Technocrats spit at “populist whims” even though they are riding the populist movements with spurs to take over the world, especially in America. When, as, and if the Populists get wind of this, there will be a major rebellion in the ranks. There is NO common good for humanity, only the scourge of the whip of scientific dictatorship. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.
In Technocracy Ascending Part 4, Dark Enlightenment, the Neoreaction(NRx) movement, and accelerationism were exposed as the ideological forces behind the technocrats in the Trump administration. This installment investigates how both Eastern and Western technocrats are creating high-tech utopian societies that supposedly advance the common good of all.
Howard Scott of Technocracy Inc. and his merry band of technocrats envisioned an efficiently run system of regional government incorporating a territorial expanse of countries as far south as Panama and north as Canada, known as the North American Technate. It would outlaw politicians and bureaucrats and instead favor rule by experts employing technology to manage all aspects of society, solving the complex problems of human governance. He described it as a system “based solely on scientific principles and incontrovertible scientific facts and can only be carried on along scientific lines.” Constitutional and democratic governance would yield authority to a new class of technical men remaking the government into an automated system fueled by insatiable amounts of data collected about all people and social functions.
The political administration of our national affairs is deemed by Technocracy to be totally inadequate and incompetent, irrespective of which political racketeer does the administering. Politics and the financial racketeering of the Price System are blood brothers conceived in the ages of scarcity along with the oxcart, the sickle, the hoe, and the spade; and, like them, they have become as obsolete and must be consigned to historical antiquity.”
– Howard Scott, Radio Address, Feb. 6, 1935 – WEVD, NY, The Words and Wisdom of Howard Scott, Vol. 1, Technocracy Inc., 1989
Modern technocrats like Parag Khanna also believe that democracy is a relic of the past and what America (and the world) needs is “more technocracy—a lot more.” In Technocracy in America: The Rise of the Info State, Khanna further states that:
The way to get there is ideally neither war nor revolution—nor a bout of tyranny—but to evolve America’s political system in a more technocratic direction. Technocratic government is built around expert analysis and long-term planning rather than narrow-minded and short-term populist whims” (p. 7).
Khanna’s long-term planning to arrive at technocratic governance began to accelerate in the 1970s with the Trilateral Commission’s goal of developing a New International Economic Order. China’s rise as an economic power and the shift toward globalization can be directly traced to Trilateral initiatives. In 1933, Harold Loeb, an original Technocracy Inc. devotee (who eventually formed his own Continental Committee on Technocracy), wrote in Life in a Technocracy that technocratic governance was the only solution to the world’s problems. He believed it was inevitable and would emerge through a combined evolution slowly over time, and revolution, through one big final push when conditions were ripe. Given the current state, it seems as though America is now experiencing that final revolutionary push.
In this society of security, material abundance, equality and harmony, man would also have maximum leisure. Since “there is no virtue in human labor,” work will be done “by the most automatic process that can be devised.”
– Akin, William E. Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941, University of California Press, 1977, pp. 145
What Scott, Khanna, and Loeb all shared is a belief that technocracy is the one form of government capable of producing optimum good for all. They believed that by focusing on science, automation, data, and surveillance, an era of utmost efficiency, abundant living, and maximum leisure would emerge, despite requiring top-down control and data on everyone and everything down to the smallest detail. The rest of this installment will investigate if they can truly deliver on their utopian promises.
The Globalist Vision of Technocracy – for the Collective Good of All
Imagine a world where the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are achieved through increased centralized control. The digital revolution allows for unprecedented surveillance (even while you work) and steering of all social and ecological systems. Regional governments emerge and force top-down management of all economic activity through a symbiotic relationship between states, multinational companies, and NGOs. A few corporate monopolies (i.e., too big to fail) employ massive amounts of social, behavioral, and even genetic data along with automation and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems to maintain their hold over all industries and people.
In this world, energy is distributed through massive fields of concentrated solar power. Once-thriving family farms are now obsolete, giving way to systems managed by AI, robotics, and swarms of drones called ‘agrobots.’ Real-time ecosystem management produces abundant agricultural products without harming the environment. Strong economic performance produces revenue-sustaining centralized governments, public services, and welfare systems.
Despite the monetary wealth and abundant resources produced, this tightly controlled world comes with significant tradeoffs. Individual rights and personal freedoms are sacrificed for collective interests and the “common good.” Behind the scenes, ruling powers seize control of public discourse, however, most don’t even notice. Citizens wink at how authoritarian governments have become, because their needs are met by the interlocking state-corporate power structure. In previous times this fascist merger was resisted but in this imagined utopia, it’s simply viewed as a pragmatic way of managing a complex world. Since the smart city experience—where everything is interconnected all the time—is very convenient and efficient, not many care about the loss of privacy.
The digital transformation allows governments to predict societal problems, control behavior, encourage sustainable lifestyles through “nudging” and “choice-editing,” and easily identify those who create disorder. A few complain about the “Big Brother” system, alleging that carbon allowances don’t cover their needs. But their dissent is easily neutralized. In some countries, libertarian groups attempt to effect change, but political parties have gone the way of dinosaurs, yielding their power and authority to AI and billionaire tech experts.
This depiction may sound like a book proposal for the next great dystopian fiction novel or a nod to harrowing works of the past. However, it actually describes a world envisioned by the European Environment Agency (EEA), an organization founded in 1994 to support European environmental policy. The EEA has 32 member countries and 6 cooperating countries. It also works closely with the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
Read More: Technocracy: The Common Good Utopia? (Not!)
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* This article was originally published here