Author . 
 
 Title 
 
 Imprint. 
 
 Ifr— 47378-2 OFO 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 FIRST AND SECOND 
 SERIES 
 
 Social Universals 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
FIRST SERIES 
 
 PARTI. 
 
 Human Instincts in Reconstruction: 
 An Analysis of Urges and Suggestions for Their Direction. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 National Industrial Management: 
 
 Practical Suggestions for National Reconstruction. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Ways and Means 
 
 To Gain Industrial Democracy. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Skill Economics 
 For Industrial Democracy. 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Magic Money, Money Magic and the Magician; 
 The Payers and — the Fading Smile. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Method of Solving Problems Generally 
 
 And Our Social Problem in Particular. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 A Working Method for a Workable Understanding 
 
 Of the Social Problem and of a Workable Reconstruction. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Labor, Skill, Tally, Organization and Their Functions: 
 
 Production, Distribution, Direction. 
 
 Social Universals 
 
 Copyright, 1921, ■)y W. H. Smyth. 
 
 0)CiA608797 
 m 24 1921 
 
A^ 
 
 C^<o 
 
 
 u 
 
 Reprinted from the Gazette, Berkeley, California 
 Copyright, 1920, by W. H. Smyth. 
 
 Technocracy 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Human Instincts in Reconstruction. 
 
 An Analysis of Urges and a Suggestion For Their Direction. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note — The author shows that the forces of the four great human 
 instincts — to live, to make, to take, to control — are as essential in mod- 
 ern social life as at any time in the past. But all of these urges in a 
 living democracy should be controlled without being controlled. To 
 achieve this seeming paradox we must have a great national purpose, and 
 unselfish leadership such as could come through a National Council 
 of Scientists. 
 
 Mr. William Henry Smyth has been in general practice as a con- 
 sulting engineer since 1879. He is the inventor of many machines and 
 mechanical devices, including a system of raising water by direct 
 explosion on its surface, the device being known as the "direct explo- 
 sion pump." He has been an engineering expert in many patent cases, 
 and is a frequent contributor to technical journals. As well as a pioneer 
 in mechanics, Mr. Smyth is a pioneer in economics. He is a member 
 of the leading scholarly associations in that field, including the Amer- 
 ican Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Parts I, II and III appeared originally in "Industrial Management" 
 of New York. The concluding PartIV has not heretofore been published 
 and will appear exclusively in The Gazette. — Editor. 
 
 Instincts Control. rapid extinction of the race. Thus it 
 
 Instincts are the most persistent would seem that our fundamental 
 
 human urge factors. Seemingly, instincts are essentially necessary to 
 
 they are less subject to change than human contmuance— at least, to our 
 
 even the most unchanging aspects '°^'^^ existence So _ let us look 
 
 of our physical environment. once more at these vital factors, m 
 
 rp, T <•• V. i T • /- ir the light of recent events, in order 
 
 ihe instinct to Live (selt-preser- .^ ^„„ i„. , .1 ' , , 
 
 „.• ^ • A • .• ^ X to see what part they now take and 
 
 vation) is as dominating today as „ i-i „i .„ ' ,„ • ., r ^ • 1 
 
 .u A r are likely to play in our future social 
 
 in the days of our cave-man an- ^„„„„.^,, 
 
 ill T i- ^ i c ^ 4. economy, 
 cestors; the Instinct to Construct 
 
 is as persistent in Man as in the Brute Force, 
 beaver; the Mastery Instinct (desire No lesson of the war, probably, is 
 to control others) is as vital as more obvious or more clearly de- 
 ever; the Thievish Instinct (desire fined than the rapid trend toward 
 to acquire and hoard) shows no Skill as a predominating and con- 
 change, and is the same old urge trolling factor in our immediate so- 
 as that disclosed by the pre-man cial development. 
 
 stores of insects, birds and various Recorded history and archaeologic- 
 
 animals. al investigation confirm the sugges- 
 
 Indeed, without these primordial tion that in the matter of economic 
 
 urges Man could not have developed, control of human activities and their 
 
 and the loss or atrophy of any one products, the possession of this con- 
 
 of them would probably mean the trol has oscillated to and fro under 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 the influence of one or other of the 
 instinctive urges, so that character- 
 istic types of men secured alternate 
 mastery. 
 
 Starting in the pre-human period, 
 before the dawn of definite self-con- 
 sciousness, and continuing during 
 eons in the twilight of human intelli- 
 gence, raw brute force must have 
 been the dominating economic factor. 
 
 The influence of Skill during this 
 period was practically negligible, ex- 
 cept in so far as it afifected indi- 
 viduals. Of this the huge prolonga- 
 tion of the unchanging "Stone Age" 
 is sufificient demonstration. 
 
 Contest With Cunning. 
 
 The gradual growth and rapid 
 culmination of the Skill factor is 
 an important consideration in our 
 present inquiry and likewise in our 
 Social Reconstruction problems. For 
 while Purposive Skill is of slow de- 
 velopment Purposive Cunning, on the 
 contrary, is inherently otherwise. 
 Indeed, Cunning and Purposiveness 
 both imply mental alertness and 
 hence are in some wise synon- 
 ymous. 
 
 For these reasons, in the early 
 stages of human development, raw 
 strength and animal cunning must 
 alone have contended to satisfy the 
 other insti-nctive urges — to live, to 
 control — practically uninfluenced by 
 the relatively modern urge of Pur- 
 poseful Skill. 
 
 Doubtless this simple conflict (of 
 raw strength and brute cunning) 
 waged with varying results, slowly 
 oscillating, age by age and race by 
 race, in favor of one or other human 
 type as environmental conditions or 
 racial admixtures gave one or other 
 the advantage of circumstance. 
 
 And, as Economics implies: the 
 usages, laws, and institutions where- 
 by a community endeavors to or- 
 ganize its methods and means of 
 living: those whose activities char- 
 acterize the times initiate and ad- 
 minister its economics. 
 
 Age-Long See-Saw. 
 
 So, with these age-long oscilla- 
 tions of control types, economic in- 
 stitutions necessarily underwent like 
 changes, conforming to the dom- 
 inating human characteristics of each 
 
 Age and Nation. That they did so 
 oscillate and economically conform, 
 in the vaguest dawn of human be- 
 ginnings, is the teaching of archae- 
 ology. 
 
 During the past few thousand years 
 the contest of Strength and Cun- 
 ning is shown by reliable historical 
 records to have oscillated with com- 
 parative • rapidity between one and 
 the other extreme — including consid- 
 erable periods during which Strength 
 and Cunning unified control by 
 union of Church and State. 
 
 Prior to the immediate present was 
 a transition stage caused by the 
 gradual weakening of the bond be- 
 tween Church and State, with a 
 coincidental shifting of control in 
 favor of Cunning (under a changed 
 and relatively modern guise repre- 
 senting the instinctive Urge to 
 Take) expressing itself as Commer- 
 cialism. With this change came a 
 consequent modification of usages, 
 laws, and institutions appropriate to 
 its highest expression — Capitalism — 
 capitalistic economics. The result of 
 this last oscillation of control in 
 favor of (acquisitive) Cunning was 
 that Germany became a nation of 
 slaves, England a nation of paupers, 
 France quit breeding, and the United 
 States went wealth crazy! 
 
 Challenge by Purposive Skill. 
 
 The war represents the conclusive 
 termination (in this period) of the 
 age-long contest of Force and Cun- 
 ning — for the control of men, and 
 the products of their activity. 
 
 But this last and most spectacular 
 conflict is complicated by the intru- 
 sion of the most modern and most 
 rapidly developing factor — Organized 
 Purposive Skill. 
 
 Here, then, Skill enters the arena 
 with a challenge to both earlier con- 
 testants — for the prize of human 
 control, and mastery of the social 
 machinery; enters that contest — older 
 than the race itself — the_ struggle to 
 satisfy the primordial instincts: to 
 Live — to Control — to Take. 
 
 Strength vs. Cunning vs. Skill. 
 
 Thus the contest has become a 
 triangular fight between the Strong, 
 the Cunning, and the Skilful; a fight 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 in which raw brute force is a par- 
 ticipant of rapidly diminishing im- 
 portance — a modified continuation of 
 the old time bloody contest, for a 
 humanly undesirable outcome. 
 
 Cunning-control is today the vic- 
 tor, and in possession of the spoils — 
 the financial wealth of the world. 
 But all the evidence points to a 
 short enjoyment and a losing fight 
 against the organized forces of Pur- 
 poseful Skill. 
 
 Creaking Capitalism Cracking. 
 
 Capitalism — under war stress — 
 shows convincing evidence of in- 
 adequacy. The non-efTectiveness of 
 money and credit wealth has be- 
 come so obvious as to procure the 
 enactment of "Work or Fight" laws. 
 Thus, into the discard went our pre- 
 war money evaluation of men to be 
 substituted by a standard which 
 measures millionaire and hobo alike 
 in accordance with their relative 
 skill. 
 
 Our pre-war faith in the mysteri- 
 ous Magic of Money too received a 
 staggering shock when all the pri- 
 vate fortunes enmassed and all the 
 billions of national credit combined 
 utterly failed to add a single pound 
 of much needed sugar to our limited 
 supply, necessitating the "two pounds 
 of sugar per person" apportionment 
 — a commonplace vulgar fraction 
 measure applicable to Financial 
 Potentate and Weary Willie — alike! 
 
 Producer Versus Parasite. 
 
 On broader lines also the evidence 
 points the same way: purposive skill is 
 inherently productive, while purpose- 
 ful cunning is naturally parasitic. 
 Then, the capability of cunning to 
 rule, and the continuance of its suc- 
 cess in controlling others, resides in 
 and depends upon the stupidity and il- 
 literacy of the governed: mystery and 
 magic are its weapons — equally in the 
 realm of modern Finance as in the 
 ancient Theocracies. 
 
 Skill implies the reverse of all this, 
 for skill is intelligence physically 
 manifested. It is knowledge of Na- 
 ture's Laws utilized dexterously — and 
 the spread of scientific information 
 characterizes our age. Thus as the 
 bulwarks of cunning-control crumble. 
 
 the weapons of skill are multiplied and 
 perfected. 
 
 So the outcome seems a foregone 
 conclusion. 
 
 With this outcome, our methods 
 of life will necessarily change. Capi- 
 talistic customs, laws, and institutions 
 will be substituted by others diflfering 
 as widely from those with which we 
 are familiar as the motor ideas and 
 ideals of purposeful cunning differ 
 from those of purposeful skill. 
 
 "Work or Fight" Lesson. 
 
 Peradventure, the "Work or Fight" 
 and the "2 pounds of sugar per per- 
 son" measures are tonic foretastes of 
 the coming Skill-Economics. 
 
 Obviously we are in transition to a 
 new social order. 
 
 The signs of the times portend the 
 dethroning of decadent acquisitive 
 capitalism and the crowning of pro- 
 ductive skill — Autocrat of the new 
 Age — Artizanism. 
 
 This change has been in dubious 
 process for years; the War has merely 
 speeded its progress and made the 
 outcome practically inevitable. But, 
 whether it be brought about by evolu- 
 tion or revolution, or whether it comes 
 in clean-cut aspect or befogged by ir- 
 relevant social factors and forces, it 
 is in no sense a rational or final so- 
 lution of our "social problem." 
 
 In any event, should Artizanism 
 come, it will be merely another social 
 spasm, probably shorter than, but 
 equally as futile as, our present world- 
 wide finance madness. 
 
 Instincts Not A Rational Basis. 
 
 While it is conceivable that human 
 societies could be organized upon and 
 with any one of the stated basic In- 
 stincts as dominant factor and 
 raison d'etre; it is practically certain 
 that any such national society would 
 be quite ineffective, and transient. For 
 obviously it would not and could not 
 satisfy even our present limited intel- 
 ligence, our rational imagination, or 
 our modern spiritual ideals. 
 
 No very extended analysis would be 
 required to show the validity of this 
 proposition. The past has already 
 demonstrated the insufficiency of so- 
 cieties based upon the Mastery In- 
 stinct — Autocracy. The present amply 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 proves the failure of the Acquisitive 
 Instinct as a social basis — Plutocracy. 
 A moment's thought will show that 
 a society based upon the Making In- 
 stinct would simply crumble in its 
 formative process under the demands 
 of our complicated modern mental 
 make-up, for clearly this instinct pro- 
 vides inadequate Human scope — and 
 hence presupposes parasitism in even 
 more extended form than that of ac- 
 quisitive Capitalism. And — worse 
 than all — a society based upon the In- 
 stinct to Live and Propagate, would 
 return us at once to the brute state 
 from which we have arisen through 
 ages of struggle, strife, and bloodshed. 
 
 Control Without Control. 
 
 Still, it is apparent that the basic 
 instincts which urge "to live," "to 
 make," "to take," "to control," are as 
 useful, yes, are as essential in and to 
 modern social life as they have been 
 in all the past. But, while all are 
 necessary, no one of them constitutes 
 a proper basis — law of operation — for 
 a rational human society organization. 
 They are factors, necessary and desir- 
 able contributary parts, no one of 
 which is inherently adapted to func- 
 tion as the machine's unifier, its strain 
 and speed equalizer — its control cle- 
 ment. 
 
 Thus, the determination of a suit- 
 able character of "control" element is 
 seemingly the crux of our social prob- 
 lem; the problem of controlling with- 
 out control, that old, old paradox: 
 Freedom made effective by restraint — 
 a paradox, however, which the war 
 may have resolved for us, by demon- 
 strating its non-existence. 
 
 It has, in somewise, answered our 
 troublous question by clear definition 
 in the statement of the Nation's ob- 
 ject in going to war. 
 
 The war has answered the question, 
 in another aspect, by the Nation's 
 adoption of the method (forced upon 
 it by logical compulsion) whereby 
 success was achieved. 
 
 "To make the World safe for De- 
 mocracy" is the clearest and most uni- 
 versally accepted statement of our 
 purpose in going to war — Self-govern- 
 ment for Nations, Self-government for 
 Individuals. 
 
 Concept of Control. 
 
 Control by others, then, is antitheti- 
 cal to the ideals for w^hich we have 
 waged this last, the greatest, and, 
 it is hoped, the final bloody contest for 
 Self-government. 
 
 Control is equallj^ antithetical to our 
 Ideals of Self-government whether the 
 control is exercised by "others" char- 
 acterized by the Instinct to live and 
 breed — the Masses; or whether the 
 control is exercised by "others" char- 
 acterized by the Instinct to Make — 
 the Skilled Artizan; or whether the 
 control is exercised by "others" urged 
 by the Instinct of Mastery — the Em- 
 ployers; or whether the control is ex- 
 ercised by "others" under their domi- 
 nating Acquisitive Instinct — the 
 Financiers. 
 
 Indeed, the concept: control by 
 "others," is an idea inherent in and 
 appropriate only to now discredited 
 Autocracy — a concept which the War 
 has rendered an obsolete ideal — if we 
 are yet intelligent enough to profit 
 by its costly teaching. 
 
 Discard Cave-Man Control. 
 
 To be rationally consistent this 
 "control" concept should be as ab- 
 sent as it is obsolete (in fact and 
 effect) in our inevitable reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 This Autocracy "control" concept 
 must be thrown in the discard where 
 we have dumped the European auto- 
 crats whose ideal it was — if our recon- 
 struction efforts are intended to pro- 
 duce a rationally organized Modern 
 Human Society; a Society founded up- 
 on the Ideals consecrated by the life 
 blood of our bravest and best. 
 
 But our age-long familiarity with 
 "control by others," in our halting 
 progress, from brute beast to modern 
 Man, has so deeply ingrained in our 
 mental fiber this stone-age concept as 
 to make it almost impossible for us 
 to even conceive the idea of a society 
 lacking this cave-man spiked-club 
 element. 
 
 Yet, no fact and lesson of our par- 
 ticipation in the War is more clear 
 and free from doubt than the spon- 
 taneous acquiescence by the people of 
 the United States — rich and poor, arti- 
 zan and laborer, alike — in self-control, 
 self-repression, self-dedication to the 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 united will and nniiied purpose of the 
 Nation. 
 
 Purpose. 
 
 No lesson of the War is more 
 significant than: Given a National 
 Purpose, intelligently comprehended 
 and acquiesced in — only unselfish 
 Leadership is needed, and . neither 
 control by force nor control by 
 cunning is necessary to bring about 
 the unification of effort needed to 
 accomplish the Nation's Objective. 
 
 The significance of this lesson is 
 the utter irrationality of national 
 control in the hands of any class 
 characterized by self-centered in- 
 stincts, or that strength or skill or 
 cunning should be dominating fac- 
 tors in the social structure. 
 
 Though none of these factors 
 should dominate, each and all of 
 these vital and necessary elements 
 should have free scope for the so- 
 cially effective outflow of its 
 particular expression of life energy. 
 
 Second only in significance to the 
 acquiescence and co-operation of the 
 united people is the method irre- 
 sistibly forced upon the Nation by 
 the logic and necessities of its stu- 
 pendous War problem. 
 
 First Real Nation. 
 
 This most modern economic in- 
 stitution, and the unified co-opera- 
 tion of the united people, are the 
 two outstanding lessons of the War 
 for us. 
 
 Taken together, they point sig- 
 nificantly to the solution of our 
 social problem — the lacking element 
 which should and could consciously, 
 deliberately, and rationally unify the 
 basic instinctive urges into an har- 
 monious direction of national effort 
 and so produce a humanly efficient 
 national organization — the first real 
 Nation on earth! 
 
 The lacking element? — the element 
 which is adapted to assume the func- 
 tion and position to be vacated by 
 the obsolescent autocratic concept — 
 arbitrary "control" — the element ca- 
 pable of controlling without con- 
 trol, of making Freedom effective. 
 Democracy a living fact as well as 
 a noble Ideal! 
 
 In this, as in many other seem- 
 
 ingly difficult problems of long 
 standing, the solution has evaded us 
 by reason of its very obviousness. 
 Such a unifying factor has always 
 existed in plain view — unutilized in 
 .its proper function of Social Strain 
 Equalizer. Indeed, this urge factor, 
 more even than the Instincts — "to 
 Live," "to Make," "to Take," "to 
 Control" — is the most universal and 
 most humanly characterizing trait of 
 that most marvelous complex — Man. 
 
 Desire to Know. 
 
 I refer to Curiosity — curiosity ra- 
 tionalized into Desire to Know. 
 
 Desire to Know, while equally 
 urgent for gratification, inherently 
 lacks the undesirable and inappro- 
 priate qualities which render the 
 other human Instincts unsuitable as 
 organizing and strain equalizing fac- 
 tors in the social structure. Also it 
 possesses qualities and attributes 
 which make it peculiarly adapted to 
 perform the rationally harmonizing 
 function so irrationally assumed in 
 all earlier social organizations under 
 the guise of Forceful and Cunning 
 Control. 
 
 Desire to Know is as imperative 
 in its demands as any of the self- 
 centered motor Instincts — to live, to 
 make, to take, to control — but it is 
 impersonal; while It is as aggressive 
 as other Instinctive Urges, charac- 
 teristically its energies and activities 
 are directed at Nature, not in ag- 
 gression on human opponents; hence 
 it engenders no human strife; and 
 while it drives furiously, it drives 
 none but its possessor — in the pur- 
 suit of Knowledge. 
 
 Desire to Know, while profoundly 
 interested in all that pertains to 
 Human Life and living — to eugenics 
 and racial development — character- 
 istically its possessor would risk his 
 own life in the pursuit of Knowledge. 
 
 Desire to Know, though urgently 
 interested in Nature's Laws and in 
 all that concerns the correct making 
 and constructing of things, charac- 
 teristically lacks desire to make or 
 construct things, but seeks only sys- 
 tematized concepts of Knowledge. 
 
 Desire to Know, while deeply in- 
 terested in all that pertains to the 
 desirable things of the world and to 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 economic affairs, characteristically 
 lacks the thievish impulse — the In- 
 stinct to Take, to acquire physical 
 possession: supremely acquisitive it 
 craves only to acquire Knowledge. 
 
 Desire to Know, while surpass- 
 ingly Masterful, desires no mastery 
 of Men; it craves instead, God-like 
 insight, pre-vision, prophecy — power 
 in the boundless realms of Knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Leadership. 
 
 Here then is an indomitable Urge 
 lacking all the inappropriate qualities 
 of the strife producing Autocratic 
 Force-and-Fear Control motor con- 
 cept of Social Organization, and 
 possessed of all the unifying quali- 
 ties of Social Leadership. 
 
 A Human Society or Nation is 
 sanely designed and rationally or- 
 ganized on correct principles only 
 when it has a Purpose, and (as in 
 the case of a well considered ma- 
 chine) only when full cognizance is 
 taken of all its contributory elements, 
 together with their essential func- 
 tions and their proper co-ordination. 
 
 A National Objective. 
 
 A truly efficient National Organi- 
 zation would facilitate (not suppress 
 or prohibit) the expression of all 
 inherent Instinctive Urges, rational- 
 izing their outflowing life energy 
 (by sane institutional conventions) 
 into unification in a fully pre- 
 determined National Purpose. 
 
 In a crude but clearly percreptible 
 manner the United States, durmg the 
 
 War, gave suggestion of such an 
 Ideal Social Arrangement. 
 
 It had a defined and universally 
 accepted purpose: 
 
 Its Scientific (Desire to Know) 
 Men and its Scientific Societies were 
 (more or less) organized into a Uni- 
 fying and Advisory Board to formu- 
 late and. suggest methods and means 
 for sane living and — to accomplish 
 the predetermined purpose of the Na- 
 tion. 
 
 We have accomplished the object 
 of the War: 
 
 We have made the World safe for 
 Democracy. 
 
 Now, let us inaugurate a Demo- 
 cracy — a Democracy with an object 
 for its existence — a Democracy with 
 a Purpose. 
 
 By the peril to its life, the Nation 
 has been shocked into momentary 
 sanity. Let us while still rational, 
 rationally take to heart the lessons 
 which the War has taught at so 
 staggering a cost: 
 
 First: The need of a National 
 Purpose; a purpose based upon peace 
 and rational Human Development; 
 a purpose as inspiring and as unify- 
 ing as War for Democracy, and as 
 high as our highest Ideals of Life. 
 
 Second: The need of a Supreme 
 National Covmcil of Scientists — 
 supreme over all other National In- 
 stitutions — to advise and instruct us 
 how best to Live, and how most effi- 
 ciently to realize our Individual and 
 our National Purpose and Ideals. 
 
 But, First and Last, a unifying Na-. 
 tional Objective. 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, December, 1918. 
 
 IS WEALTH MORE PRECIOUS THAN HUMAN PERSONALITY? 
 IS IT RATIONAL TO BASE HUMAN SOCIETY 
 ON ANIMAL INSTINCTS? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 PART II. 
 
 National Industrial Management. 
 Practical Suggestions for National Reconstruction. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 NOTE: — After outlining and characterizing the great economic drifts 
 in the national developments of the past, the author declares that during 
 the period of war the United States has developed the new form in gov- 
 ernment for which there is no precedent in human experience. He calls 
 this "Technocracy" — the organizing, co-ordinating and directing through 
 industrial management on a nation-wide scale of the scientific knowledge 
 and practical skill of all the people who could contribute to the accomplish- 
 ment of a great national purpose. Carry this new form of government into 
 the days of peace and we will have industrial democracy — a new common- 
 wealth. — Editor. 
 
 Economic Drifts. 
 
 The United States is obviously in 
 social flux, in unstable economic equili- 
 brium — in transition. Customs and 
 usages which a few years ago received 
 universal approval and legal sanction 
 are now punished as crimes. Eco- 
 nomic expedients which but yester- 
 day were deemed irrational imagina- 
 tions of Utopian visionaries are today 
 accomplished facts. And in every di- 
 rection immemorial methods and time 
 honored social processes have lost 
 their sacrosanctity. 
 
 Like ocean streams enfolding in 
 mass-flow all this whirling confusion 
 of economic cross-currents, legal revo- 
 lutions, and social agitations, there are 
 to be observed certain super-control- 
 ling drifts. 
 
 Centralization of Government. 
 
 Concentration of Wealth. 
 
 Unification of Mechanical Industries. 
 
 Force, Wealth, Industry. 
 
 These great economic drifts indi- 
 cate the mass resultant of myriad in- 
 dividual activities expressing that pe- 
 culiarly human quality which has made 
 man the dominating animal factor on 
 earth — unquenchable desire to con- 
 trol — the Mastery Instinct. And what 
 is more important in the present con- 
 nection, these super-controlling social 
 drifts also indicate the only directions 
 possible for the social expression of 
 this indomitable human urge: 
 
 Direct control of men by force and 
 fear — exemplified in Centralization of 
 Government; indirect control of men 
 by controlling their products — shown 
 in Concentration of Wealth; mutual- 
 ized control (i. e., utilization) of Na- 
 ture — expressed in Unification of Me- 
 chanistic Industries. 
 
 Conflicting Ideals. 
 
 In these various forms of social ag- 
 gregations there are, broadly speak- 
 ing, but three human types involved: 
 
 The type characterized by aggres- 
 sive physical strength; the type char- 
 acterized by alert mental cunning; the 
 type characterized by purposive skill. 
 
 Of these the last — the purposive 
 skill type — is significantly modern, 
 brought into social prominence by 
 that most stupendous social factor, 
 experimental science, science which is 
 the cfifcctive cause and basis of this 
 era of invention — our industrial age. 
 
 A triangular conflict of ideals of life 
 and of social purpose has thus been 
 inaugurated; a conflict which ac- 
 counts for and is expressed in 
 our "social unrest," "conflict of 
 capital and labor," our "social 
 problem" and "reconstruction." The 
 strife for supremacy of social ideal 
 and community purpose thus indicat- 
 ed, is co-extensive with the human 
 race; its most spectacular climax is 
 the World War. And notwithstand- 
 ing the many confusing forms and 
 many-sided aspects which this world- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 wide human struggle presents, it is, 
 of course, at bottom the ages old con- 
 test of Slavery and Liberty, Bondage 
 and Freedom. 
 
 The Golden Age? 
 
 Our answer to this old but ever new 
 problem will determine whether our 
 industrial age will progress to a so- 
 cial condition of individual freedom to 
 which nothing in the past is compar- 
 able, or whether our time shall be, to 
 future generations, the Golden Age! — 
 the highwater mark of human liberty 
 — the age of a noble but a futile fight 
 for a great ideal — Democracy. 
 
 Club Economics. 
 
 In simple cave-man times the boss- 
 parent, quite naturally, made and ad- 
 miaistered suitable primitive eco- 
 nomics — with his persuasive club as a 
 very practical emblem of authority. 
 Under this raw-force regime the 
 weaker "fagged" for the stronger; and 
 the doings and havings of the "fags" 
 made life more likeable for the force- 
 ful. 
 
 As the procreator of his subjects — 
 and superior in strength during most 
 of their lives — the "ownership" of 
 them and theirs by the boss-parent 
 was as "natural" as any other obvious 
 fact; and chattel slavery as n,ecessary 
 as parent ownership is self-evident. 
 
 Mystery Economics. 
 
 Then, Miracle-Fire-Maker and Ani- 
 mal Breeder came along, and dis- 
 turbed many of the time honored and 
 well established customs — playing 
 havoc generally with club-economics. 
 By his wonder working magics cun- 
 ning Miracle-worker put the fear of 
 gods (more potent than physical 
 strength) into the heart of simple old 
 skull-cracker parent-god. So Miracle- 
 worker waxed fat, and in his turn 
 initiated and administered suitable 
 economics — fire worship and mystery- 
 economics, otherwise Theocracy. 
 
 With theocracy came the greatest 
 of all social revolutions; the dethron- 
 ing of brute strength and the crown- 
 ing of mental alertness — Cunning. 
 This marked an epoch in human his- 
 tory, in man's upward progress as 
 a social animal. Also it marked the 
 beginning of control of men (and their 
 products) through man's instinctive 
 
 fear of the unknown — the Rule of the 
 Cunning. 
 
 Force-Mystery-Economics. 
 
 With varying fortunes force-eco- 
 nornics and cunning-econoinics con- 
 tended for supremacy till in compara- 
 tively modern times autocracy was 
 found an effective compromise. In this 
 most practical arrangement, the (by 
 that time conventionalized) parent- 
 god received his authority from the 
 All-powerful God-of-Magic. So was 
 initiated modernized force-mystery- 
 economics. And the human race has 
 as yet found no more efficient means 
 for the control of organized society 
 than force-mystery-economics; meth- 
 ods, means, and institutions which, but 
 superficially modified since old Miracle 
 worker's day, still function in our 
 twentieth century (autocratic and 
 democratic) customs, usages, conven- 
 tions, and legalized economic systems. 
 
 Working-by-proxy-Economics, 
 In cave-man economics, the real 
 function of the club or the purpose 
 of Club-er was not to incapacitate 
 Club-ee, but to induce the latter to do 
 and supply the matters and things 
 which otherwise would require greater 
 and more constant expenditure of ef- 
 fort on the part of the economist, than 
 the semi-occasional swing of his skull- 
 cracker. 
 
 Old Skull-cracker's motives (though 
 more crudely expressed) were the 
 same as mine are, in the emplovment 
 of my cook and my gardener, that is 
 economy of effort on my part; other- 
 wise working-by-proxy. 
 
 But the club-econonTic-system was 
 essentially wasteful and inefficient; its 
 onerating expenses were outrageouslv 
 high, notwithstandinsT the low cost of 
 raw (human) material. Indeed, the 
 system was apt to defeat its own ends, 
 esoecially in those strenuous davs, 
 when zeal commonly outran discre- 
 tion. 
 
 Doers and Suppliers. 
 
 Thus mystery-coercion represents 
 an enormous economic advance over 
 raw physical force. Fear of unknown 
 but awesome consequences for failure 
 to do and supoly matters and thiners is 
 fully as effective as the club — and be- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 yond measure less wasteful of Doers 
 and Supnliers. 
 
 So it is quite natural and inevitable 
 that crude force methods and pro- 
 cesses of economic control should 
 lose favor in competition with mystery 
 economic systems. And long race ex- 
 perience has proved that a judicious 
 combination of club and mystery 
 (otherwise force and cunning) makes 
 for the highest degree of cfificiency in 
 a Working-by-Proxy economic sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Proxy-Beneficiaries, 
 
 Such economic systems, however, 
 obviously imply direct or indirect 
 slavery — ownership of the body or 
 control of the mind of the proxy. And 
 for the latter the mystery method is 
 peculiarly adapted and most satisfac- 
 tory. 
 
 For self-evident reasons, control 
 over another's mind is more effective 
 and economical than property owner- 
 ship of his body, taking into con- 
 sideration the practical responsibility 
 which the latter entails. So quite na- 
 turally, direct ownership of Proxy by 
 the economical Worker-by-proxy gives 
 place to customs, usages, and conven- 
 tions (economics), facilitating control 
 over the results of Proxy's activities. 
 
 Then, too, complex division of labor 
 and specialization render chattel slav- 
 ery impractical, indeed unworkable, in 
 a socictv highly organized for pro- 
 ductive industry. So an ideal work- 
 ing-bv-proxy economic svstem would 
 permit complete physical liberty to do 
 and to make, while arranging appro- 
 priate usagps, customs, and laws which 
 automatically transfer ownership of 
 the matters and things done and made, 
 from the doers and makers to the 
 proxy-ben eficiaries. 
 
 Economic Science? 
 
 The difference between modern and 
 primordial economics is not in idea or 
 purpose, but only in added obscurity 
 of method and in greater complexity 
 of detail. Incidentally, also, it has be- 
 come evident that "economics" is not 
 a "science" in any proper sense, but 
 a variable system of community us- 
 ages intended to facilitate the pre- 
 dominating social activities. And, 
 hence, to be workable an "economic 
 system" must be in keeping with the 
 
 activities which characterize the times. 
 In cave-man times, the boss-parent 
 and his club-men had to make cave- 
 economics. A system initiated by the 
 "fags" would have been obviously un- 
 workable. The priesthood had to 
 initiate and administer theocratic eco- 
 nomics. And so on, through the 
 various changes in social organization: 
 Those whose activities characterize 
 the times must initiate and administer 
 its economics. 
 
 Economic Experiments. 
 
 Raw force has been relegated to 
 the economic backwoods — to the 
 racially infantile tribes of darkest 
 Africa, and to the social usages of 
 our anachronistic "criminal elements," 
 the yegg, the thug, the gun-fighter, 
 the strong-arm gangs of the under- 
 world of modern organized societv. 
 
 Theocracy, with its crude cunning, 
 its childish terrors and its dazzling 
 promises of future (super-mundane) 
 rewards, has practically vanished as a 
 recognized dominant social factor — a 
 fading shadow of ancient greatness. 
 
 Autocracy, that cunning combination 
 of force and fear economics, has just 
 now been dumped into the scrap-heap 
 of out-worn social expedients, at the 
 cost of the most atrocious and blood- 
 iest of all wars, and the flower of the 
 World's Manhood. 
 
 Plutocracy, with its autocratic capi- 
 talistic economics (while weakened 
 and shaken bv the shocks and stresses 
 of the World War) is still a virile 
 contestant for the throne of World 
 Dominion. 
 
 Strength, Skill, Cunning. 
 
 Economics efficient for autocracy 
 must necessarily differ from eco- 
 nomics appropriate to theocracy; and 
 these would differ from economics 
 suitable for plutocracv; and these 
 again would differ still more from 
 economics appropriate to and efficient 
 for Industrial Democracy. In brief: 
 Force-economics, Cunning-economics, 
 and Skill-economics must necessarily 
 differ as widely as the essential dif- 
 ferences between the basic qualities. 
 Strength, Cunning, Skill. 
 
 Hence any attempt to organize or 
 "re-construct" a social aggregation 
 with these Ihree basic human traits 
 as contemporary economic bases 
 
10 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 means simply continual social warfare; 
 a war which, sooner or later, must be 
 decided by victory for the Strong, the 
 Cunning, or the Skilled — unless hum.an 
 ingenuity can devise a form of society 
 which will permit and facilitate the 
 full, unified, and socially useful expres- 
 sion of these three irrepressible forms 
 of life energy. 
 
 Mechanized Industry. 
 
 Thus we return to the three great 
 social drifts: 
 
 Centralization of Government; 
 
 Concentration of Wealth; 
 
 Unification of Mechanistic Indus- 
 tries.. 
 
 Of the first two little need be said, 
 for they are familiar racial experi- 
 ences. But the last — the mechanizing 
 of life — is quite otherwise; hence it is, 
 if for no other reason, the most sig- 
 nificant factor to be taken into account 
 in the social problems with which we 
 are now confronted — our problem of 
 economic reconstruction. 
 
 And, truly, our modern mechaniza- 
 tion of human life is a most dubious 
 social experiment — a danger-fraught 
 development — a dynamitic racial ad- 
 venture. 
 
 Modern Science. 
 
 Back of the tnechanizing of human 
 functioning is that greatest of all mod- 
 ern inarvels — experimental science. 
 
 Science has brought about a pro- 
 found revolution in our mental atti- 
 tude toward life, and in our methods 
 of dealing with nature. It has swept 
 into the discard practically all our pre- 
 vious notions regarding ourselves and 
 our relations to the laws of nature — 
 to Universal Reality. It has, at the 
 same time, debased man's pride in the 
 
 dust of humilit}', and glorified intelli- 
 gence and human worth to God-like 
 heights. 
 
 Science is, of course, the effective 
 cause of our present mechanistic de- 
 velopment — with all its physical bene- 
 fits and all its spiritual horrors; for 
 science knows neither morals nor eth- 
 ics, and is equally potent for social 
 "bad" as for social "good." 
 
 Science works just as effectively in 
 criminal hands as in thos,^ of a saint. 
 It is an impersonal, ethically neutral 
 force and factor so potent that — even 
 in the chaotic condition in which it 
 now exists — it has brought about a 
 world revolution in man's mental out- 
 look and his physical activities, both 
 individually and collectively. Indeed 
 it has shown to man a new Heaven, 
 a new Earth, and a new Hell. 
 
 Our social Heaven w^e have yet to 
 construct, but the World War is suf- 
 ficientlv impressive proof of w'hat 
 social Hell can be wrought by Science 
 in the hands of self-interest. 
 
 Past and Present. 
 
 As the result of modern science, 
 the present time is w'ithout precedent, 
 hence no valid analogy exists or can 
 be imagined between an economic 
 system appropriate to our science- 
 taught mechanistic age and earlier 
 econoinic systems suitable to condi- 
 tions of life, the warp, woof, and pat- 
 tern of which were Mj^stery, Magic, 
 Chance. 
 
 That no helpful comparison can be 
 made between the past and the pres- 
 ent would be completely true, were 
 it not that our science teachings affect 
 but the thinnest superficial layer of 
 our conscious thinking, while the 
 
 There is a serenity, a long view on the part of science, which seems 
 to be of no age, but to carry human thought along from generation to 
 generation, freed from the elements of passion. Every just mind must 
 condemn those who so debase the studies of men in science as to 
 use them against humanity and, therefore, it is part of your task and of 
 ours to reclaim science from this disgrace, to show that she is devoted to 
 the advancement and interest in humanity and not to its embarrass- 
 ment and destruction. The spirit of science is a spirit of seeking after 
 truth so far as the truth is ready to be applied to human circum- 
 stances. 
 
 From President Wilson's address before the Academy of Lincci in 
 Rome. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 11 
 
 fabric of our thought processes, our 
 familiar customs, our current usages, 
 our economic institutions remain prac- 
 tically unchanged — our racial heritage. 
 But, even so, the unceasing con- 
 flict of past and present, of slavery 
 and freedom, of bondage and liberty, 
 of error and truth, goes ever on and 
 on — a blood soaked path; a path of 
 misery, strife and disappointment, 
 though hopefully ever upward toward 
 our ideal — Industrial Democracy with 
 personal freedom for Self-realization. 
 
 Mental Inertia. 
 
 Without a concurrent change of 
 economic institutions appropriate to 
 the amazingly rapid psychical devel- 
 opment and refinement of our modern 
 ideals— brought about by the advent 
 of science — the realization of these 
 ideals will be impossible. And sorrow- 
 fullj' we recognize that man's instinc- 
 tive resistance to change of old estab- 
 lished modes of thought — howsoever 
 irrational — makes progress in this di- 
 rection seem almost hopeless. 
 
 Familiar Fallacies. 
 
 Most reluctantly are familiar fal- 
 lacies relinquished, indeed, we hang 
 on to them with irrational tenacity 
 ages after their unworkable character 
 has time and again been tragically 
 demonstrated. 
 
 As in our bodily functions and skele- 
 tal frame there still persist the char- 
 acteristics of our Saurian primordial 
 ancestry, so ancient modes of thought 
 live unnoted in our present day think- 
 ing processes; and our social institu- 
 tions represent the seemingly out- 
 grown superstitions constituting 
 man's mental heredity during every 
 past age since the infancy of the 
 human race. 
 
 "Gott mit uns." 
 
 Medievalism characterizes our sa- 
 cred and secular institutions and 
 energizes our customary • actions. 
 Demonology is practically as prev- 
 alent as in the past; unnoted in 
 ourselves but easily perceived in the 
 "Gott mit uns" attitude of the 
 Kaiser. 
 
 We pray for health, heedless of 
 nature's laws; we pray for long life 
 while disregarding the simple rules 
 of right living; we beseech forgive- 
 
 ness of "sin" while making sin 
 profitable by deliberate legal enact- 
 ment. In a world filled to over- 
 flowing with all good and humanly 
 desirable things to be had for the 
 striving, we econoinically steal from 
 our industrious neighbors; like 
 paupers we beg "God" for vicari- 
 ously earned joys, for unearned 
 prosperity, and for all other forms of 
 undeserved "good fortune;" and like 
 pert children we urge silly advice 
 on our man-made Providence, for 
 the conduct of common human af- 
 faiis, which we are too lazy, too 
 stupid, too self-indulgent to bring to 
 desired outcome by our own effort. 
 
 The God of Chance. 
 
 Important departments of life and 
 the distribution of the products of 
 industry — trade, speculation, oppor- 
 tunity, recreation — involve large ele- 
 ments of "luck," for by grotesquely 
 solemn "laws" the issues are left 
 to the "God of Chance." Just pre- 
 cisely as in the old days when mo- 
 mentous matters were settled by the 
 entrails of sacrificial animals. 
 
 The killing of President McKinlej 
 by a madman "caused" the depre- 
 ciation in the value of stocks to the 
 extent of thousands of millions of 
 dollars; the San Francisco calamity 
 — which rendered half a million hu- 
 man beings homeless — "made" for- 
 tunes for the owners of and specu- 
 lators in suburban property; the 
 Titanic disaster threw a hundred 
 millions of wealth (others' products', 
 into the hands of a school-boy, and 
 with it control over the lives ol 
 thousands of human beings; and eveB 
 the supreme tragedy of a World 
 at War is the prolific "cause" of 
 transforming hundreds of mediocre 
 men into multi-millionaires — and 
 hence into powerful social factors. 
 
 Diabolism. 
 
 All this represents kindergarten 
 thinking, primitive and childish _ as 
 nursery prattle of prixies and fairies, 
 Aladin's lamp, and all the other 
 forms of Old World superstition and 
 diabolism, worthy only of the in- 
 fancy of the race. 
 
 Were it not that these grotes- 
 queries characterize our "economic 
 
12 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 and finance system" and our solemn 
 Professors soberly teach them, they 
 would be utterly incredible in this 
 Age of Science and Mechanics. 
 
 But, as already indicated, our "eco- 
 nomics and finance" are merely sur- 
 vivals from pre-science times; an in- 
 heritance from the days of wizardry 
 and witchcraft, mystery and magic. 
 
 Our quaint "economics" and queer 
 "finance" are as anachronistic, as 
 inconsistent, and as ineffective in this 
 Mechanical Age of Industrialism, as 
 astrology would be in an astrono- 
 mical observatory, alchemy in a 
 chemical laboratory or "perpetual mo- 
 tion" in a machine shop. 
 
 Scientific Foresight. 
 
 Imagination based on science en- 
 ables us to foresee the oak in the 
 acorn — coming events latent in pres- 
 ent happenings. But so strong is 
 custom, so firm is the grip of the 
 past, so compelling is the obses- 
 sion of ancient superstitions, that — 
 with all our lately acquired capa- 
 bility for rational scientific thinking 
 — only the tragedy of the accom- 
 plished fact has sufficient power to 
 jolt our sluggard wits into momen- 
 tary activity. 
 
 Ten, fifteen, yes, twenty-five years 
 ago, it required no more intelligence 
 to foresee the present war than to 
 anticipate a crop in the Fall from 
 seed sown in the Spring. 
 
 Even less scientific imagination is 
 now needed to foretell a condition 
 of social disintegration, one more wide- 
 spread and disastrous than the War, 
 as the logical and inevitable outcome 
 of our irrational and antiquated so- 
 cial conventions — our "economic and 
 financial system." 
 
 Taking Instinct. 
 
 If taking — by force or diverting by 
 cunning, in whole or in part — the 
 product of another's effort, without 
 adequate equitable return, be accept- 
 ed as a valid social principle of 
 action between individuals, it must 
 be equally good and proper as be- 
 tween social groups, as between na- 
 tions. 
 
 But however disguised in smooth 
 sounding phrases — the "chances of 
 business," the "profits of trade," 
 the "opportunity of others' misfor- 
 
 tune," the "prize of the victor," the 
 "fortunes of war," the "right of 
 might" — taking expresses the par- 
 asitic and predatory instincts. And, 
 called by whatsoever name or how- 
 soever disguised, taking others' mak- 
 ings by force, or diverting others' 
 products by stealthy cunning, inevit- 
 ably involves unending strife; strife 
 within the group and recurring wars 
 of nations — strife to settle the rela- 
 tive strength or cunning as between 
 individuals, and wars to determine 
 the relative might of nations. 
 
 Predatory Economics. 
 
 Our "economic system" is essen- 
 tially autocratic in means, in method, 
 in objective. Being a left-over from 
 an Age of Predatory Autocracy, 
 necessarily its ideals are materialis- 
 tic — its motor instinct and urge im- 
 pulse being self-centered "greed and 
 grab." Naturally its means are force 
 and cunning and its methods are 
 ruthless, for its object is power — 
 power, irresponsible and absolute. 
 
 Our Modern Ideals. 
 
 If we are to remain true to our 
 ideals — ideals which the flame of war 
 has illumined to our normally pur- 
 blind spiritual insight — our course 
 is determined. We have no choice 
 but to choose freedom: pioneer a 
 virgin trail, slash a course unblazed 
 by history, uncharted in race experi- 
 ence — a courage testing National Ad- 
 venture. 
 
 The race has never before been 
 confronted with a situation in any 
 way analogous to the one in which 
 we now find ourselves, nor a prob- 
 lem the like of that which we are 
 now compelled to solve; yes, and 
 solve correctly, if we would avoid 
 distintegration into social chaos — 
 overwhelmed by a science-made 
 Frankenstein. 
 
 Science Is Dynamitic! 
 
 Science has, however, put into our 
 hands an instrumentality of such 
 immeasurable potency, that, used 
 with intelligent courage, we may con- 
 quer all our difficulties, surmount all 
 our social obstructions. 
 
 But, Science left to chance, or in 
 the hands of unintelligent self-interest. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 13 
 
 the chances are it will work untold 
 social calamity. 
 
 There are so many roads to ,^o 
 wrong, and only one way to go ri.^lu. 
 
 To leave a force and factor of 
 such supreme social significance and 
 potentiality as Science in its prcsi-nt 
 condition — socially uncontrolled and 
 unorganized for the commonweal — 
 is more crassly unintelligent than to 
 permit fused and capped dynamite to 
 be scattered around promiscuously, 
 to the chances of any carelessly or 
 maliciously applied spark. 
 
 (A striking and significant parallel- 
 ism to the thought here expressed 
 was subsequently voiced by Presi- 
 dent Wilson in one of his speeches 
 at the Versailles Peace Conference: 
 
 "Is it not a startling circumstance, 
 for one thing, that the quiet studies 
 of inen in laboratories, that the 
 thoughtful developments which have 
 taken place in quiet lecture rooms, 
 have now been turned to the de- 
 struction of civilization? 
 
 "The enemy whom we have just 
 overcome had at his scats of learning 
 some of the principal centers of 
 scientific study and discovery, and he 
 used them in order to make de- 
 struction sudden and complete; and 
 only the watchful, continuous co-op- 
 eration of men can see to it that 
 science as well as armed men are 
 kept within the harness of civiliza- 
 tion.") 
 
 Democracy. 
 
 In the rough. Democracy is the 
 rule of the mob, the rule of the 
 masses, the rule of the majority — the 
 rule of un-intelligence. But even so, 
 it is better than any form of govern- 
 mental control based upon self-inter- 
 'cst — not excepting "Beneficent Autoc- 
 racy." 
 
 Humanly bad and socially ineffi- 
 cient as it may be, and has been. De- 
 mocracy alone encloses and fosters 
 the living germ of freedom — self- gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 But, during the scant two years that 
 we were at war, no ordinary or ac- 
 cepted definition of Democracy could 
 make that term descriptive of the 
 United States; indeed, under the life 
 threatening stress of a World War, 
 our great but chaotic nation — in self- 
 
 preservation — ceased to be a Democ- 
 racy! 
 
 Transformation. 
 
 In that remarkable war transfor- 
 mation, we certainly did not become 
 an Autocracy; even less so a Plutoc- 
 racy; and least of all a Theocracy. In 
 fact, during this thrillingly interesting 
 time, the United States developed into 
 a form of "Government" for which 
 there is no precedent in human ex- 
 perience. 
 
 National Industrial Management 
 — Technocracy. 
 
 The characterizing peculiarity which 
 rendered our great country unique — 
 during this period of national stress — 
 and not only unique but uniquely ir- 
 resistible, was the fact that we ra- 
 tionally organized our National Indus- 
 trial Management. We became, for 
 the time being, a real Industrial Na- 
 tion. 
 
 This we did by organizing and co- 
 ordinating the Scientific Knowdedge, 
 the Technical Talent, the Practi- 
 cal wSkill and the Man Power of the 
 entire Community: focusing them in 
 the National Government, and apply- 
 ing this Unified National Force to the 
 accomplishment of a Unified National 
 Purpose. 
 
 For this unique experiment in ra- 
 tionalized Industrial Democracy I 
 have coined the term "Technocracy." 
 
 It was but an experiment — a forced 
 one — to ineet an exceptionally serious 
 emergency; and like most other ex- 
 perimental devices, it doubtless was 
 far from perfect in many ways and 
 details. Still, as it seems to me, it 
 presented an important suggestion, the 
 germ of a novel and significant idea — 
 a pioneer idea in the ancient art of 
 government. 
 
 Dog-Eat-Dog. 
 
 Until appropriate economic institu- 
 tions and instrumentalities are avail- 
 able, humanly effective Industrial De- 
 mocracy must remain' an unrealizable 
 ideal, a theory unattainable as a work- 
 a-day principle of social life, and for 
 the efficient distribution of the pro- 
 ducts of toil, upon which human life 
 rests. 
 
 The practical working out of our 
 present efforts in this direction, has so 
 
14 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 far only resulted in a frenzied scram- 
 ble for wealth, place, power — a brut- 
 ish-instinct-scramble, in which greed, 
 cunning, and lust for human mastery 
 are the urges; "dog-eat-dog" the 
 "practical" ideal; and mystery, 
 medievalism, law-loadcd-dice and 
 chuck-a-luck instrumentalities the con- 
 trolling factors. 
 
 The Greedless Scientist. 
 
 In this weird social (?) conglomera- 
 tion how incongruous seems — and, in- 
 deed, is — the greedless scientist, who 
 seeks but to learn, to comprehend, and 
 to co-ordinate the laws of nature; and 
 who cares naught for human mastery. 
 In this frenzied scramble for science- 
 created wealth what earthly chance 
 has its real creator — the scientist? 
 
 Practically none! 
 
 None, unless he sells himself into 
 virtual slavery; unless he debauches 
 his truth-seeking to the interest of 
 those who — more "practical" — devote 
 their energy and cunning to the "prac- 
 tical" enterprise of gaining power by 
 securing control of wealth. And yet, 
 the United States is characteristically 
 a nation of technologists — scientists, 
 inventors, workers in and utilizers of 
 the raw materials and the forces of 
 nature. Not only are we instinctively 
 mechanistic, but we are — by heritage, 
 by force of circumstance, and by tra- 
 dition — born lovers of personal free- 
 dom. Freedom is our ideal — seli- 
 government. 
 
 Prior to the War, our de-humaniz- 
 ing ideal was Mechanistic Efficiency, 
 under its soul-searching stress was 
 born a Humanly Effective Nation. 
 
 Our Costly Lesson. 
 
 With all these considerations before 
 us, and our fleeting glance at the pos- 
 sibilities of socially unified skill, tech- 
 nology, and science, how worse than 
 foolish to revert to our pre-War "dog- 
 eat-dog" practices and practical (?) 
 ideals. 
 
 Instead of so doing, would it not 
 be well to take to heart the lessons 
 forced upon us at so stupendous a 
 cost of life and human misery? 
 
 Would it not be wise statesmanship 
 to experiment further on the lines of 
 direction into which we were forced 
 by the compulsions and stresses of 
 War? 
 
 Reconstruction — With a National 
 Objective. 
 
 The War is over — won! 
 
 We are now facing the — in reality — 
 more stupendous problems of social 
 reconstruction. 
 
 For the War, we enlisted, conscript- 
 ed, commandeered all our men who by 
 natural aptitude, and by personal in- 
 clination, were adapted to the require- 
 ments of war. We organized and co- 
 ordinated them for the intended pur- 
 pose; we trained and exercised their 
 bodies and their minds to meet known 
 and unknown trials; we energized 
 their loyalty to the Flag — the Com- 
 monweal; we stirred their personal de- 
 votion to the Nation's ideals; we en- 
 thused their wills to the accomplish- 
 ment of the unified Will of the Nation 
 — the National Objective. 
 
 Rationalized Industrial Democracy. 
 
 No need is there to speak of the 
 result of this Unification of National 
 Spirit and National Purpose— the War 
 is over; won! — gloriously won! 
 
 As we enlisted all those peculiarly 
 adapted to the destructive functions 
 of War, let us now systematically 
 unify those peculiarly adapted to the 
 constructive functions of Peace — our 
 scientists, our technologists, our in- 
 ventors, indeed, all who by natural 
 aptitude and personal inclination are 
 specially fitted to deal with the social 
 and constructive problems of peaceful 
 industr}'; nationally unify them and 
 their accomplishments for the Com- 
 monweal. 
 
 Let us organize our scientists, 
 our technologists, our exceptionally 
 skilled; let us commandeer, conscript, 
 enlist, their loyalty, their devotion, 
 their enthusiasm, their intelligence, 
 their interest, their talents, their ac- 
 complishments for the purposes oi 
 Peace and the realization of a Noble 
 National Purpose. 
 
 Let us rationalize our Industrial De< 
 mocracy ! 
 
 Public Service First. 
 
 We are up against the problem of 
 national reconstruction; let us not 
 tinker v."Ith futile details— let us na- 
 tionally Ke-construct. 
 
 Such a national co-ordination oi 
 Science and Technology, as is here 
 suggested, would produce and consti- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 15 
 
 tute a living and Social life-giving Na- 
 tional Reservoir of Science — practical 
 and theoretical; a Technical Army de- 
 voted to Peace and Construction. 
 
 It would constitute a National Army, 
 from which alone Private Interests 
 could draw their needed scientific and 
 technical personnel; personnel whose 
 loyalty is primarily to the Common- 
 weal — the Nation; the Nation of which 
 they are honored Public Servants. 
 
 This is the exact reverse of our pres- 
 ent unpatriotic, un-democratic order 
 and organization. Yet, such an intim- 
 ate, but subsidiary, relation to public 
 service, as is suggested, would liberate 
 not hamper individual energy and free- 
 dom of private enterprise, for it would 
 permit the free expression of self- 
 interest unified in the commonweal. 
 Also it would, without conflict, fa- 
 cilitate the full and socially useful out- 
 flow of the three vigorous forms of 
 life energy — Strength, Skill, Cunning. 
 
 Industrial Apex. 
 
 From this co-ordinated Army of 
 Science, Technology, and Skill should 
 be selected (by a process of realized 
 capability and recognized social worth) 
 a representative and comprehensive 
 National Council of Scientists as Man- 
 aging Directors — our Supreme Social 
 Institution. 
 
 This National Council should be the 
 apex of the Nation's Industrial Man- 
 agement. It should constitute the 
 Leadership of our thus rationalized 
 Industrial Democrac3\ 
 
 Purpose. 
 
 But this reconstruction — revolu- 
 tionary as it doubtless will appear to 
 many — is only preparation for our 
 National Task. 
 
 It would, indeed, make of us an or- 
 ganized human aggregation — a unified 
 social machine, capable of intelligent 
 self-conscious national life; and then 
 comes the question: 
 
 For what worthy purpose have we 
 constructed this huge highly organized 
 Human Instrumentality? 
 
 This problem a Nation — no less 
 than an individual— unescapably faces, 
 the instant it has become really self- 
 determining. 
 
 It is the Nation's first, its final, its 
 only problem — the final problem of 
 human existence. 
 
 And this all-important matter, every 
 Nation (like every individual) must 
 settle for itself — settle between itself 
 and Universal Rationality: The ob- 
 ject of the Nation's being; its con- 
 scious rational purpose — its National 
 Objective. 
 
 Fernwald, Berkelej% January, 1919. 
 
 SHOULD THE DESTINY OF THE NATION 
 BE LEFT TO CHANCE? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Ways and Means 
 To Gain Industrial Democracy. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 NOTE: — In the two preceding essays Mr. Smyth forecasts a new form 
 of government that he calls "Technocracy"— National Industrial Man- 
 agement. This article discusses ways and means to develop, guide and di- 
 rect purposive industrial democracy and so usher in a new commonwealth. 
 
 The author suggests three practical thoughts for economic reconstruc- 
 tion: That permitting chance to influence our lives and conditions means 
 ignorance. That the flow of time is not reversible— the future cannot help 
 the present. That cause and effect, not whim, is the law in nature's pro- 
 cesses. — Editor. 
 
 Social Structures. 
 
 Democracy and Autocracy are the 
 antitheses of social organization and 
 express opposite underlying principles 
 of human interaction. 
 
 The structural details of any human 
 contrivance — whether Mechanical or 
 Sociological — must be in keeping with 
 its underlying idea. Change in prin- 
 ciple necessarily entails functional re- 
 organization — reconstruction. 
 
 Hence, ways and means that have 
 proved effective for autocracy, or that 
 long usage has shaped to facilitate 
 its aims and outcomes, must needs be 
 not only unworkable in, but subversive 
 of, democracy. So it will be helpful 
 in our quest to keep constantly and 
 clearly in mind the differences be- 
 tween these mutually exclusive no- 
 tions of Government. 
 
 Autocracy. 
 
 Probably the most radical difference 
 between these two forms of social 
 structures is the assumed sources from 
 which each gets its authority. 
 
 Autocracy derives its powers from 
 "God." This assumption pre-supposes 
 inherent social distinctions between 
 individuals — occult privileges con- 
 ferred upon some to control the acts 
 of others. But effectively to control 
 acts makes requisite control of 
 thoughts, for consecutive thought 
 necessarily precedes purposive action. 
 
 Thus Autocracy implies a "God- 
 given" right of censorship over other 
 men's physical and mental function- 
 ing. Hence, it also pre-supposes the 
 
 non-neutrality of Nature — cosmic- 
 favoritism; for clearly nature's "God" 
 could not look with favor upon dis- 
 obedience or lack of submission to the 
 mandates of His authorized agents. 
 
 A social organization framed upon 
 this general idea implies constructive 
 details, i. e., customs, laws, institutions 
 — economics — comprising: 
 
 1. A Supreme Control element, de- 
 riving its authority from and respon- 
 sible only to a super-mundane source. 
 
 2. Social instrumentalities to en- 
 force obedience — physically coerce hu- 
 man actions, and super-naturally con- 
 trol men's thoughts. 
 
 3. A descending series of conferred 
 authority starting with the "God-ap- 
 pointed Ruler" and ending with the 
 popular "masses" void of rights. 
 
 Thus the measure of efficiency in 
 this social system is the absoluteness 
 of control — completeness of en- 
 forced obedience in act and subservi- 
 ence in thought to the "God-inspired 
 will" of the Autocrat and his Agents. 
 Democracy. 
 
 Democracy derives its authority 
 from Man. This pre-supposes general 
 intelligence sufficient at least for self- 
 conscious Individual wants and Mass 
 purposes, with freedom for their pur- 
 suit; thus it assumes super-mundane 
 non-interference with human wants 
 and purposes, and a rational Cosmic 
 Order corresponding or co-ordinated 
 to human intelligence in suchwisc as 
 to be knowable and responsive there- 
 to. • 
 
 A social system based upon this gen- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 17 
 
 eral idea implies constructive details 
 in consonance with: 
 
 1. The neutrality of nature. 
 
 2. Inherent individual rights flowing 
 from the facts of rational human ex- 
 istence. 
 
 3. Equalit}- of individual rights. 
 Thus the measure of efficiency in a 
 
 Democracy is to be gaged by the com- 
 pleteness of individual freedom of 
 thought and liberty of action in rela- 
 tion to each other and of access to 
 nature's stores, resources and forces — - 
 freedom and liberty being based upon 
 rationality as determined by work- 
 ability in the production of general 
 human happiness, prosperity and op- 
 portunity for self-development. 
 
 Autocracy is based upon the idea 
 of the essential manship (i. e. man- 
 likeness) of "God" and the inher- 
 ent unrighteousness — irrationality — of 
 Man. 
 
 Democracy is based upon the idea 
 of the essential God-ship (i. e. God- 
 likeness) of Man and the inherent 
 righteousness — rationality — of the Uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Thus we get a clear concept of our 
 chosen social Ideal, and from it indi- 
 cations as to the character of means 
 appropriate to or discordant therewith. 
 In other words we have on broad lines, 
 bases for rational economic conven- 
 tions, adapted to make effective a so- 
 cial system on the basic principles of 
 Democracy. 
 
 Limitations. 
 
 Neitlicr by mutual agreement, nor 
 by legal enactment, nor constitutional 
 provision, nor even as a concession 
 to ancient custom and universal con- 
 sent may we make two units and two 
 units constitute five units — being con- 
 trary to the facts of nature. For pre- 
 cisely the same reasons we cannot (by 
 any or all of these social expedients) 
 successfully adopt or retain economic 
 devices at variance with the essential 
 principles of Democracy. 
 
 Industrial Democracy — Purpose. 
 
 Autocracy and Democracy arc both 
 merely forms of human organization, 
 group contrivances — social machines — 
 built on different basic ideas or prin- 
 ciples; machines to accomplish some- 
 thing. 
 
 A Nation (no less than an individ- 
 ual) that would build (or "recon- 
 struct") without first clearly deter- 
 mining the purpose of the proposed 
 structure, would be indulging in 
 a foolish and futile waste of en- 
 ergy. But what our national purpose 
 is, is quite apart from the present in- 
 quiry. And, indeed, it is not the prov- 
 ince of an individual, but of consensus 
 to determine the ultimate National Ob- 
 jective. 
 
 Industrial Democracy. 
 
 The people of the United States 
 have, however, agreed and decided 
 upon the idea of the National Or- 
 ganization and its proximate charac- 
 ter — Industrial Democracy. Or 
 perhaps this outcome represents the 
 resultant of choice and circumstance. 
 Be that as it may, we are now con- 
 sciously launched on a career of 
 mechanistic Industrial Democracy; 
 and the aim of the present inquiry 
 is to investigate the functional con- 
 sistency (appropriateness) of the 
 working parts to the accepted prin- 
 ciple of the National Social Machine. 
 
 Neutral Nature. 
 
 The greatest and most consequence- 
 breeding thought that has ever found 
 lodgement in the human mind is the 
 idea that: Nature is neutral toward 
 Man and in regard to all Human con- 
 cerns. 
 
 The greatest and most conse- 
 quential human discovery is: The 
 Orderliness — rationality — of Nature. 
 
 These two concepts are the mar- 
 velously fruitful germs from which 
 all modern Science has developed. 
 And, as exact science — based upon 
 experimental proof — owes its con- 
 tinued development to machines of 
 precision; it may with ultimate sig- 
 nificance be said that our idea and 
 Ideal of Human Liberty, self-govern- 
 ment, as we today conceive it, is 
 one of the many wonderful products 
 of the machine shop — our Mechan- 
 istic Industrialism. 
 
 Motor Impulse of Autocracy. 
 
 Man's soul is free, hence Rational 
 Liberty is his social motor impulse. 
 
 Clearly, with an anthropomorphic 
 "God" interested in human wants, 
 wishes, purposes, and projects, and 
 
18 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 with unlimited power and inclination 
 to meddle in human concerns, to 
 help or hinder, to make or mar them; 
 human "freedom of thought" would 
 be futile, and human "liberty of ac- 
 tion" a farce. 
 
 We have seen that the motor im- 
 pulse of Autocracy is super-mundane 
 in origin; its initiative is super- 
 human; its ineans are mysterious 
 occult powers derived from "above"; 
 that privilege maintained by ruthless 
 force and cunning is an essential 
 element; and power absolute and 
 humanly irresponsible is its objec- 
 tive. 
 
 These factors therefore present 
 some criteria wherewith to gauge 
 the validity of present economic con- 
 ventions; also to test their appropri- 
 ateness in a Democracy, the basis of 
 which is human experience energized 
 by individual human initiative; like- 
 wise to measure their probable worth 
 in a society in which the powers 
 to do, and the opportunity to be, 
 are derived from the consensus of 
 free and equal human wills; wills 
 subject to none, but co-operating to 
 facilitate individual and mutual pur- 
 poses — purposes socially unified in 
 the purposive National Will. 
 
 Nature Non-Ethical. 
 
 In the light of Modern Science, 
 human experience shows that Na- 
 ture's dealings with Man carry no 
 more moral or ethical significance 
 than in the problems of Practical 
 Mechanics. Scientifically enlightened 
 experience teaches that Humanity 
 alone is ethical or takes account 
 of motives: 
 
 Impartially the sun warms and 
 scorches, blesses or blasts; brings 
 famine and plenty, life and death. 
 The sea, the wind, earthquake and 
 torrent, and all the forces of Nature 
 build and destroy, with utter disre- 
 gard to Man or his handiworks, his 
 hopes or his faiths, his motives or 
 his morals. The wondrous mechan- 
 ism of Creative Evolution performs its 
 myriad functions no less oblivious to 
 Man's existence than are the ponder- 
 ous machines of Man's own devising. 
 Nature, like them, fosters or over- 
 whelms with heedless indifference; 
 ruthless, pitiless, appalling to ignor- 
 ance, error, and fear; but helpful, in- 
 
 dulgent, obedient to knowledge, 
 intelligence and courage; neither 
 kind nor cruel, nor good, nor bad — 
 impersonal. 
 
 Failure. 
 
 In the past, with childlike faith we 
 have relied for support and guidance 
 in human afifairs upon the assumed 
 beneficence of occult Powers. Upon 
 this basis, Autocracy is the only con- 
 ceivable form of social organization. 
 
 Yet, the autocratic idea and Ideal 
 has proven, (in the opinion of many), 
 to be a disastrous failure under mod- 
 ern conditions; and we in the United 
 States have decided to try its 
 antithesis — Democracy. 
 
 But while discarding the old for 
 the new Ideal, we have, most illog- 
 ically, retained — substantially un- 
 changed — the eflfective conventions, 
 the ways and nieans, of the old 
 order. 
 
 And now, with modern Science and 
 Mechanics — hindered and hampered 
 at all points by our futile and in- 
 appropriate "Economic System" — we 
 are fighting for National life and 
 Democracy against efiiciently or- 
 ganized Autocracy. Not alone the 
 Autocracy of organized military force 
 but also the Autocracy of systein- 
 atized and unified financial Cunning. 
 
 Thus the urgent need for scientific 
 reconstruction of our whole social 
 system is multiplied manyfold, if we 
 are to rectify our past sins against 
 reason and retrieve our pitiful social 
 failure. 
 
 Modern Dependence on Machinery. 
 
 The life of the ordinary modern 
 man differs from that of all previous 
 times in his peculiar dependence upon 
 complicated machinery — machinery 
 over which he exercises no personal 
 control. The manifold activities 
 which in past times depended upon 
 individual muscular effort are now 
 performed by prime movers and 
 power driven machines, so that the 
 individual man's work and effort is 
 unmeaning and useless apart from 
 these instrumentalities of life and 
 production. 
 
 Thus the United States is one huge 
 mechanistic industrial workshop.. 
 
 The organization of these com- 
 plex, specialized, power-driven mech- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 19 
 
 anisms and the sources of power and 
 of the raw materials with and upon 
 which they operate, together with 
 the distribution of the output, are 
 the functions of Scientific and Tech- 
 nical Industrial Management. 
 
 There should be, it would seem, 
 no room or occasion in such an ar- 
 rangement, for chance, mystery or 
 magic. 
 
 Old Customs. 
 
 That the average individual prefers 
 old customs to new, helps to account 
 for much that is strange in present 
 conditions; but it fails to explain 
 completely how it happens that 
 occultism has been wholly banished 
 from the I^Iachine Shop — the Social 
 Producing F_,lement — and remains so 
 conspicuously interwoven in out 
 "Economics" — the Social Distributive 
 Element. 
 
 It would seem that we are com- 
 pelled to assume that our deep seated 
 human instinct of self-interest is the 
 controlling factor in maintaining this 
 incongruous combination of Science 
 and Occultism. 
 
 It would seem that the cunning 
 acquisitive instinct of certain excep- 
 tionally alert minded men in the com- 
 munity — taking advantage of the 
 normal preference of the average man 
 for old ways and customs, and his 
 preoccupation in his favorite work- 
 ings and doings — is employing these 
 ancient and familiar usages to befog 
 and obscure the stealthy diversion of 
 an undue proportion of the Commun- 
 ity Product. 
 
 If this be so, it should be interest- 
 ing to glance at the ways and means, 
 the prestidigitatorial bag-o-tricks by 
 which it is accomplished. Later we 
 will scrutinize them more closely and 
 in greater detail. 
 
 Money and Credit. 
 
 The bases of Mechanics in all its 
 simple and complex expressions are 
 two commonplace elements — the 
 Wedge and the Lever; the bases of 
 our Economic and Financial System 
 in all its curious " manifestations are 
 also two commonplace elements — 
 "Money" and "Credit." 
 
 Here the similarity ends. 
 
 There is not on ordinary fourteen- 
 year-old school boy in the United 
 
 States but who knows and intelli- 
 gently uses the wedge and lever; and 
 there does not exist a Mechanical 
 Expert who could reasonably ques- 
 tion the practical accuracy of the 
 boy's knowledge regarding these 
 elements of mechanics. 
 
 Under our present economic us- 
 ages, customs and laws, each one of 
 us — man, woman and child — is com- 
 pelled, willy-nilly, to use daily and 
 hourly some form of "money" and 
 "credit"; and there is not in the world 
 a man who understands either of 
 these economic elements, as the 
 boy knows the wedge and lever. 
 Nor is there an Economic Specialist 
 or Financial Expert whose attempted 
 explanation of either "money" or 
 "credit" (or the functions of either) 
 whose supposed elucidation would 
 not be ridiculed and controverted by 
 a multitude of Economic and Mone- 
 tary Experts of equal or greater au- 
 thority. 
 
 The average man of affairs — Law- 
 3'er, Doctor, Editor, Tradesman, Mer- 
 chant or Mechanic — freely admits his 
 incapacity to understand the "mys- 
 teries of finance," and frankly says: 
 "I don't know a damn thing about 
 it." Even Bankers and Brokers, 
 Financiers and Economists, whose 
 business it is to deal in and mani- 
 pulate these most remarkable com- 
 modities, will quite frequently make 
 the same honest confession of ignor- 
 ance. Indeed, the subject is common 
 stock in the jokesmith's workshop. 
 
 Mystery, Magic — Failure. 
 In no other department of human 
 interest is so much mystery, confu- 
 sion and controversy regarding the 
 basic "facts" and assumptions, except 
 possibly institutional religion — which, 
 avowedly, rests upon the miraculous 
 and supernatural. Indeed, the paral- 
 lelism between these two ancient ac- 
 tivities is curiously complete. Both 
 transcend human experience, and 
 neither submits to the tests of Sci- 
 ence — weighing, measuring, cause- 
 and-effect experimental proof. 
 
 "Credit." 
 
 Like our religious forms, our Eco- 
 nomic System is hoary with age — a 
 survival from ancient Babylonian cus- 
 
20 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 toms. It rests on assumptions un- 
 sanctioned by science; its effects are 
 causeless; the miraculous supersedes 
 natural causation; mystery takes the 
 place of human reason; and endless 
 futurity is its heavenly storehouse of 
 all humanly desirable things. 
 
 A Thievish Process. 
 
 From this miraculous store the 
 "Wizard of Finance," with his wonder- 
 working wand — "Credit" — filches back 
 (for a slight present tangible con- 
 sideration and without the owners' 
 consent) the imagined products of 
 imagined future toil of unborn gen- 
 erations of workers — a doubly thievish 
 process, as black in morals as in 
 magic. 
 
 "Money" 
 
 While supposedly representing life- 
 less things (that wear out by use), 
 "money" is conventionally endowed 
 (by financial magic) with everlasting 
 life, and also with life's unique func- 
 tion — reproduction. So "Money 
 makes money" for ever and ever — 
 for the Magician. 
 
 Peace, super-abundance, and endless 
 idleness — "retirement from business" — 
 is "the Promised Land, flowing with 
 milk and honey" of Economic Saint- 
 hood — the earthly Heaven of "Fi- 
 nance." 
 
 But . . ! Never was work 
 
 more urgent nor idleness less com- 
 mon; never was peace more scarce nor 
 strife so universal; the labor of future 
 generations has been crazily "mort- 
 gaged" by thievish "economic" (!) 
 conventions beyond all possibility of 
 redemption (in spite of the fact that 
 science and mechanics have multiplied 
 manifold the effectiveness and produc- 
 tiveness of present labor); and Man's 
 present vocation is social suicide — the 
 destruction of wealth and the slaugh- 
 ter of his fellow men! 
 
 A stupendous and tragic record of 
 "Economic" folly and failure!. 
 
 The Mechanic's Philosophy — Success. 
 
 The "God" of our nursery tradi- 
 tion has been banished from the Ma- 
 chine Shop and the world of Me- 
 chanics. The result of this courage- 
 ous spiritual Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence has been our "Conquest of Na- 
 
 ture," our Age of Productive Indus- 
 
 Seemingly a like rending of thought 
 shackles, a similar breaking of mental 
 prison bars, is needed in the realm of 
 Economics. 
 
 When scientific imagination and 
 knowledge of Nature's Laws are sub- 
 stituted in our economics for chance, 
 mystery, and magic; when the regu- 
 lation of our Nation-wide industry is 
 taken out of the hands of quib- 
 b 1 i n g "lawyers", and nature's 
 forces, resources, and the mechanical 
 instrumentalities for their transforma- 
 tion into human necessaries and de- 
 sirables are no longer the play-things 
 of money-juggling gamblers, and the 
 products of Nature and Mechanic Arts 
 no longer glut the instinctive craving 
 of Acquisitive Cunning; when this 
 economic childish irrationality is 
 sanely substituted by organized 
 Science, Technology, and specialized 
 Skill co-ordinated in National Indus- 
 trial Management, then will begin real 
 civilization, the Age of Social Sanity, 
 — Technocracy. 
 
 "Chance" Catastrophes. 
 
 The "God of Chance" or "God's 
 mysterious providence" — which per- 
 mits the killing of a President by a 
 madman; the obliteration of a great 
 city by fire; the sinking of a huge pas- 
 senger-ship in mid-ocean; and a 
 world-war — are merely misleading 
 euphemisms for human ignorance, 
 human improvidence, and childish 
 shirking of responsibility. 
 
 Social conventions — our Economic 
 and Financial system — which by 
 "money magic" make these "chance" 
 catastrophes into controlling factors 
 in the distribution of the product of 
 human effort, are simply tragic 
 monuments to ignorant superstition, 
 mental laziness, and criminal folly. 
 
 Indeed, our whole "Economic Sys- 
 tem" is so incredibly unscientific, 
 so irrational, so utterly puerile, 
 that, were it not for custom- 
 induced mental myopia, its glaring 
 absurdities would long ago have suf- 
 ficed — without a world-war — to shock 
 our moral sense and intelligence into 
 cffectivity. 
 
 "Chance" in Economics. 
 
 A machine is certain in action and 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 21 
 
 uniform in output, because scientific 
 imagination has foreseen, and con- 
 structive intelligence has provided for, 
 the elimination of the "chance" ele- 
 ment. 
 
 The forces which will devastate the 
 results of man's industry, through the 
 "natural" action of an uncontrolled 
 torrential stream, (with equal uncon- 
 cern) if scientifically directed, will 
 make the same country-side teem with 
 human happiness — but, not by 
 "chance." In like manner, the same 
 "natural" social forces which make 
 poverty, wretchedness, and vice, will 
 (with equal unconcern) produce the 
 opposite results — but never by 
 "chance." 
 
 Human institutions founded upon 
 "chance" merely express Man's brute- 
 unintclligence. That our "Economic 
 System" makes "chance" a controlling 
 factor for the distribution of wealth, 
 merely shows the persistence of ignor- 
 ance and that old habits of thought 
 are more compelling than modern in- 
 telligence. To legalize "chance" delib- 
 erately is to relinquish our Godlike 
 control over the results of Nature's 
 processes, and thus voluntarily enslave 
 ourselves to ruthless Nature, and to 
 abandon even our authority over the 
 outcomes of our own actions. Hence, 
 it would seem, that the first step to- 
 ward a new and Rational Economics is 
 a courageous declaration of our free- 
 dom from tyranny of the insensate 
 "God of Chance." 
 
 Choice. 
 
 When a Mechanic has decided upon 
 an idea or principle as the basis of a 
 proposed machine, he has exercised his 
 rational freedom of choice. Regard- 
 less of whether his choice is wise or 
 not (in this decision) he has placed 
 definite limits upon the range of sub- 
 sequent selection in regard to detail 
 instrumentalities. Indeed, he has en- 
 tered into an implied contract — as- 
 sumed a rational responsibility — to em- 
 ploy only such means in the construc- 
 tion of his machine as (in accord with 
 Universal Order) are appropriate to 
 make eflfective his proposed mechanical 
 contrivance; with failure as the pen- 
 alty for wilful or ignorant error — 
 breach of his implied contract. 
 
 History demonstrates conclusively 
 that races, nations, civilizations (equal- 
 
 ly with individuals), are subject to the 
 same rational limitations, are bound 
 by the same responsibility, and incur 
 the same penalty for wilful or ignorant 
 error in exercising their human free- 
 dom of choice. 
 
 Out Last Warning! 
 The practical difficulties of forestall- 
 ing the hazards of birth, of death, and 
 of disaster, are doubtless great, and 
 the problem of eliminating the 
 "chance" element from our economic 
 system is a man-sized job — with a slim 
 probability of complete success. But, 
 it is reasonably certain, that, if courage 
 to make the needed change is lacking, 
 or if our intelligence is insufficient 
 for the task, our social adventure in 
 Democracy will prove a tragedy. And 
 the world war is, I believe, our last 
 warning. 
 
 Laisser Faire. 
 
 Nor may we drift; laisser faire is 
 lazy fear — cowardly re-submission to 
 the dog-eat-dog jungle law, right-of 
 might principle of Nature — and of Au- 
 tocracy — from whicli our modern con- 
 science has revolted. 
 
 The Mechanic. 
 While caution bids us pause and 
 realize that Nature is ruthless in its 
 punishment of ignorance and error, 
 courage reminds us that Nature also is 
 infinitely lavish in its rewards for 
 knowledge and intelligence; and cour- 
 age points to the Practical Mechanic 
 as an exemplar and an object-lesson 
 for the Social Constructor. 
 
 Mechanic vs. Nature 
 
 The Mechanic has courageously in- 
 vaded Nature's guarded realm; has ac- 
 cepted her "no quarter" terms; and 
 has assumed complete responsibility 
 for his revolt agauist all the ancient 
 Occult Powers. 
 
 He has tacitly assumed that "God" 
 and "Nature" are supremely and pre- 
 eminently self-sufficing; that these all- 
 inclusive profundities utterly trans- 
 cend the utmost limits of his acts or 
 his art — that the "plans of God" and 
 the Mechanic's problems cannot in 
 anywise conflict. 
 
 He predicates that "God" and "Na- 
 ture" are limitlessly competent to care 
 for their own infinite concerns; hence, 
 
ll 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 that his problems involve only what 
 the Mechanic wants, and not "the 
 wants of God." In so far as concerns 
 his art (and with reverence for Uni- 
 versal Order, which makes his art pos- 
 sible) the Mechanic, in effect, says: 
 "This I will," "Thus I do." "I am 
 the Earth-god of things, of matter, 
 and of motion." 
 
 The Mechanic's Achievements 
 
 And how gloriously has the Me- 
 chanic made good! 
 
 Even the most most cursory survey 
 of his accomplishments, in manufac- 
 ture, in transportation, in communica- 
 tion, in reclamation, in power utiliza- 
 tion generally, staggers while it exalts 
 the mind. 
 
 Has he not with wheat and corn 
 from Eastern steppe and Western 
 prairie, and with fresh and wholesome 
 meat from the Antipodes, fed the hun- 
 gry workers of Europe; and brought 
 from the four corners of the Earth 
 materials for their needs, their uses, 
 and their industries? Yes! And from 
 the teeming estuaries of the North he 
 has served the "World's table with 
 dainty fish, and with wine and oil and 
 luscious fruit from the fertile valleys 
 of the Pacific Slope. 
 
 By his use of Nature's forces, he 
 has immeasurably out-rivalled imag- 
 ination's Magic Carpet, transporting 
 by his mechanisms untold millions of 
 work-weary families from cramped 
 and life-worn areas to the free spaci- 
 ousness of many wide scattered Edcns 
 of plenty, there to found Empires. 
 
 And more, he has bound these 
 broadcast settlements in bonds of mu- 
 tual help with space-negating bands of 
 steel and steam; and on the one-time 
 pathless ocean he has marked out 
 highways with light and life of swift- 
 moving commerce, till, in the utter- 
 most ends of the earth, friend greets 
 friend as though but a mile from 
 home. Seas no longer separate, nor 
 continents divide, for Man now talks 
 with Man as face to face across the 
 soundless void. 
 
 As with a broom, he has swept sul- 
 len ocean back to its deeps and bared 
 Netherland's fertile plains; and with 
 dyke, and mill, and pump he holds 
 his prize secure from angry wave and 
 wind and shifting sand. A prize in- 
 deed! — a rich and prosperous country 
 
 of towns and villages, of farms and 
 homesteads, all interlr-,ed with road 
 and rail and placid water-way; a hive 
 of human industry — a kingdom 
 snatched from ocean's grasp. 
 
 In torrid Egypt, too, he has tamed 
 the turgid Nile to flood the desert 
 sands and made thereof a nation's 
 granary. 
 
 He has moved mountains, split 
 continents, harnessed Niagaras to his 
 machines; subdued the land, triumph- 
 ed over the sea, and now seeks do- 
 minion of the air. 
 
 And, East and West and North 
 and South he has sluiced and swept 
 with giant streams the high-piled 
 gravels, and ript and smashed and 
 ground to powder, fine as from the 
 mills of the gods, mountains of 
 crystalline quartz; and dredged, and 
 plowed, and sifted the frozen Arctic 
 tundra, to tear from reluctant Earth 
 its golden treasure for counters 
 wherewith to play Man's world-wide 
 commerce game. 
 
 The Economist's Failure. 
 
 All this stupendous output of hu- 
 man experience, human reason, hu- 
 man industry — -rivalling creation itself 
 —is in startling contrast with our 
 world-wide tragedy, the outcome of 
 our world-wide economics. A con- 
 trast doubly significant; significant 
 in the entire absence of chance, of 
 mystery, of magic from the work of 
 the mechanic; and again as expres- 
 sing the practical extremes of glori- 
 ous success and of failure most tragic. 
 
 Selective Rejection. 
 
 The human mind, like the body, 
 can advance only step by step, from 
 the solid ground of the known and 
 tested to the doubtful footing of the 
 unfamiliar. Human progress is like 
 adventuring through a morass of 
 ignorance toward a far-distant goal; 
 with disaster the penalty for every 
 false step. 
 
 In the great adventure called "Hu- 
 man Progress" the "Occult" has 
 proved a will-o-the-wisp guide. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the stupend- 
 ous accomplishments which charac- 
 terize productive industry and the 
 present era as the Age of Mechanics, 
 the process which has brought it all 
 about, is the same step-by-step — 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 23 
 
 proof by experiment — scientific 
 method. We can think of the new 
 and unknown only in terms of the 
 old and familiar. 
 
 Still errors detected and fallacies 
 perceived are guides for inventive 
 synthesis — construction. 
 
 Selection is but a process of in- 
 verted rejection. So having deter- 
 mined that our ideal social structure 
 is the antithesis of the Autocratic idea, 
 we may with confidence assinne that 
 the characteristic elements of Auto- 
 cracy are inappropriate for our pur- 
 pose. Thus by a process of (selec- 
 tive) rejection we should arrive at 
 economic expedients inore in har- 
 mony with our Social Ideal. 
 
 Democracy vs. Anarchy. 
 
 Universal Order is the key-note of 
 modern Science; and upon this order- 
 liness of Nature scientific thinking 
 is based. Hence, the much abused 
 phrases "human liberty" and "hu- 
 man freedom" cannot imply anarchy 
 or chaos, i. e. dis-order. 
 
 Liberty means absence of irrational 
 restraint. 
 
 Freedom of thought can have but 
 self-imposed limitations. 
 
 Social Freedom simply means lib- 
 erty for rational individual activity 
 tending to the accomplishment of 
 Community Purpose. 
 
 National Self-determination. 
 
 When a Nation — exercising its 
 freedom of choice — discards Autoc- 
 racy" and selects Democracy as its 
 social principle it cannot sucessftilly 
 retain the working elements of the 
 discarded social organization. If it is 
 to survive, it must adopt ways and 
 means and methods of life in con- 
 sonance with its chosen principle. 
 
 Our Futile Experiment. 
 
 The United States, like a novice 
 in Mechanics, has seemingly under- 
 taken the futile experiment of build- 
 ing an Industrial Democracy out of 
 the functional elements of Preda- 
 tory Autocracy. The natural result is 
 noise, friction and heat. And worse 
 — a dangerously large proportion of 
 our energy is wastefully expended 
 in constant readjustment to keep the 
 outfit running, and to prevent its 
 pounding itself into scrap. Prac- 
 
 tically the whole of our "Economic and 
 Financial System" is a left-over from 
 the days when absolutism and privilege 
 were universally accepted ideas and 
 ideals; and when magic-causation was 
 an unquestioned "fact." Quite natur- 
 ally our economic customs, conven- 
 tions and laws are in keeping with 
 these antiquated assumptions. Sub- 
 stantially our "Economics" is a ves- 
 tige, and as with other vestiges — like 
 our vermiform appendix — it is now 
 functionally useless, and frequently 
 causes much unnecessary pain and. 
 trouble; which sooner or later may end 
 in tragedy. 
 
 Not All Bad. 
 
 While, in the foregoing, there is no 
 real cause for pessimism, there is even 
 less reason for happy-go-lucky optim- 
 isin. 
 
 Mentally reviewing this matter, 
 there appear several implications 
 which stand out clearly as definite 
 practical suggestions for economic re- 
 construction. 
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction. 
 
 First: That "chance" means ignor- 
 ance. 
 
 The elimination of even the crudely 
 obvious "chance" factors from our 
 laws, customs and economic conven- 
 tions, would do away with much rank 
 injustice in our social functioning. 
 
 Second: That the onward flow of 
 time is not reversible — the future can- 
 not help the present. 
 
 A clear appreciation and practical 
 application of this seemingly axiom- 
 atic proposition would go far to rem- 
 edy the grosser evils of capitalistic 
 economics, and strip "money" and 
 "credit" of their conventionally en- 
 dowed time-reversing magic. 
 
 In every physical human accom- 
 plishment, there are involved but 
 three factors or elements: raw Ma- 
 terial (Nature's free gift); human 
 Time; human Energy. Every product 
 (food, clothing, housing, transporta- 
 tion facilities, or what not), represents 
 a definite amount of past human time 
 and past human energy — gone beyond 
 recall. Neither by ghostly hands nor 
 by flibber-gib financial conventions can 
 future work or future product be 
 yanked back into the present, to be 
 used for present purposes, or to meet 
 
24 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 present emergencies — even if self-re- 
 spect and common honesty did not suf- 
 fice to prevent such inexcusable cam- 
 ouflaged robbery of the helpless, the 
 quintessence of "taxation without rep- 
 resentation." 
 
 Third: That cause-and-cfFect, not 
 whim, is the order of Nature's pro- 
 cesses. 
 
 Science shows us that, so far as Man 
 is concerned, Nature is infinite poten- 
 tialities; potentialities realizable in 
 terms of individual and collective pur- 
 poses. We can if we will — providing 
 our aims and objectives are in accord 
 with the Rational Order of Nature. 
 
 It is only in purposive action that 
 huinan freedom — self-determination — 
 is expressed. 
 
 An aimless man or a purposeless 
 "nation" is an equally insignificant 
 fragment of raw material in Nature's 
 Evolutionary and Devolutionary pro- 
 cesses. But, knowledge of Nature and 
 of Nature's Laws co-ordinated by Hu- 
 
 man Intelligence in rationally purpos- 
 ive actions, have all of Nature's in- 
 finite potentialities and stupendous 
 forces as tools to facilitate accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 Purposive Co-ordination. 
 
 Obviously the control of our Great 
 National Workshop — the United States 
 — should not be in the hands 
 of selfish Mr. Acquisitive Cunning — 
 "who knows the price of everything 
 and the value of nothing" — facile only 
 in getting something for nothing — and 
 whose highest social ideal is: "To buy 
 cheap and sell dear"; but — in reason, 
 in common horse sense! — our purpos- 
 ive Industrial Democracy should be 
 guided and directed by nationally or- 
 ganized and co-ordinated specialists in 
 all the branches of Skill, Technology, 
 and Science which are involved in its 
 Social Life and requisite to the suc- 
 cessful accomplishment of its Great 
 National Objective. 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, February, 1919. 
 
 IS THE ONWARD FLOW OF TIME REVERSIBLE 
 BY HUMAN CONVENTION? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 PART IV. 
 Skill Economics for Industrial Democracy. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note — ^^In the previous essays of this series the author shows that men's 
 characterizing activities express certain instincts or instinctive urges and 
 that human societies (nations) today consist of uncoordinated groups, each 
 bent upon gratifying its predominating instinctive urge — at the expense 
 of other groups and regardless of the common weal. He proposes as a 
 remedy for this social strife a plan of National Co-ordination — Technocracy. 
 
 This article discusses some of the important phases more in detail, 
 with constructive suggestions for the elimination of "chance," "mystery," 
 and "magic" from our present economic processes, the substitution of 
 intelligent purposive ways and means for haphazard methods; and for 
 self-interested autocratic control, the substitution of Scientific [Leadership 
 organized for the accomplishment of consensus National Objectives. — Editor 
 
 Our Nationwide Machine Shop. 
 
 Attempting to make a robust man 
 conform to nursery usages and 
 swaddling clothes conventions would 
 be no more absurd than our present 
 efforts to conduct Twentieth Cen- 
 tury life on the Hunter and Sheep- 
 herder customs of our racial infancy. 
 
 Indeed, it would be less preposter- 
 ous than our continued efforts (de- 
 spite tragic experience) to have law- 
 yers and gamblers run our nationwide 
 Machine Shop by methods and under 
 conventions not differing essentially 
 from ancient Babylonish laws of King 
 Hamurabi and economic customs in 
 vogue two thousand years before 
 Christ. 
 
 Childish Economics, 
 
 Human society started with Brute- 
 force Economics, suitable to Cave- 
 man — Hunter and Fighter ^ times. 
 Then humanity advanced through the 
 Pastoral — animal breeder — stage, be- 
 ing therein confronted, socially and 
 economically, with the awe-inspiring 
 marvel of phallic phenomena, the fear- 
 ful mystery of Death and the joy- 
 inciting miracle of Life — life with its 
 seemingly endless sequence of pro- 
 duction and reproduction. 
 
 The Animal Breeder stage of de- 
 velopment, indeed, seems to have left 
 an indelible impression; seems to have 
 peculiarly influenced man's mental 
 outlook and modified his thinking pro- 
 cesses so profoundly as to have 
 
 shaped even our modern business con- 
 ventions and daily practices — or at 
 least to have provided favorable 
 psychic habitat for our conventional 
 economic irrationalities. 
 
 Mysticism and Symbolism. 
 
 The mind-staggering miracle of 
 generation seems to have thrown 
 primitive human thinking back upon 
 itself in dazed befogment — bewilder- 
 ment and mistunderstanding of Na- 
 ture's laws, out of which confusion of 
 thought emerged Mysticism with its 
 magic symbolism. 
 
 This mental chaos of mystic sym- 
 bolism — the endowment of the sym- 
 bol (or "renresentative") with the 
 qualities and functions of the thing 
 symbolized — is a primordial explana- 
 tory perversion which still character- 
 izes our commonplace thinking on 
 monetary matters. The "power of 
 monev" is proverbial among us; and. 
 that "money makes money" is axio- 
 matic to the average man; also that 
 "monev makes the mare go," and that 
 it performs many other strenuously 
 animistic stunts. 
 
 Money, Mortgages and Nehemiah. 
 
 Down through the ages occasion- 
 ally we find (both in ecclesiastic and 
 lay writings) clearly reasoned repro- 
 bation of practices based upon this 
 naive misinterpretation of the facts of 
 Nature. 
 
26 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 "The words of Nehemiah, the son of 
 HacaHah" and cup bearer of Ar- 
 taxerxes, king of Persia, are as "mod- 
 ern" today as on the day they were 
 uttered — nearly five hundred years 
 before Christ. 
 
 And they are as applicable to the 
 "civilized" world today as they were 
 to the kindergarten usages and anti- 
 social practices of our civilization's 
 nursery — Mesopotamia. 
 
 "Some also there were that said, 
 We are mortgaging our fields and our 
 vineyards, and our houses: let us get 
 corn, because of the dearth. There 
 were some also that said, We have 
 borrowed money for the king's tribute 
 upon our fields and our vineyards. Yet 
 now our flesh is as the flesh of our 
 brethren, our children as their chil- 
 dren: and lo, we bring into bondage 
 our sons and our daughters to be ser- 
 vants, and some of our daughters are 
 brought into bondage already; neither 
 is it in our power to help it; for other 
 men have our fields and our vineyards. 
 
 "And I was very angry when I 
 heard their cry and these words. 
 
 "Then I consulted with myself, and 
 contended with the nobles and the 
 rulers, (or deputies) and said unto 
 them. Ye exact usury, every one of 
 his brother. And I held a great as- 
 sembly against them. 
 
 "And I said unto them. We after 
 our ability have redeemed our breth- 
 ren the Jews, which were sold unto the 
 heathen; and would ye even sell your 
 brethren? and should they be sold 
 unto us? 
 
 "Then held they their peace, and 
 found never a word. 
 
 "Also I said, The thing that ye 
 do is not good: 
 
 "And I likewise, my brethren and 
 . my servants, do lend them money 
 and corn on usury. I pray you let 
 us leave off this usury. 
 
 "Restore, I pray you, to them, even 
 this day, their fields, their vineyards, 
 their olive yards, and their houses, 
 also the hundredth part of the money, 
 and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, 
 that ye exact of them. 
 
 "Then said they. We will restore 
 them, and require nothing of them; 
 so will we do, even as thou sayest. 
 
 "Then I called the priests, and took 
 an oath of them, that they should do 
 according to this promise. 
 
 Also I shook out my lap, and said. 
 
 So God shake out every man from 
 his house, and from his labor, that 
 performcth not this promise; even 
 thus be he shaken out, and emptied. 
 
 "And all the congregation said. 
 Amen, and praised the Lord. 
 
 "And the people did according to 
 this promise." (Nehemiah Chap. 5.) 
 
 Money, Reason and Rome. 
 
 Practical minded ancient Rome, 
 from whom we have learned so 
 much of our work-a-day jurispru- 
 dence — while retaining many other 
 gross superstitions — seems to have 
 rejected this animistic pecuniary 
 absurdity, as is shown by the familiar 
 expression: Money does not procreate 
 money — "Nummus nummum non 
 parit." 
 
 Money, Sheep and Shylock. 
 
 The genius of Shakespeare realized 
 \he fatuity of this pastoral-age- 
 founded pecuniary delusion that 
 "money breeds money" (which still 
 obsesses our misbegotten finance 
 conventions), and holds it up to de- 
 served ridicule: 
 
 (The Merchant of Venice — Act 1 
 
 Scene 3.) 
 
 Shylock: 
 
 When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's 
 
 sheep — 
 
 Antonio: 
 And what of him? Did he take 
 
 interest? 
 
 Shylock: 
 No, not take interest, not, as you 
 
 would say. 
 Directly interest: mark M'hat 
 
 Jacob did. 
 When Laban and himself were 
 
 compromised 
 That all the eanlings which were 
 
 streaked and pied 
 Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, 
 
 being rank, 
 In the end of autumn turned to 
 
 the rams. 
 And, when the work of generation 
 
 was 
 Between these woolly breeders in 
 
 the act, 
 The skilful shepherd peel'd me 
 
 certain wands 
 And, in the doing of the deed of 
 
 kind. 
 He stuck them up before the fulsome 
 
 ewes, 
 Who then conceiving did in eaning 
 
 time 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 27 
 
 Fall parti-colored lambs, and those 
 
 were Jacob's. 
 This was a way to thrive, and he 
 
 was blessed: 
 And thrift is blessing, if men steal 
 
 it not. 
 
 Antonio: 
 This was a venture, sir, that Jacob 
 
 served for; 
 A thing not in his power to bring 
 
 to pass. 
 But sway'd and fashion'd by the 
 
 hand of heaven. 
 Was this inserted to make interest 
 
 good? 
 Or is your gold and silver ewes 
 
 and rams ? 
 
 Shylock: 
 I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast: 
 
 Adolescent Economics. 
 
 Magic-Mystery tinged Breeder- 
 economics and vocational experience 
 (misinterpreted) quite naturally re- 
 sulted in Theocracy and Theocratic- 
 economics; and from Theocracy the 
 course is straight, the steps easy and 
 obvious to Working-by-proxy social 
 systems — Privilege-economics — as 
 represented by Autocracy, Aris- 
 tocracy, and modern Plutocracy. 
 
 Thus the race has successively 
 adopted Strength-economics, Cun- 
 ning-economics, and Cunning-Strong- 
 economics; each system appropriate 
 to the conditions of life and stage 
 of development, in the past. 
 
 Adult Economics. 
 
 Today is the day of Doer, Work- 
 er, Maker— practical utilizer of 
 Nature by skill of hand and science- 
 taught bra-in — the Mechanic. 
 
 This is an age of applied Science — 
 the utilization of Nature's Laws and 
 forces — consequently the earlier 
 mystic, predatory, and parasitic 
 economic usages and conventions are 
 now antiquated and impracticable. 
 Hence they are beginning to revolt 
 our science-developed practical com- 
 mon sense, our sense of propriety, 
 and our modern sense of justice. 
 
 Furthermore, it is significantly in 
 accord with race experience, with 
 commonsense and with reason that: 
 
 Those whose activities characterize 
 the times, must initiate and adminis- 
 ter its economics. 
 
 So if our Mechanistic Age, our 
 Democratic Dispensation is not to 
 
 prove a futile race experiment, a 
 will-o-the-wisp ideal, we must ini- 
 tiate Skill-economics, economics of 
 our Twentieth Century mechanis- 
 tically characterized activities — eco- 
 nomics of the Scientist, of the Tech- 
 nologist, of the Mechanic, on a 
 nationwide scale, in other words: 
 National Industrial Management — 
 Technocracy. 
 
 Skill Economics. 
 
 The Mechanic's philosophy as- 
 sumes: the neutral orderliness of 
 Nature; personal freedom; and per- 
 sonal responsibility for the outcome 
 of his acts. 
 
 The Mechanic's practice is based 
 upon: personal initiative; self- reli- 
 ance; and the validity of experience. 
 
 The Mechanic's success results 
 from: knowledge of Nature's laws; 
 experimental proof; and the elim- 
 ination of "chance." 
 
 It is reasonable, therefore, to 
 assume that upon these fundamentals 
 also must be framed our new work- 
 a-day Skill-economics, in order to be 
 workable in our work-a-day Mechan- 
 istic Age. 
 
 As applied to our present obso- 
 lescent economics these principles 
 imply: 
 
 Elimination of Magic (as a tacitly 
 assumed factor) in the means and 
 methods of production. 
 
 Elimination of Mystery from our 
 means and methods of exchanging 
 human efforts and resulting products. 
 
 Elimination of Chance from in- 
 dustrial organization and distribution. 
 
 Twixt Devil and Deep Sea. 
 
 Stated as generalities, few will 
 question the desirability of such 
 changes; for it will readily be con- 
 ceded that "chance," "mystery," and 
 "magic" are merely expressions of 
 ignorance clothed in old and familiar 
 superstitions. But, when one comes 
 truly to realize — not just verbally 
 admit — how completely magic, mys- 
 tery, and chance are woven into the 
 fabric of our modern life and 
 thought processes, then the true sig- 
 nificance of the propositions strikes 
 the mind with a sense of shock. 
 
 We are, indeed, between the devil 
 and the deep sea! 
 
 Radically change we must, or our 
 
28 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 "Civilization" will go the way of 
 previous abortive social experiments 
 — Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, 
 Rome, Spain, and . . . Europe. 
 
 But, characteristically, the huge 
 majority of us would rather be 
 socially damned in the good old- 
 fashioned way, than accept social 
 salvation through radical change. 
 Yet, if human experience proves any- 
 thing, it demonstrates conclusively 
 that irrationality cannot persist in 
 the rational Order of Nature. 
 
 Chuck-a-Luck Economics. 
 
 Thus it will, perchance, be help- 
 ful to indicate some implications of 
 the suggested eliminations, by more 
 specific applications to present social, 
 economic and financial customs, 
 usages, and conventions. 
 
 Birth, Marriage, Death, are the 
 time-worn dice in our chuck-a-luck 
 economics. 
 
 Birth, in surroundings of wealth 
 or poverty — on Fifth Avenue or in 
 the Bowery — decides whether a child 
 shall be a Master or a Servant, an 
 owner or a slave, a nationally con- 
 trolling factor or one of a million 
 mere "cogs," regardless of inherent 
 fitness to the "chance" ordained 
 position, or to further the aims of 
 the community. 
 
 Marriage, under our quaint eco- 
 nomic conventions, decides into 
 whose hands shall be entrusted 
 power represented by vast accumula- 
 tions of wealth, regardless of the 
 chances that the easily acquired 
 wealth may be frivolously squan- 
 dered or used adversely to national 
 purposes. 
 
 Death, with sardonic irrelevance, 
 plays skittles with the lives of the 
 living; for our weirdly jocund "laws 
 of . devise" empower dead hands 
 from the grave to control thousands 
 of living men's activities. 
 
 Makers and Takers. 
 Under our "cconoinic and finance 
 system" to be born into our Mechan- 
 istic Age with mechanical and con- 
 structive traits — dextrous hands, inge- 
 nious brain, and irresistible instinctive 
 urge to do, to work, to make the 
 things which constitute our "wealth" — 
 is to be fore-doomed by "chance" to 
 lifelong obscurity, social impotence, 
 and relative poverty; while to be- born 
 
 with instinctive acquisitive cunning 
 and insatiable greed, is to be elected 
 by "chance" to social distinction, 
 wealth and power. 
 
 Indeed, it would seem, that of all 
 the facts, circumstances, and incidents, 
 constituting present conditions of hu- 
 man life, "blind chance" has irration- 
 ally been selected as the controlling 
 factor in that antiquated collection of 
 queer customs, quaint conventions and 
 grotesque superstitions, that, with 
 childish fatuity, we call our "Science 
 of Economics and Finance." 
 
 Magic — Ancient and Modern. 
 
 To gage the folly of earlier ages 
 by our own advance is an easy and 
 vanity satisfying diversion; to correct- 
 ly measure the ignorance and super- 
 stition of our own times is a hopeless 
 task. 
 
 Thus we look back with smiling con- 
 tempt upon Devil-raising, Soul- 
 selling, Fountain-of-youth, Witch's- 
 broomstiok, and other wondrous para- 
 phernalia of "Black Art." And yet, no 
 essential difference exists between the 
 old witchcraft, by which a "magic po- 
 tion" added years to human life, and 
 modern "financial" black art which 
 gives everlasting life to inanimate 
 "capital" and endows lifeless "money" 
 with life's unique function — reproduc- 
 tion — so that "money makes money" 
 for ever and ever. Indeed, of the two 
 the modern magic causation is the 
 more crudely illogical and unscientific; 
 for while the ancient black art only 
 purported to prolong life already ex- 
 isting, modern financial magic pre- 
 tends to perform the still greater 
 miracle of infusing life into inanimate 
 objects! 
 
 Do I seem to exaggerate? 
 
 Then read what Economic High 
 Priest Boehm-Bawerk says in his 
 "Capital and Interest — A Critical His- 
 tor^r of Economic Theory"; says seri- 
 ously, supremely unconscious that he 
 is describing a crazily impossible mir- 
 acle — a miracle, however, in which 
 there is a substantially universal con- 
 sensus of ignorant belief. 
 
 "And finally it (interest) flows to 
 the capitalist without ever exhausting 
 the capital from which it comes, and 
 therefore without any necessary limit 
 to its continuance. It is, if one may 
 use such an expression about mundane 
 things, capable of an everlasting life. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 29 
 
 Thus it is that the phenomenon of in- 
 terest as a whole presents the remark- 
 able picture of a lifeless thing produc- 
 ing- an everlasting and inexhaustible 
 supply of goods." 
 
 Was ever gross superstitious ignor- 
 ance or "black art" more crassly 
 at variance with facts and Nature's 
 Laws or the Sciences of Physics and 
 Mechanics, than this self-filling "magic 
 purse" of financial wizardry? 
 
 Time Turned Tailward! 
 
 If there is one fact in human ex- 
 perience, the validity of which is be- 
 yond question, it is that the onward 
 flow of Time is non-reversible, the fu- 
 ture cannot help the present. 
 
 We can change the direction of mo- 
 tion in physical things — back up a 
 horse, a train, or a boat, or even in 
 some instances reverse the flow of a 
 river; but to turn back the inexorable 
 forward march of Time is unthinkable. 
 
 To suggest shooting the Germans 
 with future bullets and feeding our 
 soldier boys with future food — substi- 
 tuting "future savings" (!) of future 
 generations tor present savings and 
 present work, seems — to a Mechanic — 
 like the insane imaginings of a magic- 
 crazed brain. 
 
 Yet, these arc tlic stupendous mir- 
 acles which the "magic of finance" se- 
 riously purports to accomplish — for a 
 small present consideration. 
 
 Do I seem to exaggerate? 
 
 Then read the serious proposal of 
 Financial Wizard Frank A. Vander- 
 lip, President of the National City 
 Bank of New York. 
 
 "This war must be financed, not out 
 of past savings, but out of future sav- 
 ings. Future savings are for the mo- 
 ment not available and some other 
 device must therefore be brought into 
 play. That device is bank credit, and 
 this loan and subsequent loans will in 
 the main be floated through an expan- 
 sion of credit." 
 
 Truly human credulity is limitless — 
 or the day of witchcraft and miracles 
 is not past! 
 
 Futilities of Magic. 
 
 Never in one solitary instance, in all 
 
 the hundreds of years and millions of 
 
 sacrificial victims, did entrails of 
 
 slaughtered animals foretell a future 
 
 happening; never did any of the armies 
 of Devils and "familiar spirits," in- 
 voked by magic incantations, effect 
 any earthly result which would not 
 otherwise have occurred; never was 
 solitary grain of gold transmuted from 
 base metal by the magic of the 
 myriads of guaranteed "Philosopher's 
 Stones"; never did any of these mir- 
 acles happen — except in the distorted 
 imaginings of the simple ones who 
 paid the Magicians for their futilities. 
 And the poor boobs who "paid the 
 piper" didn't know any more about 
 magic then, than the average man of 
 today who frankly asserts: "I don't 
 know a damned thing about Econom- 
 ics a,nd Finance." 
 
 "Future Savings"! 
 Recalling practical warlike Rome, 
 fighting her world-conquering battles 
 or refraining from attack on the au- 
 gury of fowl's entrails; remembering 
 philosophical Greece conducting her 
 civil, military, and economic aft'airs up- 
 on the assumed guidance of similar 
 irrationalities; not forgetting that in 
 comparatively recent times, by "sell- 
 ing indulgences," — dealing in "future 
 savings," "treasures in heaven," i. e., 
 '"floating (super-mundane) credit" — 
 and by commerce in other optimistic 
 and supposititious commodities, "the 
 Church" acquired legal ownership to 
 over half of the land and wealth of 
 England; not overlooking the fact that 
 by similar supposititious means mod- 
 ernized, the Mormon Church of the 
 Latter Day Saints has become one of 
 the wealthiest and socially most pow- 
 erful capitalistic corporations in our 
 midst today; calmly and dispassionate- 
 ly turning these facts over in the 
 mind, causes one to pause and reflect. 
 Indeed, mentally reviewing this ages 
 long and unquestionable historical ev- 
 idence, one — embucd with modern 
 scientific notions — begins to wonder. 
 
 Questions and Doubts. 
 
 One wonders how "dollars" or 
 "debts" can be magically endowed 
 with life? 
 
 How magically endowed with "ever- 
 lasting life?" 
 
 How magically endowed with the 
 capability of unending reproduction? 
 — "a lifeless thing producing an ever- 
 lasting and inexhaustible supply of 
 goods." 
 
30 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 And thus wondering, one questions 
 and doubts. . . . 
 
 Can it be that the "miracles of fi- 
 nance" and the "magic of credit" are 
 of a piece with the ancient miracles and 
 magic? — only, (in keeping with the 
 h. c. 1.) gone up in cost to the simple 
 ones who pay for the "miraculous" 
 performances. 
 
 But what a cost! 
 
 Distribution. 
 
 Science and Mechanics have multi- 
 plied manifold the productive effect of 
 human effort during the past century, 
 .so that the resulting products and in- 
 strumentalities of production have in- 
 creased in like ratio. 
 
 So the question naturally arises as 
 to what disposition has been made 
 of this great aggregation of National 
 Commissariat Stores in the United 
 States under our alleged "economic" 
 system? 
 
 How have the "Financiers" — our 
 book-keepers — kept tab on the "debits 
 and credits"? 
 
 How have they (numerically less 
 than one per cent) distributed this 
 product of the combined work of the 
 twenty million families that, in round 
 numbers, constitute (the other ninety- 
 nine per cent of )the population? 
 
 The Balance Sheet. 
 
 In round numbers the books show: 
 $250,000,000.000— "wealth" ; 
 
 $70,000,000,000— gross "profits"; di- 
 vided: — 
 
 $50,000,000,000— "income" to the 
 book-keepers; 
 
 $.?0.000,000,000— "wage" to the fam- 
 ilies; 
 
 $1,000 — average family "wage." 
 Thus the balance sheet shows that 
 the self-selected and sociallj'' irrespon- 
 sible score-keepers — the "Financiers" 
 — have apportioned the gross yearly 
 "profits" of the United States National 
 Industrial Enterprise in the ratio of 
 five-sevenths to themselves and two- 
 sevenths to the 20 million families. 
 
 "Business" and Instincts. 
 
 In the jargon of "Business," "the 
 Financiers" "charge" fifty billion dol- 
 lars _($_5O,0O0,000,0l30) yearly for "fi- 
 nanciering" the United States. 
 
 That is to say: "The Interests" as- 
 sess the People of the United States 
 
 fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000) 
 "interest" tribute yearly, in perpetuity, 
 for permitting the people the privilege 
 of practicing national honesty — and 
 for the magic of (mysteriously con- 
 ventionalized) "Credit." 
 
 In other words: "The Capitalists" 
 tax the People of the United States 
 fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000) 
 yearly for permitting the People the 
 privilege of utilizing the Nation's hu- 
 man and other natural resources — and 
 for (the miracles of) "Capitalization." 
 
 In simple terms of human instincts: 
 The Instinctive Takers take the In- 
 stinctive Makers' makings for permitt- 
 ing the Makers to make the Nation's 
 natural raw materials into desirable 
 commodities. 
 
 Feeding and Breeding. 
 
 The families must, of course, be 
 fed and clotlied and housed, and the 
 children schooled, — or the supply of 
 Makers would soon peter out. 
 
 For these unavoidable necessities 
 the "Financiers" allow, on an average, 
 a thousand dollars a year per family; 
 a "bare living wage" in exchange for 
 a whole year of the brief work-life 
 (of twenty odd years), for life-energy 
 irrecoverably used up in making the 
 wealth; wealth out of which bare sus- 
 tenance is all that goes to its Makers. 
 
 Worse and More of It. 
 
 Nor is this all, nor the worst. 
 
 It deals with things only, now in 
 existence. And it refers to an appor- 
 tionment of the gross "profits" ar- 
 rived at (more or less) by our own 
 consent. 
 
 But, — by the wondrous working of 
 "Credit" — the "Financiers" have vir- 
 tually pawned (in their own pawn 
 shop) the whole Industrial World! 
 
 The "Financiers." have placed a per- 
 petual mortgage plaster of at least one 
 thousand billion dollars ($1,000,000,- 
 000,000) on the work and products of 
 unborn generations of the hundred 
 million families constituting the 
 "White World." 
 
 The "Financiers" have chained thus 
 a $10,000 debt, paying "interest" trib- 
 ute of $2.00 per day (for ever) upon 
 the back of each and every family in 
 the "civilized world" — a perpetual 
 thraldom gf debt; debt secured by 
 "Bonds," by "Mortgage," by "Capi- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 talization" and by "National Debt" 
 conventions. 
 
 The "Financiers" have thus placed 
 this huge mortgage debt (in perpet- 
 uity) upon future generations with- 
 out their consent — the most stupend- 
 ous case of tyrannous "taxation with- 
 out representation" in all the dark 
 ages long tragic experience of long 
 suffering humanity. 
 
 What petty "Pikers" were the Shy- 
 locks of old Nehemiah's day compared 
 to our . . . our . . . "Financiers"^. 
 
 Crowning Paradox. 
 
 Poverty is the opposite of riches; 
 debt the negation of wealth; bank- 
 ruptcy the reverse of solvency; they 
 are antithcticals — the plus and minus 
 signs of human interaction in the 
 world of "Business." 
 
 A modern man, by the aid of scienti- 
 fic and mechanistic instrumentalities, 
 accomplishes more today than one-, 
 two-, and in some cases ten-score men 
 of a hundred years ago; so, despite 
 war and every other destructive 
 agency, production outstrips bare 
 need today as at no time in the past. 
 
 The world is constantly increasing 
 its total products. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding these facts, 
 the richer the world grows, the more 
 it owes — both relatively and actually; 
 the greater its w'ealtli, the deeper it 
 is plunged in debt. 
 
 Thus, under the regime of capitalis- 
 tic "High Finance," is achieved the 
 crowning paradox of all time — the 
 acme of miraculous causation : 
 
 The functions of plus and minus are 
 reversed; more is less! The larger 
 a thing grows the smaller it becomes! 
 The more efficient men get, the less 
 effective relatively is the outcome! 
 The faster the world cistern is filled 
 with wealth the more nearly empty 
 it is, — the more completely is the 
 White World bankrupt!! 
 
 The ancient miracle of "the 
 widow's cruse" is inverted — by mod- 
 ern Financial Magic. 
 
 An Old Delusion. 
 
 Now it is not intei.ded to impute 
 deliberately dishonest or intentionally 
 unethical methods to our Financiers 
 and Capitalists, under a. vague and 
 metaphorical term, "Magic." On the 
 contrary, I use the word "magic" in 
 
 its ordinary meaning — supernatural 
 effects. 
 
 I am convinced that the great ma- 
 jority of us — capitalist and laborer 
 alike — are still obsessed with the fal- 
 lacy of magic causation; an ancient 
 delusion that has dominated men's 
 minds and befogged their thinking 
 from the very beginning of man's 
 efforts to explain the causes of un- 
 usual happenings. 
 
 "Magic" is the oldest and easiest 
 way to account for strange things, 
 and still holds its ancient sway over 
 men's minds outside the laboratory 
 of the scientist and the workshop of 
 the mechanic. 
 
 Elimination of this fallacy as a con- 
 trolling factor in the distribution of 
 products — wealth — is a necessary step 
 toward a rationally workable eco- 
 nomic system; a system adapted to 
 20th Century life and the mental at- 
 titude of our science-made Mecha- 
 nistic Age. 
 
 Mystery. 
 
 "Chance" implies insufficient knowl- 
 edge of causes. 
 
 "Magic" implies misinterpretation 
 of causes. 
 
 "Mystery" implies inherent un- 
 knowal)leness of causes. 
 
 While increasing knowledge tends 
 ever toward minimizing the "chance" 
 element and lessening of "magic" 
 errors, mj^stery presents a different 
 problem. 
 
 The laboratory, or the factory, or 
 the workshop, or the countinghouse, 
 is no place for "mystery," for to 
 the workers therein mystery means 
 ignorance — -lack of intelligence. In 
 human life at large, it is quite other- 
 wise as concerns the essential All- 
 inclusive Mystery and religious mys- 
 ticism. This is a fact of profound 
 significance in relation to the larger 
 aspect of our "Social Problem." 
 
 Our new Skill Economics, there- 
 fore, may not discourage man's in- 
 nate love of mystery, — his inborn re- 
 ligious spirituality — nor curb the 
 spirit which tempts him to adventure 
 courageously into the unknown; but 
 instead should provide advantageous 
 scope for its personal expression. 
 
 But — as in the machine shop — 
 "mystery" is out of place in finance; 
 out of place because the function of 
 
2,2 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 "money" in an economic system cor- 
 responds to the purposes of checks 
 and gauges, templets and measuring 
 instruments of the technologist and 
 the mechanical constructor. 
 
 The essentials of such devices are 
 accuracy, certainty, invariability — the 
 antitheses of the qualities of mys- 
 tery. 
 
 Yet in no branch of human activity 
 are its measuring devices so incon- 
 sistent, contradictory, inaccurate; so 
 mysteriously variable, so subject to 
 anti-social self-interested control as 
 are those of the Financier — his twin 
 mysteries, "Money" and "Credit." 
 
 Our Queer Dollar. 
 
 One of the many quaint functions 
 of the dollar is that of a "standard 
 of value." As a matter of fact, no 
 one knows or can determine from 
 moment to moment, what is the 
 value of a dollar. We only know 
 that its worth is diminishing, vari- 
 ously, to the vanishing point. 
 
 Neither the Nation nor the Mone- 
 tary Experts, nor the Professors of 
 Economics, nor the Financiers, nor 
 the Interests, nor the Capitalists, nor 
 the Common Man, have ever suc- 
 ceeded in fixing our "standard of 
 value" — standardizing the value of 
 our "standard of value" — the worth 
 of our Dollar. 
 
 Mr. Worker contends that the con- 
 traction of the dollar is due to ex- 
 pansion in the cost of living; so he 
 strikes for more dollars, and effects 
 another shrink. Mr. Trader says the 
 contraction is due to the expansion 
 of wages; so he boosts up the price 
 of products, and effects still another 
 contraction. And so on and on, and 
 the end is not yet! 
 
 Indeed, there are as many different 
 explanations of this mysterious 
 "spooky" phenomenon in our 
 "Standard" almost as there are ex- 
 plainers — and their number is legion. 
 
 An Elastic Foot Rule! 
 
 If our foot-rule were subject to 
 similar mysterious fluctuations, its 
 length would have shrunk to four 
 inches or so (!) in the past five years, 
 with innumerable variations from 
 time to time. 
 
 Imagine the chaos, had such a mys- 
 teriously variable standard of mea- 
 
 surement been used in the machine 
 shop! 
 
 The stress of War conditions has 
 so completely demonstrated the in- 
 utility of our mysteriously elastic so- 
 called "standard of value and medium 
 of exchange" that it is now virtually 
 in the discard, — stacked up uselessly 
 in private and in national treasury 
 vaults. 
 
 Our alleged "standard of value and 
 medium of exchange" never was a 
 standard of value, and now it is not 
 even a medium of 'exchange. Quaint, 
 but true! 
 
 A practically costless, hence un- 
 varying, "medium of exchange" — a 
 one-function monej^ — is another much 
 needed step toward a rational eco- 
 nomic system. 
 
 Credit. 
 
 But if our money is a mysterious 
 commodity, what shall be said of 
 "Credit"? 
 
 "Monej^" — i.e., "gold coin of the 
 United States of the present standard 
 of weight and fineness" — even though 
 lacking in practical utility, is at least 
 a physical commodity. It occupies 
 space (however uselessly) ; it has 
 color, weight, length, breadth and 
 thickness, — it possesses physical char- 
 acteristics easily determinable by 
 scientific tests. 
 
 Not one of these facts is applicable 
 to "Credit." 
 
 "Credit" is a state of mind, a 
 psychological condition — hypnosis — a 
 mesmeric dream. Naturally it lacks 
 all the qualities of physical things, 
 and possesses all those of phan- 
 tasms. A man dreams he is wealthy, 
 and — for all dream purposes — he is 
 wealthy; even though in actual fact 
 he is dying of starvation in squalor 
 and want. 
 
 So too, in like manner, a nation 
 dreams itself some (or many) billions 
 of additional wealth; sets the print- 
 ing presses going to record the 
 dream — in "bonds"; and forthwith 
 becomes billions wealthier (in its 
 mind), though, as a matter of fact, 
 the physical wealth may have shrunk 
 to the danger point of general in- 
 digence and starvation. 
 
 This is the danger-fraught "World 
 condition" today. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 33 
 
 Boundless Credit Wealth 
 
 Seemingly human stupidity is lim- 
 itless and human credulity infinite! 
 This boundless, unweighable, unmea- 
 surable, hope-created dream-stuff 
 ("Credit") is sliced and apportioned, 
 like beef or butter, and sold in the 
 market place by self-appointed pur- 
 veyors of public optimism. 
 
 Yes! Sold and exchanged for the 
 limited, measurable, physical prod- 
 ucts of sweaty and grimy toil and 
 strenuous human effort. 
 
 Like all other dreams and dream- 
 stuff, "Credit" visions know no 
 bounds but those of desire. Millions 
 or billions or scores of billions — it's 
 all the same in the wonderland 
 dreamworld of "Finance": wish them 
 and dream them, and presto! they 
 exist. They exist: dream ships, 
 dream cannons, dream food — irides- 
 cent wealth bubbles blown up and 
 "floated through an expansion of 
 credit," as proposed by Finance Wiz- 
 ard Vanderlip. 
 
 Dream Wealth. 
 
 It is not surprising therefore that 
 in the wonderland of Finance this 
 dreamworld's dream wealth "Credit" 
 — as represented by "credit instru- 
 ments," i. e., stocks, bonds, mortgages, 
 national debts, etc. — transcends great- 
 ly the workaday world's physical 
 utilities — real wealth. 
 
 But what is going to happen when 
 we are jolted awake to the rationality 
 of workaday reality, and dream 
 visions vanish; when the airy 
 floating credit bubble bursts — as bub- 
 bles do? When Germany and Austria 
 follow Russia's (Bolshevik) example, 
 and France follows Germany, and 
 then England, and then . . . ? 
 
 Then what? 
 
 When this happens, the world will 
 discard the silly delusion that time is 
 reversible by financial magic — credit; 
 "credit," the greatest of all myths and 
 magic makebelieves by which cunning 
 men in all ages have sought to get 
 something for nothing. 
 
 In all the historically recorded cases 
 of collective human delusions — from 
 practical Rome's entrail augury to 
 shrewd Yankee .Salem's witchcraft — 
 there is none which surpasses, in col- 
 lective crass credulity, our great Credit 
 Myth! 
 A national (non-tribute) bookkeep- 
 
 ing system equitably to determine real 
 ownership of the products of effort, 
 is a much needed economic conven- 
 ience. 
 
 Experimental Science. 
 
 It would seem that with the advent 
 of Experimental Science occurred an 
 epoch in the history of our Race; an 
 epochal event to which none other 
 is comparable, except possibly the ac- 
 quisition of Self-consciousness itself. 
 Indeed it would seem that these two 
 super-significant events — so unthink- 
 ably far apart in time — are, in essence, 
 closely related. 
 
 By coming to Self-consciousness 
 the Brute became Man — potentially, 
 though not actually, a self-determining 
 being. 
 
 By the coming of Science — based 
 upon the idea of the rationality and 
 neutrality of "nature" — potential Free- 
 dom ceased to be a mere possibility 
 and became a realizable Ideal. 
 
 To Make or Break Shackles. 
 
 Science and Technology arc, how- 
 ever, but tools in Man's hands; tools 
 wherewith to make effective Man's 
 transcendent privilege: Freedom of 
 Choice. 
 
 Groups of men (like Germany) may 
 use these great instrumentalities to 
 forge social shackles upon themselve.-, 
 and upon Humanity the bondage of 
 autocracy. 
 
 Or, they may use them to make hu- 
 man Liberty effective, as is the ideal 
 of the LTnitcd States. 
 
 Human beings, whether as individ- 
 uals, or as groups, or as nations, are 
 "free" — self-determining — only when 
 purposively initiative; for it is only 
 in purposive action that liberty can be 
 expressed. 
 
 Freedom, then, means will to intelli- 
 gent self-expression — liberty ex- 
 pressed in rational accomplishment. 
 
 "Reconstruction." 
 
 On all the foregoing considerations, 
 our problem of "Social Reconstruc- 
 tion" on a scientific basis implies sys- 
 tematizing our great but inchoate Na- 
 tion upon economic principles appro- 
 priate to an Industrial Democracy. 
 
 The basis of modern industry being 
 scientific knowledge of nature's laws 
 whereby nature's resources are made 
 available for human use and enjoy- 
 
34 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 mcnt through the aid and agency of 
 technical skill, "Reconstruction" be- 
 comes essentially a process of selec- 
 tive rejection of present inappropriate 
 economic usages; discarding customs 
 which unduly facilitate the acquisitive 
 instincts, and substituting others 
 which tend to minimize social ob- 
 stacles to the freer expression of the 
 constructive or industrial instincts — 
 in the interest of the commonweal. 
 
 As industrial processes involve spe- 
 cialized skill and expert technical 
 training, made effective by intelligent 
 co-ordination, it is clear that a hu- 
 manly efficient Industrial Democracy 
 necessitates leadership by those who 
 possess the requisite knowledge, skill, 
 and technical training. 
 
 So, when we speak of Industrial De- 
 mocracy, what we really mean is: 
 Nation-wide Industry managed by 
 Technologists — a Nation of free and 
 socially equal workers, scientifically 
 organized for mutual benefit and uni- 
 fied purpose — a Technocracy. 
 
 Suggestions. 
 
 By way of summary, a few of the 
 more obviously inappropriate present 
 usages which, seemingly with advan- 
 tage, we might consign to the limbo 
 of outw'orn social expedients, here fol- 
 low: 
 
 (I) Discard usages founded on the 
 autocratic idea of "the State"; 
 
 Substitute therefor — in fact as well 
 as in theory — others resting upon the 
 self-evident right of a man to inalien- 
 able and complete ownership of him- 
 self; hence (in effect) inalienable own- 
 ership of the industrial product result- 
 ing from the functioning of his mind 
 and body — limited only by others' 
 equal right. 
 
 (II) Discard conventions resting 
 upon the parasitic idea that (legal) 
 possession is equivalent to production: 
 
 Substitute natural ownership based 
 on making for conventions that legal- 
 ize taking. 
 
 (III) Discard institutions legaliz- 
 ing "chance" as a controlling factor 
 for the distribution of things; 
 
 Substitute therefor collective fore- 
 sight based upon experience; and hu- 
 man need for instinctive animal greed 
 — in the interest of the commonweal. 
 
 (IV) Discard "financial magic" 
 practices resting upon the animistic 
 fallacy that inanimate objects can (by 
 
 convention) be endowed with life's 
 unique function — reproduction ; 
 
 Substitute others on the evidential 
 fact that only human beings can make 
 usefully available the things we call 
 "wealth." 
 
 (V) Discard the "mysteries of fi- 
 nance" in wealth distributing pro- 
 cesses — the private purveying of pub- 
 lic optimism for gain and the "man- 
 ufacture of credi't" for sale; 
 
 Substitute therefor a community 
 (national) bookkeeping system, in 
 which figures clearly tell what each 
 individual and each group has added 
 to the common stock. 
 
 (VI) Discard institutions resting 
 upon the erroneous notion that con- 
 ventional symbols, i. e., "representa- 
 tives" of wealth, "bonds," "credit," 
 "capital," etc. — are equivalent to and 
 can perform the functions of the in- 
 strumentalities they "represent," and 
 can continue so to function long after 
 the instrumentalities have ceased to 
 exist or have become obsolete; 
 
 Substitute others making the use- 
 rent of things, i. e. "usury," "interest," 
 correspond to and be contingent upon 
 the effective worth and the continued 
 usefulness of the things rented. 
 
 (VII) Discard customs based upon 
 mystic symbolism and the animistic 
 fallacy that "money" can perform the 
 functions of the life-energy or pro- 
 ducts "represented"; 
 
 Substitute a costless one-function 
 national check medium of exchange. 
 
 (VIII) Discard "business" practices 
 based upon the anti-social dictum 
 that: "one man's misfortune is an- 
 other's opportunity"; 
 
 Substitute therefor the proposition 
 that: the illhaps of unavoidable social 
 hazards and chance favors of good 
 fortune should (in social effect) be 
 equally shared by all. 
 
 (IX) Discard all institutions and 
 conventions facilitating the function- 
 ing of anti-social predatory and para- 
 sitic instincts; 
 
 Substitute others tending to en- 
 courage willing self-interested co- 
 operation energized by national unity 
 of purpose. 
 
 _(X) Discard the strife inducing in- 
 stitutions of group industries based 
 upon the hunger-slavery idea of em- 
 ployer and employee organized for 
 mechanistic human efficiency in output 
 of products for purely private profit; 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 35 
 
 Subsiilute others based upon ra- 
 tional human initiative and develop- 
 ment with the aid of all the resources 
 of the Nation, co-ordinated for the 
 commonweal under the manat^ement 
 of Scientific Leadership to accomplish 
 a consensus National Objective. 
 
 Save Civilization! 
 
 Whether these proposed cliangcs 
 are efTectivcljr workable or are only 
 "visionary," "impracticable," "Utopian 
 dreams," is, of course, debatable; but 
 there can be no question regarding 
 the truth of the solemn warning of 
 Lloyd George: "Civilization, unless we 
 try to save it, may be precipitated 
 and scattered to atoms." 
 
 Responsibility. 
 
 That our Civilization is in danger of 
 being "shattered to atoms," raises the 
 question of culpability for the present 
 ominous state of affairs, and hence 
 of responsibility for averting the 
 threatened outcome. 
 
 The Masses cannot be held respon- 
 sible, for they are simply impelled by 
 their instinct "to live"; they do not 
 think, they do what is much more im- 
 portant: they breed. Their magnifi- 
 cent all-inclusive social function is re- 
 production. Hence, they feel — feel 
 hunger, feel passion — they feel with 
 all the vital energy of the race. 
 
 Thus, when social conditions be- 
 come unbearable or threaten their vital 
 function, they reflex with unrestrained 
 ferocity against such conventional re- 
 straints to the natural expression of 
 their instinctive urges. 
 
 The Skilled Artisans cannot be held 
 responsible, for they are merely obey- 
 ing the instinct "to make." Their 
 mental activity is analogous to — and 
 for the same social purpose as — the 
 cycle of brain functioning that pro- 
 duces the mathematical cell of the bee, 
 the carpentry of the beaver, and the 
 nest building of the bird. 
 
 The Employers cannot be held re- 
 sponsible, for they only express the 
 instinct "to control," the Mastery in- 
 stinct — an urge which could not be 
 satisfied unless others willingly sub- 
 mitted to domination. Their social 
 function is to energize — to counteract 
 human inertia — for the preservation 
 of the Race. 
 
 The Financiers cannot be held re- 
 sponsible, for they only reflex the in- 
 stinct "to take," the urge to hoard, 
 
 like — and for the same social pur- 
 pose as — the hoarding of the squir- 
 rel or the honey storing of the bee. 
 They probably are least imaginative 
 of all. Their social function is con- 
 servation, the converse of progressive 
 theorizing. 
 
 Typically, none of these social ele- 
 ments think; think in the sense of the 
 imaginative pioneer theorizing of cre- 
 ative thought — seeking for truth apart 
 from its immediate application to self- 
 preservation — searching with spiritual 
 insight for paths into the unknown to 
 be later trod bj^ careless earth-bound 
 feet. 
 
 The Scientist is in a different cate- 
 gory. Characteristically he lacks the 
 instinctive urges which distinguish the 
 other elements of human society. 
 
 But, it is his social function to think. 
 
 He does think — he has functioned 
 with a vengeance! 
 
 One of the results of his high- 
 pressure thinking is that: "Civilization 
 may be shattered to atoms" — or Hu- 
 manity raised to Godlike heights, by 
 Science. 
 
 While it is quite questionable 
 whether Science, so far, has proved a 
 blessing or a curse to Humanity, 
 there can be no doubt that its poten- 
 tialities in either direction are limit- 
 less. Praiseworthy or culpable, as the 
 case now stands, responsibility for the 
 outcome rests squarely upon the 
 shoulders of the Scientist. 
 
 National Leadership. 
 
 Notwithstanding appearances to the 
 contrary — popular unrest, growth of 
 socialism, spread of L W. W.-isin, 
 the whirlwind of Bolshevism and 
 other terrifying upsurgings of de- 
 structive Massism — the "Masses" do 
 not desire to lead, do not seek "pro- 
 letarian dictatorship." 
 
 Human herds have always followed 
 leaders, like other gregarious animals* 
 followed their leaders willingly, blind- 
 ly, thoughtlessly. 
 
 The herd will follow till following 
 becomes vitally dangerous, threatens 
 its social life — hinders the normal 
 functioning of its instinctive urges to 
 growth and reproduction. 
 
 Nations have followed the leader- 
 ship of Autocracy till starved white 
 by plundering conventions or bled 
 white by wars. 
 
 Nations have followed the leader- 
 ship of Theocratic Mystics into 
 
36 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 mental chaos, and confusion of human 
 ideals and social purpose. 
 
 And we today, with sheeplike docility, 
 have followed Plutocratic leadership 
 into a social morass of crazy financial 
 conventions, till the raising of families 
 has become an unbearable burden, an 
 impossible social handicap; till the 
 opportunity to work is a dubious 
 privilege; till the future of the worker 
 and breeder — the proletarian — ofifers 
 only a soul shriveling bondage of de- 
 basing and inescapable debt! 
 
 Modern Manhood's Mandate. 
 The present "World condition" 
 
 means only that the proletariat has 
 balked, revolted, at this sordid threat 
 to the sanity and the sanctity of 
 Human existence. 
 
 The "World condition" is a World 
 Cry! — a cry not for Proletarian Dic- 
 tatorship, nor for Mob Rule, but tor 
 new Leaders. 
 
 The World demands new Leaders! 
 Not new and more "efficient" slave 
 drivers — Trust Barons, or Kings of 
 Commerce, or Emperors of Finance. 
 
 The Modern World demands mod- 
 ern Leaders, Men! Men with ideas 
 that rise higher than swapping jack- 
 knives — even in carload or shipload 
 lots. 
 
 The "World condition" expresses 
 this demand by modern men for mod- 
 ern leaders, leaders with modern spir- 
 itualized ideals. 
 
 Our "Social Unrest" is a demand for 
 torch-bearers and pathfinders to social 
 freedom of opportunity; a demand for 
 leaders with luminous imagination to 
 visualize our War-born Nation's de- 
 sired Peace Goal; leaders with scien- 
 tific knowledge to realize and actualize 
 the rational aspirations, ambitions, 
 and ideals of free modern American 
 Manhoood. 
 
 Scientist 
 
 vs. 
 
 Auto-, Thee-, and Pluto-crat 
 
 While the Autocrat, the Theocrat, 
 and the Plutocrat, are decadent 
 products of outworn ways and obso- 
 lescent materialistic manners of think- 
 ing, the Scientist, on the contrary, is 
 the most modern development of 
 modern intelligence, modern ideals, 
 and modern spiritualized modes of 
 tho.ught. 
 
 The Scientist is essentially a pioneer. 
 
 a pathfinder, a torch bearer, a seeker 
 after Truth and Rationality. 
 
 The Scientist is the modern re- 
 ligionist, the priest of selfless Truth: 
 
 Truth which grows with Man's 
 growth and luminously emerges with 
 the purifying of Jiuman Intelligence: 
 
 Truth— that all-inclusive Something 
 behind the .^physical facts of nature 
 which makes for Right — for mechan- 
 ical, for personal, for ethical, for 
 spiritual, for social righteousness — the 
 ultimate Unifying Ideal. 
 
 Truly, "the stone which the builders 
 rejected is become the head of the 
 corner": the keystone of the social 
 arch. 
 
 Rational Leadership. 
 
 The Scientist is, seemingly, our one 
 best, if not our only hope for Rational 
 Leadership. 
 
 Then, too, the Scientist — by un- 
 leashing the limitlessly powerful nat- 
 ural forces, in uncoordinated, haphaz- 
 ard science - made instrumentalities — 
 has got us into much of our present 
 social muddle. 
 
 So it Is up to the Scientist to lead 
 us out; or at least, to harness for 
 human service the science-created 
 non-moral mechanistic monster that 
 he has liberated. 
 
 Guideless and Aimless! 
 
 But if the Scientist shirks this great 
 task, if he 'lacks the desire for, or 
 the courage of, or the will to Leader- 
 ship; if for any reason he evades this 
 obvious responsibility, or is daunted 
 by Its obvious difficulties . . . then 
 indeed, blindly plunging deviously on- 
 ward — guideless and aimless — "our 
 Civilization may be precipitated and 
 shattered to atoms," and our Indus- 
 trial Democracy adventure prove a 
 World Tragedy. 
 
 Yes! the most pathetic of all human 
 tragedies — futility. 
 
 Lacking: Purpose. 
 
 Our Nation of great expectations, 
 of inagnlficently vague hopes and stu- 
 pendous possibilities, (if nothing 
 worse happens), will slump Into futile 
 pottering desuetude, lacking Inspiring 
 purpose to live for, lacking worthy 
 achievement to work for, lacking 
 worthwhile goal to strive ^r, lacking 
 — a. Great National Objective. 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, March 20, 1919. 
 
Reprinted from the Gazette, Berkeley, California. 
 Copyright, 1921, by W. H. Smyth 
 
 Technocracy 
 
 Second Series 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Magic Money, Money Magic and the Magician ; 
 The Payers and — the Fading Smile. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note: The First Series of Technocracy outlines a program of social recon- 
 struction under the guidance of nationally organized Science. The Second 
 Series develops, in simple language and with common examples, the working 
 method, the ways and means proposed by the author for attaining such social 
 order and contentment, and thus destroying the peril of revolution. 
 
 In Part I Mr. Smyth sets forth the antagonism, in our society, of ancestral 
 superstition, obvious in economics, notably effective in finance, as against the 
 modern point of view, enforced by Science and our every-day-life familiarity 
 with and dependence on machines and machine processes — with the resulting 
 social tension accumulating to the breaking strain. — Editor. 
 
 Mechanics and Economics. 
 
 Mechanics deals with things — 
 things governed by unchangeable and 
 unchanging Laws of Nature. The ba- 
 sic facts and principles of Mechanic 
 Arts have passed out of the region of 
 doubt or controversy — they are firmly 
 founded upon the proofs of scientific 
 experiment. 
 
 Economics, on the contrary, is con- 
 cerned with easily changeable (man- 
 made) rules and regulations — commu- 
 nity usages intended to facilitate so- 
 cial activities. Hardly any two au- 
 thorities are agreed upon the basic 
 "facts" of economics, nor are these 
 "facts" determinable by the tests of 
 experimental science. 
 
 Clarity and Obscurity. 
 
 Mechanics and machines, to Mr. Av- 
 erage Man, are quite within his com- 
 prehension and understandable to or- 
 dinary intelligence. 
 
 "Economics" and "Finance," to Mr. 
 Average Man, seem realms of pro- 
 found impenetrable mystery governed 
 by occult forces. 
 
 Important Difference. 
 
 The difference in our mental atti- 
 tude towards these two departments 
 
 of human effort, to which I have di- 
 rected attention, serves in part at least 
 to explain why it is that we would 
 unqucstioningly accept (as being bril- 
 liantly reasonable) a proposal by a 
 "Financier," that with spontaneous 
 scorn we would reject (as being ob- 
 viously crazy), if suggested by a me- 
 chanic. 
 
 It is so easy to overlook the cus- 
 tomary that this common happening 
 is not commonly noted; nonetheless 
 it is a fact and social factor of more 
 than ordinary importance, for it 
 throws light on social problems, upon 
 the solution of which may depend our 
 escape, in the United States, from the 
 condition of Europe, particularly that 
 of Russia. 
 
 "Future Savings." 
 
 Obviously (to commonsense), if 
 workers worked in future materials or 
 if soldiers shot at each other with fu- 
 ture bullets, or if both toilers and 
 fighters fed on future food, only vis- 
 ionary products and dream carnage 
 could result. 
 
 So, should a Mechanic propose to 
 us an "invention" intended to enable 
 workers, feeders, and fighters to fight 
 today, feed today, work today, and 
 
38 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 jag toda}' on next year's or next cen- 
 tury's materials, food, booze, and en- 
 ergy; we should tap our foreheads 
 significantly, and niunnur — "Wheels!" 
 
 Let, however, Mr. Financier make 
 the same proposition as Mr. (Nuttie) 
 Mechanic, and we joyfully shout — 
 "Hurrah! for the Future!"; and hand 
 our "Wizard of Finance" a thousand 
 billion dollar blanket mortgage "bond" 
 on the world, (i. e., "National Debts," 
 and intra-national "credit" instru- 
 ments) paying Financier 5% interest 
 for ever — to "finance the enterprise." 
 
 When a dapper and dextrous gen- 
 tleman, in evening costume — with con- 
 vincing evidence of "no deception" — 
 produces ribbons and rabbits, pigeons 
 and poultry, guinea-pigs and goldfish, 
 from a magic hat. we — imdeceived — 
 smilingly applaud his skill. 
 
 But, let Mr. Financier's learned co- 
 adjutor Professor Economicus solemn- 
 ly and lengthily discourse Icarncdh' 
 regarding steaks and steamships; su- 
 gar, shoes and psychics: copper and 
 coal; jags, joys and jimjams; cotton, 
 coaloil, and cucumbers; cabbages and 
 kings, dollars and diamonds, quantum 
 and quahogs — all that heart of man 
 desires — spontaneously generated out 
 of a magic hat of "future savings" 
 (i. e.. mysteriously conventionalized 
 "credit"), we listen in respectful 
 amaze, and hopefully hand our petty 
 surplus present products to Mr. Finan- 
 cier — as a small consideration for the 
 great and mysterious future benefits 
 to be conferred by his wondrous cre- 
 ative art! 
 
 Such "finance" and "economic" hap- 
 penings as these are so common, 
 usual, everyday experiences that they 
 pass smoothly by without any awak- 
 ening shock to our intelligence; thus 
 they escape critical attention. None- 
 theless from these casual unnoted 
 causes flow our social unrest and 
 world-conflict. 
 
 Magic Money. 
 
 (a) "This war must be financed, not 
 out of past savings but out of future 
 savings. Future savings are for the 
 moment not available and some other 
 device must therefore be brought into 
 play. That device is bank credit, and 
 this loan and subsequent loans will in 
 
 the main be floated tlirough an expan- 
 sion of bank credit." 
 
 Money Magic. 
 
 (b) "And, finally, it flows in to the 
 capitalist without ever exhausting the 
 capital from which it comes, and there- 
 fore without any necessary limit to its 
 continuance. It is, if one may use 
 such an expression about mundane 
 things, capable of an everlasting life. 
 Thus it is that the phenomenon of in- 
 terest as a whole presents the remark- 
 able picture of a lifeless thing produc- 
 ing an everlasting and inexhaustible 
 supply of goods." 
 
 "Economics" vs. Horsesense. 
 
 Quotation (a) is the considered pro- 
 nouncement of a foremost banker and 
 a national power in the "World of 
 Finance." 
 
 Quotation (b) is the deliberate ut- 
 terance of a leading if not the leading 
 authority in the "Realm of Econom- 
 ics." 
 
 Both statements, with practical 
 unanimity, arc accepted as expressions 
 of Twentieth Ccnturj' economic intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 If quotation (a) is not in essence 
 precisely the proposal of our crazy "in- 
 ventor" and if (b) does not in effect 
 describe the performance of the presti- 
 digitator, and if both are not definite 
 and serious expressions of (real even 
 if unconscious) belief in magic, then 
 words have no meaning and rational 
 thought is a futile farce. 
 
 Should either proposition (a or b) 
 come (in precisely the same form) 
 from a mechanic, it would require no 
 stretch of the imagination to foretell 
 the verdict of a lunacy commission 
 regarding his fate. 
 
 Modern Diabolism. 
 
 It is noteworthy that our mental 
 attitude toward the Mechanic is prac- 
 tical, matter-of-fact, modern; toward 
 the Financier it is "natural," sub- 
 conscious, and old as the human race. 
 
 In this first quarter of the Twen- 
 tieth Century, the overwhelming 
 majority still persist in our ages-old 
 belief in supernatural outcomes — 
 something from nothing. Indeed, it 
 is probable that not one of us is 
 quite liberated from the ancient thrall 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 39 
 
 of superstition in some of its myriad 
 aspects. So deeply ingrained in the 
 fiber of human thought is the idea 
 of magic causation, that this is still 
 the "natural" explanation of any 
 strange happening. 
 
 Our common speech, our vocations, 
 relaxations, institutions, (secular and 
 sacred), are full to overflowing with 
 evidence to the persistance of prac- 
 tically universal belief in sorcery, de- 
 monology, witchcraft, black-art and 
 magic. 
 
 We legalize "chance" for the dis- 
 tribution of wealth, for the "owner- 
 ship" of property, and for success 
 in life. 
 
 We commercialize and institu- 
 tionalize luck, gambling, speculation 
 — socialize worship of the "fickle god- 
 dess." 
 
 We pray "God" to pet and coddle 
 us, and we bribe "Him" to clout 
 without mercy those of whom we 
 disapprove. 
 
 We supplicate rain for our little 
 alfalfa patch — regardless of ovu^ 
 neighbor's blossoming orchard. 
 
 We "bless" our friends politely, 
 and "curse" our enemies with pro- 
 fuse elaboration. 
 
 We have sanctified days, places, 
 and things, not forgetting a fair- 
 sized remnant of super-sanctified peo- 
 ple. 
 
 We habitually apply the term "wiz- 
 ard" to every man who produces 
 results that arouse our wonder — - 
 Wizard of Invention, Wizard of Art, 
 Wizard of Finance. 
 
 We constantly talk of the Alagic 
 of invention, the Magic of art, the 
 Magic of money. 
 
 Still we ignore these facts and 
 pretend that the modern use of hoary 
 old witchcraft words is metaphorical, 
 and that our continued use of Black 
 Art and White Magic customs docs 
 not imply belief in Diabolism and 
 necromancy as in the past. 
 
 But association of ideas, race his- 
 tory, nursery impressions, and com- 
 munity heritage are all too strong for 
 the strongest of us, so the best we at- 
 tain is verbal and vociferous denial 
 thinly and shamefacedly masking con- 
 scious, subconscious, and unconscious 
 belief in magic. 
 
 Two Ways of Thinking. 
 
 Add now the new factors. Modern 
 Science and Printing. — with the con- 
 comitant spread of scientific thinking 
 — which knows not, repudiates, and 
 wars with mystery, occultism, magic — 
 and Ave have the perfectly natural re- 
 sults which we see all around us: dis- 
 agreements, disputes, strikes, lock- 
 outs, riots, I. W. W.-ism, Bolshevism, 
 revolutions, rebellions. World War; 
 results the final outcome of which — 
 depending upon general human intel- 
 ligence — will make for unprecedented 
 social progress or for anarchy and 
 the downfall of present civilization. 
 
 Mechanics, Modern Science and sci- 
 entific mode of thinking practically be- 
 gan with the Steam Engine and mod- 
 ern machines of precision. 
 
 Ecoromics is coeval v.ilh the Hu- 
 man Race. 
 
 So it has come about that each one 
 of us has two separate sets of ider\s, 
 two distinct ways of thinking — the 
 Ancient aftd the Modern. 
 
 Truth Resented. 
 
 Even so, a statement that our (more 
 or less) self-consistent "Financial Sys- 
 tem" is to any serious extent con- 
 structed out of unscientific fancies and 
 rests upon nothing more solid than 
 ancient superstition, is a shock to van- 
 ity, as an insult to our intelligence: an 
 insult directed not at the ignorant 
 amon*- us or at the thoughtless ordin- 
 ary citizen, but, at our leaders and our 
 teachers, and at the "brilliant intel- 
 lects" that control the world's activ- 
 ities — the Premiers of Governments, 
 the Kings of Commerce, the Emper- 
 ors of Finance. 
 
 Nonetheless, I believe the accusa- 
 tion to be substantially true. 
 
 For a Consideration. 
 
 Under our modern business usages 
 and economic customs, all social ac- 
 tivities nuist be "financed"; every hu- 
 man purpose from "winning souls to 
 God" to building a toboggan slide hell- 
 ward; from constructing a "little red 
 schoolhouse" to destroying an empire; 
 from horning to burying, every human 
 enterprise must (as a matter of 
 course), be "financed" — for a consid- 
 eration. 
 
 In brief, the modern fashion in 
 
40 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 smoothly separating Doer and Maker 
 from the desirable results of his doi?Tg 
 and making, is by "financiering the 
 enterprise"— for a consideration. 
 
 For a thousand years prior to our 
 "Finance" dispensation, human activi- 
 ties and enterprises had to be (similar- 
 ly) sanctioned by "the Church" — for a 
 consideration. 
 
 For a thousand years or more, prior 
 to "the Church," enterprises liad to 
 be similarly sanctioned by "the Or- 
 acle" — for a consideration. 
 
 Fashions change, but human nature 
 is more unchanging than the granite 
 cliffs; and the art of painlessly part- 
 ing producer from his products is as 
 old as civilization and — Magic still is, 
 as it ahvajrs has been, the painless 
 parter's most effective "device." 
 
 Indeed, the art of separating the 
 worker from the results of his indus- 
 try is far older than the human race: 
 animals swipe their neiglibors' hoards, 
 bears steal honey, and bee swarms rob 
 each other. 
 
 Aeons of time and ages of human 
 experience have not resulted in any 
 essential change in purpose and out- 
 come, but only in rendering the pro- 
 cess more workmanlike and less 
 messy. 
 
 Animism in "Economics." 
 
 A common feature in systems of 
 magic is animism — attril)uting to in- 
 animate objects the functions of life, 
 assuming things to possess will, pur- 
 pose, and power. 
 
 It is significant (though quite in 
 keeping) that "Economists" and "Fi- 
 nanciers" have this characteristic at- 
 titude of mind towards, and employ 
 animistic forms of expression in writ- 
 ing and talking about "Money" and 
 "Capital." 
 
 Whether this is due to unconscious 
 belief in magic or is mere metaphor, 
 the result, in either case, is befogging 
 confusion of thought. 
 
 When the President of a great 
 banking corporation, in a serious pub- 
 lic discussion on "War Taxation," for 
 example, says: 
 
 "Capital has a long memory . . . "; 
 
 "Capital is proverbially timid . . ."; 
 
 ". . . treason for capital and capi- 
 talists . . . ": 
 
 "... capital and men of enter- 
 prise . . . "; 
 
 "... capital and capitalists of to- 
 day . . . "; 
 
 he seems to be expressing nonsensical 
 animism and belief in magic: — magic 
 no less crude and thinking no less na- 
 ive and childlike than that of the av- 
 erage man-on-thc-street in his oft- 
 stated conviction that "Money makes 
 mone}"," that "Dimes breed dollars," 
 and suchlike popular aphorisms. 
 
 Hazy verbal expression usually im- 
 plies fogg}^ thinking, and this is as 
 true of the "highbrow" as of the rest 
 of us. When language fails to clarify 
 thought it is probable that the 
 thoughts of its user need clarifying. 
 
 Interpretation. 
 
 Let us then (by means of a little 
 paraphrastic amplification), endeavor 
 to make clear just what our banker 
 friend and adviser is really implying 
 in these truly car-catching phrases, 
 which sound as though they really 
 ought to mean something: 
 
 Capital (i. e. a spade, or a plow, or 
 a crowbar, is more favorably en- 
 dowed than many of the human users 
 thereof — it) has a long memory . . . 
 
 Capital (i. e. a railroad, or a steam- 
 ship, or a skyscraper is scared to be 
 out alone after dark — it) is prover- 
 bially timid . . . 
 
 (It is) treason for capital (i. e. 
 boilers and bullion, timber-land and 
 mineral deposits, wharves and ware- 
 houses to preach and practice the forc- 
 ible overthrow of our governinent) 
 and (likewise also for) capitalists 
 (when either capital or capitalist is 
 caught in the act, he, she or it should 
 be shot, or at least fed on low diet 
 in close confinement until repent- 
 ant) . . . 
 
 Capital and capitalists of today, (on 
 account of their like human attrib- 
 utes, should be treated with all due 
 and tender consideration of their like 
 human frailties and timid self-sacri- 
 ficing characteristics) . . . 
 
 I wonder if this is precisely what 
 friend Banker intended to imply, and 
 us to understand him to mean. 
 
 "Economic" Abracadabra. 
 
 The literature of Wizardry — and it 
 is amazingly voluminous — is charac- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 41 
 
 terizcd, both in word and in thought, 
 by mind-racking unintelHgible obscur- 
 ity. It is curiously significant that 
 the books devoted to modern Econom- 
 ics and Finance are likewise couched 
 in obscure jargon — abracadabra — not 
 only meaningless to ordinary intel- 
 ligence, but apparently also to the 
 adepts in the alleged arts. 
 
 Here are a few samples culled at 
 random from a page in an article on 
 "The Nature and Mechanism (!) of 
 Credit," appearing in the Quarterly 
 Journal of Economics: 
 
 "... subjective value objecti- 
 vised . . ."; 
 
 "... force of value . . ."; 
 
 "... psychic force . . ."; 
 
 ". . . generic purchasing power 
 
 good 
 
 for 
 of 
 
 future 
 future 
 
 ' . . . present 
 good . . ."; 
 
 "... iircsent 
 industrial worth ...'"; 
 and the list might be almost indefi- 
 nitely extended. 
 
 Truly, I do not lack courage, but 
 I throw up my hands — confronted by 
 these weirdly mystic phrases! 
 
 To me they seem as essentially 
 meaningless as the twaddle of the 
 March Hare and the Hatter that so 
 puzzled poor Alice — in Wonderland. 
 Subjected to mere commonsensc an- 
 alysis not one of these mysteriously 
 cabalistic phrases seems to have any 
 more meaning, or to have any more 
 relation to actual things in a work-a- 
 day world of Science and Mechanics, 
 tlian the amazingly similar jargon of 
 Wizardry. 
 
 Kilkenny Cats. 
 
 Practically every "Economist" writ- 
 er invents his own vocabulary, and 
 contradicts the stateinents of every 
 other; they ridicule each other's rea- 
 soning; and seemingly each denies the 
 validity of all economic axioms but 
 his own — they fight like Kilkenny 
 Cats. 
 
 A hurricane of verbalization has 
 yowled and a flood of billingsgate has 
 raged in this tempestuously wordy 
 conflict of economic mysticism. Bank- 
 ers fljitly contradict Bankers; and 
 Economists arrive at diametrically op- 
 posite conclusions — from the same 
 "facts." 
 
 In no other department of human 
 thought is there so much discord and 
 confusion as in the "Science of Eco- 
 nomics." 
 
 But . . . ! the Financier — gets there 
 just the same. 
 
 Fact and Fancy. 
 
 It is practically certain that none 
 of us knows v.hen or to what extent 
 superstition, ignorant mysticism and 
 animistic fallacies color and vitiate 
 his otherwise rational thinking. It 
 should not surprise us therefore, to 
 find whole areas of activities still ob- 
 sessed with this primitive mode of 
 tliought, nor that the actors therein 
 are unconscious of their mental state. 
 
 Would it not be the greatest miracle 
 of all were it otherwise? 
 
 Thus it is in high degree probable 
 that old fallacies and superstitions still 
 infest and ramify (unsuspected) those 
 activities which deal with life in its 
 more than ordinary complex aspects — 
 religion, philosophy, government, fin- 
 ance. 
 
 These considerations (even without 
 taking into account the ever-present 
 factor of instinctive self-interest) suf- 
 fice to make probability verge on cer- 
 tainty, that all these departments of 
 human activity involve an inextricable 
 mingling of fact and fancy — science 
 and superstition. 
 
 War. 
 
 Magic and Science — "Economics" 
 and Mechanics — no contrast could be 
 greater, no antithesis more complete; 
 and between magic and science there 
 nuist always be war. 
 
 Just as the World War — with all its 
 variety of aspects and complexities of 
 motives — expresses the inherent con- 
 flict between mutually exclusive and 
 antagonistic social systems — ancient 
 Autocracy and modern Democracy — 
 so the world-wide social strife, indus- 
 trial unrest, I. W. W.-ism, Bolshe- 
 vism and other disruptive massisms, 
 express, in last analysis the still more 
 profound and equally unescapable con- 
 flict between ancient Superstition and 
 modern Science. 
 
 Mumbo Jumbo. 
 One of the commonest of human er- 
 rors is that of mentally putting the 
 cart before the horse — mistaking the 
 
42 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 effect for the cause and vice versa. 
 We all reason more or less childishly, 
 impressed by the obvious. 
 
 In our childhood's games, custom 
 (hoary with age) prescribes concur- 
 rent forms of senseless words and ir- 
 relevant acts, words and acts to which 
 we ascribe such causative effect in the 
 outcome that, to our childish minds, 
 the game would be impossible without 
 their magic. 
 
 So, too, it is much the same \\-th 
 us, as grownups. 
 
 In our social activities, '".ustom 
 (hoary with age and saturated with 
 ancient superstitions) prescribes the 
 mumbo jumbo we now call "financing 
 the enterprise." And to our obsessed 
 minds this voodoo becomes an all-im- 
 portant factor of such causative effect 
 that without its potent magic it would 
 be unsafe, if not impossible, to build 
 a schoolhouse or wage a war. 
 
 Pedigree. 
 
 We see with our eyes the obvious 
 fact that "financing" precedes and 
 accompanies all undertakings and en- 
 terprises; we see with our eyes that 
 doings, and makings, and enterprises 
 grow apace and increase most inar- 
 vclously, so — "naturally" — we ascribe 
 to the "Financier" a large measure 
 of effect in the outcome. 
 
 And the source of the financier's 
 power to do these "miracles" and 
 work these wonders being mysterious 
 and occult, we "naturally" concede 
 him a large share of the proceeds, 
 and we (equally naturally) accord to 
 our modern Wizard (of "Finance") 
 that respectful awe v;hich in all past 
 times we have been accustomed to 
 render to his forebears and predeces- 
 sors in magic — the Medicine Man, 
 the Witch Doctor, the Soothsayer, 
 the Oracle, the Astrologer, the Ma- 
 gician, the Ecclesiastic. 
 
 Custom and usage is merely con- 
 tinuing its normal coiu-se in those 
 two realms of activity now called 
 Finance, and Productive Industry — 
 Capital and Labor. 
 
 D-e-b-t Spells Slavery. 
 
 Enterprises (whether constrtictive 
 or destructive, Avhether productive or 
 unproductive, whether of peace or of 
 war), when "financed," become in- 
 
 debted to the "Financier" in propor- 
 tion to their magnitude; hence, the 
 liarder the worker works, the more 
 industrious and enterprising the 
 Worker Community, the faster and 
 greater grows the Community indebt- 
 edness — a truly quaint, queer, curious 
 and mysterious system of "econom- 
 ics"! 
 
 And the more closely it is exam- 
 ined the more quaintly mysterious it 
 seems. 
 
 Mystery is and always has been 
 the "device" of the cunning to de- 
 spoil and enslave the simple; and no 
 fact of large social significance is 
 today more glaringly apparent than 
 the general and mysterious drift of 
 desirable things out of the hands of 
 those who make them into the con- 
 trol of others. 
 
 Equally clear is it that the motor 
 "device" in this drift, taken by-and- 
 large, is that mysterious process we 
 call "financing the enterprise"; and 
 by the same token its most efficient 
 instrumentality is magic money and 
 money magic. 
 
 It is not necessary to assume con- 
 scious intent on the part of the 
 "Financier" to enslave the "Worker 
 Masses", still, in a practical world it 
 is the practical outcome not the in- 
 tent that is of practical importance; 
 and in the orthography of modern 
 economics "slavery" is spelled with 
 only four letters — D-E-B-T. 
 
 The Magic Hat. 
 
 As — "economically" (!)— debt im- 
 plies interest "which flows to the 
 capitalist without ever exhausting the 
 capital from which it comes and 
 therefore without any necessary limit 
 to its continuance, it is . . . ca- 
 pable of an everlasting life . . . 
 a lifeless thing producing an ever- 
 lasting and Inexhaustible supply of 
 goods" — steaks and steamships, welsh- 
 rabbits and railroads, women and 
 wine, dinners and diamonds, farms 
 and factories; parks, palaces, pleas- 
 ures, power — leisure and luxury, and 
 all that lustful heart of man desires, 
 all flowing in an everlasting, self- 
 creating stream, not out of btit into 
 the magic hat — of the smiling finan- 
 cial prestidigitator. 
 
 But . . . ! the responsive smile 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 43 
 
 is ominously fading from the faces 
 of the dazed payers of the perform- 
 ance, gazing in goggle-eyed perplex- 
 ity at this quaint inversion of the 
 familiar old magic-hat trick. 
 
 Who? and What? 
 
 Who are they from whose faces 
 the smile is so ominously fading? 
 
 What docs the fading of the smile 
 mean? 
 
 What does it portend? 
 
 They — are "the people." 
 
 Of them I have written heretofore: 
 "They do not think (constructively) 
 . . . they feel — feel hunger, feel 
 passion — they feel with all the vital 
 energy of the race. Thus when so- 
 cial conditions become unbearable or 
 threaten their vital function (repro- 
 duction), they reflex with unre- 
 strained ferocity. ..." 
 
 That is what it means — the fading 
 of the smile. 
 
 What it portends is — Revolution. 
 
 Question! 
 
 Is that — even as only a possibility 
 
 — a wortliwhile social outcome, con- 
 sidering our stupendous National op- 
 portunity? 
 
 Is our present social condition one 
 to which we can justly point with 
 National pride? 
 
 Is our present social condition 
 worthy of National self-praise or of 
 self-condemnation when we think of 
 our century of nationally unhampered 
 freedom and consider our vast con- 
 tinental area of the most fertile, the 
 most resourceful, and most favorably 
 situated land and — the most intelli- 
 gent mass of human kind on earth, 
 on the job? 
 
 Is our present social condition a 
 goal for which an intelligent healthy- 
 minded Nation would deliberately 
 strive? 
 
 Is our present social condition the 
 Objective for which we — as a Na- 
 tion — have deliberately striven dur- 
 ing our National life? 
 
 What is — now — our National Ob- 
 jective? 
 
 Fcrnwald, Berkeley, California. 
 November 5, 1920. 
 
 ANIMALS REPRODUCE THEIR KIND: 
 CAN "MONEY MAKE MONEY"? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 Second Series ^ 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Method of Solving Problems Generally 
 And Our Social Problem in Particular. 
 
 .By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note: Part II of Technocracy — Second Series makes easily and clearly 
 understandable a method of solving problems by disregarding details (ac- 
 cidentals) and focusing on principles (essentials), and the peculiar applicability 
 of this method to the social problems. 
 
 In so applying it, it is shown that social forces and (human) materials 
 are nature-given — unchangeable — and act in obedience to laws of nature 
 (instinctive urges, etc.), but by the same method by which the mechanic 
 utilizes "destructive" natural forces to subserve his human purposes, attains 
 his ends, and prevents disaster, we may (and not otherwise) avoid impending 
 social calamity — forestall revolution. 
 
 Freedom of Choice. 
 
 Nations, like individuals, have free- 
 dom of choice to do well or ill — to act 
 wisely or otherwise. 
 
 Nations, like their human elements, 
 are subject to growth, to degeneration, 
 to catastrophe. They are subject, 
 in other words, to evolution, devolu- 
 tion, revolution. 
 
 And, as in the case of individuals, 
 their growth, health, freedom from 
 accident — their continued prosperity — 
 depends upon their knowledge of the 
 laws of Nature and the intelligent use 
 they make of thi's knowledge. 
 
 "Great" and "Small." 
 
 Seemingly "Nature" makes no more 
 distinction between nations and indi- 
 viduals — is no more considerate of 
 millions than of units, than we arc, 
 toward an ant or a swarm of ants. 
 
 Indeed, in the midst of the bil- 
 lions of giant suns constituting our 
 "Universe" the significance of our 
 whole huge Earth and all its con- 
 tents, animate, and inanimate, seems 
 to shrink into absolute negligibility. 
 
 But, "great" and "small" are human 
 notions. 
 
 "Nature" is just as "great" in its 
 smallest parts as it is "small" in its 
 greatest. And it is human Intelligence 
 which comprehends both the greatness 
 of the telescopic universe of suns and 
 
 solar systems, and the equal greatness 
 of the microscopic "universe" of mole- 
 cules and sub-molecules that make 
 up a grain of sand. 
 
 Responsibility. 
 
 The practical point of this more or 
 less philosophical introduction is that 
 we humans find ourselves on a mag- 
 nificently equipped earth, endowed 
 with freedom of choice to use or abuse 
 our splendid opportunities, with the 
 inevitable alternative of sanely joyous 
 life or futily premature death. And 
 we of the United States hold the most 
 favorable portion of tlie globe and an 
 unequalled physical and spiritual heri- 
 tage, with corresponding magnitude 
 of responsibilit}'; responsibility flow- 
 ing from and out of our God-given and 
 God-like freedom of choice. 
 
 Intelligence. 
 
 It is not necessary (as is both cus- 
 tomary and confusing) to read "pur- 
 pose" into the "acts of Nature." It 
 is enough to discern their unmistak- 
 ably marked drift. 
 
 This drift is a datum — a basic fact — 
 that willy-nilly we must accept. 
 
 It is this drift we call Evolution. 
 
 But there is this distinction between 
 Man and "Nature": Nature is imper- 
 sonal, mechanistic; Man is endowed 
 with Personality — intelligence and 
 
TFXHKOCRACY 
 
 45 
 
 freedom of choice; and is tliercby en- 
 abled to become an active and pur- 
 poseful participator in the processes of 
 evolution, and by judiciously selecting 
 his relation to the drift he becomes 
 the sole responsible arbiter of his fate 
 — the master of his destiny. 
 
 Perplexity. 
 
 But, can man's finite mind really 
 discern and steer a certain course 
 among the infinite complexities of the 
 Universe? 
 
 Why not? 
 
 The difficulty is not nearly so great 
 as many think. For every complexity 
 is reducible to simplicity. 
 
 Perhaps you have recently visited 
 the California, one of our latest fight- 
 ing ships. And being neither a naval 
 man nor a mechanic, what you saw 
 was probably a seemingly unintellig- 
 ible and mind confusing mass of com- 
 plexities, filling you with -wonder, but 
 also with helpless bewilderment. 
 
 Principles. 
 
 But, looked at the right way, the 
 battleship would have been as easy 
 reading as this sentence is to you. You 
 would have automatically looked for 
 the very few essential ideas — princi- 
 ples — upon which every mechanism 
 and every combination of mechanisms 
 must be built; and these perceived, 
 the rest would have been as simple 
 as unrolling a ball of twine; for, after 
 all, what you saw was only a dug-out 
 with cobble-stones to throw at the 
 enemy — modernized. 
 
 Complex Machinery? 
 
 You know that the battleship hull is 
 merely a large floating sharp-ended 
 box or shell. You know that it has 
 motor means to give it motion; steer- 
 ing means to give it direction; arma- 
 ment to give, it fighting efficiency. 
 
 These simple essential elements 
 equally characterize the primordial 
 savage war-canoe and the modern civ- 
 ilized battleship; and so considered 
 one is no more bewildering than the 
 other. And both are equally within 
 the grasp of common-sense clear and 
 ordered comprehension. 
 
 As to the myriad minute details, by 
 which these simple elements have 
 gradually attained their modern re- 
 
 finement, these are matters of merely 
 incidental interest; each one of which 
 complexities, however, could be re- 
 duced to the same simplicity separ- 
 ately — by the same method. 
 
 Indeed, these separate elements con- 
 stitute subject matters of separate 
 arts, and they have been arrived at by 
 the skilled mechanic by a process es- 
 sentially corresponding to that which 
 I have suggested to you, as the right 
 way of looking at the battleship. 
 
 Fictitious Complexity. 
 
 " The Mechanic knows no more about 
 the ultimate nature (i. e. details) of 
 the matter, materials, and forces 
 which he employs, than you knew 
 about the details of a fighting craft. 
 
 All he knows or cares about are a 
 few basic facts, the simple principles 
 (elements) of Mechanics, and he pro- 
 duces his results, so bewildering to 
 you in their fictitious complexity, by 
 applying these simple principles to 
 whatever task he tackles. 
 
 Experience. 
 
 You will not charge me with ego- 
 tism if I remind you that I am talk- 
 ing as one who has been there. 
 
 In my long experience as inventor, 
 as inventor's adviser, as expert in a 
 multitude of technical questions and 
 patent litigations involving matters 
 of the most intricate character, I 
 have never found my method of lay- 
 ing hold of the principles to fail; and 
 I have never encountered another 
 that will work. 
 
 Method. 
 
 Now this method, though unfor- 
 tunately far from universally prac- 
 ticed, is quite universally available. 
 
 There is no reason in the world 
 why you should not employ it as 
 well, and with the same confidence, 
 as I. For it rests, not upon a spe- 
 cial endowment or any particular at- 
 tainment, but on the commonsense 
 discernment that every effect has a 
 cause, and that at the bottom of a 
 cluster of interrelated effects one 
 must reach a simple cause. 
 
 Universal Applicability. 
 
 This effective method of attack is 
 seemingly of universal applicability. 
 
46 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 and 3'ou should now be able to rec- 
 ognize its use by me in the various 
 articles of mine that you have read. 
 You may also fathom the cause and 
 foundation of the seemingly egotis- 
 tical confidence with which I, a 
 mere mechanic, plunge headlong into 
 the all-but-sacrcd-and-awe-inspiring 
 region of Sociology, Economics, and 
 Finance — and unhesitatingly invite 
 you to follow me. 
 
 The method has in the past en- 
 abled me to successfully pioneer in 
 quite a number of arts in the details 
 of which I was as ignorant as I ani 
 of those of Economics and Finance. 
 Thus I do not feel that I am sug- 
 gesting to you a course fraught with 
 any more danger than that normal 
 to being alive; either when I recom- 
 mend your adoption of my method 
 of attacking problems generally or in 
 my asking you to follow me in my 
 application of it to our "Social Prob- 
 lem". 
 
 Why Pessimistic? 
 
 You will remember that the first 
 part of this series ended somewhat 
 pessimistically envisaging an ominous 
 prospect and causative influences 
 seemingly dcCp-seated and running 
 back into the mists of antiquity. The 
 great mass of the peopiie are becom- 
 ing more and more discontented with 
 their condition, more and more per- 
 plexed concerning its cause, and more 
 and more bewildered (and increas- 
 ingly impatient) as to the course to 
 be pursued. 
 
 To all with eyes to see it is clear 
 that the social body is profoundly 
 sick. And equally clear, that to cure 
 a sickness, one must remove the 
 cause; and that unless the cause is 
 so removed, the sickness will run its 
 course — possibly to death. 
 
 Forestall Revolution. 
 
 In the social body, when the 
 process of sickness (such as we are 
 now passing through) reaches a crit- 
 ical point, another phase or phe- 
 nomenon usually supervenes to save 
 the moribund body from actual ex- 
 tinction: Revolution. 
 
 And just as it is the task of a sick 
 man to fight off death, so our social 
 
 problem, in its essence, is the task 
 of forestalling Revolution. 
 
 Remember the California. 
 
 With our visit to the warship in 
 mind, let us now prepare to apply 
 to our Social Problem the method 
 there tried out. 
 
 We must first of all ascertain and 
 grasp securely the simple basic prin- 
 ciples on which the mechanism of 
 the social body is built. This will 
 carry us out of the maze of confus- 
 ing details into the clearness of or- 
 dered comprehension. 
 
 We shall then be in a position to 
 make an intelligent diagnosis of the 
 social disorder, and to at least think 
 clearly regarding the remedial course 
 to be adopted. 
 
 And, lest there be needless appre- 
 hension, let us note right here that 
 it will not be necessary for us to 
 lay down the curative (or recon- 
 structive) procedure in its particu- 
 lars — "a practical remedy" in detail. 
 Just as on the battleship we sliould 
 find experts competent to execute 
 the details of any change found de- 
 sirable, so we have in the social ag- 
 gregation technicians to perform the 
 corresponding tasks. 
 
 What Evolution Is Not. 
 
 No word is more on people's lips 
 than "Evolution"; and none is more 
 frequently misused, and misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 Social Evolution is often talked of 
 as if it were a cosmic process forced 
 on men wholly from the outside, re- 
 gardless of their yea and nay; or 
 again as if it were a beneficent dis- 
 pensation "from on high" that some- 
 how, and regardless of men's acts, 
 will float them to the haven of social 
 bliss. 
 
 The typical expression of this 
 last extraordinary misconception is: 
 "Things will right themselves!" 
 
 What Evolution Is. 
 
 In so far as "Social Evolution" is 
 used not merely as a pretentious 
 label for any adventitious change, 
 but for a continuing process analo- 
 gous to that which has produced the 
 animate world, from amoeba to Man, 
 Social Evolution is indeed a "Nat- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 47 
 
 ural'' force which Man must accept 
 and to which he must adjust him- 
 self as to all other forces of Nature, 
 but which, like any other natural 
 force, is available to Man for the 
 accomplishment of his own purposes. 
 Thus — and this is the decisive point 
 — Man is not the helpless object of 
 this evolutionary force, but a par- 
 ticipating subject — a Master ^^le- 
 chanic. 
 
 Man's Will. 
 
 It is nonsense to say Capitalism 
 must persist or that Socialism must 
 come, by virtue of social evolution, 
 whether men desire either one or the 
 other or neither. Men in their social 
 relations are not dust motes blown 
 hither and thither by evolutionary 
 winds. Men are intelligent beings, 
 with freedom of choice; that is, free 
 to use their intelligence. 
 
 Use their intelligence for what? 
 
 Obviously not for the purpose of 
 trying to re-make Man — to treat as 
 negligible basic traits fixed by suc- 
 cessive survival through a million 
 generations; or of attempting to alter 
 the eternal forces of Nature. 
 
 That were vain indeed! 
 
 Natural forces, in social as well as 
 in molecular and molar mechanics, 
 in social as well as in biological evo- 
 lution, are inexorable. They are not 
 hostile to Man, neither are they 
 friendly; they are simply regardless 
 of him — impersonal. 
 
 If they have any "will", they show 
 none toward Man. 
 
 But Man has will. Man has pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Man can! — if he will. . . 
 
 Man's Way, 
 
 How then does Man do his will, 
 work his purpose? 
 
 To him who tries to see below the 
 surface it is clear that purposeful 
 action invariably is pivoted on a ju- 
 dicious choice of the inan's position 
 in relation to the circumstances which 
 he confronts. 
 
 This is true even of the trite con- 
 ditions of bur daily lives: even these 
 are usually determined for us. Our 
 real freedom of action means our 
 choice of different ways of placing 
 ourselves in relation to these con- 
 
 ditions — as a sailor, to keep his de- 
 sired course, sets his sail with ref- 
 erence to the wind. 
 
 Choice of Relation. 
 
 It is even so with the greatest 
 aft'airs, with the concerns of the Na- 
 tion, with our whole Social Problem. 
 
 Certain forces face and envelop us 
 that we cannot change. But we can 
 set our social sails and order our 
 actions in relation to them and thus 
 mediately affect the course of our 
 social craft in the direction of a hu- 
 manly desirable, predetermined goal. 
 
 If our choice is unwise, those 
 forces will run to our hurt. If we 
 choose wisely, we may make a force 
 seemingly opposed to our aim — sub- 
 serve it. Thus we can convert what 
 otherwise would have led to destruc- 
 tion into constructive upbuilding — 
 change malefaction into benefaction, 
 criminality into social service, gen- 
 eral nui/ance into commonweal. 
 
 Preventable Calamities. 
 
 Think of the Johnstown flood, the 
 San Francisco fire, the Titanic dis- 
 aster, the frequent destructive over- 
 flow of the Mississippi, the recurring 
 inundations of the Sacramento Val- 
 ley. 
 
 All these represent Nature acting 
 regardless of Man; and Man acting 
 regardless of his own intelligence. 
 
 In all these cases natural forces 
 overwhelmed Man with calamity be- 
 cause he had failed to exercise his 
 intelligence in rightly choosing his 
 relation toward these forces. 
 
 After Event Wisdom. 
 
 After the destruction of Johns- 
 town, the seasonal floodwaters were 
 wisely impounded — to prevent a repe- 
 tition of the disaster. 
 
 After the San Francisco fire, build- 
 ings were wisely constructed of steel 
 and concrete and an adequate water 
 supply provided — to prevent a repe- 
 tition of the disaster. 
 
 After the Titanic and her human- 
 cargo had perished, her sister ship 
 was wisely fitted with a double cel- 
 lular bottom, and other provisions — 
 to prevent a repetition of the dis- 
 aster. 
 
 After seasonal floods of Sierra 
 
48 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 snow waters have, time and again, 
 destroyed, wholesale, men's works 
 and the products of their industry, 
 engineering measures iare contem- 
 plated in our great vallej^ — to prevent 
 the recurring disasters. 
 
 Why Not Before? 
 
 The Johnstown people knew their 
 danger from flood! 
 
 The San Franciscans knew their 
 peculiar danger from fire! 
 
 The owners of the Titanic knew 
 the danger from icebergs! 
 
 And all of us in the United States 
 now — except those deliberately ob- 
 structing their mental vision with 
 blinkers of happy-go-lucky optimism 
 — realize our impending danger from 
 Revolution. 
 
 There is nothing so foolish and 
 ultimately disastrous as to blink un- 
 pleasant facts; "saying peace, peace: 
 when there is no peace." 
 
 This blinking of facts — "trusting 
 to luck", trusting that "things will 
 right themselves" — is the true cause 
 of disaster. 
 
 Shall we of the United States act 
 like those foolish ones and like them 
 suflfer for our foolishness? 
 
 Shall we continue to act with 
 enual foolishness and enact silly "pro- 
 hibition" and other repressive laws 
 intended to accomplish the impos- 
 sible — change fundamental human in- 
 stincts and overturn the unalterable 
 laws of Nature? 
 
 Shall we, like Europe, wait to learn 
 wisdom from social catastrophe — 
 revolution? 
 
 I hope not. 
 
 Ways and Means. 
 
 My hope that wc shall forestall rev- 
 olution will undoubtedly be echoed by 
 all true Americans. 
 
 But that our hope may be fulfilled, 
 we cannot trust to luck or that things 
 will right themselves. 
 
 It will be necessary above all that 
 we act, and not only act, but act 
 intelligently. And we seem, as yet, 
 far from anything like a general un- 
 derstanding and agreement as to 
 what must be done and what can be 
 done. 
 
 We cannot (and we would not if we 
 could) prevent the snow falling on the 
 
 Sierras. We cannot prevent that 
 snow from melting when and how fast 
 it will. No matter how much we 
 may prefer a nicely and "benevolent- 
 ly" calculated graduation, we cannot 
 prevent a sudden and "malevolently" 
 unseasonable rise of temperature and 
 sudden starting of a thousand "dev- 
 ilishly" destructive freshets. 
 
 Adjust Ourselves. 
 
 But we can protect the forests, im- 
 pound flood waters, regulate stream 
 channels, build reservoirs, dams and 
 levees. In short, we can forestall 
 destruction flowing from impersonally- 
 neutral natural forces, which in them- 
 selves aie unpreventable. 
 
 Every one knows how much in that 
 way we have already accomplished, 
 and how much more is planned. 
 
 We are not, however, confined to 
 prevention. Flood waters, which 
 would devastate, can be (and, as well 
 known, are) turned into priceless 
 means of production. By intelligence 
 and skill and purposefulncss they are 
 made the means of reclaiming for 
 man's use the desert, and of "gener- 
 ating" light and power, and of helping 
 to build up what may, and what many 
 of us loyal Californians firmly believe 
 will, become the apex of human cul- 
 ture, the highest and truest civiliza- 
 tion on earth. 
 
 Immutable Nature. 
 
 The point of application is plain. 
 There are about us social forces that 
 in themselves are just as little under 
 our control as are the snow fall and 
 thaw. Left to themselves they must 
 run their "natural" course. And, like 
 as not before we have time to catch 
 our breath, the flood will be upon us; 
 that direst deluge of all — Revolution. 
 
 We cannot change the elemental 
 facts of human nature. 
 
 Unchangeable Types. 
 
 In the first part of the first series 
 of these Technocracy papers I have 
 sketched in outline the origin and de- 
 velopment of the primal instincts and 
 propensities. These are as fixed as 
 natural forces. They aic, mdced, nat- 
 ural forces. 
 
 We cannot change a bellicose man 
 into a pacifist — a Roosevelt into a 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 49 
 
 Wilson; nor a feeder and breeder into 
 a philosopher; nor the acquisitive in- 
 to the inventive. We cannot by any 
 direct act abolish or even change sel- 
 fishness, cunning, greed, cowardice, 
 just as little as it would avail to try 
 (and it has been tried) to eradicate 
 courage, generosity, industry, public 
 spirit. 
 
 Human Material. 
 
 To the social philosopher and the 
 enlightened social reformer, and best 
 of all to the plain citizen taking 
 thought of these matters, the first step 
 in the right direction, the first basic 
 principle that must underlie an under- 
 standing of the present Social Dis- 
 order and be imbedded in the founda- 
 tion of the Social Order to come, 
 should be the real and efifective recog- 
 nition that all that may be accom- 
 plished must be accomplished with 
 the existing human material. 
 
 Not Angels. 
 
 There is nothing in this proposition 
 to cause dejection to any one except 
 to those who think our only salva- 
 tion lies in our acquiring halos and 
 growing wings. 
 
 To many of us there is much deeper 
 satisfaction and cause for hopefulness 
 in the fact that, thanks to the Scien- 
 tist, the Inventor, and the Mechanic, 
 flying has become mechanically pos- 
 sible, than sorrow over the circum- 
 stance that our heads arc not heboid 
 and the skin covering our scapulas 
 (male or female) remains as bare of 
 feathers as before. 
 
 Reconstruction. 
 
 It is indeed the Scientist, the Inven- 
 tor and the Mechanic who must, as I 
 propose to show, guide and help us on 
 our way — if we are to achieve social 
 salvation. 
 
 Let our Scientists prove intelligent, 
 our Inventors resourceful, our Me- 
 chanics skillful, and us ready to draw 
 on our combined common-sense and 
 courage, there need be little fear that 
 our work of Social Reconstruction will 
 be brought to naught by inadequate 
 human material. 
 
 Reconstruction: That and no less we 
 
 must attempt if we are to prevent 
 diisaster — forestall Revolution. 
 
 Simple Principles. 
 
 The obvious prerequisite to our 
 beginning our reconstructive work is 
 an understanding of ourselves and 
 the existing social mechanism. 
 
 And to gain such imderstanding 
 we shall follow the method outlined 
 in connection with our visit to the 
 California: 
 
 We shall refuse to be daunted by 
 surface and fictitious intricacy and 
 the multiplicity of details. 
 
 We shall seek out the simple es- 
 sentials, and we shall remember: 
 
 First, that every mechanism what- 
 ever, no matter how vast and com- 
 plicated, is built on simple princi- 
 ples. 
 
 Second, that it would be imprac- 
 tical and futile to specify "a prac- 
 tical remedy" or to lay down a 
 "practical program of reconstruction" 
 till we practically agree on social 
 principles and practically agree on 
 the purpose of the proposed social 
 reconstruction. 
 
 Third, that laying hold of sucli 
 principles is like unlocking a doer; 
 and a knowledge of the principles of 
 the social structure is the key (and 
 the only key) to an understanding 
 of the whole of it and of how it 
 works. 
 
 This last implies that it is needful 
 also to note that to know how a 
 mechanism works is as requisite as 
 to know how it is made. Its work- 
 ing as well as its structure must 
 be understood. But a knowledge of 
 a structure almost certainly brings 
 with it a like knowledge of its work- 
 ing. 
 
 It will therefore be our task to 
 separate society into its very few 
 and very simple main parts, and to 
 observe their activities and the work- 
 ing of society as a whole. 
 
 Natural Groups, 
 
 Obviously the units of society are 
 the human beings comprising it. 
 
 As I have set forth earlier, these 
 human units naturally arrange them- 
 
50 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 selves, by virtue of their economic 
 traits, into natural groups. These 
 groups, then, are the essential (main) 
 parts of the social mechanism. 
 
 When we have learned to under- 
 stand them, their interrelation, and 
 their functioning — their natural work- 
 ing — we have learned to understand 
 society as a whole. 
 
 Having learned this, our ideas re- 
 garding "Reconstruction" will have 
 become clear, precise, and practically 
 usable. 
 
 Unchangeable Human Nature. 
 
 Let us take a forward look here, 
 in order to better know where we 
 are at, and where we are going. 
 
 We cannot change human nature; 
 on tliat we are, I hope, agreed. The 
 human units are beyond the reach of 
 Reconstruction. 
 
 Can we reconstruct their group- 
 ings—the social elements? 
 
 If I am right in holding that- these 
 groupings are the expression of im- 
 manent economic traits, and thus the 
 working out of "human nature", 
 these too are fixed facts. 
 
 The essential social elements are 
 also not subject to Reconstruction. 
 
 W^hat, then, in heaven's name, I 
 almost hear you cry out, is there 
 left to reconstruct? 
 
 Ask — Tin Lizzy. 
 
 If you had dealt as mucli with ma- 
 chinery as I, you would not be puz- 
 zled. And you will cease to be puz- 
 zled as soon as you reflect a little. 
 
 And — your tin Lizzy can tell you 
 all about it. 
 
 Ask her, nicely and properly, she 
 will tell you: 
 
 Her besetting vice is friction; but 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, California. 
 November 11, 1920. 
 
 without friction she could do noth- 
 ing — either praiseworthy or reprehen- 
 sible. 
 
 Lacking friction: instead of being 
 a jocund joy, she would be use- 
 lessly futile tinware. 
 
 She will skittishly skid on a greasy 
 road, or stall in loose sand because 
 of — insufificient friction. 
 
 But, also, she will refrain from 
 these improprieties, answer her 
 brake, and conform to your will only 
 — because of friction. 
 
 It is friction getting in its deadly 
 work when her joints and journals 
 screech for oil; and it is friction 
 that compels you to everlastingly buy 
 and replace her worn-out in'ards. 
 
 But, and finally, she speeds her 
 flirtatious chu-chu-ing way on the 
 level and chug-chugs laboriously up- 
 hill — God bless her — by friction. 
 
 Freedom of Choice. 
 
 One and the same force, then, will 
 work both "good" and "ill", depend- 
 ing on the conditioning interrela- 
 tions — our selected relation toward 
 the neutral natural force, — our pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Just so, one and the same machine 
 part, or one and the same social ele- 
 ment, will under different conditions 
 of interrelation or coordination pro- 
 duce totally different or even oppo- 
 site results — depending on our choice 
 of purpose. 
 
 In brief, what we can reconstruct 
 is the interrelation of the social ele- 
 ments. And such reconstruction 
 must proceed from a clear concep- 
 tion of what end the whole social 
 mechanism is to serve — our National 
 choice of purpose — our National Ob- 
 jective. 
 
 IS HUMAN FREEDOM ABSOLUTE OR IS IT 
 
 CONDITIONED ON RATIONALITY 
 
 AND NATURE'S LAWS? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 Second Series 
 
 PART III. 
 
 A Working Method for a Workable Understanding 
 Of the Social Problem and of a Workable Reconstruction. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note: Proceeding from the understanding reached in Part II, that the 
 natural social forces are fixed facts which cannot be altered, Part III shows 
 how they may be utilized for a human social purpose. 
 
 It shows that while human freedom must act within rigid laws of na- 
 true, it is not thereby Hmited. The intelligent realization of this fact has 
 made the mechanic effective and his accomplishments possible; failure to attain 
 this insight in social relations has produced what we call the "social problem." 
 
 Microscopic Scratch to Panama Canal. 
 
 Seemingly there is no physical task 
 beyond the capability of the Me- 
 chanic: 
 
 Measuring and weighing niacliinefv 
 accurately determining relations of 
 ultra-microscopic minuteness up to 
 those of cosmic magnitude; machines 
 for production, for transportation, for 
 reclamation, for communication; ma- 
 chines of all grades of size and of 
 power, and of capacity, and of preci- 
 sion — from bolometer measuring vari- 
 ations in pressure of light-waves trav- 
 ersing infinite space to dreadnaueht 
 delivering its accurately placed and ir- 
 resistible thousand-ton blows; from 
 the hundred thousand in an inch ac- 
 curately spaced diffraction-grating 
 scratches to Culebra eartii-gash of the 
 Panama Canal: 
 
 These are some of the works of the 
 Mechanic. 
 
 Methods Right and Wrong. 
 
 Clearly it is pertinent to our in- 
 quiry to ask: How does he do it? 
 
 When we note in one department of 
 human effort certainty and success, 
 and in another confusion and failure, 
 it is more reasonable to infer that a 
 deep-seated difference in method ol 
 procedure is involved than that the 
 brains and intelligence of humanity 
 have accidentally drifted into the one 
 and deserted the other department. 
 
 The validity of this inference is em- 
 phasized by our common impression 
 that Mechanics are more or less hum- 
 ble and low-brow, commonplace and 
 ordinary fellows, while our Econo- 
 mists, Sociologists and Financiers are 
 by-and-large haughty and high-brow, 
 brainy and rather extraordinary per- 
 sonages. 
 
 The Mechanic's Wisdom. 
 
 Probably tlie most characteristic at- 
 titude of the mechanic toward the 
 forces and materials with which he 
 deals is unquestioning acceptance of 
 the fact that he cannot change or any- 
 wise modify the laws of nature or the 
 qualities of materials. 
 
 The mechanic, like the rest of us. 
 wants to accomplish a multitude of 
 purooses. Having determined upon the 
 object of his desires, be it a machine 
 to do something, or a change in the 
 location of physical things, he pro- 
 ceeds upon the assumption wliich I 
 have indicated: that he is debarred 
 from changing or even modifying 
 either the laws of nature or the char- 
 acter of materials; and so sets to work 
 to get a clear understanding of these 
 laws and of the characteristics of the 
 materials involved. Then he so se- 
 lects his relation to the appropriate 
 forces and materials that thereby 
 (through their natural cause-and-ef- 
 fect functioning) his purpose is accom- 
 plished. 
 
52 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 Nature Dynamic 
 
 But, what do wc mean by "Laws of 
 Nature"? 
 
 We do not mean a catalogue of in- 
 ert, dead "facts." 
 
 A law of nature implies motion, not 
 rest — Universal Energy in universal 
 orderly activity — it is not a static, but 
 a dynamic concept. 
 
 It is the description of a process and 
 the conditions under which it runs. 
 Essentially it is a precise statement of 
 the simple notion — based on experi- 
 ence — that if something happens, 
 something else will happen as a con- 
 sequence. 
 
 Nature is dynamic — it is eternal Do- 
 ing. 
 
 Ceaseless change is of Nature's es- 
 sence. 
 
 Even what we call inert matter is 
 constantly changing and undergoing 
 elaboration and displacement. 
 
 What does not change are certain 
 relations, which we spell out under 
 the notion of cause and effect. 
 ' Thus a law of nature is the expres- 
 sion of what is ever changeless within 
 the ever changing. 
 
 Freedom Through Knowledge. 
 
 It is such clear and adequate under- 
 standing of and conformity to the laws 
 of nature that gives to the Mechanic 
 his freedom of action — his certainty, 
 his success. 
 
 He goes to his task neither cowed 
 by the irresistible natural forces nor 
 ignorantly contemptuous of them. He 
 knows them: and with his objective 
 clear before him, he so makes his 
 selection among them and so chooses 
 his relation to them that his work may 
 be accomplished through their service 
 — through Universal Energy. 
 
 The Mechanic's purposive freedom 
 (expressed in his accomplishments) is 
 made effective through knowledge of, 
 but by. Nature's Causative Activity. 
 
 Neutral Nature. 
 
 Nature is neutral to Man, to his 
 hopes and his fears, his projects or his 
 lack of them. 
 
 Neutrality, however, does not neces- 
 sarily imply passivity. There is a neu- 
 trality in action as well as a neutrality 
 in rest: A swimmer's choice of direc- 
 tion is not diminished if he can take 
 
 advantage of currents flowing in the 
 chosen course, but on the contrary, his 
 effective liberty is thereby enhanced. 
 
 And the last word of Science is that 
 "Nature" is an infinitely directioned 
 but orderly flow of Universal Energy 
 — currents infinitely directioned and 
 available to liberate all who will pa-, 
 ticntly study them, and to realize all 
 their rational purposes. 
 
 It is in this sense that there is truth 
 in the otherwise inexact statement 
 that the mechanic has learned to "con- 
 trol" nature. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he does not 
 "control" nature. 
 
 As a matter of fact, also, nature 
 does not "control" him. 
 
 Doing the Impossible, 
 
 Some of you will remember the 
 time, not so very, very many years 
 ago, when aeronautics was still in 
 the balloon stage, and when at our 
 own university here in Berkeley one 
 of our most revered and renowned 
 and forward - looking scientists 
 "demonstrated" that flight by a heav- 
 ier-than-air contrivance was a phys- 
 ical impossibility — as contravening 
 certain laws of nature. 
 
 As we all know, the Professor was 
 wrong. But his error did not come 
 from overrating the laws of nature, 
 but from underrating man's freedom 
 and ingenuity in choosing his rela- 
 tion to thein. 
 
 The fact of gravitation is beyond 
 the will of man and mechanic — leave 
 it or lump it. It is just the same as 
 it was when the Professor asserted 
 the impossibility of the aeroplane. 
 Yet •now the overhead whirr (that 
 still thrills some of us) has become 
 so familiar that busy men hardly 
 look up. 
 
 How was this seeming miracle ac- 
 complished? 
 
 In essence: by a design calculated 
 to put the aviator in suitable speed 
 relation to that proverbially lightest 
 of things, the air, and thus its nat- 
 ural (upthrust) resilient energy coun- 
 terbalances natural (downtlirust) 
 gravitational "pull". 
 
 In short, the mechanic utilized nat- 
 ural forces appropriately — placed him- 
 self in appropriate relation — and thus 
 attained his desired objective. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 53 
 
 But, the mechanic, no more than 
 the animal, the fish, or the bird, 
 "controls" these forces of nature. 
 
 Conditioned: Not Limited. 
 
 The wind blowcth where it listeth. 
 Of the forces of nature man cannot 
 alter a jot. But he has practically 
 unlimited scope for determining his 
 own relation with regard to them. 
 
 Man does not control nature. 
 
 But man can utilize the active 
 forces of nature— without limit. 
 
 The "Practical Mechanic" has 
 learned this lesson, as he has also 
 learned to utilize nature to attain his 
 own objectives — hence his success. 
 
 The Social Mechanic (sociologist 
 and economist) has learned neither; 
 — hence his failure. 
 
 Considering the limitless extent and 
 infinite complexity of nature, there 
 is thus given to Man an equally un- 
 limited scope for his activity — even 
 to the point, as shown by the prac- 
 tical mechanic, of attaining the "Im- 
 possible". 
 
 This holds good of all men's as- 
 pirations and activities, in his social 
 arrangements no less than in his me- 
 chanical contrivances. In one as in 
 the other he has infinite choice. 
 
 Man may attempt the seeming im- 
 possible — and succeed! 
 
 Man is free! 
 
 What Is Freedom? 
 
 With respect to the laws of na- 
 ture, and the mechanic's attitude to- 
 ward them, may we not now feel 
 that we are on firm ground? 
 
 But, what do we mean by "free- 
 dom"? 
 
 Freedom! Invoked by myriad- 
 voiced chorus, called in vain by ig- 
 norance and folly! Spirit of de- 
 mocracy, yet not understood by de- 
 mocracy! 
 
 Endless foolish talk of freedom, 
 with all manner of etherial attenua- 
 tions of metaphysical abstractions, 
 perfervid declamation, profound mis- 
 conception ! 
 
 What I mean by Freedom is ex- 
 ceedingly simple; but directly this 
 meaning is grasped, the light it sheds 
 on social relations becomes all-illu- 
 minating. 
 
 Freedom in matters social is pre- 
 
 cisely what I have shown to be the 
 mechanic's freedom in his dealings 
 with the forces of nature. 
 No more, no less. 
 
 Free to Choose. 
 
 The mechanic is not free to change, 
 he is free to choose the facts and 
 forces of nature. He is free to use 
 them as he wills, to his own and 
 others' good or — hurt. 
 
 Neither can you or I change the 
 social forces, the social materials. 
 But you and I and all of us to- 
 gether are free to choose and use 
 them for a predetermined purpose 
 and our advantage; but unused, they 
 — with cosmic indifiference — quite 
 commonly run to our undoing. 
 
 The human units and essential 
 group elements of the social struc- 
 ture and their natural laws are as 
 much nature-given, nature-made and 
 nature-determined, as the units, ele- 
 ments, and laws of the mechanic's 
 constructions. They are the facts, 
 the data which we must accept, as 
 the mechanic accepts the character- 
 istics and functions of the wood, or 
 clay, or iron, or wedge, or lever, or 
 whatnot of his craft. 
 
 The Only Way. 
 
 If Society and Social Reconstruction 
 are to exercise freedom, it can only 
 be by wise selection and purposeful 
 utilization of the material oflfered by 
 nature. 
 
 Chemist, electrotechnician, metal- 
 lurgist, farmer, plant "originator", and 
 animal breeder — all (in effect) so ap- 
 preciate the rationale of their activi- 
 ties, and thus gain success. 
 
 When the stock-breeder wants cows 
 that produce more milk or heavier 
 beeves, he does not pray, nor employ 
 magic, nor serve, notice of specifica- 
 tions on nature. What he does is to 
 get busy with actually existing cows 
 and beeves, in whose make-up he 
 has no say whatever; and by apply- 
 ing his knowledge of genetics and 
 crossing the appropriate strains, he 
 finally gets what he is after. So 
 far from "controlling" nature and 
 essaying to dictate to her, he is her 
 humble, patient and painstaking pupil. 
 And so it is that he, after all (in 
 eflfect), "makes" her do his will. 
 
54 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 Let "Nature" Do It. 
 
 No one will more heartily agree 
 with the Mechanic's Philosophy, as 
 I have outlined it, than my friend 
 Luther Burbank. He knows in high- 
 est degree how nature's "secrets" may 
 be learned; not evoked by magic or 
 any form of wizardry; not wrested 
 by flying in the face of nature's laws 
 or by nullifying natural forces; but 
 gained by patient search, by persist- 
 ent study, judicious choice, and intel- 
 ligent application to a well defined 
 purpose — objective. That is, exercis- 
 ing one's freedom in choosing his rela- 
 tion to the facts of nature. Man did not 
 make the myriad-spike-armed cactus. 
 But, Burbank has induced "Nature" to 
 make the heretofore hostile cactus, 
 spineless. 
 
 And so also, Dr. Jacques Loeb, Dr. 
 Rittcr, and the other biologists search- 
 ing for the secret of how "life is 
 made" and conceivably to "make" it 
 themselves, they all, I feel confident, 
 are imbued by the same understand- 
 ing and in essence follow the same 
 method. 
 
 Re "Social Problem." 
 
 This and no other must ])c our 
 method in dealing with our Social 
 Problem. Not otherwise will a (hu- 
 manly desirable) New Order ever 
 arise from the existing Social Dis- 
 order. 
 
 For this Disorder is the resultant 
 of natural (social) forces, forces to- 
 wards which men, failing to exercise 
 their freedom of choice, have taken 
 no defined and socially purposive po- 
 sition at all or an irrational position, 
 i. e. in opposition to natural social 
 forces. And these social forces will 
 and must obey their immanent laws 
 and run their nature-appointed course, 
 even to the obliteration of civilization 
 and civilized man's destruction, unless 
 and until he becomes fully aware of 
 the situation, learns to know the social 
 forces and their laws which he con- 
 fronts, and deals rationally with them 
 as does the mechanic with the natural 
 forces in his department of effort. 
 
 Let Man — in social relation — but 
 reach such competence of insight and 
 competence of action as the Mechanic 
 has already attained and the horizon 
 
 of the socially attainable will be ex- 
 tended immeasurably. 
 
 Scepticism. 
 
 It is not unnatural that so many pro- 
 posals for social betterment should 
 encounter scepticism. The man who 
 waves them aside with the (to him) 
 conclusive "'impossible," is less of an 
 impossibilist than the typical "reform- 
 er" who makes them. For those pro- 
 posals commonly rest, not on scien- 
 tific knowledge of the natural laws 
 involved and a competent technology 
 in dealing with them, but on mere 
 wish-father-to-the-t bought; from 
 which pedigree nothing comes but 
 futility. 
 
 But a suggestion for social action, 
 no matter how unprecedented, how 
 "impractical," no matter how startling 
 on the surface and to superficial in- 
 spection, if it discloses itself as se- 
 curely founded on the facts and laws 
 of society, will claim criticism of a 
 very different order. 
 
 Only the self-interested will hurl 
 angry epithets. 
 
 Only the unthinking will then cry 
 "impossible." 
 
 Only the impractical will cry "Give 
 us a practical remedy," "Give us a 
 practical program of reconstruction." 
 
 And when the basic point of view 
 which I am here abbreviatedly setting 
 forth shall have gained acceptance, it 
 will follow that what is now labelled 
 impractical and socially impossible 
 will be universally regarded as the 
 matter-of-course; just as the "imprac- 
 tical" and "impossible" airplane of 
 twenty years ago is with us, now, an 
 every-day reality. 
 
 Absurdity Rampant! 
 
 If my extended experience with in- 
 venting had not taught me so securely 
 that the most formidable obstacles 
 and difficulties dissolve of themselves, 
 as it were, before the method which 
 I am outlining, and what victories 
 over the "impractical" and "impos- 
 sible" may thus be won, I do not 
 know that I should have the heart for 
 any sociologizing; so great and gro- 
 tesque is the contrast between what 
 humanly is and what humanly ought 
 to be. 
 
 Look about in any direction: You 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 55 
 
 find absurdity running rampant — run- 
 ning Society. 
 
 Ubiq. H. C. L. 
 
 Charmed if not charming symbol 
 of man's economic ineptitude — 
 H. C. L. 
 
 Tons of paper and printer's ink and 
 myriad dynes of linguistic energy have 
 been used up in vain speculative ef- 
 forts to track it to its lair, to stop its 
 soaring, to understand, to curb, to con- 
 trol it. 
 
 And while the writing and disputing, 
 learned and unlearned, arc at their 
 hottest, — lo! things mysteriously be- 
 gin to happen. 
 
 Howls and Grins. 
 
 Wool drops 50 per cent and — a mil- 
 lion-dollar howl goes up from the 
 sheepmen. 
 
 Wheat, which sold at tlirec dollars a 
 few months ago, is now precariously 
 hanging about two dollars. The price 
 of cotton has been cut in two since 
 spring. Cattle and hogs on the hoof 
 have slumped. Prices of staple fruits 
 are down — billion-dollar-shrieks from 
 the agriculturalist. 
 
 City man grins. 
 
 Why Blame Anyone! 
 
 In the why of these ground-and- 
 lofty acrobatic performances o f 
 "prices" I am not at present interest- 
 ed. But what does interest me — and 
 you — at this point is the difference in 
 emotional response from different por- 
 tions of the American people. 
 
 Roars of rage from the farmer: 
 
 A nascent smile — a flickering grin 
 — of hope on the faces of the urban 
 consumers. 
 
 Would you blame the farmer? 
 
 I don't. 
 
 He must raise "high-priced" crops 
 on his "high-priced" land — blessed 
 are the land-speculators and boosters! 
 How else could he make "interest," 
 let alone a "profit," on his "invest- 
 ment"? — blessed our system of finance 
 and financiers and "financiering the 
 enterprise." 
 
 And is not everyone legitimately, 
 necessarily, "naturally" out for the 
 boodle? 
 
 Said a Hayward poultryman a little 
 while ago (a very decent good-natured 
 
 fellow, quite undistinguished for re- 
 pacity) : "I hope eggs go to two dol- 
 lars a dozen." 
 
 Can you blame him? 
 
 I don't. 
 
 Do vou blame any "profiteer"? 
 
 I don't. 
 
 Would you blame Air. City Con- 
 sumer for rejoicing at Mr. Farmer's 
 sorrow? 
 
 I don't. 
 
 Fifty-Fifty. 
 
 Let us note parenthetically that Mr. 
 City Consumer's joy is, as yet, only 
 anticipatory. 
 
 The decline in values on the farm 
 has not, as yet, penetrated into his 
 grocery store — with marked visibility. 
 (Maybe it will not.) And his (declinc- 
 in-wool-inspired) scouting of clothiers' 
 show windows has not, as yet, dis- 
 closed any hope-confirming tags. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, though wool go 
 down fifty per cent, suits may go up 
 another fifty. 
 
 Why not? 
 
 Is not our "economic system" equal 
 to almost anything — preposterous? 
 
 It "naturally" makes every citizen an 
 enemy of every other! 
 
 "One man's misfortune is another's 
 opportunity." 
 
 Of course! Naturally. 
 
 Serious Questions. 
 
 What arc farms and farming to tlie 
 city dweller? 
 
 What is the city man to the farmer? 
 
 What is the householder to the 
 store-keeper? 
 
 What are they all to the laborer? 
 
 What is the laborer to them all? 
 
 What are producer and consumer to 
 the Nation? 
 
 Where is there any understandable 
 and unifying interest? 
 
 Civil War. 
 
 You cut yourself down to one fire 
 in your house because coal is so dear; 
 but West Virginia and Alabama have 
 been enjoying the diversion of civil 
 war, because the coal miners want 
 more wages. And they are as far 
 from sybaritism as you arc from be- 
 ing a miser. 
 
 But the Coal Barons do not lan- 
 guish. 
 
 Truly our grotesque "economic sys- 
 
56 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 tern" is equal to almost anything pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 Obviously it is equal to producing 
 the quaint, Alice in Wonderland, re- 
 sult of placing one good and amiable 
 American in Hayward and another 
 equally good and equally amiable 
 American in Berkeley into a relation 
 of active antagonism in life and death 
 hostility of interests and aims; hos- 
 tility as real, as necessary, as "nat- 
 ural," as if they were members, not of 
 a supposedly unified nation, but sub- 
 jects of two atrocious nations — at 
 war with each other. 
 
 Quaint hardly expresses it . . .eh? 
 
 Those Patched Breeches! 
 
 Why has v\'Ool, let us say, dropped 
 in price? 
 
 Because, say the "economists and 
 financiers," the world's market for 
 wool is overstocked. 
 
 Think of it! 
 
 But how on earth has it become 
 overstocked? 
 
 Think of it. 
 
 If a tithe we are told about Eurone 
 is true, half her people have hardly 
 rags wherewith to cover their naked- 
 ness. And we dwellers in the richest 
 land of the earth (and, as we some- 
 times fancy, owners thereof) have we 
 not been performing marvels of skill 
 and patience (ye gods, how long it 
 seems!) in patching sleeve elbows, in 
 patching shoes, in patching breeches 
 seats, in patching our ragged tempers, 
 and in pretending that — if we have one 
 — an overcoat is appropriate for sum- 
 jner wear and — public appearance. 
 
 Why? 
 
 A sheepraiscr in the Sacramento 
 valley will tell you he is compelled to 
 warehouse his present season's clip 
 indefinitely. 
 
 Why? 
 
 "Wool is not now saleable"! — 
 "There is no demand whatever!" 
 
 No demand for wool! Mark that. , 
 
 And, of course no one feels the 
 slightest desire for a new suit of 
 clothing. 
 
 So there you are. 
 
 Truly, quaint beyond expression. 
 
 How do you like it, Mr. Man? 
 
 And, how do you like it, Eriend 
 Lady? 
 
 Futile Tinkering. 
 
 But these examples of our prepos- 
 terous "economics" are obvious and 
 commonplace. I should not waste my 
 time and your patience just to speak 
 of such trite matters; or to add an- 
 other "practical" suggestion for "bet- 
 tering" them to the futile scrap-heap 
 of "practical" palliatives. 
 
 He would, indeed, be a fool- 
 mechanic who would waste time and 
 material tinkering with details of a 
 mechanism after having on careful ex- 
 amination decided the device to be 
 wrong in basic principle. 
 
 Why waste futile anger and energy 
 on Financiers and Profiteers when 
 they are perfectly "natural" elements 
 in our "economic system," as our na- 
 tional hocial aggregation has devel- 
 oped from its ages-old "natural" her- 
 itage? 
 
 1 would not, if I could, stop Prof- 
 iteers from profiteering, nor Finan- 
 ciers from financiering, nor punish any 
 one for playing our fool-game accord- 
 ing to its crazy rules — better than the 
 rest of us. 
 
 Effective Reconstruction. 
 
 What I am driving at is a working 
 method, for a workable understanding 
 of the "Social Problem," and a work- 
 able Social Reconstruction. 
 
 However difficult in application it 
 may appear to the unthinking, or how- 
 ever undesirable to the self-interested, 
 the method I propose has the ef- 
 fectiveness and simplicity of ration- 
 ality. It has that perfect simplicity 
 which lies at the heart of useful dis- 
 covery and invention. 
 
 The discernment for which I plead 
 is that our society is wrong in basic 
 principle, is based on anti-social prin- 
 ciples. It is a left-over from our Eu- 
 ropean heritage and — headed for the 
 same outcome. 
 
 Its various parts have developed in 
 obedience to natural forces, are work- 
 ing in obedience to natural forces, and 
 the outcome will be the natural re- 
 sult of the interaction of these nature- 
 given materials and natural forces. 
 
 Elements Unchangeable. 
 
 It is childishly futile to try to tinker 
 any social machine part — any social 
 element — into workabilil}^ by itself. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 57 
 
 In the first place, these elements 
 are in their essential qualities unmod- 
 ifiable. Just as the mechanic's ma- 
 terials are unchangeable. 
 
 In the second place, even could they 
 be singly altered, what good would 
 that do? They still would remain es- 
 sentially isolated elements, aggregat- 
 ed in this or that connection, but un- 
 conibined by any unifying human de- 
 sign into a humanly purposeful whole. 
 
 Society a Machine. 
 
 It has not been efifectively recog- 
 nized, despite the universal use of the 
 phrase "social body," that society is 
 a body — a mechanism. 
 
 Just as a man's body is really a ma- 
 chine, a heat motor, as mechanistic as 
 a Tin Lizzie or a battleship; just as 
 an army (in every proper sense of the 
 term) is a military machine: so a 
 Town, a State, or a Nation is equally 
 mechanistic — a true Machine. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at the 
 effective implication and significance 
 of this notion . . . 
 
 When your body is "sick" and an- 
 noying you by not obeying your will, 
 it is acting in obedience to universal 
 law with the same precision, regular- 
 ity, and mechanistic predictableness, 
 as when it was "well" and acting re- 
 sponsive to your will. 
 
 The only real difference is: in one 
 case you like, and in the other you 
 dislike, — the outcomes of the same 
 universal law, the same mechanistic 
 natural order. 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, California. 
 November 15, 1920. 
 
 Just so with the social body. 
 
 If we do not like the outcome of 
 our social organization, and if we will 
 use our constructive imagination to 
 conceive an outcome more to our lik- 
 ing and use our freedom of choice to 
 choose such outcome; and if we have 
 initiative to undertake, and construc- 
 tive skill (and courage) to rearrange 
 the nature-given elements in suitable 
 relation to social forces and factors 
 to produce the chosen outcome — then 
 the solution of our "Social Problem" 
 will be in process. 
 
 And as I have said, "sickness" which 
 in the human body brings crises, 
 boding physical death, in the social 
 body brings— Revolution — portent of 
 National Dissolution. 
 
 Purposeful Social Evolution. 
 
 It is quite useless to promulgate 
 "practical" progi;ams and platforms, 
 and childishly impractical to prate 
 of the common interests of (dead) 
 "capital" and (living) "labor" and the 
 need of bringing them together, and 
 so forth, and so on and on . . . 
 
 The only measure that will prevent 
 Revolution is Purposeful Social Evo- 
 lution: Social Reconstruction of such 
 kind as will turn what is now a sense- 
 less anti-social, internecine warring 
 aggregation, into a purposeful work- 
 ing combination; into a real Nation — 
 a Nation unified by a common pur- 
 pose — a National Objective. 
 
 IS NOT HUMAN PURPOSIVE FREEDOM 
 
 MADE EFFECTIVE BY KNOWLEDGE OF 
 
 NATURE'S CAUSATIVE ACTIVITY? 
 
Technocracy 
 
 Second Series 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Labor, Skill, Tally, Organization and Their Functions: 
 Production, Distribution, Direction. 
 
 By William Henry Smyth 
 
 Note: This the concluding part of Technocracy — Second Series gathers 
 up the preceding considerations for their logical conclusions. 
 
 The solution of the social problem is shown to lie in man's making use 
 of his unique self-conscious freedom and rationality for purposefully co-ordinat- 
 ing the nature-given and nature-elaborated elements of the social structure; 
 which the essay describes in their essentials. In this way man makes himself 
 a participator in the miracle of creation, the evolutionary process, and his 
 own physical, social, and spiritual development. 
 
 The alternative presented is, on one hand: animal instincts running their 
 "natural" course to social chaos, to revolution; on the other hand: human 
 reason utilizing the instincts, for the attainment of social order, true social 
 evolution. 
 
 Basic Requirements. 
 
 Feeding and Breeding are the funda- 
 mentals of social life. 
 
 Any circumstance — "natural" hap- 
 pening, or artificial arrangement — ad- 
 verse to these basic requirements is 
 anti-social and socially disruptive. 
 Conditions favorable thereto are con- 
 ducive to social development. 
 
 Inherited Animal Instincts. 
 
 Not only are these requirements 
 basic to human socieJ:y, but they are 
 and always were equally necessary_ to 
 all forms of "lower" animate exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Thus it is that (to ensure feeding 
 and breeding), "Nature" during the 
 aeons of experimentation which we 
 call "Evolution" has developed a va- 
 riety of fixed preservative instincts, 
 traits, and characteristics in the animal 
 world. From the animal world, we 
 as animals hav^e inherited such of these 
 instincts, traits, and characteristics as 
 were necessary or most favorable to 
 Man's survival and present dominance. 
 
 "Gifts": Peculiarly Human. 
 
 In addition to these, man has ac- 
 quired, attained, or been endowed 
 with "gifts" peculiar to himself which 
 render him unique — Consciousness of 
 Self, Freedom of Choice, and Purpos- 
 ive Rationality. 
 
 A Cosmic Invitation. 
 
 By these latter acquisitions, Man 
 has been placed in the peculiar situa- 
 tion of being an invited participator 
 in the evolutionary process, including 
 also the working of this cosmic pro- 
 cess as concerns himself. 
 
 This momentous invitation he is 
 free to accept or reject. 
 
 Accepted? 
 
 If he accepts the invitation he as- 
 sumes its inherently implied terms. 
 He assvmics responsibility for the out- 
 come of his interference with the 
 evolutionary process. He gets the 
 benefits which his intelligent co-opera- 
 tion ma}^ bring him, and the accom- 
 plishment of his own desires, but, also, 
 he must bear the pains and penalties 
 of his own foolish actions. 
 
 If he accepts the invitation to take 
 a responsible part in his own evolu- 
 tion, he has at his disposal all of the 
 active forces of Nature including those 
 which mo'tivate himself, — his bodily 
 mechanism, his instincts, his procliv- 
 ities, his economic traits, his intelli- 
 gence — to make or mar himself and 
 his institutions. 
 
 Rejected? 
 
 If he does not accept the invitation 
 to participate in the miracle of ere- 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 59 
 
 ation and the Cosmic Enterprise, the 
 Great Undertaking goes on without a 
 flicker of disturbance — indifferent to 
 his existence — or what amounts to the 
 same, regardless of outcomes which 
 are humanly desirable. 
 
 Outcome. 
 
 All of this means that human soci- 
 ety as it exists today is the end-result 
 of these various factors. 
 
 If the outcome does not please or 
 suit us it is our own fault and the 
 remedy lies in our own hands — with 
 the proviso that we realize the terms 
 of the implied contract and under- 
 stand the nature of the instrumentali- 
 ties at our disposal with which to 
 realize our purposes. 
 
 Conditioned on Understanding. 
 
 In brief then, all human accom- 
 plishment, all invention, all attainment 
 of anything "new," are conditioned on 
 an understanding of the facts and laws 
 of nature involved and the choice of 
 an appropriate relation to them, with 
 reference to the determined purpose. 
 
 Society is a structure based, like 
 everything else in the universe, on na- 
 ture-given facts and laws. 
 
 The prerequisite then to our present 
 endeavor, to map out a course of so- 
 cial progress, is to have a clear under- 
 standing of the facts and laws of na- 
 ture involved: of which the first item 
 is society's composition. 
 
 Elements. 
 
 Man is a strong, skilful, cunning an- 
 imal endowed with freedom of choice. 
 Some are characteristically Strong, 
 some are characteristically Skilful, 
 some are characteristically Cunning. 
 In others, again, these basic traits are 
 merged in varying proportions. 
 
 The Social Elements — the essential 
 (or main) parts of society — then are 
 the groups formed primarily by the 
 working out of the instinctive proclivi- 
 ties which I briefly sketched in the 
 opening part of the first series of 
 Technocracy. 
 
 The Economic Traits, strength, 
 skill, cunning and -the instincts, to live, 
 to make, to control, to take, have 
 founded and formed our social struc- 
 ture, in which they are still recogniz- 
 able as its four great elements: Labor, 
 
 Skill, Tally, ("Capital"), Organization 
 ("Government"). 
 
 Labor. 
 
 By Labor I mean that activity 
 which is chiefly muscular effort. It 
 is obviously the foundation of all 
 other activities whatever, and as such 
 it engrosses the effort of the great 
 majority — the bulk of "the people". 
 
 Their motive urge is mainly "to 
 live". They are impelled by no other 
 special impetus towards any particu- 
 lar form of activity. Those who do 
 the bulk of the world's work there- 
 fore find self-expression in the meas- 
 ure in which tiieir work conduces to 
 the satisfaction of their instinct "to 
 live". 
 
 Thwart this, and Labor balks. 
 
 Skill. 
 
 Skill, expressing the instinct "to 
 make", must be taken in a sense wide 
 enough to embrace not only dex- 
 terity, but also usable knowledge of 
 matters and things conducive to phys- 
 ical accomplishment. The Skill ele- 
 ment of society holds the scientist as 
 well as the artisan, philosophy as 
 well as technology. 
 
 The function of such a Skill ele- 
 ment in a rationally, purposefully or- 
 ganized society is self-evident. How 
 woefully far from this it departs in 
 the actually existing society is like- 
 wise self-evident. 
 
 Tally. 
 
 Whenever team-work is under way 
 — or for that matter team-play — there 
 is need of a record of each man's 
 performance. To keep such record 
 is the function of the Tally element 
 in society. 
 
 This colorless, yet all-important, 
 function the cunning instinct "to 
 take" early made its own. The em- 
 bodiments of that urge made them- 
 selves the keepers of the social tally- 
 sheet — the "Financiers". 
 
 Organization. 
 
 The Organization element coordi- 
 nates and supervises the work of so- 
 ciety. It prescribes what should and 
 what should not be done, in relation 
 to the work in hand — the purpose. 
 
 This element embraces the "author- 
 
60 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 ities", the "govcrnnunt", the "em- 
 ployers". 
 
 Necessity and Freedom. 
 
 The quality uniformly exhibited by 
 all four social elements is their in- 
 stinctiveness. They have developed 
 from inward necessity. 
 • But there is no such inner neces- 
 sity for their interrelation, their co- 
 ordination and combination into a 
 social machine as a whole. That is 
 not a matter of instinctive urge, but 
 a problem of intelligence. 
 
 The present chaotic lack of co- 
 ordination is due to lack of social 
 purposive intelligence; it is the "nat- 
 ural result of (and has been de- 
 termined by) failure (socially) to 
 exercise Man's transcendent preroga- 
 tive: Freedom of Choice — freedom to 
 choose his relation to natural forces 
 in such manner as to make them 
 subserve his predetermined imited 
 purpose — Community objective. 
 
 War of Instincts. 
 
 Indeed, each element, far from 
 uniting with the others in purpose, is 
 "naturally" figliting every other for a 
 greater gratification of its own "nat- 
 ural" urge, and the all-embracing 
 urge of instinctive self-preservation. 
 
 It is in highest degree probable 
 that, typically, the four instinct-char- 
 acterized groups of modern society — 
 the Masses, the Artisans, the Em- 
 ployers, the Financiers — do not think. 
 Thinking is not their social func- 
 tion; they merely respond to the 
 urge of their dominating instincts — 
 the Masses to breed, the Artisan to 
 make, the Employer to energize, the 
 Financier to hoard — instincts which 
 characterize separately many animals 
 other than Man. 
 
 These various social groups in- 
 stinctively resist any social conditions 
 or conventions that tend to hamper 
 the functioning urge of their char- 
 acterizing instinct and instinctively 
 struggle for its greater gratification — 
 hence our "Social Problems". 
 
 What Is the Social Problem? 
 
 The Scientists — scattered and few 
 in number but socially significant — do 
 think; it is their social function to 
 think, to rationalize with constructive 
 imagination. 'It is the Scientist's 
 
 function to solve problems, to pio- 
 neer, to blaze a trail into the un- 
 known — to illumine the path of Social 
 Progress. 
 
 Clearly it is the Scientist's social 
 function to straighten out social 
 snarls, to Unravel social tangles: 
 
 To so organize society that human 
 freedom and self-expression will be 
 the product of and result from the 
 rational rclationing, the coordinate 
 functioning and gratification of the 
 human instincts. 
 
 That is the Scientist's great task. 
 
 That is our Social Problem. 
 
 Purposeless. 
 
 Socially, Man has remained a mere- 
 ly instinctively acting animal. He has 
 never unitedly pondered a social pur- 
 pose, reflected on a freely chosen 
 united objective. 
 
 When our inspection of the Cali- 
 fornia had disclosed its constituent 
 elements, we knew as readily for 
 what purpose they were to Avork to- 
 gether: we knew what the battleship 
 was for. 
 
 But for what socially determined 
 end do our Financiers finance, our 
 inventors invent, our laborers labor? 
 
 What is the purpose of Society? 
 
 Is it not true that, judging from 
 society as it is, we must say. it has 
 no purpose? 
 
 Is it any w^onder then, that we 
 have a "Social Problem", and that 
 most men face it in utter bewilder- 
 ment? 
 
 Purpose Necessary. 
 
 To deal effectively with the social 
 problem requires then, first of all. 
 that men becom.e conscious of a so- 
 cial purpose. And a very little reflec- 
 tion will disclose the enormous dif- 
 ference which a difference of purpose 
 efifects with regard to otherwise iden- 
 tical processes. 
 
 The same purposive skill that 
 makes — feloniously breaks. 
 
 Bees and Profiteers. 
 
 Our profiteers have been filling 
 their coffers just ae bees are filling 
 their combs. Essentially their activ- 
 ities proceed from the same source: 
 instinctive drive to hoard. 
 
 Bee and profiteer are equally "sel- 
 fish". 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 61 
 
 Each acts in obedience to the de- 
 mand for self-expression. But where- 
 as the utiHty of the profiteer's hoard 
 (if it has any true utility at all) is 
 for himself alone and prejudicial to 
 society, the bee's honey hoard is for 
 the whole hive. 
 
 What "Nature" has contrived in 
 thus shaping toward an ulterior pur- 
 pose the instinctive activities of a 
 lowly insect, men must accomplish 
 in their social arrangements by the 
 exercise of their distinctively human 
 qualities: reason, freedom and purpose. 
 
 No Use Calling Names. 
 
 It is quite needless and useless to 
 single out the profiteer for moral ob- 
 jurgation; and In many, if not most 
 cases it would be unjust to boot. His 
 profit-gouging comes not from moral 
 depravity, but from a special bent of 
 mind, a particular ability: and our so- 
 ciety, imprimis our quaint system of 
 "finance," gives no scope to that abil- 
 ity — except to gouge the public. 
 
 Yet that ability — in its essence, 
 instinctive hoarding — has a social util- 
 ity of the highest order. And in an 
 enlightened society, that is one pur- 
 posively organized, it would not only 
 find scope for its exercise for the 
 public good, but be spontaneously so 
 exercised, and with no less gratifica- 
 tion for its possessor. 
 
 The War Illustration. 
 
 Of how this might be accomplished, 
 the War has already given us a 
 sketchy illustration. 
 
 The men who were called to mobi- 
 lize the social forces of the United 
 States were commonly the very men 
 whose pre-war activities had been 
 more notorious for amassing huge pri- 
 vate fortunes than celebrated for self- 
 less public service. 
 
 Between the high officials of the 
 War Industries Board, the Shipping 
 Board, and so forth, and the member- 
 ship of a "Millionaires' Club" there 
 was little discernible difference of per- 
 sonnel. 
 
 Charles M. Schwab, the finance 
 magnate, and Schwab, the war-organ- 
 izer, were the same person. 
 
 All these men brought to their so- 
 cial, national jobs the very same tal- 
 ents that they had been employing 
 
 right along self-centcredly — unsocial- 
 ly, un-nationally. The work they did, 
 their proximate functioning, was the 
 same as before. 
 
 But what a difference in social re- 
 sult! 
 
 They were acting for a different 
 purpose. That really makes up the 
 whole of the difference. 
 
 The skill that feloniously breaks — 
 can also make. 
 
 Where these hurriedly assembled 
 mobilizers fell short of efficacy it was 
 in the measure of their failure to 
 equate completely their aims with the 
 National Objective. 
 
 Greater "Temptation." 
 
 It is worth while considering how 
 it was that men pre-eminent for ca- 
 pacity of self-aggrandisement, for 
 their ability, to put it in plain words, 
 of using the Nation for their own pri- 
 vate aims and advantage, came to 
 make the Nation's purpose their own. 
 
 The outstanding fact is that they 
 did it of their own free will. 
 
 The deeper lying fact is that they 
 responded to the greater inducement: 
 public good was a stronger stimulus, 
 a greater "temptation," than private 
 profit. 
 
 The decisive fact is that such re- 
 sponse was made possible and induced 
 by the (even if only crude and tem- 
 porary) rearrangement of the social 
 elements for the attainment of a Na- 
 tional Purpose. 
 
 Work. 
 
 Add to this the perception, for 
 which I have so often contended, that 
 there is no blinder folly than that 
 which sees in "work" nothing but "the 
 primal curse"; and that, on the con- 
 trary, doing — which is only another 
 name for work — is the very essence 
 and end of man's living, provided 
 only it be the purposive work of his 
 heart — and you have the whole foun- 
 dation of the psychology of social re- 
 construction. 
 
 Order, Purpose, Freedom. 
 
 Freedom is the first law of Man's 
 nature. 
 
 Any social convention or construc- 
 tion which does violence to the free- 
 doin of the individual, of the group. 
 
62 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 or of the Nation as a whole, is 
 doomed to inevitable failure. 
 
 If any single cause is to be given 
 for the social failure which we now 
 so anxiously face, this cause, which 
 earlier I have formulated as the ab- 
 sence of purposive design, may well 
 be formulated as the infraction of the 
 basic law of freedom. For in a chance- 
 made agglomeration true Freedom can 
 not arise and act, any more than in a 
 void. 
 
 It is only in a true Order, in a pur- 
 posively designed and rationally com- 
 bined society, that Freedom can find 
 the conditions for its eflfective being, 
 its self-realizing activity. 
 
 Disorder — ^Jungle Law — Restraint. 
 
 Obviously there can be no real hu- 
 man freedom in a society based on 
 primeval jungle law, only license and 
 restraint. When it is the sole acting 
 principle, (even if not the preaching 
 of the pulpit) that he may take who 
 has the power, and he shall keep who 
 can, what can be the issue but intra- 
 social warfare? — and, still inore re- 
 pugnant, a warfare in which victory 
 is not to the strong, clean and cour- 
 ageous, but to the sordid, tricky and 
 cunning. 
 
 Fictitious Freedom. 
 Let us not be misled by surface ap- 
 pearances. Ostensibly the mine owner 
 has more freedom than the miner, the 
 manufacturer than the mechanic, tlie 
 merchant than the clerk. More pro- 
 foundly, one is found to be as unfree 
 as the other. For freedom implies do- 
 ing one's reasoned will. But as mem- 
 bers of a planless social monstrosity, 
 no man can be a free agent. All are 
 caught in the same chaotic social 
 tangle; none guide their course by 
 anything better than chance and their 
 instinctive proclivities. 
 
 Reason and Freedom. 
 These instincts, as I have pointed 
 out, are natural forces. And I have 
 also shown how Man, the Mechanic, 
 has achieved his conquests by bring- 
 ing his Reason and Freedom of Choice 
 to bear on natural forces: not in crazy 
 hope of changing them, but to make 
 them the realizing means for his rea- 
 son and freedom — for his purpose. 
 
 Even thus is the task of Man, the 
 Social Mechanic. 
 
 Our reconstructive effort must be 
 so to reconstruct or rearrange the 
 social mechanism as to utilize the 
 unchangeable instincts, the economic 
 traits (that is, the natural forces in 
 our problem) for the accomplishment 
 of a united social purpose, a National 
 Objective. 
 
 Man a Spiritual Entity. 
 I have spoken so much in terms of 
 mechanics that it may not be amiss 
 to guard here against the imputation 
 that I conceive of human life in such 
 terms. My conception is indeed the 
 very opposite of that. Man (though 
 functioning in a mechanistic world 
 through a bodily machine) is above 
 all a spiritual entity; and his ma- 
 terial and mechanical concerns and 
 affairs are of importance only in so 
 far as they affect his spiritual being. 
 
 "Society." 
 
 To avoid misunderstanding, it should 
 be borne in mind that "Society" as 
 used herein means the total of all 
 those constituting the Nation — "tinker, 
 tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor 
 man, beggarman, thief", et al. ; but 
 that Social Functioning includes only 
 a limited part of their life in its 
 totality. 
 
 Social functioning is the service part 
 of modern collective (gregarious) life 
 — for material well-being. Its relation 
 to national life is analogous to that 
 which the kitchen and service part in 
 a well ordered household bears to the 
 life of the family. 
 
 And, national economics is merely 
 household economics expanded. 
 
 "Society" a Machine. 
 
 This is not the place for expound- 
 ing at length my social philosophy. 
 But it will suffice, as a guiding thread, 
 to indicate that my conception of 
 Society is the corollary of my concep- 
 tion of Man. 
 
 That is, I view society as a mechan- 
 ical contrivance for the satisfaction 
 of man's material needs; for the ul- 
 terior object of freeing his spiritual 
 self. What ministers directly to his 
 spiritual wants and his spiritual life 
 itself, lies as clearly outside of the 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 63 
 
 social organization, as outside the ma- 
 chine-shop. 
 
 It is in this sense also that I hold 
 that man does not exist for society 
 (as certain ardent social reformers 
 would have us imagine), but society 
 for man. 
 
 Within this frame, society resolves 
 itself, structurally and functionally, 
 into Production, Distribution, and 
 Direction. 
 
 Production. 
 
 Under the term Production or Pro- 
 ductive Group is implied that part of 
 the community which skillfully deals 
 with nature's forces and materials; 
 which familiarizes itself with all mat- 
 ters relating to the physical environ- 
 ment of the human aggregation. Its 
 function is to extract, produce and 
 arrange all things and phj'sical con- 
 ditions desirable and necessary to the 
 well-being of the organization. 
 
 Skilful-Strong. 
 
 Its membership is characterized by 
 skill and strength, by curiosity ration- 
 alized into desire to know, and by 
 a beaver-like urge — the instinct to 
 make. 
 
 This group is not the representative 
 of the community, nor is its function 
 that of guardian, custodian, organizer, 
 supervisor, or unifier of the composite 
 group, nor has it rightly any of these 
 functions. This Productive Group is 
 the transforming element of the Social 
 Machine. 
 
 "Labor." 
 
 The Labor Element we find in prac- 
 tice also assumes the functions of the 
 Directive and Distributive Groups in 
 many ways and details. And attempt- 
 ing to perform these functions so for- 
 eign to its character, specialized apti- 
 tude, and economic trait, it does much 
 harm and adds misdirected energy to 
 existing confusion. 
 
 Taking into consideration, however, 
 the history of this group — its age-long 
 grinding between the upper and nether 
 millstones of Cunning-Strong and 
 Tricksy-Cunning — the wonder is, not 
 that the results are as they are, but 
 rather that this group still persists 
 in its efforts to perform any of its 
 rightful functions, and that it has not 
 
 long ago by the misdirection of its 
 energy wrecked the whole structure; 
 as it has often, seemingly, been on the 
 ragged edge of doing. Were it not foi' 
 its ineradicable instinctive urge, this 
 doubtless would have been the result. 
 It is not without significance that 
 the Distributive Group is satisfied 
 with present conventions and desper- 
 ately fears change, while the Product- 
 ive Group is fiercely dissatisfied, and 
 welcomes any change. 
 
 "Efficiency." 
 
 "Production" has been of late very 
 much to the fore in the public prints. 
 The whole civilized world, our own 
 country included, we are told, is not 
 producing enough. Production, we arc 
 told, must be increased by greater in- 
 dustry and "efficiency." 
 
 As an inventor, that is one engaged 
 in devising ways and means for do- 
 ing something in a new and better 
 way, I may be credited with having 
 a sufficiently high regard for effi- 
 ciency. Yet I own that, as currentlv 
 conceived and employed, "efficiency" 
 is my pet aversion. Nothing provokes 
 me to more laughter or anger. 
 
 A notion of efficiency that focuses 
 on the product, instead of the pro- 
 ducer, misses the point completely. 
 Such "efficiency" is really (humanly 
 and socially) inefficiency. 
 
 Therefore, when I outline the task 
 of social reconstruction as an appro- 
 priate organization of production, dis- 
 tribution, and direction, there are to 
 be constantly held in mind and applied 
 the ultimate criteria: a free unfolding 
 of the spirit, a free manhood, a free 
 nation. 
 
 Distribution. 
 
 Under the term Distribution or Dis- 
 tributive Group are implied those indi- 
 viduals whose function in the social 
 organization is to keep tally and effect 
 the distribution of products and 
 wealth equitably and impartially to 
 all the individuals of all the groups 
 in accordance with their effectiveness 
 and the best interests of the commun- 
 ity at large. 
 
 A truly magnificent function! 
 
 Capitalist. 
 
 The "Capitalist Element" in prac- 
 tice, as the "Money Power" or "the 
 
64 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 Interests", interferes most energetic- 
 ally and unjustifiably in matters 
 wholly outside its sphere. 
 
 It has, in fact, assumed, through its 
 taxing power, the functions of "Gov- 
 ernment" and control over the life and 
 activities of every individual in the 
 community. It has missed its way and 
 is more distorted (if such be possible) 
 than either of the other groups. To it 
 is attributable in greater measure the 
 social disturbance and confusion at 
 present existing. 
 
 This group is characterized by an 
 economic trait due to its (Tricksy- 
 Cunning) origin — its members have 
 an inherent parasitic tendency and a 
 bee-like hoarding urge — the instinct 
 to take. 
 
 Tally. 
 
 This group is not the community's 
 representative any more than is the 
 Productive group; it is not the guard- 
 ian or unifier; nor has it any of the 
 functions of government, though it 
 has assumed many of them. Neither 
 does it deal with nature's forces or 
 materials; it has no concern with phy- 
 sical environment or natural re- 
 sources; it does not extract or pro- 
 duce things from nature's stores; it 
 does not make, produce, or create 
 wealth; its functions are neither gov- 
 ernmental nor productive in any sense. 
 
 It is simply the bookkeeper, the 
 clerk, of the community — the record- 
 ing or tabulating element of the so- 
 cial machine. 
 
 Tricksy-Cunning. 
 
 And yet it has arranged conventions 
 of distribution for its own exclusive 
 benefit. 
 
 It has appointed itself an unofficial 
 and irresponsible custodian of the 
 comnmnity's wealth in process of dis- 
 tribution. Out of the community's 
 wealth flowing through its channels, 
 it pays itself such Avages as it deems 
 its due for performing these services 
 and functions. In addition to this, it 
 retains possession of various forms of 
 conventional increment accruing to 
 the flowing wealth during the distrib- 
 utive process. These increments are 
 deemed, by tacit acceptance of con- 
 ventions made by the Distributive 
 Group, to be its property. So this ac- 
 
 quisitive group acts as distributive 
 agent for producer and the commun- 
 ity, and custodian of the products, 
 while at the same time it is active as 
 an untrammeled trader on its own 
 behalf in and with the community's 
 wealth. 
 
 Direction. 
 
 By the terms Direction or Directive 
 Group is implied that part of the na- 
 tion which neither produces nor dis- 
 tributes, but represents the whole 
 composite group, the community. 
 
 It is that part which, as representa- 
 tive, is guardian, supervisor, and uni- 
 fier. Its function is to facilitate the 
 correct working of all the ramifying 
 parts of the other elements, so as to 
 bring about harmonious co-action of 
 the entire social organization. It is 
 the "governor" or strain and speed 
 equalizer of the social machine. 
 
 Government. 
 
 The "Government", in practice, ex- 
 ercises all these social functions in- 
 extricably tangled up with the pro- 
 ductive and distributive elements in 
 most of their details. 
 
 Government makes, manufactures, 
 and exploits; it keeps tally of pro- 
 ducts and distributes them more or 
 less ineffectively; and while remain- 
 ing Government in name, it per- 
 forms all these other functions to 
 such an extent that it is difficult 
 to determine which most definitely 
 characterizes it in reality. 
 
 This confusion of function seems 
 to be the logical outcome of the 
 (Cunning-Strong) genesis of the 
 group, with its inherent lust for 
 power and dominion — the instinct 
 to control. ; 
 
 Social Mechanic's Task. 
 
 What then is the task of Man, the 
 Social Mechanic? 
 
 Primarily, it is to extricate the ba- 
 sic three-fold elements of the social 
 mechanism from the present confu- 
 sion and distortion; and, in the light 
 of and under the guidance of Science, 
 so to organize these fundamental 
 functions: Production, Distribution, 
 and Direction, that they will serve 
 the social purpose, the national ob- 
 jective. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 
 65 
 
 What the Trouble Is. 
 
 As it stands now, the Social Ma- 
 chine is a product of nature-made 
 conditions, and not a construction of 
 self-conscious human intelligence di- 
 rected to the accomplishment of a 
 predetermined human purpose. 
 
 Man has never attempted to organ- 
 ize his Social Machinery to accom- 
 plish a socially unified object. And 
 Nature does not stop, simply because 
 man acts like a fool. Nature truly 
 abhors a vacuum — especially a va- 
 cuity of intelligence. 
 
 Man has tinkered with many social 
 details — he has never tackled the So- 
 cial Problem! 
 
 That is the whole trouble with the 
 Social Machine. 
 
 Social Problem 
 
 The situation is not unlike that of 
 a machine-shop in which a lot of 
 mentally deranged mechanics would 
 find themselves while gradually and 
 unequally convalescing toward ra- 
 tionality. 
 
 They find the engine and machin- 
 ery (Nature) all running smoothly, 
 but also they find themselves (with 
 inore or less bewilderment) indi- 
 vidually and in bunches, marvclously 
 and solemnly busy doing, with great 
 skill, all manner of grotesque stunts: 
 stoking the furnaces with their wom- 
 en and children, feeding their young 
 men to the ponderous grinding and 
 crushing machines; tirelessly dump- 
 ing the most valued and useful prod- 
 ucts of their bodies, brains, and 
 skill, to the smashing "dead-falls" 
 and scrapping "go-devils", to be 
 crushed to human slimes and refuse; 
 and in a multitude of other waj's in- 
 geniously employing their (Nature- 
 made) facilities and capabilities to 
 produce all kinds 'of silly outcomes — 
 unlikable to their awakening intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 The condition thus disclosed they 
 call their "Social Problem". 
 
 Man Is Free. 
 
 Man has a living Godlike soul 
 which is free. As a "person" — a spir- 
 itual entity — a Man is not a machine, 
 is not subject to control by any 
 power in the Universe except him- 
 self, and except in so far as — by an 
 
 exercise of his freedom — he volun- 
 tarily submits. 
 
 In so far as he does submit to 
 force or irrational control, he be- 
 comes a mere product — a machine; 
 he contracts his own soul and di- 
 minishes that transcendent quality of 
 Godship which makes him a ISlan — 
 his Freedom. 
 
 A Purposive Social Machine. 
 
 I firmly believe that Man is, and 
 the Universe is, so constituted that 
 Human Intelligence can construct a 
 Rational Social Machine; that if Man 
 earnestly desires and has the cour- 
 age seriously to undertake the task, 
 he can make an infinitely more 
 smooth-running, humanly efficient, and 
 humanly purposive arrangement than 
 the humanly objectless, inhumanly 
 cruel, and incredibly wasteful Stone 
 Age animalistic abortion to which he 
 now submits — that Alan can make a 
 Social Machine worthy of Man, the 
 World Alechanic. 
 
 Human Intelligence or Animal 
 Instincts? 
 
 "Nature", while on one hand seem- 
 ingly reckless of "waste", is on the 
 other obviously economical — struct- 
 ures, functions, and "gifts" not used, 
 atrophy and disappear. 
 
 If then Man, in social relation, fails 
 to use his "gifts", these will atrophy 
 — be recalled. And Man's social devel- 
 opment will run not in accord with his 
 intelligence, but in accord with his 
 animal instincts, dominated by the 
 most basic of all, the anti-social (in- 
 dividual) self-preservation instinct — ■ 
 dog-eat-dog — jungle law. 
 
 Science a Fulcrum. 
 
 It may seem that I have made of 
 the existing social disorder an ar- 
 raignment of Man's competence. I 
 have charged him with folly, with fail- 
 ure to use his greatest gifts: reason 
 and freedom. 
 
 Perhaps he can bring forward exten- 
 uations. Perhaps the time had not 
 come — till now. 
 
 Perhaps there has been neither lack 
 of human intelligence nor lack of wil- 
 lingness to use it. Perhaps he really 
 could not use it, did not know how 
 
66 
 
 TECHNOCRACY 
 
 For one thing he lacked, which has 
 come only in our own day: Experi- 
 mental Science. 
 
 Science is a firm fulcrum for the 
 lever of thought. 
 
 It is a fulcrum securely resting upon 
 the eternal facts and laws of nature. 
 
 It is a fulcrum that rests upon 
 phenomenal truth, which rests upon 
 Nature's immanent Essential Truth 
 that makes for universal right-eous- 
 ness — mechanistic validity, personal 
 worth, social right. 
 
 Technocracy. 
 
 The philosophers and thinkers of 
 the past lacked that fulcrum. At the 
 best, they could be only good guess- 
 ers. There is no lack of intelligence 
 or high spirituality in Plato's "Re- 
 public", in More's "Utopia", and in 
 their many followers. 
 
 But they all lacked, and all they 
 
 Fernwald, Berkeley, California. 
 November 21, 1920. 
 
 lacked was, the firm fulcrum of 
 Science. 
 
 This we now. possess. 
 
 Now only has Technocracy become 
 a realizable ideal. 
 
 This transcendent acquisition and 
 necessary instrumentality — Science — 
 is now ours to freely use or freely 
 abuse — abuse to our irrecoverable 
 hurt or utilize for our ever increasing 
 and true prosperity. 
 
 This is our signal acquisition as 
 compared with the past, our signifi- 
 cant point of progress. And by its aid 
 (if wc choose) we (socially still in 
 the pre-scientific period) may at last 
 achieve also social progress. 
 
 And thus, by the means of nation- 
 ally organized Science, we may be- 
 come the first real nation, a truly 
 united people with a worth-while na- 
 tional objective — a true Industrial 
 Democracy — an intelligently purpose- 
 ful TECHNOCRACY. 
 
 CAN MODERN MECHANIZED SOCIETY SAFELY RELY 
 UPON TRADITIONAL ECONOMIC CUSTOMS? 
 
Social Universals 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 The main function of society is to oppose its 
 combined effectiveness to every natural and 
 artificial condition which tends to hamper the 
 freedom of the individual in so far as the acts of 
 the individual are consistent with the community 
 objective. 
 
 SUSTENANCE. 
 
 The products of effort are the results of life 
 energy expressing itself through an individual 
 upon his environment to the end that this in- 
 dividual may and shall express more individual 
 life. Ownership of products, therefore, is as 
 essentially inherent in the producing individual 
 as are the faculties from which the products flow ; 
 thus products are, in right and in reason, in- 
 alienable from the producing individual either by 
 himself or by others — except for their equivalent. 
 
 MUTUALITY. 
 
 Equal liberty is the natural right of every per- 
 son to the end that purposefulness may be ex- 
 pressed and function freely, limited only by per- 
 fect mutuality. 
 
 INCREASE. 
 
 The women are the natural wards of the com- 
 munity, for its life and well-being are inseparable 
 from theirs. By right of her womanhood's 
 natural function, every woman is therefore en- 
 titled to maintenance and protection as a first 
 charge upon the community resources. Realized 
 motherhood places the community under obliga- 
 tion proportional to the benefit accruing to it. In 
 this benefit the mother is, in equity, entitled to 
 participate directly. 
 
FAMILY. 
 
 As the social and the true poHtical unit, the 
 family (as a unified group) is entitled effectively 
 to voice its unified objectives, and to be repre- 
 sented in the conduct of all community affairs. 
 (Male- and female-suffrage tends to engender sex 
 antagonism.) Society starts with the union of 
 the sexes ; social functioning should start there 
 also : family suft'rage — one family, one vote. 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 The community's most valuable and vital asset 
 are the children, therefore self-preservation makes 
 it imperative that the highest intelligence and 
 unremitting effort be expended upon their prep- 
 aration for carrying forward the national ob- 
 jective. 
 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 Every individual is entitled to equal oppor- 
 tunity (i. e, without social or economic handicap), 
 to the end that self-expression- may have fullest 
 scope and the individual thus be enabled to reach 
 his highest effectiveness for self-realization and 
 for the welfare of the community. 
 
 PROSPERITY. 
 
 Nature's resources are its gifts to all ; they 
 are man's inalienable environment ; they are his 
 common heritage and his common birthright. 
 
 INHERITANCE. 
 
 As it is only by and- through the organization 
 of the community that the individual can socially 
 function, it is inherently right and reasonable 
 that the surplus product of that functioning 
 should accrue to the community at his death. 
 
TECHNOCRACY 
 IMPLIES SCIENTIFIC REORGANIZATION 
 OF NATIONAL ENERGY AND RESOURCES 
 COORDINATING INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 
 TO EFFECT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 SHOULD THE SELFISH CUNNING OF FINANCE OR 
 
 UNSELFISH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
 
 MANAGE INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY? 
 
*> 
 
 AN AIMLESS MAN AND A 
 PURPOSELESS NATION ARE 
 EQUALLY FUTILE FRAGMENTS 
 OF RAW MATERIAL IN THE 
 EVER GRINDING MILL OF 
 NATURAL EVOLUTIONARY AND 
 DEVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES: 
 LACKING NATIONAL PURPOSE 
 WHAT GOAL HAS PATRIOTISM