Democratic governments resort to selecting candidates according to the amount of their popularity, personalities, and the electoral programs presented through which they seek to provide interest and develop the state;
However, in technocratic governments, candidates for decision-making positions do not need an electoral program, popularity, or election, but rather their experience and amount of knowledge suffice for them.
Definition of technocracy
Technocracy is a system of government that proposes choosing decision makers on the basis of their expertise in a field, such as expertise in technical fields, expertise in certain types of science, and so on.
The decision makers chosen on this basis are known as "technocrats".
The technocratic system is based on the idea that the decisions taken by these people are closer to the right, because they rely on objective scientific data and methods instead of relying on their personal opinions.
As for the term “forming a government of technocrats,” it means selecting candidates solely on the basis of their experience and technical skills.
A clear contradiction appears between technocracy and traditional democracy. In democratic systems, leaders and decision-makers are chosen on the basis of their popularity, as their access to power depends on the vote of the vast majority of them, while the choice of technocrats depends on the amount of knowledge and skills they possess.
Term history
The term technocracy is originally derived from two Greek words: (tekhne) meaning "skill" and (kratos) meaning strength.
The use of this term is attributed for the first time to the American engineer William Henry Smith, who used the word “technocracy” in an article he wrote in 1919, to refer to industrial democracy, as experienced people such as engineers and scientists are integrated into the decision-making process within companies.
Later, the American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen was known as the "father" of technocracy when he published an article entitled "The Engineers and the Price System" in 1921.
Where Veblen argued that technological developments will impose the presence of experts in decision-making positions, especially in the economic field, and predicted the natural decay of the existing business enterprise system, which does not depend on scientists and engineers.
Veblen, an early advocate of technocrats, is listed as a member of the Technical Alliance, whose members are New York City engineers, scientists, and other technocrats.
Although talk of technocracy began in the 1920s, it did not emerge as a prominent movement until the 1930s. During the period of the Great Depression, voices calling for technocracy rose in the United States, and it was seen as a lifeline that would lead the country out of the economic crisis imposed by it. Depression, as it was believed that highly skilled professionals were more capable of solving the country's economic problems than politicians elected on the basis of their popularity.
technocratic movement
The technocratic movement was founded in the United States by Howard Scott and Marion King Hubert in the 1930s.
They suggested replacing the government with technocrats such as scientists and engineers who possess the necessary skills and experience to run the economy.
They argued that a society headed by technical experts would be more productive and rational.
The technocratic movement criticized the country's existing price system for its ineffectiveness, and suggested phasing out this system.
Moreover, the movement argued that rational, non-political engineers should be given unfettered power to control and direct the economy, because it is the only way to rid the country of unemployment and debt.
The technocratic movement had only a short-lived popularity in the United States in the early 1930s during the Great Depression.
By the mid-1930s, interest in the movement began to decline clearly, and historians attributed this to the new plan presented by then US President Franklin Roosevelt to counter the effects of the Great Depression, which included a series of public labor and financial reforms.
Historian William E. Akin rejects this conclusion, arguing that the movement declined in the mid-1930s because of the failure of technocrats to devise a "workable political theory" to bring about change.
In addition to the technocratic movement in the United States, a number of technocratic organizations were established after World War I in several regions around the world, but they did not last for long.
For example, technocratic organizations were banned in Canada before World War II because of their opposition to the war, and the ban was not lifted until 1943 when those organizations pledged their commitment to war in the same year.
Despite the opposition faced by technocrats at the beginning of their inception, they are present today in most governments around the world, as technocrats are chosen to head departments and agencies that require specialized skills and experts.
For example, ministries of finance in many countries make decisions based on the opinions of professionals and experts in finance, economics, taxation, and law.
Criticism of technocracy
Several criticisms were made of the principle of technocracy, the most prominent of which are:
Technocracy is the antithesis of democracy: The principle of technocracy is in fact the opposite of democracy.
Technocratic governments would rather choose people with technical expertise than people elected by the majority of the population.
Marginalization of a wide segment of the population: the technocracy values the opinions and viewpoints of the technocrats and elevates them to a kind of “aristocracy” while the opinions and viewpoints of the common people are marginalized.
In a 2022 Boston Review article, political scientist Matthew Cole highlights two problems with technocracy.
They create "unfair concentrations of power" and rely on a "flawed theory of knowledge".
On the first point, Cole argues that technocracy excludes citizens from decision-making processes while privileges elites, and on the second point, he argues that the value of expertise is overvalued in technocratic regimes.
Decision-making in isolation from the needs of society: Technocrats make their decisions based on data and scientific methods, whether they are consistent with society or not, while voters tend to elect politicians who make their decisions based on the desires and needs of the people of society.
The entanglement between politics and technology.. Facebook is an example
In 1982, John Gunnell wrote an article entitled "The Technocratic Image and Technocratic Theory", in which he predicted that technology would one day become part of political processes, and suggested that the intertwining of technology and politics would lead to the concentration of power in the hands of technical experts (i.e. technocrats).
40 years after Günell's writings were published, his prophecy was actually fulfilled, and technology became highly intertwined with politics, for example, the social networking site "Facebook". world, and is able to easily hack into their data and influence their decisions using algorithms.
Hence, a number of politicians today use Facebook and other social media platforms for this purpose, and the absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a small group of technocrats like Mark Zuckerberg and others.