On August 13 2011 01:06 xarthaz wrote: A technocracy is by definition socialism. Socialism of all sorts has been completely refuted, utterly destroyed in its own terms, by strict methodology, 100 years ago. In Mises' Socialism.
Oh jesus christ... fyi in a panel of economics technocrats I doubt there'd be anyone from Mises.
On August 13 2011 01:06 xarthaz wrote: A technocracy is by definition socialism. Socialism of all sorts has been completely refuted, utterly destroyed in its own terms, by strict methodology, 100 years ago. In Mises' Socialism.
I think it all depends on what kinds of power you give to the state, if all the means of production were owned by a state run by experts then i think the system could properly be called technocratic socialism. However if the state was of a limited kind(respected property rights etc.) and was run by experts, it would not be socialist.
On August 13 2011 01:08 Jibba wrote: Those are not all the experts, and not necessarily the best experts either. My father is actually on a committee in the National Academy of Sciences, and in his opinion their meetings are almost entirely a waste of time. The group doesn't meet often enough to be productive (since, in order to be an expert, they have to focus on their own work first) and they come from such diverse backgrounds that they rarely come to an agreement on anything.
I don't disagree. However, I think it would not be unreasonable to assert that they would be more productive if they could actually write policy, especially given that they've been very capable of producing special reports in the past when asked.
On August 13 2011 01:06 xarthaz wrote: A technocracy is by definition socialism. Socialism of all sorts has been completely refuted, utterly destroyed in its own terms, by strict methodology, 100 years ago. In Mises' Socialism.
Oh jesus christ... fyi in a panel of economics technocrats I doubt there'd be anyone from Mises.
On August 13 2011 00:29 bonifaceviii wrote: Government hires technical consultants to look into issues and report back with reccommendations. Why not eliminate the middle-man and make the technical people the ones who make the decisions?
The problem is there would be no central decision-making body, just a bunch of cloistered, separate divisions that all administer their work from their own discipline's point of view with no over-arching (as awful and meaningless as this word is)... vision.
Unless you're saying that public administration "professionals" would be that body, in which case it's not qualitatively different than it is today.
It's not necessary to eliminate the middle-man entirely, as I avoided doing so in my proposed example. The main issue is that, currently, the government doesn't actually listen to the technical consultants.
On August 13 2011 00:41 NoobSkills wrote: About 50% of the voters shouldn't be voting. BUT having the top dogs from the private sector run things will lead to more corruption and stealing. It will always happen.
Technocrats =/= top dogs from the private sector. Mostly they're the top dogs from academia, if anything.
Best at their jobs, makes the most money, smartest = top dogs and from the private sector is where they would come from. Now, in principal if they were to truly look out for the country, it would be in better hands, engineers instead of government officials would be making the deals to build bridges and they might actually last some time, but I don't think it would be too long before they would become a new bread. Smart politicians would be dangerous
On August 13 2011 00:46 paradox_ wrote: Ok perfect now within these expert economists, there are going to be Keynesians and there are going to be Monetarists. They now have 2 opposing ideas that are fundamentally different. How are they going to approach a consensus when they are coming from 2 different schools of thought. They haven't after this long chances are they're not going to wrap it up in the near future. So instead of the gridlock of policy occurring on the senate floor, it'll happen in a boardroom in the National Academy of Sciences building or whatever.
You seem to be behind the times. Keynsian and Monetarist thought has substantially converged sinced the debates of the 1970s. There are differences still, but they can compromise, and they can certainly vote on opposing policies as well if they can't reach a consensus by a deadline.
You're right, my economic theory is rather weak since my field of study is engineering but the point still stands. There are still going to be different schools of thought, maybe much more subtle but the differences are you said exist. There is no guarantee that those on the committee are more subjective to make decisions on public policy and will even come to a compromise faster than the senate. What you're proposing is basically another senate just on the matter of economics. You think economists are somehow going to show different human behaviour in that their "mini senate" isn't going to breakdown into the gong show that's occurring right now?
On August 13 2011 00:52 sunprince wrote: Additionally, if the NAS economists could affect public policy, you can be sure that they would have already studied this day and night and have debated out the policy much more ahead of time (if they even allowed the problem to progress this far). Compared to Congress, they also benefit from being able to study economic policy all the time instead of worrying about other issues like health care, the wars, or re-elections.
You make it sound as if senators simply make up policy while on the toilet. They have experts and advisers on the matter at hand when they write policy. The senate is simply the forum to present ideas before the people elected make a decision on the value of the idea. What you're saying is to simply move this forum to a more specialized location (NAS). Now what happens when the decisions made by this specialized body affects healthcare, because it will. Let's even assume they somehow manage to agree on a policy and then they try to execute it. Why are the other expert bodies going to respect their decision. Why are those that run medical services going to agree to the cuts that they take. How is the NAS going to decide what % can be cut from medical services and what % is going to be cut from education etc. Having technocratic bodies aren't going to solve anything, it'll simply just shift the problem elsewhere.
On August 13 2011 00:59 Saji wrote: I don't want to get too much derailed but is that really the root cause? What you are telling me sound more like a text book theory than what has happened in reality.
There's lots of complex reasons that would require ridiculous amounts of derailing. Plus, I'm not an economist. So I'll just direct you to here.
On August 13 2011 00:59 Saji wrote: Also i don't understand what you mean by "I'm pretty I had it covered with 'analyzing the situation' " could you elaborate?
What I mean is that it's pretty obvious that in researching the problem and proposing policy solutions, economists would address the root causes.
What do you base on that economist would truly address the root cause. (because either they don't want to see/recognize or they just aren't able to see it(if you look at what is done now right?)
Is it because you identified economist as "experts" (people that have studied for it) and therefore they should now what is right (being able to see the root cause and act upon it)?
On August 13 2011 01:08 Jibba wrote: Those are not all the experts, and not necessarily the best experts either. My father is actually on a committee in the National Academy of Sciences, and in his opinion their meetings are almost entirely a waste of time. The group doesn't meet often enough to be productive (since, in order to be an expert, they have to focus on their own work first) and they come from such diverse backgrounds that they rarely come to an agreement on anything.
I don't disagree. However, I think it would not be unreasonable to assert that they would be more productive if they could actually write policy, especially given that they've been very capable of producing special reports in the past when asked.
Here's a scenario. Two of the top medical researchers (think Robert Gallo) work for competing pharmaceutical companies each racing to find and patent a cure for Parkinson's disease. The two prospective medicines will use a different method to address the issue. Now these are your two top experts on the field of degenerative brain diseases, but they have their research positions first. When the government is deciding how to appropriate funds for research in that area, who do they turn to? Both of them are competing, and any "objective" third party will not have enough expertise to make a useful decision (seeing as medical technology development is very secretive.)
Nestea for President of the New World Order. All hail the zerg king.
Rather than have a technocracy, we just need to vote in politicans in a democracy who are critical thinkers and understand social progress. Politicans need to be less about politics, which has been such a dodgy profession in the US since the party system developed in the 1830s.
On August 13 2011 00:29 bonifaceviii wrote: Government hires technical consultants to look into issues and report back with reccommendations. Why not eliminate the middle-man and make the technical people the ones who make the decisions?
The problem is there would be no central decision-making body, just a bunch of cloistered, separate divisions that all administer their work from their own discipline's point of view with no over-arching (as awful and meaningless as this word is)... vision.
Unless you're saying that public administration "professionals" would be that body, in which case it's not qualitatively different than it is today.
It's not necessary to eliminate the middle-man entirely, as I avoided doing so in my proposed example. The main issue is that, currently, the government doesn't actually listen to the technical consultants.
On August 13 2011 00:41 NoobSkills wrote: About 50% of the voters shouldn't be voting. BUT having the top dogs from the private sector run things will lead to more corruption and stealing. It will always happen.
Technocrats =/= top dogs from the private sector. Mostly they're the top dogs from academia, if anything.
Best at their jobs, makes the most money, smartest = top dogs and from the private sector is where they would come from. Now, in principal if they were to truly look out for the country, it would be in better hands, engineers instead of government officials would be making the deals to build bridges and they might actually last some time, but I don't think it would be too long before they would become a new bread. Smart politicians would be dangerous
It doesnt matter where technocrats are from, whether they are best businessmen, engineers, whatever. The bottom line is it is impossible for them to apply their savvy business skills in government management, because government is fundamentally different from private enterprise in its management: Enterprise is management is guided by profit and loss, government management is guided by tax and spend through bureaucratic strictness.
All the business skill in the world will be completely useless in government, as there is no business to be made, only management of the bureaus.
On August 13 2011 01:27 mprs wrote: I think having pure political science/lawyer make up of government is absolutely awful.
You need business men, scientists, engineers, doctors, etc.
Just so people are clear, political science isn't the same thing as politics. Political science is an amalgamation of economics, sociology and a few other things. It's often a pre-law major and a lot of those people have their eyes set on politics but in itself political science is all about academia and research.
I´d say we already have something similar. Lets say i worked in Pharmacy as a Scientists for some decades. I am a top dog and own my own company. If i´d be in charge of law making for example what would i do? I would benefit my own cause.
And this is a problem every society has. I think in the USA people being in charge of the Treasure are heavily involved in those banks who caused the bubble in 2008. In Switzerland one of the highest politicians had legal issues because of his activities as a company holder.
In Germany some years ago there was a more or less public discussion about people in politics who have a certain background. Normally you have politicians who grew up as politicians (people from next door) but more and more people out of the economy started to get high jobs a politicians while still being chairmans at certain companies.
i think this is something you have to stop rather than enforce. of course it makes sense someone who worked at a certain branche would take charge in politics but chances are highger this person has a agenda for his own profit.
problem with most "systems" are that the human being itself has bad values. money, power and so on are the reasons why so much societies broke or systems failed.
i think the solution is not a change in systems like democracie or free markets etc. we "just" need more transperancy and regulations.
for example if i am the head of the treasure in the USA (treasure i think its called, right?) i am obligated and controlled by certain instances that i am not able to make money besides my main job, i cant be chairman or have my own companie, i cant have stocks of some sort and so on...
if thats the case, yeah.. a Technocracy may work better. But every other system could as well. Still i want politicians from "the people" because politics means "for the people" in latin i think. so it makes sense that someone "from the people" takes care "for the people"..
the arguement that people are stupid as fuck and don´t care about politics is a hole other topic. in switzerland for example alot of important decisions are made threw public opinion poll. this means everyone can vote and the direct votes are counted.. the higher ones wins. interesting fact is that switzerland was i think the only country where people could directly vote if they want to join the EU and was the only country who did not join the EU. Germans, French etc were forced into the EU if they wanted or not. Thats bullshit and has nothing to do with a democracy. Look where switzerland stands now. Their currency is worth too much. I bet the dollar/euro would love to have this problem.
now the point i try to make is this "direct voting" makes you want to involve much more into politics thus you have more interest and start talk with other people about certain things. in germany or USA all you can do is "vote someone who votes for you". in europe its sarting to be even worse with the EU Parliament. The only way to influence whats happening in the EU pariliament is to "vote someone who votes for someone who then votes for you". So why would you give a shit about politics if you vote counts shit and can change nothing?
so basicly i think Europe and USA are no democracies while Switzerland goes somewhat into the right direction :/ i know no ones gonna read my shit so id like to mention zerg and terran are imba and protoss needs a buff har har har.
On August 13 2011 01:27 mprs wrote: I think having pure political science/lawyer make up of government is absolutely awful.
You need business men, scientists, engineers, doctors, etc.
Just so people are clear, political science isn't the same thing as politics. Political science is an amalgamation of economics, sociology and a few other things. It's often a pre-law major and a lot of those people have their eyes set on politics but in itself political science is all about academia and research.
Nah this kind of thing wouldn't work. Only field I would recommend it is healthcare, because that is the industry where I believe it's okay to be socialist.
On August 13 2011 01:49 bonifaceviii wrote: Why are so many people saying economics is a science in this thread?
You could call it a 'social science'. Technically, none of the things that we call natural science are in fact a 'science'. It's mostly Empiricism, which are metaphysically baseless 'techne'- arts aimed at creating something.
Without going into a long diatribe about how modernist your idea is with respect to an increasing reverence for the material over the metaphysical and a blissful ignorance of all philosophies coming before your own, your argument breaks down simply at the point you realize that most experts are oblivious to the grand scheme of things and will only lobby for what they think is best in their fields. You see this in fields where there is no 'result' to measure, like teaching, all the time.
Ultimately what you dream reflects is the belief that 'if only the experts were in charge' society would be awesome. What you don't realize is that there are no easy answers and your longing for a 'technocracy' is just an attempt to ignore wrestling with difficult questions. The idea that you could ignore politicial considerations is a pipe dream.
I can't believe how a naive thread like this run 12 pages without anyone correcting the OP, and thereby thoroughly rendering any discussion moot.
Let me do it. Although both words end similarly, democracy and technocracy belong to different planes of discourse. Democracy is a political concept, which in its bare essence means the rule of the people/majority. Technocracy, although literally defined the rule of technocrats, or experts in different fields of knowledge, it is and has never been used as a political concept. Why? Simply because there is no need to. Technocracy is an understroke to any political system. It goes without saying. Technocracy is one of the tools of government, regardless of its form. In short, whether a state is a dictatorship, monarchy, democracy, communism, whatever, it operates in some sort of technocracy because there has to be experts in different fields of government that needs their expertise. The political system/politicians are only there, ideally, to represent the sovereignty and organize everything within the resources of the state, including time, money, priority, etc. No state, none at all, runs its business without experts. Not when shamans were a fashion, not even when dictators want to rule everything, and definitely not in a modern state.
tl;dr: There is no "either democracy or technocracy." Technocracy is a device in government, which is used in all forms of government. End of thread please. Hurts my head that TL allows this open.
EPT
