Technocracy -- The economy of the future?

[abumbyanyothername]

(this is a cut and paste from a deeply buried reply in another thread)

The United States is still the primary dumping ground for all that crap that everyone else manufactures. We have the infrastructure (well at least for now) to use it. Keep in mind that finding a paved road is not easy, or even possible, in large parts of the world.

At some point the US economy is going to completely collapse. This will likely coincide with a movement of world reserves out of the dollar, and especially out of dollar denominated currency. We are currently, still, even as bad as it is now for many of us, living by grabbing natural resources (translation = common wealth) away from the rest of the world. When the dollar stops being a reserve currency, we will have to learn to live on our own resources, since we will have no way to pay fair value for imported resources.

The good news is that we still have loads of resources. The bad news is that the resources we have can no longer support a society where hedge fund managers must earn starting with a "B" or fall off the "A" list. The good news is that we are capable of forming a sustainable economy in which everyone living on the North American continent from the North Pole to Panama, or even the equator (which would include parts of Northern South America) can enjoy more than they could possibly consume. The bad news is that the implementation of this economy requires overwhelming shifts in outlook, requiring among other things abandonment of the idea of the sanctity and holiness of private property.

What would such a society look like? Well the technocrats, who got rolling shortly after the first World War, and really picked up steam during the Great Depression, envision a society in which all products (and services) are "priced" (actually assigned a value) based on the amount of energy required to create and deliver it to the ultimate consumer. In their vision, you would sum up all of the energy inputs that went into the manufacture and distribution of, say a car, and then assign it an energy cost. Of course, no one would "buy" a car, but merely use it for as long as they needed it, returning it to a conveniently located garage. (Same for housing and other "physical equipment" kind of stuff we own.) Citizens would each receive a pro rata share of the total energy produced in the "technate", and would be free to choose how to expend their share of the energy in consuming the technate's bounty.

The technocrats suggest a two-year planning cycle. Thus, the engineers (primarily) would decide at the outset how much total energy could (or would) be used during the two year period, divide that by the number of citizens over 25 and distribute energy certificates to each citizen (man and woman, they felt compelled to add at the time) representing equal shares. Energy certificates are non-transferrable (can only be used by the original holder) and expire (cannot be saved).

Personally, I would suggest a few improvements. Issue "basic food certificates" on a daily basis. Issue "standard housing unit certificates" on a monthly basis. Health care is provided regardless of energy certificates, or the balance thereof available to the citizen.

The technocrats note that under their system, there is no need for any finance organizations, freeing up about 25% of the nation's capacity right there. They envision a much reduced legal system as no one needs to protect his or her property from less advantaged people. The main productive value in their system is not competitive advantage but efficiency and thus they anticipate great savings by avoiding economically advantageous obsolesence (the example they use is razor blades, which require a great deal of research to manufacture in such a way that they wear out and need to be re-purchased often).

They do not view their program as moralistic in nature. They do not even view human beings as moral agents. Or at least no more moral than other animals. Just as Pavlov's dogs could be trained, in the technocrats view, so also can human beings be trained. The only difference being that human beings can follow longer chains of association and retain associations for longer periods of time than dogs.

The technocrats argue that price is nonsense (tied to nothing intrinsic about the item priced) and that all pricing systems must eventually collapse because they are not based on any scientific fact. To the technocrats the "cost" of an item produced is the amount of energy consumed in its production. They feel that because the distributed energy certificates always equal the energy inputs into the productive process, they have solved the problem that is plaguing the world economy today -- an imbalance in the productive and consumptive capacities of the world.

They are well aware that violent upheaval will be a highly probable precursor to progress beyond a system based on private property in the United States.