But political and business leaders won't let it. Scientists and engineers in the 1920's and '30's determined [technocracyinc.org] that not only was this type of society possible, but also but also necessary [technocracyinc.org] in order to be able to distribute the vast amount of wealth that machines were capable of producing for us. They even developed a soundly logical and rational model [technocracy.ca] of society that would allow this to work.
The problem of course is that in order to enact this "society of abundance," you need to abolish all the relics of scarcity. Mostly this means money, and by extention, political control of technology. Think of what happened in the Great Depression. Factories were producing so many products (like food) that there was plenty for everyone, but because the money used to distribute it was still scarce, the value dropped below the margin of profitability. No one could make money selling it, thus no one made money. Add to that people losing jobs to these machines and you have a society that has enough for everybody, but no one can afford even the dirt-cheap prices. You can't sell air, it's too abundant. If we pollute it enough, however, we will be able to because it will be scarce.
So the question is not a matter of when will technology be advanced enough so that this can happen, it's how can we tell enough people that this kind of life [technocracy.ca] is already possible, and circumvent political and corporate attempts to stop it from happening because they will lose all their "power" and "control"?
There is a reason that the most popular social movement of the '30's nad '40's is now completely unknown to people today. It's because it just might work.
We are at the dawn of a new world. Scientists have given to men considerable powers. Politicians have seized hold of them. The world must choose between the unspeakable desolation of mechanization for profit or conquest, and the lusty youthfulness of science and technique serving the social needs of a new civilization. - Albert Einstein
brilliant. I'm almost a scientist(1 year left) and it definetly seems like the wrong people are in control of our resources and our government. Thankyou so much for the links.
Let's say society could give someone 10K a year for not working (relative to today's prices). That's it. You can't otherwise have a job.
So, given the choice, would you rather live on 10K a year, or have a job? You, yourself could live on 10K. You're talking a crappy apartment in a crappy place, but you won't have commute costs, you'll have time to cook your own food. Watch the budget, it's possible.
I think most people would still work, both to have a higher standa
Isn't it great then that with Technocracy's plan, you can do both? In fact, your income wouldn't be low, like 10K, in fact, most updaded estimates hover around 70K a year. With all the boring, menial, and (most) dangerous jobs automated, that frees everyone up to more expansive and fullfilling persuits, such as art (like has been mentioned), science, technology, education, and entertainment. No longer will we have people like J. K. Rowling wasting their time and energy in some dead-end service job just to e
Ah, but by the time that a technocratic society would exist, what's that 70K would feel like 10K today. Bear in mind that theoretical 10K today, you'd live far better than 90% of humanity 150 years ago in material terms.
Basically, for this plan to work, a substantial number of people are going to have to be willing to live a far poorer lifestyle than average, in order not to have to work. The track record of people shows this isn't a very good assumption to make, especially for the Western cultures that wo
Please try to read a little more about this before making wild conclusions like this. When I say 70K I mean in today's US dollars. Since a Technocracy wouldn't actually use money, conversions will have to be made depending on when the statement is made.
And the wealth that would be available to us if we freed up machines to do useful works rather than wasting it on low load factors, inefficient processes, poor product quality, planned obsolesence, and other profit-maximizing ideas, would just plain be stag
I'm sorry, "Energy Accounting" is just new-fangled terminology for communist wealth redistribution and the link you sent us to is incredibly naive about how it would work. It says: "Energy Credits are non-transferable. This means that they cannot be stolen, gambled, or otherwise lost. They also cannot be used to provide anyone with a controlling interest in societal mechanisms, which is commonly known as bribing." So let's say I use my energy credits to buy a fancy diamond ring. Let's say I want to bribe a
Egads! You're evaluation of what little you read was the equivalent of trying to understand the prinicples of internal combustion by reading a sales brochure for a Honda. Technocracy is far from some "new-fangled terms for communism." It has no basis in any political theory at all. It is a technology, developed scientifically and applied continentally. If you truly wanted to understand that, you'd investigate the idea a little deeper, rather than only looking at the "sales brochures" that are only meant to
Wow, that was the most logical argument I've ever seen./sarcasm
Actually if you cared to read my post a little closer you'd see that it actually validates "supply and demand", which is in itself a construct or measure of scarcity. But I'll explain it again for those that seem to have missed it. Companies like to install bigger equipment that will do labor jobs far cheaper, quicker, and more accurately than humans can whenever possible. This has two effects: 1) Raising productive capacity (and hence profit
Eh? Last I heard the 1929 stock market crash happened because of people throwing their money into stock which was only valuable becuase some other sucker would come along and buy it at a higher price. It was a stock market bubble, just like we had in the 90s. Could you find a better example to support your theory? (And by that, I hope you're not going to use the bubble of 90 either.)
"Supply goes up due to more production, and demand goes down, as people lose their jobs and start saving money. "
Let's say you build a universal constructor (a machine that can build anything that can be built). Wisely, you first order it to build a copy. Then those two each build one.
Now you want free food, so your constructors build a greenhouse and farming robots. Raw materials aren't too hard to come up with since machines don't mind 'mining' materials from the huge landfills we have everywhere. Your neighbor wants in on the action. Assuming you're not greedy, you have one constructed and send it over. After all
Supply and demand is the most bogus concept ever unleashed on humans. It was invented by capitalists and supported today by capitalists. All economists, who are mostly capitalist, are a bunch of fools. They will all be discredited within 200 years..
Supply and demand MAY work under a theoretical framework but doesn't work in reality. A classic example is stock markets. Economists have been trying to explain stock market for decades and still can't. Why? Because supply and demand doesn't work. The simple
"Technocracy has no political ante cedents. It derives nothing from any of the historic political theorists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, or Karl Marx."
...yet when reading "An analysis of Technocracy" on Technocracy.ca, there is a rather large side-bar consisting of a lengthy quote of Karl Marx. Not surprising as the basis of the argument is central planning, which works so well.
'Organization and management of a country's industrial resources by technical experts for the good of the whole community
I don't know very much about technocracy, but I would guess that ideas like communism weren't too popular among the governments of the 30s and 40s. That would explain why the obvious links to Marx would be concealed.
Even today (!) many people still use "communism" as a synonym of totalitarism and "communist" as a swear-word. It's understandable (although sad) that some movements want to distance themselves from communism.
I know that on the surface it is easy to see similarities between the two, but please re-read the fable of the blind men and the elephant. If all you do is look at one part and make your conclusions from there, you're lost, my friend.
As for the important differences, there are many. The first would be that communism still works as an scarcity economy. It cannot distribute an abundance of goods an services produced by high technology to its people, just like every other scarcity system. It still uses money
Sorry, but I have to question how much you know about communism if you claim that it still uses money. Or if you claim that decisions are made politically, while factional conflict was specifically discouraged, and Lenin (and others) argued that when you know the correct answer, everyone should embrace it. These are just two things, but if you don't know about this, you don't know anything about communism (other than government propaganda). I suggest you read up on it, you might be really surprised when you
I understand where you are comming from, because I've done a great deal of learing about communism in the past few months myself. Of course, what you and many others call "communism" is not what most people (yes, thanks to propaganda) think about it. So, being that there are many different definitions of communism depending who you ask, I decided to direct my last comment to those who understand the "common" or "popular" definition, rather than explaining first what communism is, then Technocracy. Heck, the
yes! very nice post. good research, good points. thank you very much for it. I seem to recall some nice legal post from you in some other article, too.
I haven't read your stuff but will in the future. Are you part of the technocracy stuff? BTW, I think something is wrong with your main page. It is horribly slow on Mozilla Firebird (it could be a problem on my end but I'm not sure)... Anyway...
Without reading much about your econopolitical system, what is there to prevent someone or some entity or some group from hoarding all the resources? What's to stop a select few from dictating things to everyone else? A quick glance seems like your system can be
Actually, this requires a bit of discussion, more than I can do here, because you need to understand certain premises before you really understand the answer. You can find quick answers in the Technocracy FAQ here [technocracy.ca] and here. [technocracy.ca]
But for a short (and incomplete) answer, I can say this. First of all, no system is perfectly invulnerable to this kind of thing, but there are two reasons why it would be more unlikely and harder to acheive in a Technate (technocratic society). 1) Taking away the tools. By removing sca
Thanks for the link.
The russians said that Marx was right about capitalism, wrong about communism. Technology and rule by reason should reign when capitalism fails - Look, we all knew there was always something just right about Star Trek. Technocracy. That's the way to go. We've got to integrate futuristic technological projects (mining the asteroids, space elevator, solar stations beaming microwaves to earth) into capitalism (vis subsidies, e.g.)
I think that you mostly got it right there, and Star Trek is an excellent analogy. They don't use money because of replicators. This technology makes anything, even money, abundant (opposite of scarce) and therefor without "value". Hence, you can't use money, but everyone's happy anyway (except the Ferengi, of course). The very essence of Technocracy.:)
But ditch the capitalism part at the end there. It's not needed, and what little good you do get from it you get far more of in a Technocracy anyway.
Whatever the new social structure - it needs to be backwards compatible and interoperable with what's already there. Otherwise, it will have no chance short of a universally catastrophic failure of the old system.
Have you read Utopia [d-holliday.com], by Thomas More? That Technocracy idea (I only read the 11 quick reasons [technocracy.ca] to believe it) resembles that book in some ways, somewhat like a modern version of it.
I have some doubts about the system. About Product Quality, for instance; even taking for granted that what they say about razor blades is true (which I don't, for my own ignorance about the process), can it be applied to "virtually any industry"? Food, software... It seems hard.
Sorry that it took a while to respond. Busy long weekend! Anyway, I hope this still gets read by someone...
Have you read Utopia, by Thomas More? That Technocracy idea (I only read the 11 quick reasons to believe it) resembles that book in some ways, somewhat like a modern version of it.
No, I haven't read it, but my nephew in university has recently. I'll ask him more about it.
I have some doubts about the system.
Good, that means you're actually thinking about it. And you ask some pretty intelligent q
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
We could have had this already by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
But political and business leaders won't let it. Scientists and engineers in the 1920's and '30's determined [technocracyinc.org] that not only was this type of society possible, but also but also necessary [technocracyinc.org] in order to be able to distribute the vast amount of wealth that machines were capable of producing for us. They even developed a soundly logical and rational model [technocracy.ca] of society that would allow this to work.
The problem of course is that in order to enact this "society of abundance," you need to abolish all the relics of scarcity. Mostly this means money, and by extention, political control of technology. Think of what happened in the Great Depression. Factories were producing so many products (like food) that there was plenty for everyone, but because the money used to distribute it was still scarce, the value dropped below the margin of profitability. No one could make money selling it, thus no one made money. Add to that people losing jobs to these machines and you have a society that has enough for everybody, but no one can afford even the dirt-cheap prices. You can't sell air, it's too abundant. If we pollute it enough, however, we will be able to because it will be scarce.
So the question is not a matter of when will technology be advanced enough so that this can happen, it's how can we tell enough people that this kind of life [technocracy.ca] is already possible, and circumvent political and corporate attempts to stop it from happening because they will lose all their "power" and "control"?
There is a reason that the most popular social movement of the '30's nad '40's is now completely unknown to people today. It's because it just might work.
We are at the dawn of a new world. Scientists have given to men considerable powers. Politicians have seized hold of them. The world must choose between the unspeakable desolation of mechanization for profit or conquest, and the lusty youthfulness of science and technique serving the social needs of a new civilization. - Albert Einstein
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:0)
Live on 10K a year without work (Score:2)
Let's say society could give someone 10K a year for not working (relative to today's prices). That's it. You can't otherwise have a job.
So, given the choice, would you rather live on 10K a year, or have a job? You, yourself could live on 10K. You're talking a crappy apartment in a crappy place, but you won't have commute costs, you'll have time to cook your own food. Watch the budget, it's possible.
I think most people would still work, both to have a higher standa
Re:Live on 10K a year without work (Score:1)
Wealth is relative (Score:2)
Basically, for this plan to work, a substantial number of people are going to have to be willing to live a far poorer lifestyle than average, in order not to have to work. The track record of people shows this isn't a very good assumption to make, especially for the Western cultures that wo
Re:Wealth is relative, but energy is not (Score:1)
Please try to read a little more about this before making wild conclusions like this. When I say 70K I mean in today's US dollars. Since a Technocracy wouldn't actually use money, conversions will have to be made depending on when the statement is made.
And the wealth that would be available to us if we freed up machines to do useful works rather than wasting it on low load factors, inefficient processes, poor product quality, planned obsolesence, and other profit-maximizing ideas, would just plain be stag
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2, Informative)
Wow, that was the most logical argument I've ever seen. /sarcasm
Actually if you cared to read my post a little closer you'd see that it actually validates "supply and demand", which is in itself a construct or measure of scarcity. But I'll explain it again for those that seem to have missed it. Companies like to install bigger equipment that will do labor jobs far cheaper, quicker, and more accurately than humans can whenever possible. This has two effects: 1) Raising productive capacity (and hence profit
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2)
"Supply goes up due to more production, and demand goes down, as people lose their jobs and start saving money. "
Huh? If peo
The final inflection point (Score:2)
Let's say you build a universal constructor (a machine that can build anything that can be built). Wisely, you first order it to build a copy. Then those two each build one.
Now you want free food, so your constructors build a greenhouse and farming robots. Raw materials aren't too hard to come up with since machines don't mind 'mining' materials from the huge landfills we have everywhere. Your neighbor wants in on the action. Assuming you're not greedy, you have one constructed and send it over. After all
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1, Troll)
Supply and demand MAY work under a theoretical framework but doesn't work in reality. A classic example is stock markets. Economists have been trying to explain stock market for decades and still can't. Why? Because supply and demand doesn't work. The simple
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
'Organization and management of a country's industrial resources by technical experts for the good of the whole community
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2)
Even today (!) many people still use "communism" as a synonym of totalitarism and "communist" as a swear-word. It's understandable (although sad) that some movements want to distance themselves from communism.
Technocracy is NOT Communism! (Score:2, Insightful)
I know that on the surface it is easy to see similarities between the two, but please re-read the fable of the blind men and the elephant. If all you do is look at one part and make your conclusions from there, you're lost, my friend.
As for the important differences, there are many. The first would be that communism still works as an scarcity economy. It cannot distribute an abundance of goods an services produced by high technology to its people, just like every other scarcity system. It still uses money
Re:Technocracy is NOT Communism! (Score:2)
Re:Technocracy is NOT Communism! (Score:1)
please mod parent up (Score:0)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:2)
technocracy (Score:1)
Without reading much about your econopolitical system, what is there to prevent someone or some entity or some group from hoarding all the resources? What's to stop a select few from dictating things to everyone else? A quick glance seems like your system can be
Re:technocracy (Score:1)
Actually, this requires a bit of discussion, more than I can do here, because you need to understand certain premises before you really understand the answer. You can find quick answers in the Technocracy FAQ here [technocracy.ca] and here. [technocracy.ca]
But for a short (and incomplete) answer, I can say this. First of all, no system is perfectly invulnerable to this kind of thing, but there are two reasons why it would be more unlikely and harder to acheive in a Technate (technocratic society). 1) Taking away the tools. By removing sca
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
But ditch the capitalism part at the end there. It's not needed, and what little good you do get from it you get far more of in a Technocracy anyway.
Enjoy
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Maybe the Ferengi are onto something. Some things are always going to be scarce . . .
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
I have some doubts about the system. About Product Quality, for instance; even taking for granted that what they say about razor blades is true (which I don't, for my own ignorance about the process), can it be applied to "virtually any industry"? Food, software... It seems hard.
There's something I don't understand about "eli
Re:We could have had this already by now... (Score:1)
Sorry that it took a while to respond. Busy long weekend! Anyway, I hope this still gets read by someone...
No, I haven't read it, but my nephew in university has recently. I'll ask him more about it.
Good, that means you're actually thinking about it. And you ask some pretty intelligent q