure our survival, measures that are not considered in our present mode of operation; and are not likely to be, since there is not sufficient potential for profit. Technocracy says that these measures must be enacted, and enacted soon, if we are to continue as an advanced civilization.

Some of these measures are: an integrated, energy-efficient continental mass-transit system; a continental hydrology network, to serve as a main avenue of low-energy transportation and to provide hydro-electric power; conservation of non-renewable resources (something that will never happen in a system that profits by the manufacture of throw-away goods), clean water and air, energy, food, clothing, shelter, and medical care for the total population; population control without the fear and repression caused by ignorance; centralized city centers; and, above all, the opportunity to be all we can be as a civilization, without fear for our futures, individually and as a society.

Every one of these necessary measures is incorporated into Technocracy's design for abundance through the application of science to the social structure. It is a comprehensive plan for the functional operation of the physical plant of North America by trained personnel, devoid of the limiting factors of politics and finance, and in accord with resources available for conversion to human use. Production would be operated on a full-load, 24-hour basis, and geared to consumption. There would be no excess production of goods -- a dynamic equilibrium between production and distribution. Goods would be built for function and durability, thus eliminating the production of throw-away goods and the necessity for storing the overage.

Rather than the overload on facilities we presently have in our current work-week, weekend schedule, a new calendar would facilitate balancing the load on all functions of the continent, both productive and recreational. Leisure time with what it takes to enjoy it would be usual.

To distribute goods, our current haphazard, inequitable monetary system would be replaced by a method of distribution based on energy. This would guarantee each individual equal consuming power, in terms of tangible resource and energy, from birth to death. No one could cheat or rob anyone else of their consuming power. With the incentive of money removed, there would be no more money-related crime, which now accounts for over 90% of all crime.

Where personal achievement is concerned, there would be no more demoralizing, resource-wasting competition for status through acquisition. One's social status would be based on personal achievement and contribution.

Technocracy states that the above conditions are not empty Utopian promises. These are possibilities -- necessities if we hope to survive as an advanced civilization. We stand on the threshold of being able to eliminate the social thinking of thousands of years of wars, poverty, deprivation, pollution and crime -- of ensuring the prosperity and freedom from toil that man has envisioned since he first realized that he could be more than a dray beast.

Compare this with what we have now -- working our fool heads off in fear and uncertainty, for no other purpose than to support a financial system that will always demand more and return less.

Isn't it time you explored Technocracy?