Well, I learned something new today while teaching my political science course.
I was walking students through my recommended process for getting started doing research on political issues, and at this point we were comparing basic Google search results with Wikipedia (don’t worry, we got far more specific and advanced, which might be a good blog post for another day?), and as I was skimming through Wikipedia articles turned up by my search for “political issues related to engineering Wikipedia,” which was the same phrase used for my Google search, minus the “Wikipedia” add-on, I saw an article titled “Technocracy.”
Well, “technocracy” is one of our course’s basic vocabulary words, so I thought I’d take a look at that article. By the way, I was projecting my own computer screen onto the big screen at the front of the room so everyone could watch what I was doing as I talked about it. Anyway, this is where it got interesting. I was skimming through the article, seeing lots of the usual stuff, blah blah blah. Pausing to make note of the article’s reference to Plato’s “Republic,”which our class had read an excerpt from (a selection from Book VII, the “Allegory of the Cave” and associated discussion of who should “rule” and how).
And then I stopped short. I was just astonished by what I was reading, and I told the students I had never known this until that very moment when I was seeing it with them. Read through the following excerpt from this Wikipedia article, and tell me if you are surprised, as well.
Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy.[20] Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.[20]
Leaders of the Chinese Communist Party used to be mostly professional engineers. According to surveys of municipal governments of cities with a population of 1 million or more in China, it has been found that over 80% of government personnel had a technical education.
(Wikipedia’s article on “Technocracy”)
As I told my students, very few members of the United States Congress have ever been engineers. Currently, in the 118th Congress, there are nine engineers in the House and one in the Senate. That is 10 engineers out of 535 members of Congress, House and Senate combined, which works out to less than 2% of our Congress! We could add in some scientists, but that wouldn’t bring the numbers up all that much. But then compare that with almost 90% of the Soviet Union’s version of Congress being made up of engineers! And the idea that leadership of the communist party in China used to be mostly engineers!
Completely bemused and nonplussed, I couldn’t help laughing and told my students (mostly engineering majors, as I teach at Milwaukee School of Engineering!) that I’m not sure what this info might imply about authoritarianism and engineering. Are engineers somehow well suited to authoritarianism? Do authoritarian governments find themselves attracted to the ability of engineers to design and operate systems? I have no clue, but as I told my students, it might be an intriguing topic to look into more. And I suppose a related political issue to think about is what it means for America that the people making policy at the federal level apparently have little professional knowledge of engineering and technology.
Anyway, that’s my blog post for today. I was just very surprised, and because I’ve been teaching political science for decades and have been interested in politics much longer than that and never knew this, I figured you probably also didn’t know and it would be interesting for you to learn about, too!
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Katherine Wikoff 
I’m not sure I’d characterize the old Soviet Union (or China) as a technocracy just because its top leaders were trained as engineers. I submit that technocracy describes the manner in which government decisions are made. It implies a government designed to make decisions based on “technical” skills and goals rather than political partisanship. If that is the proper definition then we have some limited technocratic ways of governing in the a United States. For example we tend to appoint trained economists to the Federal Reserve Bank. And we expect that they will make “nonpartisan” decisions in managing the central bank. I think the same can be said for the EPA, Food and Drug, CDC and other government agencies.
However I will agree that technocracy may imply a broader way at looking at governing than merely designing an agency like the CDC so that it makes it’s findings and decisions in accordance with a specific area of science. Whether a new drug is safe and effective is a technical question and it ought to be made in a non-partisan way following the rules of good science. But general policy decisions—ought we to defend South Korea against North Korea—is no a simple science problem. I think this is the more interesting focus of your question—“Are engineers somehow well-suited to authoritarianism?”
I think the answer is complex. But in short, an engineer who subscribes to that broader view of technocracy is I think well-suited to authoritarianism. And, moreover, engineers (and other STEM professions) are trained to view engineering (STEM) problems a technical way. That’s the way it done. And this, in turn, may lead to the old saying that when all you have is a hammer, then every problem is a nail.
Finally, I think it seems consistent that the old Soviet Union was governed by engineers. Communism during its apex in the 20th century was, as you know, supposedly “scientific.” In the soviet interpretation history was on a fixed trajectory—scientifically demonstrated by Marx, et al. Second, the early 20th century was the philosophical blossoming of logical positivism. Local positivism and its analytic offshoots led to two strong intellectual currents which are still present today—Emotivism in ethics and Scientism. I submit that these intellectual currents can easily lead one to authoritarian views. So, yes, some engineers are well suited to authoritarianism.
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Wow, Matti, thank you for writing such a detailed, thoughtful response! It’s like I wrote Part A “The Question,” and you wrote Part B “The Answer.” We make a good team!😀
I really love your ideas and examples. They bring so much additional clarity. Most important for me, in general, because it’s a point I always keep emphasizing with my students, is that difference you bring up between science and policy. My PhD area of concentration is rhetoric, so I naturally apply that “hammer” to almost every problem I encounter. “What we know” (knowledge gained via application of scientific method) is connected to but in no way the same as “what we should do” (political decision making informed by application of rhetorical inquiry). Actually, now that I think about it, that’s also one reason why juries of non-specialists (ordinary citizens from all walks of life) are able to render fair, sound verdicts in court cases filled with thorny legal issues and technical complexities.
Thank you again for executing such a beautifully logical analysis of the original question/proposition. As a fellow writer, I recognize the investment of time and energy it takes to produce such elegant prose, which makes it all the more appreciated!
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Thank you. You’re kind. I’m enjoying my occasional submissions to a few quality blogs—like yours. Your question really did get my brain turning. Anecdotally, from my experience I noticed that some blog authors who appear to have libertarian or right-wing and authoritarian interpretations of world events many times hail from the STEM professions. That observation has been festering in the back of my mind for quite some time. Your essay prompted me to think more deeply about it. So, thank you. BTW—Aristotle’s Rhetoric is the best!
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Agreed, I’m an Aristotle girl all the way!
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“And I suppose a related political issue to think about is what it means for America that the people making policy at the federal level apparently have little professional knowledge of engineering and technology.”
That’s what strikes me most. I agree with Matti’s points about the U.S.S.R. and China. I suspect in those cases the authoritarian view comes first and dominates. They leverage the technocracy view as a means of accomplishing their goals.
I’m inclined, however, to dispute the link between STEM-trained folks and authoritarianism. I think I qualify as a representative of the species. It was only discovering I vastly preferred the arts that kept me from becoming a scientist or engineer. If anything, I’d say the scientifically trained resist authoritarianism. Think Einstein, but especially Richard Feynman. There are many other examples (Carl Sagan springs to mind).
What does attract us, I think, is the notion of meritocracy. Where the merits of ideas and people are what dominate social interaction. The connection is that the technically trained learn two foundational views. Firstly, precision matters. Secondly, physical reality is the only truth. But both of those tend to interfere with social interaction, which is casual and often fictional to one degree or other. Those with an engineering or scientific “mind” often suffer in personal relationships. (I speak from personal experience.)
To me, and I think perhaps to many STEM-folks, a technocracy feels potentially without compassion, as if ruled by computers. (And science fiction has made pretty clear what a bad idea that is.) But merit is a whole other deal, and I confess a deep desire the world was more like that.
Speaking of the lack of technical merit in our governance (and life in general), one of my favorite quotes is due to the aforementioned Carl Sagan:
He wrote that back in 1995, and it’s ever truer today.
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Wow, just like Matti’s comment last week, yours is really detailed, thoughtful, and just beautifully said! Thank you so much for taking the time to pull all these ideas together and answer the questions asked in my original blog post. I love the Carl Sagan quote! It’s new to me, but boy is it apropos!
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Aw, thanks. 😊 I had the advantage of having seen your post earlier last week while I was head down on a project, so I had the opportunity to ponder it a bit in the back of my mind while I worked.
Going a bit further with it, I think the science and technically minded tend to view shared knowledge as wealth — a view quite opposed to authoritarian secrecy and capitalism, systems that view hoarded knowledge as wealth. That contrast turned the old internet from the wide-open geek-fest it once was to the highly commercialized marketspace it is today. As with all big social changes, lots of pros and cons both ways. Not sure I’d go back if I could, but I do miss the less nerve-jangling aspects of those days.
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WYRD, when you say that the “technically trained learn two foundational views. Firstly, precision matters. Secondly, physical reality is the only truth..” are you, by implication, expressing an assumption that the non-STEM trained generally lack a concern for “precision” in their thinking? In short, they are sloppy thinkers? Or, as I suspect, that the non-STEM trained in some areas of inquiry don’t use quantitative/mathematical methods in their thinking, hence their conclusions are sloppy and unreliable or (worse) mere inconsequential cultural biases. That would seem to be your view from your second assumption that physical reality is the only truth—which I may address in another reply later. If my suspicions are correct I think I can make an argument that such views can lead to authoritarianism. But, first, perhaps you could be a bit more precise in your meaning.😊
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Hi Matti!
You can generally rely on that when I make general statements about members of class X, I’m never making an implicit statement about members not in that class. I’m careful about: Dogs are friendly; All dogs are friendly; Only dogs are friendly.
People lacking STEM training can absolutely have precision and physical grounding, just as — contrary to what some suggest — staunch atheists can have a moral code. Indeed, when they do, it’s often more deliberate and thoughtful.
I hope I was clear that these qualities of precision and physical grounding, while necessary in science and technology (and engineering and mathematics), are not good tools socially. Social interaction depends on polite fictions and seemingly irrational behavior for social grease.
To your point, I definitely do not believe physical reality is the only truth. Far from it! Not even just in the context of STEM. To be more precise 😉, STEM topics depend on physical facts — which are indisputable. But truth is a different ball of wax and much harder to judge. When we say, “physical reality is the only truth,” there is, in this case, something implied: the continuation, “in scientific theories.”
All that said, I do think society could do with a little more grounding in physical reality and a little less fantastical fiction. Even the sciences have gotten science fictional in places.
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Hi Wyrd! Great to engage with you again! Well, I did expect that you’d provide a nuanced defense of your remarks and you have. I thought I detected a nod to “scientism” in your earlier claim that “physical reality is the only truth.” Scientism, as I said, is a contemporary intellectual current—along with emotivism is ethics—that is well suited to authoritarian sympathies. And, as I also argued, technical education (perhaps more precisely a sterile technical education) could condition one’s thinking into adopting the ideology of scientism.
In your attempt to be more precise, you “definitely do not believe physical reality is the only truth.” You meant instead that STEM subject matter depends on physical facts — which are indisputable. Okee dokee, good enough. I won’t attempt to quibble with the “indisputable” part since I get your more nuanced meaning.
Nevertheless, I will attempt a tiny rebuttal to your rejection of any link between STEM-trained folks and authoritarianism. I certainly think you overstate your case by claiming that the scientifically trained “resist authoritarianism.” Although you yourself may be a positive example, there are enough “Wernher von Braun” counterexamples out there to balance out. Moreover, your own reference to science fiction provides a good cultural counterexample. Contemporary science fiction themes more or less beat to death a deep concern about a dystopian and technology dominated future. In short, a future ruled by cold power-hungry authoritarian tyrants. One cannot miss the thematic argument so often expressed in sci-fi that a belief in a “technological imperative” (as the French philosopher Jacques Ellul puts it) leads to an inhumane hell. Science fiction authors are many times our most persuasive philosophers. So I will leave it there.
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Heya Matti, likewise! I always enjoy visiting with you. Reading your reply, I wonder if we aren’t more aligned than the thread suggests. Because you did detect a nod to scientism earlier in that I was not sympathetic to the notion. I quite agree that STEM training — in part because it focuses overmuch on the importance of precision and physical fact (or mathematical proof) — can lead to the empty view of scientism. Philosophy (and art) should be a much larger part of most scientific curriculums. (The scientists I most like, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, Richard Feynman, others, have that philosophical — and often artistic — bent.)
And I think we’re saying the same thing about the future visions of science fiction. Brave New World springs to mind as a technocratic utopic Hell. Most are familiar with the Terminator movies, but SF has lots of examples of scientific dystopias. There were several old Star Trek episodes about worlds run by a computer. Many of them seemed like utopias, but our fiction going way, way back tells us there’s always a snake in the garden.
We can pursue the question of a link between the STEM-trained, scientism, and authoritarianism, though. I don’t usually see in absolutes, so I wouldn’t say I reject “any” link, but I do question whether the link is a causation or merely a correlation.
In a Venn diagram, I don’t at all dispute there is overlap between the authoritarian and scientific/technical categories. But I see them as orthogonal qualities, mostly independent of each other. That the non-overlapping parts are large — lots of folks in one but not the other — I think shows the independence of the categories. And there will always be some in both.
Speaking of old Star Trek, one underlying theme in the show was this:
Neither McCoy’s humanity nor Spock’s scientific precision were whole. Only Kirk, who blended both, was. (In one episode, a transporter accident splits him into those two halves. With disastrous results.) Yin-Yang, Science-Humanity. Only both make a whole.
As an aside, I would be interested in hearing more about your view of von Braun in this context as well as how you’d quibble with “indisputable facts”. But maybe we shouldn’t get too far down any rabbit holes on someone else’s blog! 😃
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I have really enjoyed reading all these comments! Especially knowing the time and thought required to go down “rabbit holes” so deftly, I feel it’s been like a “gift” to my blog, so thank you both!❤️
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Wyrd, after making my last comments (which appear at the end of the blog thread) I remembered something additional I wanted to ask. You said that what attract you “…is the notion of meritocracy. Where the merits of ideas and people are what dominate social interaction.” So, you think “meritocracy” is a good thing? Would you favor pursuing more of a meritocracy i our governing institutions?—Is it capable of being achieved? Do you see any problems associated with it in a representative democracy?
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I think valuing merit more would definitely benefit business and government and especially politics. I would point to athletics, music, and science as examples of its value. It gets more interesting in art where merit is largely determined by the consumer rather than the producer.
But whether it’s possible is a different question. To some extent social interactions are like art in how value is assigned. We tend to extend our sense of personal interaction to our views of government and politics — voting for the guy we’d like to have a beer with rather than the most competent leader. We tend to conflate “quality; has merit” with “I like it”.
So, I don’t really see it ever happening. Assuming compassion and other important qualities are part of the mix, I don’t see anything in principle wrong with it, if that’s what you’re asking.
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A “meritocracy” is different in significant ways from a “technocracy”which we’ve been discussing. In my opening remarks (above) I pointed out that various specialized government agencies like the CDC function as little technocracies. And I once thought a true meritocracy was a great ideal for our both our government and private institutions—Jefferson’s concept of an aristocracy of talent and virtue. I’ve since modified my views. Mostly I agree with you on the difficulty of implementing merit in our institutions. Take of example college admissions. Colleges are assumed (mostly) to use merit in the form of the SAT test scores in selecting students. A recent the New York Times article shows that it does not work. Apparently SAT scores mirror parents’ income more than anything else. According to political philosopher, Michael Sandel, two-thirds of the students at Harvard and Stanford come from the top fifth income bracket and in the whole Ivy League fewer that four percent come from the bottom fifth.
But I also think the idea of meritocracy comes with a serious downside. I have not worked it out completely but I think an ideal of merit has a tendency to corrode our perception of (and commitment to) community. That is, it tends to convince us that we deserve our lot in life—good or bad. And as a consequence that we have no obligations to our fellow citizens.
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Sorry for the delay getting back to this: I either have a setting wrong, or WordPress has changed something, because I’m not getting any notifications of new replies on the thread. Thinking about your reply, I found that, while I’m clear on the notion of merit, I’ve never looked at the definition of social or political meritocracy before. It’s broadly what I assumed, “a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement.” [Wikipedia]
Though I had a milder form of that in mind — that the merits of an argument should obtain over economic or political factors — it does boil down to some separation or stratification of society. The Criticism section of the Wiki article gets into the same issues you’ve raised. It mentions The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits, The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel, and others.
Looking at those criticisms, at least some of them seem to me to be about the misapplication of a meritocracy rather than inherent problems. It mentions the “Peter Principle” for instance, but that’s only an issue if we’re too dumb to demote people who’ve been promoted beyond their abilities. To me a meritocracy implies looking to the merit of everything, and I see no merit in stranding someone in a job they can’t handle.
There is also that some issues arise when looking at any system in isolation or exclusively. No system is perfect, there are always undesirable effects, so it’s a matter of what’s least worse. And no system should be exclusive. Hybrids that borrow the best from diverse sources seem most robust and flexible to me.
That said, I can’t argue that both meritocracies and technocracies don’t stratify society into a different kind of “have-and-have-not” metric. And one that often supervenes on economic stratification. The college admissions problem you mention is an example of that. Children from better economic backgrounds get better educations, often including tutors and special programs, so of course they do better on their SATs. The solution I’ve long thought is better education for all. All free social systems work better with an educated populace. It’s usually authoritarian governments that want the populace dumb and obedient.
I think, bottom line, most things that end with -ocracy should be taken with a bit of salt and blended with other things. I do think placing more value than we often do on the merit of things would be a good thing.
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Wyrd, I’ve noticed that we have this discussion going on two blogs—Katherine’s and yours. In fairness to Katherine—who started it all—I’ll keep my responses here. As I’ve said, technocracy and meritocracy differ in significant ways. Technocracy is “how” policy decisions get made. Meritocracy is “who” gets to make those decisions and who gets the prizes in life. And, as I’ve said, technocracy in uniquely specialized government agencies like the CDC, NOAA, FDA, etc., works well. But as a way to run a whole society it is the stuff of dystopian science fiction stories.
Let me get to my point. I think you have not addressed my main concerns about meritocracy. Any problems are, as you say, a misapplication of meritocracy. The solution is to re-jigger the system—make a better meritocracy. As stratification schemes go “merit” is at least as good as the others. Well, maybe you can get a genuine merit based system to work in many venues. I have my doubts. But, aside from that, my concern was in the value of meritocracy itself—that is, the additional negative effects on society that come along for the ride. As I said I have not worked it out but an ideal of merit may corrode our commitment to the values of community. That is no small thing. Equality of opportunity is an important value for society to pursue and it obviously requires well-crafted systems of merit. However, much of our lot in life is caused by contingencies that neither we nor our social institutions could ever control—what ethicists call moral luck. Sure, a poor kid from the slums may make it to Harvard. And we can make college admissions work better. But I doubt that any system of merit can account for all contingencies. None of us are truly self-made men (or women). Moreover, if we are convinced we live in a true meritocracy, it tends to persuade us that everyone deserves their lot in life—good or bad. It corrodes the sense of community—that we are all equal members of the polis, those who get the prizes and those who do not. As I said that is no small thing.
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This is fine. I just have to remember to check here. The nub of your concern is the potential of a meritocracy to corrode the sense of community, but I’m not convinced of the necessity of that connection. It’s a conclusion that tries to predict what people will think about something, and that is notoriously difficult.
I tend to see the notion of having merit and the notion of a strong sense of community as orthogonal. I don’t see why the former must corrode the latter. Personally, my sense of community would, I think, be stronger if it appreciated merit more and economics, gender, race, politics less. What makes me feel less connected to society is, in large part, my sense of its inverted value system.
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Wyrd, you may be right. I have a deep concern, however, that you are not. As I said, I have not worked it all out for myself yet. Nevertheless I am pondering—as I have for a few years now—the persuasive arguments in particular of Michael Sandel (The Tyranny of Merit) and the journalist, Thomas Frank (What’s The Matter With Kansas?). I’ll spare you my thinking beyond what I’ve already said. My conclusions are still largely inchoate. Perhaps you can raise this issue again on your chatty blog and I’ll weight in again. Great talking with you!
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Always, likewise!
It may be that it’s both too diffuse and too abstract to get a good handle on. Other than my (abiding) sense that placing more value on the intrinsic or actual merits of most things than we currently do would be a good thing, I find I have more questions than definite thoughts (let alone conclusions).
What’s the framing here? A meritocracy in abstract and isolation — building the ideal pure meritocracy. Or moving towards (or possibly avoiding) a meritocracy from where we are now? How is the meritocracy implemented? How is merit defined and demonstrated in that system? It’s hard to talk about something with a fuzzy definition.
Perhaps I will touch on this on my blog. Until then!
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Part of the answer is the wider meaning of engineer in russian- although as soon as I said that, I became unsure of what exactly is meant by the word in American. My parents were called engineers, having received an undergraduate education in computer programming in Kiev Ukraine, in about 1980.
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That’s interesting to learn, that “engineer” has a wider meaning in Russian. How do you mean? Would the concept expand to include most jobs connected with technical subject matter?
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I think so, exactly what you said..
Soviet Union made a serious effort to educate everyone, and the schools were very good. I left there after fourth grade, having taken math courses that I never surpassed in the American school system- algebra, geometry. Colleges and universities are free, provided you pass the entrance exams which are hard- I remember my aunt failed to get in.
As far as authoritarianism goes, I think it’s becoming more apparent as time goes on that this was just what the western ideologues slandered the regimes they didn’t like with– the level of propaganda and social engineering in the west surely deserves of the name of anything does.
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Because I’ve engaged with you before, I am also convinced we are closer than this dialogue would suggest. I think this is an exercise in testing our thinking in a somewhat Socratic manner. This question was merely in the back of my mind and it was only Katherine’s essay that inspired me to think about it with greater focus. As I said earlier I think it’s a complex issue and since my thoughts are still largely inchoate. I ought to refrain from extending them too far at this point. You are indeed wise to point out that there may not be a simple cause and effect relationship between a STEM oriented education and one’s political views but merely a correlation of multiple factors at work. In fact, I would expect that to be the case.
However, I will happily add to your Star Trek comments. Star Trek, at least the original series, is a bit of a sci-fi outlier because it presented an optimistic view of humanity with, as you suggest, Kirk as the great and necessary synthesizer between two major but only partial components of our human nature. This was the strength of that original series. Optimism is decidedly is not the case with so much other sci-fi narratives regarding the human condition.
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Yes, very true in today’s science fiction, it seems to revel in dystopic futures. It didn’t always, though. The sci-fi of the 1940s and 1950s leaned far more into the “science will save us all” notions of modernism. We were all going to have flying cars (powered by atomic power!) and vacation on the Moon. Classic Trek, Roddenberry’s vision, was very much in sync with those old stories. Today most people poke fun at how naive and idealistic it was, but I think it’s good to have high goals even if all you can ever do is constantly work towards them.
Post-modernism and the social deconstruction that went with it — in part driven by Vietnam and Watergate — made us disillusioned and cynical. I think the evolution of Star Trek over the years reflects that change. (FWIW, I posted about exactly this a while back.)
SF largely followed the same evolution, now reflecting our far less optimistic view of the future. Technology turned out often to be the problem rather than the solution, and I almost wonder if there isn’t an unvoiced undercurrent of, “great, now what do we do?” I think it might account for why everything seems to be fraying around the edges lately, from science to politics. Post-post-modernism turns out to be pretty bleak.
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