Fair enough, I will do some more reading. I am not much familiar with this as a developed argument. I just find it striking that, as an ardent technophile, I found myself frustrated by the lack of consideration in our current society for how we might strjucture things differently, given the power we have now. A good example being the explosion fo satellite communicatiosn in Africa and the Middle East, precisely ebcuase they are under-deveoped; an online Africa is going to be a very different Africa.
And in this regard the only analysis I found which dealt with the technical base of scoiety is Marxism.
Not being an expert on Marxism, I can only speak in the broadest of terms. However, what I can say is that Marxism is derived from largely philosophical and moral concepts, centering around ideas of "class struggle" and so forth. Technocracy, on the other hand, is entirely technical/scientific in nature (you should read the article I linked to in my last post there).
Hmm, well I'm afraid I'm going to advance the same claim in terms of Marx. Marxism is explicitly not based on morality, but on Materialism. So I'm afraid its wroing to say that Marxism is derived from philosophical concepts; it is derived from methedological observation of the fact that the FORM a society takes is depending on the technology it has available.
The iron age empires could not have existed during the bronze age; they were simply technically incapable of projecting power of those kinds of distances. So, the central thesis of Marxism is that "society is a technological epiphenomenon".
It's methods are derived from thermodynamics, not philosophy or morality. It also does not attempt to describe the "perfect society", but rather provides a scientifically-based framework--and "operating system" if you will--that allows us to operate our technology to the fullest benefit for humans. Technocracy is the technological 'solution' to the very specific problem of a technologically produced abundance, experienced in North America, and now possibly elsewhere. Marx, having lived when he did, could not have anticipated these changes, regarded as the most dramatic and significant in human history.
Ah but thats the point - he did anticipate them. Sometimes, he didn't even know he was doing so, remarking, for example, that presumed future advances in communication would make a global workers society feasible. And here we are, on the internet just as he guessed, discussing the philosophy and methods of politics, as common people. This IS Marx' insight.
And that "technically produced over-abundance" to which you refer is the central concept of the model of capitalist instability; that is, Marx recognised that with the advent of industrialism, the game had changed on a massive scale by comparison to all prior societies.
Now, having said that, I will also say that there are similarities. Some of the "ideals" in Marxism are achievable through Technocracy (i.e. a classless, moneyless society), but Marx did not have a clear, technological mechanism for producing such, only vague philosophical and sociological ideas. He did have many very forward-thinking insights into things such as how such a society would work, but nothing concrete in place.
Agreed. However, we should consider he didn;t want to make proimises he coulden't keep, as it were. P{recisely becuase we cannot predict future technology with any precision, it would be premature of us, here and now, to start laying down the law of how future generations will organise their societies. Thats why there is nothing specific - Marx is ot proposing a "model of government" but arguing that society changes in accordance with its technical base.
. Keep in mind that this was never Technocracy's goal however, only a remarkable coincidence, because people of virtually any political persuasion can find the most important of their ideals made practicable with Technocracy.
Fair enough, and I will do more reading, but I have one point to raise: the transition from Bronze age to Iron age is recorded archeologically by a layer of burned-out cities. Part of Marx thesis is that despite a change in the technical base, and thus a possibility of a new way of living, the present social elites will resist a change to their utmost. So I wonder if there is a practical concern which your thesis does not yet address, which is, how this society is to be actually brought about on the street, as it were.
But anyway, thanks for the cogent response.