THE GREAT TECHNOLOGY
By Harold Ordway Rugg 'OB, The John Day Company. New York.
To those who may believe that Technocracy has no longer any significance because it was dropped like a hot potato by the self-appointed guardians of the common weal as soon as they caught sight of its ultimate implications, the present volume is warmly recommended. It will show them that the potato is still there and that it is still hot.
What the volume reviewed does, in fact, is to put the Technocratic position in its proper historical and logical setting. It thereby meets in part the demands of those who, finding any stick good enough to beat the dog, criticized the Technocrats for ignoring matters that were none of their concern, and called upon them to cease being engineers and be something, anything, else. Rightly they did nothing of the sort; their business was to see present conditions from the technician's point of view, and this they did.
The fact, however, that they refrained from entering into other men's fields is no indication that materials are lacking for placing their conclusions in the proper perspective. On the contrary, such materials exist in profusion, and Professor Rugg has presented enough of them to make it clear that the emergence of the Technocrats was no mere accident but the inevitable outcome of the whole cultural development of the Occident, nay, the logical result of the cumulative advances of the intellect throughout man's existence, especially in the sciences, whereby man grows more and more able to utilize for his own ends the forces of the inorganic world.
The industrial development that has produced the present situation is well known. It is useless to repeat here the story of the coming of the Industrial Revolution. What is really needed is to point out, as Professor Rugg has done, that the change in industrial conditions was not ended, but only begun, at the end of the eighteenth century, and is only today reaching its culmination in the inventions that make machines more and more automatic and convert men from laborers into machine supervisors.
From the economic point of view, the nature of the inferences to be drawn from the Technocratic figures are perhaps not so generally understood. For all those at least who can distinguish between the science of wealth and the art of advocacy, the implications are clear. Economics, if it is science, is not dependent upon the capitalist regime and will not disappear with it. On the exact contrary, in becoming more and more scientific it will cease to be a doctrine of resignation in the face of forces that are asserted to be uncontrollable and, like other sciences, become the source of "applications" for the amelioration of man's economic lot. Wide vistas open for economists of vision, wherein can be glimpsed "inventors" of economic devices utilizing the basic principles of the science for the welfare of society.
Certainly it is not such men who will recommend a revival of the religion of Samuel Smiles, with its god, so curiously identified with the Deity of Christianity, bestowing his blessings on thrift and push and canniness; nor a recourse to the philosophy of Andy Brown, with its hope that "sum'pin' " will turn up to restore "prosperity,"—air conditioning, or Constructo houses, or private airplanes, or new facials; nor even the device of cutting all the debts in half or less so that the same old dismal process can be repeated.
Politically, little has hitherto been said of the implications of the Technocratic position. It is therefore worth pointing out that the advance of machine technique brings measurably nearer the day when the government of persons will be more and more replaced by the administration of things. The point is too important to be elaborated here, but its mere mention will serve to show the absurdity of the belief, shared seemingly even by Stuart Chase, that we are to be "governed" by technicians; and in the same breath it may be asked how a technical world is to be run if not by technicians.
Ethically and esthetically, too, the significance and the promise of the new views grow clearer. Never will the intolerable "Buy, buy, buy" of the advertising agent, so corrosive of every "value" the moralist holds dear, be at an end until society has complete control of the forces of production. Then and then only, when sales pressure has forever ceased, will it be possible to weigh the claims of the simple and the ascetic life in reaching a reasoned decision as to the nature of the "good" life for all. Meditation on this point should go far to save the ethically and esthetically minded from falling into intellectual catalepsy at the mere mention of the word "machine."
These general considerations have their i's dotted and t's crossed by the curves of the Technocrats. Production, they show, is increasing vastly more rapidly than the population: hence, among other things, an inevitable increase in sales pressure in the near future. Debt increases more rapidly than production: hence future generations will have to bear loads of debt for goods they never even saw. Not only will the children's teeth be set on edge, but they will have to pay for the grapes. (Chorus of "Oh, yeah?" from the unborn.) Power increases so fast that its continued growth at the present rate of increase would result in the construction of so many prime movers that all known fuels combined would be exhausted after two generations. At the same time, the labor time per unit of production moves steadily toward zero: hence an inevitable increase in unemployment. In short, the thing cannot go on; we are at the end of an era.
What does it matter that a curve here and there may have to be rectified? What does it matter that Columbia University threw Howard Scott to the wolves in its mad rush to regain respectability? What does it matter whether the Technocrats as a group live or die? With every depression, the level of production rises and the number of workers required to maintain it decreases. A return to the productive level of 1929 would still leave six million men idle. And who is going to pay them full wages for working half time? The demand for lower costs spurs on faster and faster the movement toward completely automatic factories. We cannot go back; we cannot go on. We must make a new start. We are at the beginning of an era.
Such is Professor Rugg's conclusion. What is to be done, and how, to bring the new time into being is the matter of the second half of his volume. He examines into the cheap remedies for current ills and then into that contradiction in terms, a planned private capitalism. From one and all he turns away. What is needed is something very different. It is not one of the least merits of the book that it makes very clear the far-reaching significance of the whole Technological argument. What we need is a new thing in the world, something that has never before been even imaginable. It is nothing less than a scientifically designed economic and social system, in the making of which all the resources of all the sciences must be utilized. Obviously, not only the technologists, but the economists and all the representatives of all the fields of positive knowledge must be called upon to aid in producing the designs for such a society.
But before they can even begin there must be a supporting body of opinion; there must be a favorable intellectual "climate." To create such a body, to develop such a climate must be the first objective of those whose eyes are fixed on the future.
Fortunately, not every man must be considered. For understanding economic and political discussion, an Intelligence Quotient of 108 is adequate. There are some twenty million persons with such an I. Q. in the country. To this minority, by an intensive campaign of adult education, using all the organized groups now in existence for studying social problems in some of their aspects, an appeal must be made. Ultimately this pioneer effort must be supported by such an organization of education as will make all men from their youth up conscious participants in the life of society. Only in such a way can the idea of a scientifically designed society find the sympathy and support it will require for its realization. All men, but particularly the intellectually capable, must be made "scientific-technology-conscious."
It is this larger aspect of Professor Rugg's book that I have chosen to emphasize chiefly because it seems the best way to further his own purposes. If I have omitted the details of his educational plans and programmes, it is not from any lack of appreciation on my part or completeness on his. If I dismiss the last third of his volume without comment; if I seem to feel at times that he envisages mankind as advancing into the future under the banners of Teachers' College; if I think he has a most naive belief as to the amount of influence and control exercisable by teachers over school systems,—these are but personal views on my part and in no sense detract from the interest and value of a very stimulating volume.
Only I must ask one question in conclusion. It is not directly raised by Professor Rugg, but sooner or later he and others Of his mind will have to give it the most serious consideration. That question is: Whence is to come the motivating force to stimulate and maintain all the activity that his book implies? What is this force? What is its nature? Is Professor Rugg too optimistic when he implies that the mere possibility of placing the gifts of humanity at the disposal of all mankind is enough to stir into action all men of good will?
