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Wednesday 16 November 2022

Technocracy Inc.



Niall McCrae has a very interesting TCW piece on family links between Elon Musk and Technocracy Inc.


Elon Musk, the man with technocracy in his blood

THE hundreds of Packard, Ford and Hudson cars driving in convoy up the western seaboard of the US in summer 1947 were all a similar shade of grey, with orange hub-caps. This was the livery of Technocracy Incorporated, an organisation that grew in the Great Depression of the 1930s, aiming to change the economic system and society radically through technological means. The motorcade started in Los Angeles and arrived in British Columbia on July 1 1947, where founder Howard Scott addressed a crowd of five thousand at Vancouver Forum. The event was the pinnacle of the movement, which faded away in the post-war boom.

Seventy-five years later, technocracy has emerged from the shadows to become a looming reality. Whether this is fulfilment of a dream or nightmare is a dilemma. Should we entrust scientists and social engineers with our future? What are the motives of the ‘experts’ who apply the tremendous advances in digital technology to govern our lives? Such considerations and concerns are personified by controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk. Intriguingly, his grandfather was a leading member of Technocracy Inc.

The whole article is well worth reading as another piece in the global technocracy jigsaw. It highlights an overarching political outlook which has been with us for decades now - global government by experts and their technology.

The Great Reset propounded by the World Economic Forum is strikingly similar to the plans of Technocracy Inc. The mantra to ‘follow the science’ during the purported pandemic put approved experts on a pedestal while suppressing debate. Common to Technocracy Inc and the Great Reset is Doomsday rhetoric: the former flourishing amidst economic decline, and the latter in ecological disaster. Both have used crises to push their agenda. Technocracy Inc wanted currency replaced by energy coupons with each purchase quantified in joules. Today, governments are preparing for central bank digital coupons and the end of cash. Every transaction will be known to the authorities, and access to goods and services may be restricted, either individually or collectively. Each of us will have a carbon footprint score, updated in real time. An Orwellian social credit system is being built.

As for Elon Musk, he may represent something else, something more optimistic but not yet well defined. Or he may not, because technocracy has a powerful appeal and as yet there is nothing opposing its global totalitarian trends.  

2 comments:

Sam Vega said...

A big question is: "Capitalist, communist, or something else?"

Looking at Musk and the early days of Technocracy Inc., it appears that a lot of what we are being pushed into is just a big plan to increase profits. Musk was born into a capitalist family, is arguably the world's most successful capitalist, and I doubt if he has had a lot of time to study political philosophy in any detail, except in so far as elements can be co-opted in the service of the business.

The left wing would probably relish the power, but lack the expertise to get anything done. Marxists would love that degree of social control, but first of all they have to get the capitalists to produce all the whizzy new kit before expropriating their businesses. That's a tough trick to pull off. Perhaps Marx was prescient when he said that capitalists would dig the grave for capitalism, but I don't see any signs of that happening.

So something else? There is of course the perennial urge to control other people, the Nietzschean "will to power". Or maybe some plan to even out global inequalities, based on a fear of what might happen with mass migration and starvation, or trashing the planet.

I'm inclined to go for the former: the unintended consequences of late capitalism. If anyone thinks they are in charge, they are not doing a very good job.

A K Haart said...

Sam - yes, the perennial urge to control other people is the one to worry about and it appears to be proceeding at quite a rate. Yet it's a complex mix of possibilities. The future must grow out of the past and conform to the limitations of human behaviour and that doesn't feel encouraging.