I thought I would post this as an introduction for those unfamiliar with Technocracy.

What is Technocracy?

Briefly, Technocracy would be a meritocratic ascent of volunteers selected on the basis of their utility within the framework of the project. The project would be to provide an abundance of goods and services to every person in the Technate with a minimum input of resources - including energy, raw materials, and human labor.

Since technocracy is a planned economy based around the concept of 'use values', we can know in advance what % of the population to train for a particular type of position. This will not change except with the introduction of new technology or more efficient methods.

Every position within the Technate would be functionally vital - if someone stops working, production of goods and services would cease.

Positions would be kept until retirement or death.

If a position became vacated, for whatever reason, those in rank immediately below the vacated position would vote amongst themselves to choose candidates for promotion. Then, if there is a rank higher than the position to be filled, those in that rank would select who from the pool of candidates would take the position. This is because those higher in rank than the vacated position would have already passed through that position and would be thoroughly familiar with the job requirements. No one else except for they would have the experience necessary to determine the qualifications of an individual.

For removal, a 2/3rd vote by an individual's peers is required. a peer is anyone whose actions immediately effect or are effected by the individual. Anyone within the Technate can be removed by a 2/3rd vote by their peers.

a 2/3rds vote is required for removal* because a simple majority is too easily won with emotional manipulation, which is problematic when every position in the social mechanism is functionally vital. If a person ceased to perform their duties adequately, it would immediately have a negative impact on everyone in society, especially those who worked with the individual since they would be forced to pick up the slack, and would face strong external pressure from outside their department to correct the problem. This would provide sufficient motivation for an individual's coworkers to remove them, should they fail to adequately perform their duties. Thus, if someone needed to be removed because they failed to perform their duties, it should be no great difficulty to attain the 2/3rd majority. However, if someone were performing their duties adequately, but were simply unpopular, it would be too easy to remove such a person with a simple majority, by way of a smear campaign against the individual. In this way, an incompetent but popular person could find themselves in a position of power, which would result in a general failure of the entire social mechanism. A 2/3rd vote for removal is necessary to maintain the meritocratic structure, as anything less would allow someone to be removed on the basis of popularity alone. Technocracy is a meritocracy - not a democracy. Popular opinion of the masses by itself is not sufficient to determine who will lead. It will be the merit of the individuals themselves, considered within the framework of the project at hand, that will determine who will take what job.

If we look at history, the single longest lasting political institution in the history of humanity was meritocratic in nature - Confucianism, which lasted for almost 2,000 years - long enough to make the Roman Empire seem ephemeral.

In fact, Meritocracy is what the Founding Fathers were aiming for with Democracy - the idea was that with sufficient education, an enlightened citizenry would select leaders on the basis of their merit (not their popularity). I don't think I need to explain how poorly that's worked out.

*under NET's proposed plan, a simple majority is sufficient to remove someone from their position. The basic idea is still a 'meritocratic ascent of volunteers.'

Excellent post. Bumped because it seems I can't sticky it.

THe technocracy page on wiki says that China could be described as a technocracy is this even remotely right? Or do I know a lot less about China then I thought I did...If not then I'll remove it, since a lot of people go straight for wiki when looking for imformation on something.

No, China is not a Technocracy as we are defining it. More like an oligarchic police state masquerading as a communist state.

Hmmmm, interesting. Thanks for the summary. I'm still a bit skeptical of technocracy, but this helps me understand it a bit more.

Well, despite disagreements politically about China with you Technocrat, but I would also state that China has advanced technologically wise than, say, places like the US. There was a recent article on Workers World where it showed how China's produced the smartest computer system in the world, and is advancing technologically in such fields. Not saying this is what technocracy is solely defined under, but China's been using their technology to benefit the whole, there's no doubting that, especially when we compare how countries like the US uses their technology - wars, oil extraction, profit, etc.

Here's the article on the 'super-computer' in China:

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/china_1118/