A Letter to a Socialist from a Technocrat

Stephen L. Doll

1994

Published in:

Northwest Area News, Oct. 1994, No. 128

We seem to differ on several points and agree on others. You are entirely correct when you say we won't be able to predict what kind of society will be with us when a transition takes place or the exact operating characteristics that will apply at that time. Any attempts to project the present system into future trends are futile. The best we can do is extrapolate. This can be done much more reliably with physical factors than with the vagaries of finance.

The money system should have turned toes up many years ago. It is staggering along now through massive injections of debt. And it probably can continue to do so for some time - until the level of social tolerance is reached. It is reasonably certain, however, that to continue on our present course can only lead to economic, social, and environmental disaster. I believe on that point we are both agreed.

For further information I enclose Technocracy's Technological Social Design handbook. It is a synopsis of a Study Course that Technocracy has presented since the 1940s. Any Technocrat will tell you that it is not fixed in stone, that it is a set of guidelines that are entirely amenable to conditions that exist at the time a transition is inevitable. I think you will see that a great many of its proposals make more physical sense than anything that has gone before.

I have misgivings about any group of people representing a particular segment of society having control. That goes for "the working class" as well as anyone else. Technocracy sees the working class as it is presently defined: as being a virtual nonentity in the future. Technocracy makes no attempt to preserve it or "give it a fair shake." We feel that the so-called "work ethic" is primarily a mechanism used to coax stoop labor from the worker during the hand-tool age, to the benefit of the ruling elite, which gladly pounced on technology when it came along to knock out the expense of human labor . In this age of automated production, it is becoming an increasingly negligible factor. The working class has been of value to the "system" only as producers and spenders of revenue.

The only way we may achieve equity is by adopting a distribution system in which no one may exercise power over another's consuming privileges. The entire key to minimizing abuse of power is to structure the distribution system so that no person, group of people, economic strategy, government agency or political edict may reduce the equal consuming privilege of any citizen by reason of any interpretation of that citizen's "contribution" to society. This cannot be done by whim or populist movements but only scientifically and objectively. The primary basis for determining purchasing power now is what? How much revenue a person turns over. This has little to do with contribution. How many people receive little or nothing for valuable contributions? We are not about to change our economic system to allow for this, to compensate people "fairly." The market system is anything but fair.

Yes, the concept of a "continental control" can have sinister connotations. And yes, technical people can abuse power just as badly as any other group of people but only as long as the system allows them to do so. Scientists and engineers could carry the same garbage of scarcity conditioning into leadership roles, thus creating a technical elite much like the financial elite of the present system. The only way, therefore, is to arrange distribution so that no one will have preferential advantage over someone else so far as purchasing power is concerned. Just visualize the freedom that would accompany the realization that no predator could hold your purchasing power over your head for the purpose of coercion, intimidation, or extortion. Think of all the negative behavior that would disappear.

Continental control may be a misnomer. Continental management or coordination might be more acceptable. When we speak of the various facets involved in our complex society, someone has to know more than others about the subject. Sometimes, however, these people are not suited to direct people. Some of them have trouble directing themselves under our present system. In Technocracy people would not be governed. The machines of production would be governed. The ultimate right of the people would be economic freedom: freedom from toil (as much as possible), and freedom to consume within the parameters of the natural world and our ability to convert it to our use respective of its limitations.

Social issues would most likely be dealt with through electronic voting but only by a public that is informed on all aspects of an issue. Some decisions of a physical nature, of course, could not be made on the basis of a vote. For example, population experts tell us that for the world to enjoy a relatively comfortable standard of living well into the future, we need to reduce the world population to around two billion in the next hundred years. This could be done without wars or famines by limiting family size to an average of 1.5 children. How many would vote for this? And such a vote would never be taken in a money system, as more babies mean more customers.

Technocracy addresses itself primarily to the physical phenomena of human society, particularly production and distribution. Social measures are geared to the physical. For example, the work week would be distributed evenly over seven days, with each four-hour shift staggered to distribute work evenly around the clock. This would reduce the load on facilities and recreational areas by spreading it out. For example, work force A would work from day 1 through day 4, work force B would work from day 2 through day 5, and so on.

Goods would be produced with the emphasis on the most efficient use of resources. In other words, if Tire A required 50 units of energy and delivered 25,000 miles, Tire B required 70 units and delivered 40,000 miles, and Tire C delivered 75,000 miles but took 200 units to produce, Tire B would be the tire of choice as it delivers the most miles per energy unit. Energy accounting confuses a lot of people, because we are so accustomed to thinking in terms of how many earned dollars something costs.

I greatly fear that we will see a heightened oppression by the money people as they see their game unraveling. We already see it in a million and one different ways. Go into a department store and you feel like a criminal. Video cameras and monitoring devices are everywhere. Convenience stores in my neck of the woods have little hash marks by the door to get a height fix on the person who "hit" the store. I supervise the locksmith department in our local school system. Do you know the sophisticated locks (and, of course, increasingly expensive locks) they put on everything now? All because people are afraid of someone taking something away from them.

Of course, all this good talk will come to naught if we don't break away from the growth is good paradigm (ably fostered and perpetuated by the money, military, and ecclesiastical triad) that makes any attempt at controlling burgeoning populations an exercise in futility. As populations are encouraged to expand to increase markets, more stress will be placed on resources and bionomic systems. This in turn will impact on the social environment. Robert Kaplan, in The Coming Anarchy (Atlantic Monthly, Feb. '94 issue), presents a picture of the future in which a few technologically advanced areas of the world will survive in comparable luxury while the rest descend into an irredeemable chaos of war, starvation, and abject poverty due to dwindling resources. How long it will be before this dissolution has its effect in the comfy-cozy, resource-gluttonous areas is anybody's guess. The United States is already dependent on foreign lands for a large proportion of its non-fuel mineral resources.

Your choice of the term "good" as it relates to the social condition is a bit disturbing, as it is a relative term. What was "good" for pumping up pseudo-patriotism in the form of the Gulf War definitely spoiled the day for over a hundred thousand Iraqis (and a few Americans to boot).

Another term we try to avoid is "ownership." I realize the connotation both you and I attach to it - a common access and stewardship. To the Technocrats, however, the concept of ownership is a backlash to scarcity conditions, and it plays no part in our vocabulary as it denotes exclusiveness.

I have little faith in the "voice of the people" unless that voice comes from an objectively informed people to whom every side of an issue has been presented. This is of course impossible in our present special-interest system.

Yes, I believe the people are quite capable of understanding their needs - if presented with the right frame of reference. This too is an immensely complex subject in a technological society. What are needs? What are wants? How many people "needed" a car 100 years ago? How many "needed" a PC 20 years ago? How many need a cellular phone now? Why, all of a sudden, is a copy machine an indispensable item? How much of this stuff would we need if we didn't have all the wheel-spinning activities involved with the legalistic and property-oriented trappings of the money system, and if we weren't constrained to work our fool heads off to pay the debt mongers?

Do we need neon lights under our cars, or a hundred different styles of razors, or one kind of shampoo to add goop to our hair and another to wash it out? How much of this stuff has been "sold" to us?

Do we need to be enslaved to individual automobiles to feel like a "free" society? How much of this is spectacle of the beautiful blonde in the convertible, trundling her curves around an equally curvaceous mountain highway?

Our needs and our perception of them must be synched with the physical factors that determine the ability to meet these needs. We need 2500 calories per day, give or take a couple of hundred, to remain healthy. How many take in twice this amount (mostly because they feel lousy about themselves, thanks to the money system that demands that we never feel as if we've had enough), and how many take in a bare subsistence level? How many choose good, nutritious food, and how many glut themselves on junk food produced merely for the sale?

In short, advertising in any form has to go. Information on new products and developments, fine. Information to peddle goods to an insatiable, bored and brainwashed public, no. Unfortunately, in a money system, all information, whether on a new drug or a political candidate, is designed to sell something, to feed someone's little wad of preferential advantage somewhere along the line.

Some of our views and aims are parallel. However, Technocracy cannot align itself with any established political movement. It must be presented as an entirely new concept, devoid of any connection with any other movement that has been tried.

It's good to hear that you have observed more people questioning the sanctity of the "system." But where do they go? We need a movement to do away with money before it destroys us.

I hope to hear from you again soon. In addition to our handbook, I have enclosed some other material reflective of our direction, including our current newsletter.