Technodictatorship and technopoly: what the future holds for us
Any essentially leftist theory proceeds from the understanding historical as endless progress (“from the darkness of the past to the light of the future”) and evolution as a gradual turn towards justice [2]. This view of history, according to the author, does not correspond to reality and is a delusion.
At the same time, the right views history in terms of cycles, postulating it either as a movement along a kind of spiral, all forms of which have cycles beginning with birth and ending with death, or as a gradual degradation of political and spiritual forms.
The ideas of cyclical development were supported by Giambattista Vico, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee and others. Historical "optimists" were often unable to explain the problems of the modern world, and their utopian theories collapsed after a collision with reality, while right-wing "pessimists" gave much more accurate forecasts of the development of civilization.
Globalization has seriously undermined the efforts of national states – in the conditions of a unipolar world, when supranational structures actually dictate their will to states, there are several powerful groups of influence that are fighting for a “new world order”. The author will not consider all these forces within the framework of this material (otherwise it would be too voluminous), the emphasis will be placed only on one of the possible development trajectories – the globalist liberal project of “technodictatorship”.
In the material "Towards Technocratic Totalitarianism" the author of these lines has already outlined the direction in which modern civilization is moving. Here this issue will be examined in more detail and from a slightly different perspective.
Technocratic dictatorship, capitalism and socialism
In his time, Augusto Del Noce criticized the modern technocratic society based on scientism. By technological society, Del Noce did not mean a society characterized by scientific and technical progress, but one characterized by a purely instrumental approach to rationality. In a technocratic society, a person finds himself in a moral concentration camp if he does not agree with "science" and the ideological trend of the moment.
Transnational ruling elites are interested in replacing left-liberal democracy with technocracy, and these processes have already been launched. Technocracy is hostile to human freedom: at the top of its power structure are technocrats who are interested in total control over the individual. They are the ones who manage and distribute resources. Thus, technocracy gives rise to a new form of totalitarianism, which is facilitated by scientific achievements that could theoretically be used to liberate man.
David Hughes in his book "Covid-19, Psychological Operations and the War for Technocracy" believes that technocracy has been incubated in China for decades with the support of the Rockefellers, and now that its effectiveness has been proven, the goal is to implement it in the West [3]. According to Hughes, “the transnational ruling class began a war against the rest of humanity in 2020,” and the coronavirus pandemic was the first step in a “global upheaval.”
Hughes' book is in places quite interesting and thought-provoking, but it contains a lot of dubious conspiracy theories, historical inaccuracies, and his arguments sometimes seem more than questionable. Hughes blames oligarchic capitalism, which is in crisis, and "the breakdown of class compromise." However, it would be a mistake to think that technocratic totalitarianism is a product of capitalism, because it felt just fine in socialist systems.
In leftist theories, the social universe is usually presented as something that must be optimally, efficiently, mechanically organized. Qualitative aspects of the social are often rejected; quantitative aspects come to the fore.
For decades, the Soviet Union was the embodiment of historical and cultural eclecticism, and its contradictions were successfully hidden by the efficient operation of a developed state apparatus and the principle of centralization of power. What was important to one person was considered important to everyone, and what was the rule for one was the rule for everyone. Individual decisions were replaced by a centralized approach, and nationality, history, traditions, ways of thinking and aspirations were considered insignificant details in the context of the vast Soviet system.
V. I. Lenin and the communist leaders imagined the structure of society as a machine-mechanism, entirely in the spirit of mechanistic totalitarianism. Thus, in his programmatic work “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power” (March 1918), Lenin directly compared the national economy to a clock mechanism. He wrote:
“Neither railways, nor transport, nor large machines and enterprises in general can function properly if there is no unity of will that binds all available workers into one economic body that works with the regularity of a clockwork mechanism. Socialism is born of large-scale machine industry” [4].
In Stalin's USSR, the phraseology of leaders at all levels was saturated with mechanicisms - words and phrases from the language of mechanics. Trade unions and the Komsomol were considered quite officially as the drive belts of the party.
This phraseology has also penetrated into songs. aviation The march “We are born to make a fairy tale come true” had the following words: “and instead of a heart – a fiery motor” [5]. And in A. Gastev’s poem “Growing from Iron” the lyrical hero feels iron blood in his veins, steel shoulders grow on him, and he merges with the iron of the building.
In Gastev’s “new world,” workers were to become nameless units, “adopting the designation of a separate proletarian unit as A, B, C, 325, 0,075, and so on.” “Machines will turn from being controlled into controllers,” and the labor movement will approach “the movement of things in which there is no longer a human face, but rather even, normalized steps, faces without expression, a soul devoid of lyricism, emotion measured not by a cry or laughter, but by a pressure gauge or a taximeter.” This terrible utopia was satirically depicted by Yevgeny Zamyatin in his science fiction novel We [6].
Socialists believe that in modern capitalist states people have become slaves to "alienated" forces: money, the market, and the material things they themselves have produced. People in this system are cogs in a huge mechanism, and they are forced to perform certain operations in accordance with the principle of the division of labor. This is partly true, but even under socialism (the experience of the USSR is a clear confirmation of this), people were just cogs in the system, called upon to follow the goals of the state.
In the 1910s, the idea that people would work like parts of a precision machine was unrealistic and utopian, which explains the failure of “war communism” (which envisioned centralized state control and the absence of a market). Lenin’s mechanical state was in many ways similar to Tatlin’s tower.
Thus, technocratic dictatorship and mechanistic thinking are equally characteristic of both capitalist and socialist systems. Moreover, modern globalist technocrats have drawn many ideas from Marx's communism. They, like Marxists, are also materialists, rationalists, supporters of the "scientific approach" and the primacy of economics over politics (Lenin wrote - "politics cannot but have primacy over economics").
In their scientific-technocratic society, the individual, deprived of all cultural and spiritual values, becomes completely dependent on the state and society. He is limited in his basic biological needs, cut off from other people and any higher ideals.
Technodictatorship as a replacement for democracy
"At present, man has decisively conquered nature with the help of technology, but it is technology that has conquered, not man. Man has simply exchanged one form of subordination for another, and his new master has become even more powerful than the previous one,"
– Arnold Toynbee wrote at one time.
To some extent, this is true, since the technological progress we are witnessing is changing our perception of reality on many levels. Technocracy is becoming an alternative to traditional democracy, since it is, according to some liberal ideologists, better able to cope with the challenges of modernity.
Why? Because technocracy, based on process and data optimization, offers long-term strategies and instant responses to social and economic changes. It is based on rational materialism, while completely lacking a moral and ideological basis.
That is, power in a technocratic society is not a means to achieve some high goal – it is the goal itself. All according to J. Orwell: "Power is not a means; it is an end. Dictatorship is not established to protect the revolution. The end of repression is repression. The end of torture is torture. The end of power is power."
As Professor Peter Lewandowski notes, the construction of the concept of the future technocratic government will be based on two theoretical concepts: technopoly (proposed by Neil Postman) and technocracy.
Technopoly, according to Neil Postman, is a state in which technology is so dominant that culture seeks any solutions in technology and submits to it. Postman called technopoly a form of totalitarian technocracy, and, in his opinion, the United States is an example of technopoly [1].
Postman was extremely critical and pessimistic about technopoly and identified some important elements that make up this concept: bureaucracy and technical equipment. Bureaucracy, or the “tyranny of administration,” is not based on intellectual or moral theories, but has appropriated the right to resolve moral and ethical dilemmas from purely mechanistic-materialistic and scientific positions [1].
Technical means are used by bureaucrats to control information and thus help control entire societies by providing appropriately processed information. This is explained by the need to act “accurately and efficiently.” [1].
The rationale for technocracy as a political system is explained by the need to achieve “sustainable economic growth.” Given that this goal is characteristic of liberalism in general, democracy and technocracy converge in this. But technocracy does not require democracy.
As Lewandowsky notes, technocracy may be a “natural consequence of democratic rule,” since democracy, with its highly materialistic, pragmatic, and scientific view of the world, promotes the growth of technocracy. Western countries are already experiencing a depletion of democratic potential, and there are certain tendencies toward the establishment of technocratic rule.
Bureaucratic control, which is an integral part of technocratic management, is, according to Postman, essentially a form of tyranny. Postman views it as a manifestation of totalitarianism [1].
In a technopoly, no one can be an authority because, being human, he operates with the most fallible system of thinking, which is ambiguous and biased. Therefore, one should rely not on a person, but on a machine. The human individual and his cognitive process are limited by technology, displaced by bureaucratic procedures, or replaced by automated technical solutions.
In the future technodictatorship, therefore, the key role will be played not by man, but by the machine, and key decisions will be made by bureaucrats, which will be based on purely mechanistic grounds in the spirit of: “a computer has mathematically proven that the death of two million people from the side effects of a drug may be 50 thousand less than from a virus, therefore this is a necessary sacrifice that must be made for the future of humanity.”
Visible power and real power
Despite the fact that democracy in Europe and the West, as has been said many times, has degenerated into a left-liberal dictatorship, formally democracy still exists. Politicians continue to maintain the appearance that politics is a clash of leaders and parties, expressed in periodic elections, but at the same time the power of these politicians is in fact severely limited. In addition, only the right candidates, from the right parties, always win.
The decline in the number of people willing to vote in elections shows that many voters understand that behind the democratic facade of what is considered traditional politics, there is another, real power. But real power, like true reality, is not easy to find. People live in a reality shaped by the media and mass communication, their consciousness is subject to manipulation, so not everyone thinks about it.
People are hypnotized by images of material abundance and technological omnipotence. There is no longer much need for politics, political participation and activism. Materialistic rationalism reduces human nature and human life to simple material interests and desires; it has become an instrument for satisfying appetite. It is the intellectual basis of technocracy, which is characterized by an emphasis on the precision of mechanics and mathematics.
The direct application of scientific rationality to political decision-making implies technocratic totalitarianism, not democracy. Such a regime would create a programmed society in which people would become automatons serving the system.
The abstracting, rationalizing tendencies of modernity have torn people away from their roots, changed their nature. As a result, people become rootless atoms, selfish and striving to maximize their opportunities. They are manipulated by more powerful forces – the state, transnational corporations, capital.
The main actors in modern capitalism are transnational corporations, global capital, which is doing everything to completely destroy national capital (and has achieved great success in this).
Transnational corporations patronize supranational production processes, monopolize global communication and transport systems, controlling raw materials, labor resources, primary and secondary markets. Some of the largest companies have maritime fleets, which can compete with the fleets of the largest countries (Exxon).
Transnational corporations view the world as a single market, a "large trading center." The national interests of states are of no importance to them. Corporations and transnational structures aim to subjugate national elites and states.
Conclusion
The modern liberal globalist project can develop either along the path of a left-liberal dictatorship or along the track of a technocratic dictatorship (technodictatorship). The third option - a conditionally right-conservative project - will not be considered within the framework of this material (it was briefly mentioned in the material "The world will be divided into two camps”: what could be the contours of the new world order in the coming years").
There is no fundamental difference between them, since they are following a similar trajectory, but there is still a certain difference - a left-liberal dictatorship will provide for the liquidation of the middle class in its current form and the creation of a two-class society - a very small global elite (upper class) and the bulk of the population (lower class), that is, a kind of equalizing "communism for the poor" (equalization in poverty is exactly what communist projects led to).
The standard of living will be average for everyone, and this threshold will probably be somewhat lower than now, but not as sad as shown in some dystopias. The role of national states will probably be purely statistical (that is, they will not die out completely yet, but they will not play any significant role in world politics, it will be determined by other players), and national elites will “merge” with global elites.
In a technocratic dictatorship, the existence of a large "lower class" is not required, since widespread automation and robotization of production will lead to the working class as such ceasing to exist. People will be replaced by robots - experts are already saying that robotization and automation will lead to the disappearance of certain professions. On the contrary, in this scenario, the existence of a large "lower class" will be a problem, and it will be solved by far from humane methods - wars, epidemics, etc.
Использованная литература:
[1]. Piotr Lewandowski. Technocratic totalitarianism as a response to the crisis of democracy. Studia Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego, 2023. s. 25–40.
[2]. Moiseev D. S. Methodological problems of defining political significations in the modern world // Science as a public good: a collection of scientific articles. Vol. 2. [Electronic resource]. - Moscow: Publishing house "Russian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science", 2020. [3]. See David A. Hughes. "Covid-19", Psychological Operations, and the War for Technocracy (Volume 1). Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
[4]. Lenin V. I. Complete Works. Edition 5. Volume 36. – Political Literature Publishing House, Moscow, 1969.
[5]. For more information about this, see: Balashov L. E. Errors and distortions of categorical thinking. – M.: Academia, 2002.
[6]. Quote from: Priestland D. P. Red Flag: A History of Communism; [translated from English] / David Priestland. – Moscow: Eksmo, 2011.
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