Understanding Technocracy

A global Technate is imminent. Technocracy is upon us and we need to resist it.

Over the last couple of years the question of technocratic governance has become a talking point in Western society. The debate concerns the degree to which qualified experts should influence or possibly even control policy.

Largely due to disillusionment with the political class, many people are broadly supportive of this idea. It is therefore crucial that we understand that technocratic governance is just one aspect of technocracy.

A Technate—technocracy applied to the whole of society—is not limited to technocratic governance. It goes much further and is a new and distinct sociopolitical construct.

A Technate vs Technocratic Governance

During the pseudopandemic, prominent members within the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) were not just providing advice, they were seemingly leading policy. People like Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance were “seen,” by millions of TV viewers, to be driving government decisions. The accompanying mantra from UK politicians was that they were “led by the science.”

People have assumed that this is technocracy. It is not and it is vital that we understand the full, horrific implications of genuine technocracy.

If we look closer at this relationship between the expert—the technocrat—and the politician during the pseudopandemic, it is perhaps more accurate to say that the science was cherry picked by the politicians because it supported their policies. That being said, policy that is genuinely led by technocrats is not unusual in the West, especially monetary policy.

The political and economic response to Covid-19, on both sides of the Atlantic, exemplifies technocratic influence and control. For example, the economists and the financiers in the central banks—the “experts”—committed European Union (EU) taxpayers’ to fund policies without any meaningful oversight from the politicians.

Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), speaking in 2020, said:

The Governing Council is committed to doing everything necessary within its mandate to help the euro area through this crisis. [. . .] It is fully prepared to increase the size of its asset purchase program[.]