Chapter 13: The Technocratic State

The Technocratic State
featuring Patrick Wood

Up to this point we have focused our attention on the various individuals and institutions which make up The Pyramid of Power. As we near the top of the Pyramid and edge closer to the looming question, Who is on top of the Pyramid? we must first stop to examine the philosophy which appears to be guiding the actions of the inner circle.

Over the years, researchers of the ruling class have typically fallen into one of three categories: Those who believe the guiding philosophy is Communism, those who believe it is a fascist ideology driving the psychopaths at the top, and, finally, those who see the most danger coming from Nationalist authoritarians.

Now, it’s not hard to see why some would believe the threat is Communism, Fascism, or even Nationalism. History shows us the violence, betrayal, tyranny, murder, and starvation wrought by the Russian Bolshevik revolution, and other Communist revolutions inspired by the Bolsheviks. Also, we have seen the violence and death brought by Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists. And history has also shown us that tyrants will use the cover of traditionalism and national identity to enforce their police state measures, as with the Franco dictatorship in Spain.

These historical events are all worthy of further inspection, and we will do so in an upcoming chapter, but for now it’s important to understand that while some researchers fall into this dichotomy of Communism vs Fascism, there are also those who believe this narrow focus misses the mark when it comes to the actual guiding philosophy of the Pyramid of Power.

If it’s not right-wing nationalism, or left-wing Communism we should fear, what is the actual philosophy that underpins the actions of the Ruling Class?

Understanding Historical Technocracy

In the early 20th century, a movement began to develop around a political theory known as Technocracy, a system wherein management of governments is handled by technical experts, often involving technology-focused solutions. Early proponents of Technocracy claimed that the concept would lead to better management of resources and the protection of the planet. However, this system of governance by technological experts and their technology would also involve a loss of privacy, as well as centralization of power and the management of all human behavior. Although the term appears to have been largely forgotten, the technocratic philosophy and influence can be seen everywhere in our modern digital world.

In the early 1930’s, as the United States population grappled with The Great Depression, many researchers and philosophers began to look for alternative ways of viewing society. Technocracy was one of those alternatives. The book Technocracy and the American Dream describes the beginning of the movement as follows:

One of the first plausible alternatives was offered by a group of technicians and social engineers who had organized the Committee on Technocracy at Columbia University. Central to their analysis was the paradox of a society victimized by abundance. Science, engineering, and technology possessed the potential for realizing a material utopia. But, according to the Technocrats, America’s inefficiency in adjusting to the requirements of modern technology had brought about the Depression. Technology, they argued, required the complete reorientation of production and distribution along scientific and engineering lines.

Researcher Patrick Wood is one of the first to take note of the importance of the historic Technocracy movement. Wood had partnered with Antony C. Sutton, the famous British-American economist, professor, and writer. Sutton himself produced numerous books exploring the intersection of powerful people and secret societies. In the late 1970’s, Woods and Sutton co-authored two volumes of Trilaterals Over Washington, focusing on the then-new organization, the Trilateral Commission. It was  his studies of the Trilateral Commission which led to his understanding of historical Technocracy.

(Patrick Wood Interview:  18:30 – 19:29 –  “This is a system that was created back in 1930, at Columbia University, the seat of Progressivism in America at the time, in the heat of the Great Depression, and a group of engineers and scientists at Columbia thought they could do better, and they would recreate an economic system that would replace capitalism. They called it Technocracy. It was to be a RBE system, not a priced based system, where all assets and resources of the worlds will be controlled by them, the Technocrats. It was an interesting movement in that they had no use for politics or political structures. At the time they wanted to have President FDR do away with the political system, declare himself dictator, and basically just simply appoint Technocrats to run the whole country. They wanted him to dismiss all of Congress”)

The most influential proponent of the original Technocracy movement was a man named Howard Scott, a writer who founded the Technical Alliance in New York City in 1919. Scott believed that business owners lacked the necessary skills and data to reform their industries, and thus control should be handed over to engineers. In 1932, Scott and fellow technocrat Walter Rautenstrauch formed the “Committee on Technocracy” at Columbia University. The group would eventually splinter, with Scott leading Technocracy Incorporated, and fellow technocrat Harold Loeb in charge of the Continental Committee on Technocracy.

Both Rautenstrauch and Loeb split with Scott, in part, because he was militant about his Technocratic beliefs, where the other two men could be seen as moderate Technocrats.

After these splits, Scott began to focus his attention on designing the blueprint for how such a Technocratic vision could come to life. Between 1933 and 1936, the first outline of the Technocratic society came into view in the writings of Scott and in the official Technocracy Study Course edited and largely written by another Technocrat by the name of King Hubbert.

Hubbert and Scott assumed the preferred societal framework is a hierarchical organization. However, instead of businessmen, capitalists, or politicians, they believed it would be the engineers and technologists who operate a “permanent productive and distributive system which will harness the energy resources of the country for the mutual benefit of the entire population”.

This “self-perpetuating corporate structure” or “Technate,” as Scott called his organization, would be divided into “functional divisions“ run by a divisional director. All of these directors would make up the “Continental Control Board” that would make “whatever decisions pertaining to the whole social mechanism that have to be made.” The Control Board would elect one of its members continental director. This technician-king would have responsibility for the smooth functioning of the overall operation.

In 1938, Technocracy Incorporated released a publication that further outlined its vision for a Technocracy:

“Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population of this continent. For the first time in human history it will be done as a scientific, technical, engineering problem. There will be no place for Politics or Politicians, Finance or Financiers, Rackets or Racketeers.

Technocracy states that price and abundance are incompatible; the greater the abundance the smaller the price. In a real abundance there can be no price at all. Only by abandoning the interfering price control and substituting a scientific method of production and distribution can an abundance be achieved. Technocracy will distribute by means of a certificate of distribution available to every citizen from birth to death. The Technate will encompass the entire American Continent from Panama to the North Pole because the natural resources and the natural boundary of this area make it an independent, self- sustaining geographical unit.”

Technocrats publicized their vision of a centrally-planned world via books, speeches, clubs, and political parties. This resulted in a brief period of popularity in the US and Canada in the years following the Great Depression. As politicians and economists searched for a solution to the financial calamity, the technocrats imagined a world where politicians and business owners were replaced with scientists, engineers, and other technical experts, who would manage the economy.

The book Technocracy and The American Dream provides some fantastic insights into the mind of Scott and the Technocratic vision he proposed. One thing that is clear is that the Technocrats were materialists at heart, finding little use for philosophy or virtue. Scott and his allies saw humans as mechanistic, cogs in a larger machine that simply needed to be bent to the will of the machine in the interest of some alleged collective good.

Author William Akin noted that in the Technocrats “technological utopia, machines serve man only when man serves them”. Akin also claimed that the Technocrats “would not accept any limitations on the technicians’ mandate”, preferring instead that the “rationality of science and the harmony of the machine, not utopian virtues, would dictate organizational forms”. Scott believe that eventually man would come to accept “a reality understood in terms of machine-like function”.

The reality of the Technocratic vision described by Scott is that it would involve a loss of individual choice and liberty. Indeed, Akin writes that “under a technocracy, a sizable amount of things deemed good would be given up. For those who desired a new society, the concern for the commonwealth minimized outdated concepts of individual self-realization, responsibility for one’s self, individual conscience, free choice, and self-expression—the whole liberal belief in the dignity and worth of the individual. There would be no “nonsense about individual liberty.””

He further notes that “certain individual freedoms would be sacrificed to efficiency” and that an individual’s job would not be their own choice, but would be “determined by his abilities and the needs of the organization”. The Technate would decide how goods were produced, where to allocate labor and resources, develop and apply technology, and most of all, assure efficiency.

Of course, consumers might have fewer options in the technocrats’ marketplace because Scott imagined the Technate would restrict many types of goods which involved waste and inefficiency. Akin writes:

“For example, since it would increase inefficiency to produce multiple models of automobiles or specially designed housing, these items would have to conform to functional specifications rather than consumer taste.”

The Technocrats claimed they were not interested in adopting police-state tactics, but Akin notes that Scott had an organizational chart which “called for the establishment of a division of social control with potentially far-reaching power”. This organization would be responsible for “seeing to it that everything as regards individual relationships functions smoothly”. How exactly such a task would be accomplished was not described but its clear the Technocrats imagined a world with bureaucracy infecting every human relationship.

Akin also wrote that the Technocrats attempted to combine their faith in positivistic science with a mechanistic view of man, and the dominance of technology into a functional ideal that resembled Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Despite the work of Scott and Technocracy Inc, in the 1940s mainstream interest in the Technocracy movement seemed to dissipate. Some researchers attribute this to a lack of a coherent political theory for achieving change, while others say that President Roosevelt and the New Deal provided an alternative solution to financial hardship.

Whatever the cause, Technocracy ceased to be a topic of mainstream political discourse. However, this was not the end of the Technocratic movement.

The Technotronic Era

The ideas that underpinned the technocratic vision received a notable endorsement in the 1970’s, with the founding of the Trilateral Commission and the release of the book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era. The book was written by political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was actually also involved in the founding of The Trilateral Commission as well. This was the beginning of a resurgence of Technocratic thought.

(Patrick Wood Interview:  19:38-20:51 – “But in the early 1970s it came back to life again, with a vengeance. Then it was picked up with big money people like David Rockefeller, and political ideologues like Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski. They started a group called the Trilateral Commission and they brought in members from Japan, North America, and Europe to foster what they called a “new international economic order”. Well time went by and I didn’t understand it for a long time. But in the early 2006 or 07, I discovered historic technocracy for the very first time and I immediately understood that this was the new order that the TC was talking about back in the 1970s.”)

As Patrick Wood notes, until his death in 2018, Brzezinski was a diplomat who ran in the same circles as David Rockefeller and former Secretary of State and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger. Brzezinski served as advisor to several presidents—from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. Brzezinski was the co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, and also a member of the Atlantic Council, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Although Brzezinski’s Between Two Ages substituted the term “Technetronic” for “Technocracy,” the depiction of the future is the same: a world in which the scientific and technological elite centrally plan the lives of all humanity.

Essentially, Brzezinski’s vision is a technologically-advanced authoritarian-style collectivism, wherein individual liberties are subordinated to the apparent needs of the collective. Brzezinski explains “technetronic” in the following way:

“The post-industrial society is becoming a “technetronic” society: a society that is shaped culturally, psychologically, socially, and economically by the impact of technology and electronics— particularly in the area of computers and communications.

In the Technetronic society scientific and technical knowledge, in addition to enhancing production capabilities, quickly spills over to affect almost all aspects of life directly. Accordingly, both the growing capacity for the instant calculation of the most complex interactions and the increasing availability of biochemical means of human control augment the potential scope of consciously chosen direction, and thereby also the pressures to direct, to choose, and to change.”

Brzezinski believes that “persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States” into the highly controlled, Technetronic society.

In a moment of honesty, Brzezinski acknowledges that “the fiction of sovereignty is clearly no longer compatible with reality” because “emerging global consciousness” is causing the “abandonment of preoccupations with national supremacy” in favor of “global interdependence”.

Brzezinski’s vision of the future was not mere speculation or guesswork. He was a member of the ruling class who spent his life using nation states—and the people within them—as pawns in a chess game in which most of the players are dangerously oblivious to the reality unfolding around them. I believe that Brzezinski’s book describes the world that is unfolding in the 2020s.

After receiving the endorsement and promotion of Brzezinski, the Technocratic ideals made their way to other international organizations, like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum.

(Patrick Wood Interview: 21:20- 23 – “So this was picked up and moved forward, through the auspices of the UN in particular. It became the doctrine of Sustainable Development, which is now all over the world. It’s more recently become things like the phrase Build Back Better, The Great Reset, or Green New Deal in America. We see all kinds of policies wrapped around this, the death of fossil fuels, oil, coal, and gas; restrictions on where we can build, where we can go, stuff like that.

This is Technocracy today, this taking over. Its not socialism, its not communism, and its not fascism per se. There are very significant distinctives with Technocracy. China is a Technocracy by the way, you can look at China and get a good idea. You have total micro-management of the population through technology. You have social credit scoring system that tells people what they can and cannot do, and they get punished if they make the wrong move, or they do the wrong thing, or talk to the wrong person. These things were unheard of 30 years ago. Today they are common place and they create a lot of fear in the minds of people.

So this is the environment we find ourselves in, with this emerging scientific dictatorship, that’s got a hold of the whole planet. Its not just America, its not just D’s and R’s, It’s global in nature today.”)

The Modern Technocrats and the Technocratic State

Now that we understand a bit of the history of Technocracy and some of the ideas that it proposes, we need to examine the world of today, looking for signs of the technocratic (or technetronic) influence.

Let’s start by looking at the wealthiest companies and most influential CEOs. These individuals are running companies that have amassed large amounts of financial wealth, as well as unfathomable amounts of digital data on all of their customers. From Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Elon Musk of Tesla, and lesser known names at Google, Apple, and others.

In fact, with his believe in technological solutions as the answer to all of humanity’s problems, Elon Musk appears to be walking a path similar to his grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who was a research director for Technocracy Incorporated of Canada and national chairman of the Social Credit Party.

These men and their colleagues in various technological industries wield immense power through their companies, wealth, and cultural influence. These individuals have enough money, resources, and connections to shape elections, geoengineer the climate, censor information, shape international food trends, and cause dips in the stock market, to name a few examples. They are the technocrat class of today.

But the technocratic world is not complete with the simple presence of Technocrats. No, in order to bring about the vision of Scott there must be mechanisms for understanding all of society’s needs and making rational decisions about how to meet those needs. Do we see attempts to create this vision in our current era?

As we outlined in our chapter on The Foundations, we do, indeed, see organizations like the World Economic Forum and the United Nations partnering with Technocrats to promote technocratic remedies to the various crises facing humanity.

For example, we are told that humanity is facing a climate crisis that will require a complete overhaul of our world. The United Nations uses their influence with world governments to push them to align with the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals ostensibly focused on fighting climate change, poverty, etc. At the same time, organizations like the WEF say that COVID19 presented the perfect opportunity to “reset” capitalism and all of the world’s systems as part of their “Great Reset” agenda.

One of the answers being proposed to stop these apparent crises, specifically climate change, is to geoengineer the weather by spraying various particles out of the back of airplanes in an attempt to reflect sunlight and lower the average temperature on Earth. Technocrats like Bill Gates are using their immense wealth to finance projects like these, completely bypassing governments and giving the people no say in the matter altogether.

Additionally, now that a precedent has been set for nations to lock down their populations in the name of fighting a pandemic, we are also seeing proposals for “climate lockdowns”. As early as September 2020, the term “climate lockdown” was used by Mariana Mazzucato, Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All. Mazzucato wrote:

[U]nder a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.

We are also beginning to see proposals for carbon tracking apps which tell a person how much energy they are using. These could eventually become mandatory, preventing citizens who have used “too much” carbon from driving, taking public transportation, and other daily practices. In an August 2021 article published in the journal Nature Sustainability, researchers argue in favor of Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs). They write:

In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on individuals for the sake of public health, and forms of individual accountability and responsibility that were unthinkable only one year before, have been adopted by millions of people. People may be more prepared to accept the tracking and limitations related to PCAs to achieve a safer climate and the many other benefits associated with addressing the climate crisis.

The authors also claim that the public’s acceptance of contact tracing apps could lead to “insights into possible strategies to use apps to track PCAs“. This type of solution, and the entire response to COVID19, illustrate the level of Technocratic thinking that now pervades most goverments and world bodies such as the World Health Organization.

Both the UN’S SDGs and the WEF’s Great Reset claim that the answer to our problems will be found in a complete digital transformation of our world, which they claim will be better for the environment, improve efficiency, and be more equitable for all people. Klaus Schwab, founder and director of the WEF, called this transformation the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The 4IR is Schwab’s pet project and the name of his 2016 book where he calls for a world with ubiquitous digital surveillance, driverless vehicles, smart cities, social credit scores, the metaverse, and augmented reality.

The WEF describes the 4IR as follows:

   “The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

To put it simply, the 4IR is the digital panopticon of the future, where surveillance is omnipresent and humanity uses technology to alter our lives. Often associated with terms like the Internet of Things, the Internet of Bodies, the Internet of Humans, and the Internet of Senses, this world will be powered by 5G and 6G technology. Of course, for Schwab and other globalists, the 4IR also lends itself towards more central planning and top-down control – just like the Technocratic vision of Howard Scott. The goal is a track and trace society where all transactions are logged, every person has a digital ID that can be tracked, and social malcontents are locked out of society via social credit scores.

Similar to Klaus Schwab’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, the original Technocrats claimed that “electronic devices would immediately tabulate data on the amount of spending and the type of consumption”, “with this information clearing continuously to the central headquarters”. Both Scott and Schwab imagined using technology to know everything about everyone in society in the name of building a system that promised to deliver abundance to all people.

According to Scott, with the Technician-King and Control Board at the head of the Technate, they would control “precise information at all times on the state of consumption of every kind of commodity or service in all parts of the country” and it would be possible for the “technical elite to know precisely what the proper decisions were at all times in order to maintain the operation of the social mechanism at the highest possible load factor and efficiency”.

This Technocratic vision is dependent on the use of surveillance tools like facial recognition, voice detection, 24/7 closed-circuit TV cameras, Artificial Intelligence, algorithmic manipulation, cell phone tracking, social media monitoring, location tracking, digital eavesdropping via smart devices, and the overall push towards a “Smart Grid”. Of course, these technologies are not promoted as surveillance tools, but rather as tools for safety, convenience, education, and profit. However, the result is the same: individuals and companies promoting technological solutions to the world’s ills, resulting in a loss of individual freedoms and more centralized control.

Whether by design or accident of history, the modern Technocrats – backed by their friends in venture capital firms, the obedient hacks in corporate media, and their partners in government – are becoming what Howard Scott called the Technate, and what I call the Technocratic State.

Is there anyway we can stop or avoid the growth of this tyrannical vision?

Solutions: Opting out of the Technocratic State

It’s much easier to identify the dangers that lie ahead than it is to provide practical solutions that work for a broad spectrum of people. Inevitably, prescriptions for alternative paths will not apply to all people in all situations. With that said, there are indeed opportunities for potentially preventing the rise of Technocracy.

As we have noted in previous chapters, one of the most important steps we can take as individuals is to educate those closest to us about the history of Technocracy and the dangers it poses for our future. This could involve sharing this documentary, printing out flyers with relevant info and passing them out at local events, and/or protesting the corporations who are investing in Technocratic methods and technologies. Cracking through the veil of ignorance to reach the masses is absolutely necessary if we are to overcome the threat.

(Patrick Wood Interview: 23:00- 23:33 – Who are these global players that are trying to conquer the whole planet? If we figure that out, I think we have, then we need to figure out what were going to do about it. Not only is silence compliance, but they will win, with their new international economic order, their Sustainable development. Great Reset, Green New Deal, Sustainable development, whatever you want to call it, they will win and we will lose.”)

Patrick Wood also believes the answer lies in critical thinking.

(Patrick Wood Interview: 25:15 – 27:10 – “Number 1: We need to learn how to interpret propaganda. The world is awash with propaganda, it’s being controlled and manipulated by propaganda. Propaganda is a very specific type of misuse of language. It’s intended to deceive the viewer, the listener. Propaganda is very deadly, as far as the mind is concerned,  because it leads you off to believing things that are just not true.

We see propanganda on all kinds of topics, the propaganda of the world today is just about every conceivable topic you can imagine. We need to learn how to see through it, how to recognize it when presented with it.

But the markers of propaganda are very clear and they’re not difficult to understand. The first part of the solution is to realize when you are being lied to, and to reject whatever they are trying to shove down your throat. I tell people routinely, don’t comply. When you feel like you are being given a role to play, that’s unnatural, don’t do it, just don’t play that role. Be an outlier. Don’t cooperate. Don’t participate with it. Now, if you’re forced to that’s another issue, but you just can’t submit and play the role that they want you to in society.”)

Ultimately, we choose if we want to adopt this digital dystopia. We dont have to accept every new upgrade or device. It’s up to us to choose our principles over convenience.

(Patrick Wood Interview: 27:11- 28:09 – “Now, there’s lots of things you can do. We know Google is a problem. Okay, don’t use Google! There are other alternative search engines that you can use. Go use something else. Don’t comply with Google. They will suck every bit of data out of you they can, they wont pay you for it, and they will turn around and use it against you.

Don’t participate when you see they got a role for you. There’s lots of other things, we could talk about cellphones, smartphones. This is going to be an issue at some point. All of the smartphone providers are collecting data, they’re turning these around as instruments of control. We’re going to have to deal with that issue at some point. Are we going to continue with smartphones or are we going to figure out other ways to get around these behemoths? There’s alternative solutions coming on.”)

Mr. Wood is correct to question the assumption that humanity needs digital technology integrated into every aspect of our lives. While I wholeheartedly endorse and support the use of digital technology, we must acknowledge that this drive towards a digital world can only happen if we participate. Silent opposition and complaining on the internet are not enough.

We must begin to lay the foundation for alternative, parallel systems, in the event that we cannot prevent the rise of the Technocratic State. If you know for certain you don’t want to participate in the digital ID initiatives, or the digital wallet and Central Bank Digital Currencies, what is your alternative plan? Will you comply if your workplace adopts all digital forms of payment? Or if your bank allows you to withdraw funds only with your digital ID? Do you have a way to continue making money for yourself and family in these situations?

We need to be honest with ourselves and  think about what our red lines, our lines in the sand are. When is enough, enough? The answer to that question will depend on your needs, resources, and community. We must build relationships with like-minded people in our local areas, as soon as possible. The sooner we establish these relationships, and begin growing our own food, exploring alternative physical and crypto-currencies, creating homeschool co-ops, and getting off Big Tech tools, the sooner we will see the creation of a network of communities which operate in a completely alternative, parallel economy with parallel institutions competing with the Technocratic ones.

One of the best ways to further the creation of this network is by joining The Freedom Cell Network at FreedomCells.org. Using the website maps, you can search to find individuals and groups in your area, who are also looking for like-minded people. Once you make connections begin meeting in the real world to establish real world relationships. As a group, begin to set goals focused on getting off the mainstream control grids. The Freedom Cell Network along with similar organizations are helping to lay the foundation for the parallel systems of the future.

In short, we must begin to Exit from these slavery systems and Build the foundation of the world we know is possible.

To learn more about the history of Technocracy we recommend the following:

Technocracy and The American Dream by William Akin

Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse Of Global Transformation, and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order by Patrick Wood

For a specific look at solutions for the Technocratic State read How to Opt Out of the Technocratic State by Derrick Broze