TECHNOCRACY, THE NEW CREED

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1933, Page 16

TECHNOCRACY, THE NEW CREED

Its Answer to' the 'Industrial' Buzzle

It must not be accepted at its face value as a brand new American discovery. Nothing of the kind. The only new thing about it is the name, and oven that is at least a dozen years old. But until a few weeks ago, when all the professed intelligentsia of the eastern United States seized, upon it as a thrilling new. idea, "technocracy" was merely the blameless name taken in the early twenties by a group" of American engineers and scientists who began compiling an "Energy Survey of North America."- ' They worked unobtrusively at their task,: as becomes men of science, until it was suddenly realised that from Kashmir to Medicine Hat the menace (or the promise) of modern machine production was on everyone's lips." Thereupon "technocracy" emerged from the study, and the name was popularly applied to the theory which led the group to undertake its investigation. Almost in a night the subject became the staple topic of conversation of two continents, says a London correspondent of the Melbourne "Age." . You can still

tions. His spinning -wheel is his-most constant companion in Congress or in prison.' But he is.fightirig for a dying cause, ana tHe great mills of Bombay are unlikely to be razed at his bidding. During: his lifetime". maybe ..there- will still.be advocates;-for the reinstatement of the. old hand processes, but;th:e machine- will almost certainly conquer in a country that is daily being brought into closer contact with. western: methods. Hand'weaving has a better chance of survival in the remote fastnesses of Kashmir, where cottage industry weavers"_ are still engaged; in • making the choice shawls and carpets for which it is famous. So far the machine has made its way only very tentatively into the great India State on the northwest frontier. : Is it a "good thing" thst it should be encouraged? The Mafiarajah was himself in doubt, and has called in Professor Aldred Barker to advise him. Professor Barker has not contented himself with comparing every aspect of the relative merits of the hand-spun and hand-woven article with the machine product, but has made an extensive tour of the centres of English hand industries to investigate the social conditions of those engaged in handicrafts' as compared with factory hands. The result is not encouraging to the .idealists,.,for the introduction of the industrialised system has in all cases . yielded an improvement: in the economic arid social life. In effect, he finds there is no future for such of th& old English handicrafts^ as remain. The ruler-of Kashmir has been left to make his own choice, but Professor Barker suggests the possibility of a controlled evolution, so that the evils of "industrial revolution", may be avoided and a satisfactory mechanised system obtained. He conceives that alongside '{bulk production" there may still be ." artistic production," and alongside artistic production a realisation of the three great satisfactions of knowledge and insight, of control and of creative production." _ There' is so much leeway to make up in places like Kashmir that the broader issues that are disturbing, the "technocrats" hardly arise there at all They are confined to the already industrialised countries of the world -where machines have forged ruthlessly ahead altogether heedless of the .toll of unemployment 111 6^ 0- ' their>ail.' The war established that productivity could be inSle^ cdi; &X almost ■ ■ magical speed, bliells, boots, uniforms, blankets, guns ships,' aeroplanes—the war put mass production on its feet. Since 1918 machinery has gone on its conquering way. ''Fordism" is, not to be stayed by sentiment, and in every, field production as. we know is far in advance of demand. . A. modern, flour mill in Minneapolis produces 30,000 bushels a day. A shoe factory employing 7200 hands turns out 595,000 pairs of shoes in five days and-a half. The latest cigarette-making machines automatically release about 2500 cigarettes a minute, compared with a previous oitput of 500 a -minute. .In incandescent lamp manufactories with the most up-to-date plant one man is now doing in one.hour what would have.engaged him for 9000 hours in 1914. Even agricu? ture is_ being revolutionised by machinery m every department. In the iron and. steel industries many of the processes are becoming, almost automatic. One Lancashire weaver can easily manage six, if not' eight, looms, and sooner or, later, thirty or forty looms will probably, be controlled by a single operative. Mass ■ production in the industry has almost ceased to be. a : subject-of jest. There is an. apocryphal story of a man who went one morning to collect his new car at works.,.- He was told it was not started yet, but was - invited to come inside and wait for ifc Later the same day he drove away in the machine which had beaa assembled and tested! painted, and upholstered in his presence. Perhaps it is not true. But fact is stranger than fiction. 'Technocracy" will fed plenty of supporters for its main contentions in Britain. The factories inspectors' reports are full of examples of the tendency. In the United States the Ministry of Labour some four years aeo declared, that "Yon can.make all the boots and shoes needed annually in America in about six months, and yon can blowaU _the window .glass needed in America m seventeen, days. You can dig all the coal necessary in six months with the men now in the .industry Because of our, increase in population in the last eight or ten-years it now should take 140 men to supply the needs of the country where 100 men could do so. Wead^f that, and in spite of n£a Tl 2O 'mm more,peo|le, the needs of the country are fully supplied with 7 per cent., fewer workers than we needed in 1919." 'it was Jg Pt^Jr* 8 w" ? their that President Hoover's Research Commitrht °nt a -^ *™na Y reported this week said, "Our capacity to produce goods changes faster than our capacity to purchase; employment does not keep pace with improvement in the machinery of production; the factory takes.occupations away from the home Detore the home can-adjust itself to the new conditions. . ...Unless there is a speeding up of social. invention or a slowing.-down- of mechanical invention gra™,maladjustments are certain to result* It is a. pretty stiff problem that of controlling production and distribution m this modern mechanised world, if it could be solved by. stating it pictnresquely Mr. Henry Ford would hive overcome -it years ago, when he said Ssf T, 6Veiy Hottentot, owns a Bolls Eoyce saturation point for motorcars will not be reached." But in these days national frontiers are stubborn obstacles.to trade and to ideas as well. The advocates of "technocracy 'have.an uphill fight before them in order to secure universal adoption n+i <?Onstrnctive side o*-their case. Imo^37 waU Ot reaa«y stand aside while they tamper with the^ currency.

dine out on it in London, provided you have sufficiently strong views for or against the theory that the technological advance made in industrial processes during the past fifty years las rendered, all existing social institutions and mechanism obsolete and dangerous. For that, in a sentence, is what '' technocracy1' means. It claims tEat, owing to the development of automatic machinery all the physical wants of North America, for example, can be provided: with labour working a four-hour day and a four-day week There is, however, one nasty snag which the technocrats readily admit. This happy state of affairs can only be achieved by abandoning the present, "price system" and the substitution of a system of payment in "energy certificates." And until this is done unemployment and all the other economic ills of the day will inevitably and steadily intensify. America has popularised this cult, butin fairness be it said there is little in it for which they can claim originality. Indeed, the high priest of "technocracy" in compiling his best seller, of that name has not hesitated to draw on an old work by Professor Soddy, of Oxford, called prosaically, "Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, the Solution of the Economic Paradox." Professor Soddy has also set forth his theories in one or two other volumes less forbidding in title and price. What a pity he never thought of the magic properties of that word "technocracy," which fits so neatly into newspaper headlines. America is clearly a late arrival in the field. \ Long before she became alarmed at the prospect that man as a productive agency Was becoming obsolete—that he was going the way of the horse—men of affairs and university professors in England were eagerly debating the effect on the economy of advanced as well as backward nations of the pressure of the machine. And it is a good many years ago now since Karel.Capek handled the subject symbolically in his famous Robot play. . Even then it was a pretty old idea. Not perhaps as old as the hills, but ever since Arkwright, nearly 200 years ago,, fled from the mob violence of Lancashire and set up the world's first cotton mill in Nottingham, men have been assailed by doubts as to whether, in the phrase1 of the authors of- that amusing book, "1066 and AIL That," machines are a "good thing." Curiously enough, at this very moment India is in a turmoil-over the question. Mr. Gandhi, as all- the. world knows, is a whole-hearted supporter of the movement foj a return to Erimitivg gondi-