Genuine question. It seems like a topic that isn’t discussed in-depth often anywhere I can find online.
To be clear, I’m talking about technocracy as in policies are driven by those with the relevant skills (instead of popularity, skills in campaigning, etc.).
So no, I don’t necessarily want a mechanical engineer for president. I do want a team of economists to not tank the economy with tariffs, though.
And I do want a social scientist to have a hand in evaluating policy ideas by experts. A psychologist might have novel insights into how to improve educational policy, but the social scientist would help with the execution side so it doesn’t flop or go off the rails.
The more I look at successful organizations like J-PAL, which trains government personnel how to conduct randomized controlled trials on programs (among other things), the more it seems like we should at least have government officials who have some evidence base and sound reasoning for their policies. J-PAL is the reason why several governments scaled back pilots that didn’t work and instead allocated funds to scale programs that did work.
I appreciate you agreeing with some technical requirements, but I want some perspective for why it’s not a good idea. It seems like we’re in agreement, though.
Its not a good idea because those requirements must be drafted by people, which tend to be the people in power. Historically, this ends in hand crafted requirements to get the people they want instead of the best people for the job. We also dont really require that. Plenty can be accomplished with flawed people in roles so long as those flaws dont override their responsibilities to their constituents. We do it at our jobs every day. It just so happens a flawed person in their role has the ability to control people’s lives. Which is why extremely centralized modes of power suck absolute ass.
Yeah, I actually agree with you there. I don’t like an extreme form of technocracy where some individuals dictate who is qualified to rule.
In practice, what I’m thinking of is socially delegating the requirements. Have various organizations dictate their own standards, and let them nominate the candidates.
Sure, one could just make their own jank Tariff Society and nominate their own pro-tariff candidates for economic policy, but the people would see that and vote accordingly. The reputation of the organization would be self-regulating in a decentralized way without the extremely centralized power issues you mentioned. I highly doubt a candidate nominated by the Tariff Society would stand a chance against a candidate nominated by the American Economics Association, for example.
A decentralized coalition government would probably be the sweet spot for now. Anything based on merit or qualifications or whatever will just be seized by people with agendas or will be designed with a bias to begin with. Technological based ones will just be ruled by the people with the technology. Our only viable option right now are liberal democracies that actually invest in their populace’s education and electoral information. I’ve grown more towards anarchism in reality, as I no longer believe people can be trusted in a post-truth society. Even the EU is clamping down on climate protestors. Its authoritarianism all the way down in one way or another.
I don’t trust people either. 😭 I had no idea about the EU vs climate protestors. That’s wild.