What does it mean to be a European technocrat of our generation?

Or more importantly... What should it mean?

 

To be a technocrat is to be aware that sustainability is more than just how much we regulate the current system, how many warning signs we place on toxic materials or how many wildlife reserves we have today. Nit-picking in details while ignoring the entirety of the situation is not a matter for a serious technocrat. Although specialisation is crucial, awareness of some sort of holistic existence is necessary in order to function as a constructive individual in relation to the planet as a whole.

The original technocratic movement dared to confront the consensus of resource theory, and show that the main factor in producing prosperity was the amount of energy used within a given system which determines the amount of work that is necessary to create a state of plenty, not the amount of investment [see lesson 10, P72-P77, TSC].

Thus, akin to that conclusion, we can see that the machinations of the price system, requiring endless growth, are hopelessly outdated in managing a high-energy economy where scarcity is possible to eliminate. We can also notice that the need for the human being to take care of him/herself within a price system which is hierarchically structured stipulates that he/she should work to increase the amount  of resources and try to give him/herself a value on the market. If the market is lacking natural consumer demand, artificial consumer demand is created through branding [see for example No Logo by Naomi Klein] or by the government subsidising surpluses [http://europa.eu/pol/agr.index] thus creating illusions of scarcity which makes the market prevail through artificial respiration. Keynesian economics are also an excellent example of the government and market cooperating in order to diminish the threat of abundance.

It stands clear that absolute abundance, exactly as absolute scarcity, does not exist. After all, we live on a planet which is geographically limited. We could assume that a given state where all individuals have access and ownership over an unlimited amount of resources is unrealistic.

What we have instead been advocating through the history of N.E.T., is that there exists a relative abundance which is dependent on our treatment of resources which are limited in their nature but grossly overexploited today, sadly enough by the very price system, adherents of which claim consider it to be superior in solving problems of distribution.

It remains fundamentally clear though, through the history of the human race, that the interests of direct survival exceed those of a more far-sighted enlightenment. Even though the stress we are putting the environment under is evident, the interests of ecology is deep below those of short-sighted economic gains for the moment. Through extensive legislation, the European Union is trying to counter some of the worst observable effects of the current socio-economic system employed in the world.

Or is it?

It seems like the current trend is rather of a traditional nature, probably unintentionally but nevertheless frustrating in its stern inefficiency. Instead of decisively putting out the production of goods that are severely harming the environment, the European Union is putting taxation on these goods, as well as subsidising their producers (while putting all the weight on the consumers).

Warning signs of the effects of cigarette smoking are funded by the European Union, but the producers are subsidised as well [http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/312/7034/832]. Otherwise, the poor tobacco farmers would go unemployed.

What N.E.T. proposes for Europe is a system where the production of items is directly regulated by the citizens through an interactive economy where energy accounting reduces the need for unrestrained economic growth. In that system, the production would be optimally utilised in order to have the maximum amount of efficient output from the minimum amount of input. We see no value in branding, careerism, apparent waste, and environmental degradation for the sake of regulating a modern infrastructure through means of a pre-modern epoch.

Even though N.E.T.'s proposed design might not yet be fully complete, we are tirelessly working to create a viable alternative to the present order for the European people.

The European technate would aim to offer a high standard of life, a high level of automation, unlimited leisure and freedom from taxes, bills, poverty, debts, and most of the social illnesses associated with these current established codes of conduct.

As technocrats, our operative goal is the highest possible standard of life for the greatest number of people for the longest possible time-frame. That notion we share with our sister organisation in the North American continent.