#technocracy

I want to start a conversation about technocracy but I don’t want to touch the popular misinformation that claims it’s when Silicon Valley Tech Bros Inject AI Panopticons Into Your Brain or whatever. 

Specifically I want to talk about how the appeal to expertise is a common yet unrecognized system used to stabilize post-revolutionary discoordination.

A lot of leftist critiques of authority come from an unacknowledged technocratic position while insisting they are democratic. Specifically those with an “X group should lead the organization of Y thing because X group are the experts on Y related subjects.” formula. 

(Because by definition technocracy is the leadership of experts wherein governance is the recognition of problems to be solved, and where policy is determined using scientific analysis of various solutions.) 

That we should educate a particular group until a democratic majority understands the “correct” solution is still a fundamentally technocratic position. 

Example: If a community votes to burn coal and poison their local water supply attempting to directly intervene is not a recognition of their democratic organization. Saying that we should listen to indigenous people “because they are experts and their traditional techniques are scientifically shown to have better results” is a technocratic position.

Democracy is the recognition of “what people want to do” and not “what we have learned” and thus claiming communism is superior because it better reflects the conclusions of social and material science is not a democratic position.

(Although the same material decisions can be attained via a majority support that aligns with scientific analysis. Such things are only recognized because it is popular, not because it is effective.)