The Technocracy Study Course is the most basic and authoritative publication of Technocracy Inc. Est. 1932 of WA State published to meet the overwhelming public demand for information at that time it went right back to basic elements of science to explain the scientific derivation of technocratic concepts. It is an educational text. Of its 22 Lessons 20 of them relate to basic science subjects, an appreciation of which it is helpful for an understanding of Technocracy and its origins. It is prefaced by an introduction to science an outstanding essay in itself. Just the last two lessons are devoted to an overview of the concepts of a Technocracy this synoptic IS the last two lessons. This document is intended as a guide for those who are involved in the North American Union Programs, for those who are opposed to these programs, and for the citizens of our Contintent who are concerned as to what the outcome of these programs may be. Life in a society as set out here only becomes possible as the many NAU programs are nearing completion and functioning pretty much as expected. The troubles associated with falling behind of schedule for the North American Union component programs stem from the fact that neither the specifications nor the design for a unified continent has ever gone beyond the stage of minute details and that there is no well understood common goal and this single document can provide it.
The method of social operation described here has no precedence in any of the political forms. It is not a democracy, an aristocracy, a plutocracy, a dictatorship, nor any of the other familiar political forms, all of which will be completely inadequate for the operation of a unified North America for the common good.
Study Course Synoptic
Preamble:
The freedom of action of a pioneer was determined principally by his available
mode of travel which was chiefly afoot, by rowboat, horseback, or by animal
drawn vehicles. His freedom of communication was similarly circumscribed. His
activities in general were accordingly restricted to a relatively small area
and to a moderately narrow variety. These restrictions were technological
rather than legal. The pioneer could only travel a limited number of miles per
day, not because there was a law against traveling more than that, but because
the technological factors under which he operated did not allow it. It is
seldom appreciated to what extent these same technological factors determine
the activities of human beings at the present time.
Years ago in New York City, for example, thousands of people crossed the Hudson River daily at 125th Street, and almost no one crossed the river at 116th Street. There was no law requiring the individual to cross the river at 125th Street and forbidding him to cross it at 116th Street. It merely happened that there was a ferry at the former place which operated continuously, and none at the latter. It is possible to get across the river at 116th Street, but under the existing technological controls the great majority of people found the passageway at 125th Street the more convenient.
This gives us a clue to the most fundamental social control technique that exists. No other single item exerts more than a small percentage of the influence exerted by the immediate physical environment upon the activities of human beings. Leave the physical environment unaltered, or the industrial rates of operation unchanged, and any effort to alter the fundamental modes of behavior of human beings is doomed largely to failure; alter the immediate physical environment of human beings, and their modes of behavior change automatically. A person accepts his physical environment almost without question. He rarely decides to do a particular thing, and then finds himself obstructed by physical barriers. Instead, he first determines the barriers and then directs his activities into those paths where insurmountable barriers do not exist. It is these considerations that render the matter of technological design and operation of equipment of the most fundamental significance. There are standards of design and operation that are wasteful of resources and injurious to the public health. There are other standards of design and operation that are conducive to the general social well-being and lacking in the socially objectionable elements.
A high standard of health will result if all human beings are properly fed, clothed, housed, and have all their other biological needs adequately cared for. A minimum of drudgery will be achieved, with all routine tasks eliminated or performed as automatically as possible. Natural resources will be utilized with a minimum of wastage if all industrial processes have the highest physical efficiency, and all products will give the greatest amount of service per unit of physical cost.
It will be recognized that it is precisely these criteria that are implicit in a control of industrial operation based upon a minimum degradation of physical energy, as contrasted with criterion of industrial control based upon a maximum of profit. It is into these two fundamentally opposed control techniques that all the thousand and one present day paradoxes are resolved. People as social end-products are a dependent function of the industrial mode of operation.
It is our purpose now to review several of our major industrial fields, and to point out the change in design and operating characteristics that would be instituted under the criterion of a minimum of energy cost per unit of use or service produced.
Load Factor. One of the first things to be considered in this connection is the matter of operating load factors. A load factor of any piece of productive equipment may be defined as the ratio of its actual output over a given time period to the output that would have resulted in the same time period had the equipment been operated at full load throughout the time. If an engine, for instance, which develops 100 h.p. operates at full load for 24 hours it will produce 2400 h.p. hours of work. Suppose, however, that the engine is operated only intermittently during that time and actually produces but 600 h.p. hours of work in 24 hours. The load factor for that period would then be 600/2400, or 25 percent. The load factor would have been zero had the engine not operated at all, or 100 percent had it operated at full load throughout.
There is a fundamental relationship among production, operating load factors, and the capacity of productive equipment. A load factor of 10 percent merely means that the equipment is producing one-tenth of its productive capacity. Now if this same productive capacity were maintained, and the load factor raised to 50 percent, production with the same equipment would be five times as great as with a load factor of 10 percent. If the load factor were 100 percent the production would be ten times as great.
If we consider the converse aspect of the same thing, suppose that there is no need of increasing the production of a given kind of product. In this case let us suppose that the load factor is 10 percent, and that load factor is again raised to 50 percent. If production is not increased we can only achieve this result by junking four-fifths of the plants engaged in that particular kind of production.
Hence it follows that a high load factor, no matter whether used for increasing production or for reducing the amount of plant required for a given production, results always in a diminution in the amount of productive equipment per unit produced, and results correspondingly in a reduction of the energy cost per unit produced.
Calculating energy cost
Quality of Product.
Still another factor of comparable
importance to that of the operating load factor is the quality of the product.
All products are produced for the purpose of rendering some sort of use or
service. The total energy cost of this use or service is the energy cost of
producing and maintaining the product. Take an automobile tire for example. The
use of the automobile tire is the delivery of so many miles of service. The
energy cost of this service per 1,000 miles is the energy cost of manufacturing
an automobile tire divided by the number of 1,000 miles of service it renders.
Now, suppose that the energy cost of making an automobile tire that will give
20,000 miles of service is some arbitrary figure, say 100. The cost per 1,000
miles would be 5. Consider another automobile tire which will deliver 30,000
miles of service, but costs 120 to produce. The cost per 1,000 miles of service
of this latter tire is only 4. Hence it is a better tire than the former
because its cost per 1,000 miles of service is less. Suppose, -however, that it
were possible to make a tire that would last 100,000 miles, but that the cost
of producing this tire were 600. Then the cost per 1,000 miles would be 6. This
tire, therefore, though longer lived, is actually a more costly tire than
either of the other two because the cost per 1,000 miles of service is greater.
It is always possible to find an optimum quality of product for which the cost
per unit of use or service is a minimum, and it is this quality which,
according to our energy criterion, is the best. Products either longer lived or
shorter lived can be built, but they have the disadvantage that the service
which they render is more costly than that rendered by the product of optimum
quality.
It is interesting to apply these two criteria, the load factor and the quality of product, to present day industrial operations. Probably the highest load factor of any of our industrial equipment is that of the central power stations. It is only rarely in heavy industrial districts that the load factors of the central power stations are greater than 40 percent. Much more commonly the figure is somewhere around 30 percent. Another of our more continuously operated sets of equipment is the telephone. The busiest lines in the telephone system are the 'long haul', long-distance trunk lines, that is, lines such as those from New York to Chicago, and comparable or greater distances. The load factor on these lines for a complete two-way conversation is only four hours of operation out of each 24, or a load factor of 16 2/3 percent. In our less continuously operated equipment, such as factories of all denominations, mines and agricultural equipment, production is intermittent, and the load factor of the equipment is even lower. Few agricultural implements are in use more than a few weeks per year for 8 or 10 hours per day. Few factories run 24 hours per day except for brief rush periods. Most of the remainder of the time they are on one eight-hour shift for a limited number of days per week or else completely shut down.
In the field of automotive transportation the service rendered is passenger miles of transportation. The average passenger capacity of automobiles is about 5. The average number of passengers carried is considerably less than this. The average time of operation per automobile is approximately one hour out of each twenty-four, giving an operation load factor of only 4 or 5 percent, or a passenger-mile load factor of probably not more than half of this amount. If the operating load factor of automobiles could be, stepped up to 50 percent on a 24-hour per day basis, the passenger miles would be ten times that of the present for the same number of automobiles, or else there would be required only a fraction as many cars as we now have.
Considering the quality of products the results are equally bad. Consider razor blades. Suppose that 30 million people shave once per day with safety razor blades, and suppose that these blades give three shaves each. This would require a razor blade production of ten million blades per day, which is the right order of magnitude for the United States. Thus, our razor blade factories may be thought of as producing shaves at the rate of 30 million per day at current load factors. Now suppose that we introduce the energy criterion requiring that razor blades be manufactured on the basis of a minimum energy cost per shave. Then the blades, instead of lasting three days, would be more likely to last three years or longer. Suppose they lasted three years. What effect would this have upon our productive capacity in shaves? Technically it is just as easy to manufacture a good blade as a poor one. Thus the productive capacity at the current load factor would be ten million good blades instead of ten million poor ones per day. But ten million good blades at a life of three years each are equivalent to 1,095,000,000 shaves per day, instead of the 30 million now produced by the same equipment. Since the number of shaves per day is not likely to be materially increased, with the longer lived blade what would happen would be a junking of approximately 99 percent of the present razor factories, thereby eliminating enormous wastage of natural resources.
Low load factors arise from various causes under Price System control. Perhaps the chief cause of low-load factors is the uncertainty of future demand. The individual plant, as we have noted, runs or shuts down in accordance with the orders for goods which it receives. The total purchasing power is sufficient to buy only a small fraction of the goods that would be produced were the existing plant operated wide open. Consequently the existing plant spends the greater part of its time being shut down or else idling at only a small fraction of full load. This defect is inherent in the Price System, and is a direct consequence of the use of money itself.
The Calendar
NB: there is no need to abandon the
calendar we use now simply add a number to each day.
Another prevailing cause of poor load factors is the calendar. With our present calendar practically everybody works on the same days, and are off on the same days. This introduces traffic jams and small periods of peak loads on our transportation system, and on our places of recreation, as well as on the industrial equipment. In order to improve the load factor on traffic and on the amusement places, it is necessary for these peaks to be eliminated so that the traffic on one day is the same as that on any other, and for the traffic in any hour of the day to be so adjusted that no extreme peak loads occur.
The technological control that we have postulated removes the element of over-building in productive equipment. A revision of the calendar smoothes out the most offensive of the remaining irregularities. The day and the year are major astronomical periods, the significance of which cannot be ignored. The week and the month have no such significance. It is true the month is nominally the period of the moon. Actually, however, our months vary in length from 28 to 31 days, with an average length of 30 and a fraction days. The time elapsed from new moon to new moon is 29 and a fraction days, so that the phases of the moon shift about a third of a month in the course of one year. So little cognizance is now taken of the moon's period that the greater part of the population, if asked at any particular time to give the phase of the moon, would have to look it up in an almanac. Consequently, the only astronomical periods that need be considered are those of the day and the year.
The proposed calendar is, accordingly, based on the day and the year. The year consists of 365.2422 mean solar days. The proposed calendar, therefore, would consist in numbering these days consecutively, starting on the vernal equinox from I to 364 days, plus I zero day (2 zero days leap years). The work period would run for four consecutive days for each individual, followed by three days off. Not taking into consideration the vacation period, every day is a day off for three-sevenths of the working population-of all adults between the ages of 25 and 45.
The working population is divided into seven groups, each of which has a different sequence of working days and of days off. The working days of each group are indicated by the circular spaces and the days off by the blank squares. On a basis of 660 annual work-hours and four-hour daily shifts we arrive at 165 working days, or 41 as the nearest whole number of periods of working days and days off-a total of 287 days. There remain, then, 78 succeeding days as a yearly vacation period for each individual.
Within each group there will be different shifts, the number of shifts depending upon the number of hours worked per day by each individual. If, for instance, the working day were eight hours, there would be three eight-hour shifts. If the working day were six hours, there would be four shifts of six hours each, and if the working day were four hours, there would be six shifts of four hours each. There will doubtless be a transitional period involving large scale reconstruction during which a longer f day of six or possibly eight hours will be retained. Once this period is over, however, there is little doubt but that the working day can. be cut to four hours.
Numerous questions immediately arise regarding what could be done if two people, husband and wife, for instance, belonged to separate groups, and had their days off on separate days. This need cause no apprehension, because it is a mere administrative detail to transfer a person from one group to another, and since the circumstances under which each group works are identical, there will be in general just as many people wishing to be transferred from Group II to Group I as from Group I to Group II, so that such transfers 'automatically balance in the end. In the matter of shifts, however, this is not quite the case, so that in order to make them equal it will probably be found necessary to rotate each individual in such a manner that he works an equal amount of time on each shift during the course of the year.
The significance of this calendar on the load factors of the industrial mechanism would be tremendous. It means that almost the same amount of activity would be going on every hour of the twenty-four. The traffic would be about the same every day and every hour of the day. Each day would be a working day for four-sevenths of the working population, and a day off for the remaining three-sevenths. Consequently, centers of recreation would not be deserted, as they now are, during week days, and then jammed beyond capacity the remainder of the time. Instead, ample recreation facilities could be provided so that at no time would the playgrounds, swimming beaches, parks, theaters, or other places of recreation be overcrowded.
Consider also what this means to the central power system. In this case there is a daily cycle of lightness and darkness which is unavoidable. This results in a big load being thrown on the power plants at night due to the necessity of lighting. A large part of this load, of course, goes off during the day. If lighting were the only function of a central power system, such oscillation would remain. However, a large part of the function of a central power system is to provide the motive power for industrial equipment. Certain industrial equipment may be intermittent in its operation, slow freight haulage for example. Now if these intermittent industrial operations are so arranged that they go into operation only during the off-peak load of the power plant, this will enable the maintenance of the load of the power plant at almost 100 percent.
Transportation
Consider transportation under such a
mode of control. Transportation 'falls naturally into two major classes,'
passenger and freight. Passenger transportation requires, in general, speed,
safety and comfort.
Freight transportation may be either fast or slow, depending on the nature of the goods being transported. For passenger transportation the principal modes of conveyance are rail, water, highway, or air. For freight transportation there may be added to the above modes of conveyance a fifth, pipe line, and perhaps a sixth, wire. The transmission of energy over a high tension power line and the shipment of coal by freight car are both different aspects of the same thing, namely, the transportation of energy.
In freight transportation, as in all other fields, one of the great problems that would have to be solved is that of which mode of transportation involves the least energy cost per ton-mile. Take the shipment of coal, for instance. Is it more economical of energy to ship the energy contained in coal by freight car, or to hydrogenate the coal and transfer it by pipe line, or to build the power plants near the coal mines and ship the energy by high tension transmission lines?
There is another major problem in freight handling, and that is the matter of freight classification and individual consignments. At the present time all freight is shipped to individual consignees, with the great bulk of it in small lots. Most of this would be eliminated. The supplies for a city, for instance, would all be shipped in bulk quantities to the warehouses of the Distribution Sequence, all goods of a single kind going together. The freight handling terminals and the design of the cars themselves could be made such that the loading and unloading of freight could be handled with the greatest dispatch by automatic methods. From these major freight terminals, goods would be moved locally to the various centers of distribution, from which they would be distributed to the population of the immediate vicinity.
In the matter of passenger transportation the same criteria would be used in the design and operation of passenger equipment as elsewhere. Trains involving the least energy cost per passenger mile would be operated. It goes without saying that such trains would be the lightest, the most streamlined and the most efficiently powered that could be built. Whether Diesel-electric power units mounted on the trains themselves, or whether power derived from stationary central power plants, will prove to be the most efficient, and hence the preferred mode of propulsion, is still to be determined.
Since by far the greater number of passenger miles of transportation are delivered by automobiles operating on public highways, particular significance attaches to this mode of transportation. To appreciate the importance of automobiles in our national economy, one needs only to consider that in, 1923 passenger automobiles in the United States had an installed horsepower capacity of approximately 453,000,000 h.p, all the other prime movers combined at that time were only 231,000,000 h.p., giving a grand total of 684,000,000 h.p. of prime movers. By 1929 this grand total reached over 1,000,000,000 of installed horsepower, with automobiles occupying as great if not greater proportion as in 1923. In 1923 the h.p. capacity of passenger automobiles was 66 percent of the total of all the prime movers in the country. In that year the number of passenger automobiles was about 13,000,000. By 1929 this had reached 23,000,000, with the horsepower per automobile increasing simultaneously.
Now, getting back to load factors, we have already remarked that the average load factor of all automobiles is only about 5 percent. This means then that at the present we have approximately 800,000,000 installed horsepower in passenger automobiles alone which are operating only about 5 percent of the time. Or it means that if we could step this load factor up to 50 percent, or ten times what it now is, we could obtain the same number of passenger miles with one-tenth of the automobiles now in operation.
There is a corresponding problem involved in the design and servicing of automotive vehicles. Today there are about two dozen separate makes of automobiles being built in the United State s. This means that as many different factories have to operate, and that a corresponding number of complete systems of garages and service stations must be maintained.
The factors that are uppermost in present day automotive design are those of flashy appearance and other superficialities that make for ready sales; while it is as carefully seen to that the wearing qualities are kept low enough to insure a quick turnover because of the short life of the product.
In the matter of fuel efficiency
By far the most efficient type of internal combustion engine is the Diesel,
which operates on fuel oil or distillate. Although automobile and airplane
Diesels have long since been proven to be entirely practicable, they have for a
number of years past been carefully withheld from use in automobiles. There is,
however, a limit to the extent to which so fundamental an advance as Diesel
engines can be withheld, and now, at last, the dam has broken. In trucks,
tractors and buses Diesels have been coming in at a very rapid and accelerating
rate during the past two years, and now one manufacturer announces a Diesel
motor as an optional choice in an automobile. While it is true that a part of
the phenomenally low cost of Diesel operation at present is the low cost of
fuel oil, and that as the demand for this increases, the monetary price will
rise, the fact still remains, however, that Diesels do the same work for fewer
gallons of fuel than any other engines in existence.
Using an energy criterion it follows that all automotive vehicles would be powered with the most efficient prime movers that could be designed-high-speed Diesels, unless and until something better can be devised.
The same considerations would apply to all the various trick devices for insuring rapid obsolescence and turnover in vogue today. To care for these and other defects of the function of automotive transportation necessitates a complete revision from the ground up. Consequently, to improve the load factor it will be necessary to put all automobiles under a unified control system whereby they are manufactured. serviced, and superintended by the Automotive Branch of the Transportation Sequence.
This means, in the first place, that there would be only one basic design of automobile. That is, all automobiles that were built would have interchangeable parts, such as motors, wheels, chassis, springs, etc., except insofar as they differed in those elements of design fitting them for different uses. In these minor differences there would be as many different varieties as there were uses, such as two-passenger and five-passenger capacity, light trucks and similar variations. It goes without saying that, in accordance with our criterion of least energy cost, the cars would be really streamlined, which would require that the engine be placed in the rear, rather than in the front; they would be powered with the most efficient power unit that could be devised.
As regards use of the automobiles
the change of administration would be even more profound. Whereas, at the
present time, one buys an expensive automobile, and leaves it parked the
greater part of the time in front of his house as evidence of conspicuous
consumption, the automobiles that we are speaking of would have to be kept in
operation. This would be accomplished by instituting what would resemble a
national 'drive it yourself' system. The Section of Automotive Transportation
would provide a network of garages at convenient places all over the country
from which automobiles could be had at any hour of the night or day. No
automobiles would be privately owned. When one wished to use an automobile he
would merely call at the garage, present his driver's license, and a car of the
type needed would be assigned to him. When he was through with the car he would
return it either to the same garage, or to any other garage that happened to be
convenient, and surrender his Energy Acquisition Card in payment for the cost
incurred while he was using it.
The details of this cost accounting for
automotive transportation are significant
the individual no longer pays for the upkeep of the car, or for its fueling or
servicing. All this is done by the Automotive Branch of the Division of
Transportation. In this manner a complete performance and cost record of every
automotive vehicle is kept from the time it leaves the factory until the time
when it is finally scrapped, and the metal that it contains is returned to the
factory for prefabrication. In this manner the exact energy cost per car-mile
for the automotive transportation of the entire country is known at all times.
Similar information is available on the length of life of automobiles and of
tires. With such information in the hands of the research staff, it becomes
very definite as to which of various designs is the superior or the inferior in
terms of physical cost per car-mile.
The total cost of automotive transportation includes, of course, the cost of manufacturing the automobile. If, for instance, the average life of an automobile were 300,000 miles, the total cost for this 300,000 miles would be the cost of manufacturing the automobile plus its total cost of operation and maintenance during its period of service. The average cost per mile, therefore, would be this total cost including the cost of manufacture, divided by the total distance traveled, in this case 300,000 miles.
Where there are millions of automobiles involved the same type of computation is used. In this case the average cost per mile would be the average cost for the millions of cars instead of for, only one. This would be the total cost of manufacture, operation and maintenance of all automobiles of a given Rind divided by the total miles of service rendered by these cars. Since automotive costs can best be kept low by maintaining high operating load factors, it becomes necessary that all automobiles be kept in as continuous operation as is practicable. In 'other words, automobiles when away from the garages should be in operation and not parked ostentatiously in front of somebody's house. This can be taken care of rather effectively by charging the individual for the use of the automobile on a mileage-time basis as follows: (1) if while the automobile is out its operation has been maintained at a rate ,equal to or greater than the national load factor for all automobiles, charge is made on a mileage basis only; (2) if the load factor @of the car while out is not kept equal to the average load factor, the charge is made on the basis of the number of miles that the car would have traveled during that time had it operated at a rate equal to the average national load factor for automobiles.
Suppose, for instance, that the average national load factor for all automobiles were such that each car traveled on the average 240 miles each 24 hours, or an average of 10 miles per hour. Now, if a person had an automobile out and he used it an average of 10 miles or more per hour, he would be charged for mileage only. If, however, he kept the car 24 hours, and only drove it 30 miles, he would be charged for 240 miles, for that is the distance the car should have traveled in 24 hours. This simple proviso has the dual effect of improving the load factor of all automobiles, and at the same time reducing the average cost per mile, by making the delinquents pay for keeping automobiles out of service.
Communication
The field of communication includes
mail, telegraph, telephone, radio and television and www. All of these forms of
communication plus any others that may be developed are in the domain of the
Communication Sequence. Under an energy criterion the same question arises here
as elsewhere. Namely, of two equally effective modes of communication which has
the least energy cost per unit? The unit in this case is a given number of
words transmitted a given distance.
Agriculture
Just as far-reaching implications are
met when one applies the same criteria to agriculture. Agriculture is the
nearest to the primary source of energy, the sun, of all our industries.
Agriculture is fundamentally a chemical industry wherein matter from the soil
and the atmosphere are combined with the help of solar and other energy into
various use products. Only now are we beginning to appreciate the latitude of
usefulness to which agricultural products can be put. From time immemorial
products of the soil have been the source of human food and clothing. But many
more products from the soil have been wantonly wasted-wheat straw, corn-cobs,
and numerous other products are normally burned or otherwise destroyed.
From a technological point of view, agriculture is still probably our most primitive and backward industry. Land is cultivated in small patches by people whose knowledge is largely of a handicraft type handed down from father to son. Soils are allowed to waste away by erosion or by lack of fertilization; farm implements are used for the most part for only a few weeks per year each, and more often than not left standing exposed to the weather the remainder of the time. While it is true that agriculture as it is practiced on most of our farms today is largely in a handicraft stage, only slightly different from that of the ancients, the same cannot be said of the scientific knowledge of agrobiology. Modern agrobiologists look upon plants merely as mechanisms for converting certain inorganic substances-principally phosphates, potash and nitrogen-known as plant foods into forms useful both as foods and as raw materials for industrial uses.
The popular fashion of organic this and that aside soil, as such, is of no importance except as a container of plant foods and as a support for the growing plant. It follows, of course, that any other container for properly proportioned plant foods, used in conjunctions with a suitable support for the growing plant, would constitute an alternative to an agriculture based upon tilling of the soil. Consider, however, that the soil still be used as the agricultural base. In this case all soils contain an initial amount of usually improperly proportioned plant foods, and will, without other attention than primitive tilling, produce a modicum of various kinds of crops. Since each crop grown extracts a part of the supply of plant food initially present in the soil, it follows that if succeeding crops are produced without a corresponding amount of plant food being added, the soil will gradually be exhausted of its initial supply and become 'run down' or worn out. Such a soil can be rejuvenated by merely adding the plant foods in which it has become deficient. Hence it follows that over any long-time period there must be maintained an equilibrium between the plant foods added to the soil and those taken out, if continued producing power without soil exhaustion is to be maintained.
This brings us to the question of yields to be expected per acre. Modern agrobiologists have determined that where soil is utilized as the medium of crop culture, and where crops are grown under ordinary out-of-door conditions, there is a theoretical maximum yield per acre which any crop may be made to approach, but none to exceed. This maximum is determined by the amount of nitrogen that may be extracted from the soil per acre. The maximum of nitrogen extraction that may not be exceeded by any one crop in a given cycle of growth is approximately 320 pounds per acre. In order that 320 pounds of nitrogen be withdrawn it is required that there be present 2,230 pounds of nitrogen per acre. By knowing the amount of nitrogen withdrawn from the soil to -produce one bushel of corn, of wheat, or of potatoes, one ton of sugar cane, or one bale of cotton, one has merely to divide this amount into 320 pounds of nitrogen per acre in order to determine the maximum possible yield of the crop considered.
The significance of these facts is that our American agriculture is operating at an extremely low efficiency-less than 10 percent of the theoretical maximum, and only about 15 percent of actual best performance under field conditions. Furthermore, in the light of present technical knowledge in the field of agrobiology, it would be no difficulty at all to step this production up to at least 50 percent of the per ultimate maximum. Even today almost every year that passes sees new records broken in actual crop yields per acre. An average agricultural efficiency of 50 percent means that the same agricultural production as at present can be achieved on one-fifth of the land area now in cultivation, with one-fifth or less of the man-hours now required.
One high tech farmer can now feed 129 citizens
An even more fundamental and technological approach to agricultural production is to be found in those cases where the soil is no longer considered necessary as a container for plant food or as a supporter of the growing plant. Such an example is to be found in the case of the process currently in use in California and elsewhere. In this process the plant food is dissolved in water which is contained in a long shallow trough. Above the water, and supported by wire netting, is a bed of excelsior in which the seeds are planted. The roots extend downward to the water. The excelsior and wire netting support the plants. In this manner optimum conditions can be constantly maintained and almost phenomenal production results. Further technological control of environmental factors and the speeding up of growth rates and shortening the period required to mature a crop are as yet little touched, but offer broad domains for the technologist in agrobiology in the future. Regardless of whether the agriculture of the future ultimately remains predominantly in the out-of-doors farming stage or comes to resemble an agricultural factory, the fact remains that the application of the technological methods will revolutionize it to where present methods are truly primitive in comparison.
Suppose that out-of-doors agriculture remains predominant. Large scale operations require large tracts of land worked by machinery gigantic in size as compared with any that present day 'farmers are able to employ. Land-breaking to depths of two to three feet is not at all impracticable with equipment designed for that propose. Such deep plowing in conjunction with run-off control of the water supply would practically eliminate drought hazards. Proper fertilization and tilling would do the rest. Only the best land and agricultural climates need be utilized because with such yields as could be obtained by those methods little more land than is contained in the state of Illinois would be required for all agricultural produce for the United States.
Needless to say, all present farms and land divisions would be eliminated. Agriculture would be only one division of a vast chemical industry which would convert the raw materials of the land into use products and in turn supply to the land its requirements in fertilizers and plant food. Tracts of probably tens of miles square would be worked as a unit. Equipment would operate 24 hours per day, and be rotated in such a manner that each piece of equipment would be in as continual operation as possible throughout the year.
The farm population could live in conveniently situated towns from which they would commute to the fields and factories for work. They would thus combine the advantages of healthful out-of-doors work with those of urban life with its social and educational facilities. This would, of course, leave vast domains to be reconverted either to grazing or forest lands. Forests, national parks and playgrounds could then be instituted on a scale never known since the country was in its virgin state as found by the original pioneers.
Housing
If the second priority of a Unified North America were to get everyone a place
to live it could be done fairly quickly like so; since after the adoption of
energy accounting insurance would no longer be needed the insurance companies
office buildings could be converted into residential buildings. Bank buildings
would be converted to housing units also. Take the day and walk around note
that were the amount of floor space used by financial accounting converted into
housing we would soon find that everyone had a place to live. There would soon
be more than enough to house everyone with a lot of surplus places remaining.
This would mean that people could move around until they found somewhere they
wanted to be. Food would be available from the larger stores for citizens using
energy accounting. At the large store buildings clothing could also be
available for energy credits. No one need go without whatever they need to
live. Only continued usage of financial accounting (money) prevents us from
doing all this and more. Switch to energy accounting and we can all live well.
Within two years one out of every hundred people on the planet would have food,
shelter, clothes, transportation all via energy accounting.
So great is the effect of habit on people that it becomes almost impossible for one to detach himself sufficiently to take an objective view of the subject of housing. Our houses and our buildings and structures generally resemble our clothing in that they attain a certain convention and thereafter we tend to accept them without further question. It never occurs to us to ask whether the prevailing convention is better or worse than other possible styles. The training of our architects is such as to tend to perpetuate this state of affairs. Aside from draftsmanship and a small amount of elementary training in strength of materials and other structural details, our students of architecture spend most of their time studying the architectural details of the ceremonial buildings of the past-temples, cathedrals, palaces and the like. This accounts for the fact that power plants are seen with Corinthian columns, banks with Gothic windows, and libraries resembling Greek temples. The problem of designing buildings in accordance with the functions they are to perform seems rarely to have occurred to architects. The successful architect of today is either one who has developed an architectural firm that receives commissions for designing large and expensive buildings, such as skyscrapers, hospitals, courthouses, and the like, or else an individual practitioner who knows sufficiently well the pecuniary canons of good taste to receive commissions for the design of residences in the expensive residential sections of our cities and their suburbs. If an architect wishes to be really 'modern,' he then proceeds to do something 'different.' He designs houses made completely of glass or metal, and hung from a post. The two basic questions that seem never to occur in connection with these endeavors are: 'What is the building for?' and 'Would it be practicable to house the inhabitants of an entire continent in such structures?'
This brings us to the technological
foundation of the whole subject of housing
Namely, what are the buildings for? What do we have to build them with? What
does it cost physically to maintain them? And how long will they last? The
physical cost in this field is arrived at in the same manner as in the physical
cost in any other field. The physical cost of housing 150,000,000 people is the
physical cost of constructing, operating and maintaining the habitations for
150,000,000 people. The cost per inhabitant per year is the total cost per year
divided by the number of inhabitants.
If housing is to be adequate for 150,000,000 people, and at the same time physical cost of housing is to be kept at a minimum, there necessitates a complete revision of design, construction, and maintenance in the whole field of housing. It requires that the construction of houses be kept at a minimum cost, that the life of each house be a maximum, and that the cost of maintaining each house, including heating and lighting, be a minimum. It requires, furthermore, that the materials used be those of which there is an ample supply, for the construction and maintenance of approximately 50,000,000 dwellings. This immediately rules out the whole array of 'modern' designs of metal houses, where the metal involved is chromium and other similar rare metals, which are indispensable as alloys of steel and other metals for industrial uses.
Until those who want to be decently housed are provided for the requirements of low energy cost construction would necessitate that the housing be of factory fabricated types, where the individual units can be turned out on a quantity production schedule ready for assembly, just as automobiles are now turned out by automobile factories. There would be a limited number of models, depending upon the type of locality in which they were to be used, their size and the type of climate. Any of these different models, however, could be assembled from the same units - wall units, doors, windows, bathroom, kitchen equipment-as any other model; the difference being that these standard units are merely assembled in different combinations.
Instead of thousands of separate individual architects designing houses, there should be only a few basic designs, and these designs would be made by the best technical brains that could be had for the purpose. The building would be designed for use, for long life, and for minimum energy cost of construction and maintenance. Incorporated into the design of the house would be the design of the furniture as an integral part. The houses would not only be heated in winter, but cooled in summer, and air-conditioned throughout the year. The lighting would be indirect, and with intensity control for the best physiological effects.
While there are a wide variety of possible materials, the fundamental conditions that must be fulfilled are abundance, low energy cost of fabrication, and high degree of heat proofing and soundproofing qualities, as well as a structural framework rendering it vibration-proof against such impacts as occur in the ordinary activities taking place inside a dwelling. In other words, one should be able to make all the noise he pleased, or do acrobatic flip-flops, in such a house without a person in the next room being able to detect it. The building should be proof against not only the leakage of heat from the inside out, or vice versa, but also completely fireproof.
The method of heating in such a structure also would be radically different from those commonly now employed. It is quite likely that a thermodynamic type of heating based on essentially the same principle as our present gas flame refrigerators would prove to be the most efficient. In this case, however, when the house is to be heated instead of cooled, the cold end of the mechanism would be placed outside the house-probably buried in the ground-and the warm end placed inside the house. The fuel, instead of being used to heat the house directly as is done now, would merely be used to operate the refrigerating mechanism which would pump heat into the house from the outside. By such a method, theoretical considerations indicate that a house can be heated at only a small fraction of the energy cost of the most efficient of the direct heating methods obtainable.
This method of heating has the additional advantage that by changing only a few valves the system could be made to run backwards, that is, to pump heat from inside to outside of buildings, and thus act as a cooling device during warm weather, which would be analogous to our present refrigerator, only on a larger scale.
Synergistic Advantage
The end-products of design are
radically different if one lays out the whole scheme of a given function in
advance, and then works down to the details.
From what they would be if one started on the details and worked from them to the more general complex. For example, the steamship Normandy has been able to break world speed records and to exhibit other points of functional excellence merely because these high points of performance were written into the specifications before a single minor detail was ever decided upon.
The design of a ship to meet these broader specifications automatically determined that the minor details be of one sort rather than a number of others. The specification that the Normandy was to be the fastest steamship ever built automatically determined the shape of the hull, the power of the engines, and numerous other smaller details.
Suppose, as in the case of the fast ferries in BC Canada, the procedure had been in the reverse order. Suppose that some one person decided independently upon the shape of the hull; suppose that a second designed the engines, determining what power and speeds they should have. Let a third design the control apparatus, etc. It is a foregone conclusion that a ship designed in any such manner, if she remained afloat or ran at all, would not break any records.
For any single functional unit of a unified continent the design specifications for the performance of the whole must be written, and then the details worked out afterwards in such a manner that the performance of the whole will equal the original specifications laid down. This was done by the scientific community as early as 1933 but how many of those who are actually directing and coordinating the various North American Union programs even know about it we wonder, obviously all to few but it is expected that this document if widely distributed will change that.
We have designed houses by the thousands, but no one has ever designed a system of housing on a continental scale. We have designed individual boats, automobiles, locomotives, railway cars, and even articulated streamlined trains and individual airplanes, but no one has ever designed a continental system of transportation. Even these latter units are only individual details in the design of a whole operating social mechanism. even a design that embraced whole functional sequences would be inadequate unless it in turn was guided by the super design of the entire social mechanism.
So far we have only been suggesting some of the details of the type that would result from such a shift of viewpoint and of administration as would be entailed in a transfer from the present politico-economic Price System mode of social administration over to the functional technological type that we have outlined. In such a change no single detail, big or small, would be left untouched. There would be a whole re-allocation of our industries. Our present centers of trade and commerce, as such, would dwindle into insignificance for the simple reason that trade and commerce would cease to exist. Centers of industry might or might not come to occupy the same places. The entire array of man-made buildings and equipment of the whole North American Continent would have to be junked and replaced by more efficient and better functioning structures and equipment. Along with redistribution of industry would come a redistribution of population. It is not improbable that New York City and other similar localities would be mined for the metal they contain.
New towns and cities would have to be designed as operating units from the ground up, and these designs would again be only details of the super-design for the whole mechanism. There are a number of essential design elements that must be taken into account in the design of a town or a city:
1. There must be adequate housing and
recreation facilities for the population.
2. There must be an adequate distribution system for the supplies that will be
consumed by the city, both by the populace individually and by the city itself.
3. There must be an adequate system of waste disposal, sewage, garbage and the
like.
4. There must be adequate facilities for local traffic, pedestrian, vehicular,
etc.
5. There must be adequate facilities for local communication.
6. There must be a system of water supply, of heat, gas and electric power.
7. There must be trunk connections for traffic, supplies, water, energy, and so
on, between the city and the world outside.
8. The design must be such as to allow for any probable expansion in the
population with a minimum of readjustment.
In the field of more general design
Standardization of more essential parts will be carried as nearly as possible
to perfection. Outside of industrial circles it is little realized what
standardization means. In the maintenance of even the present rate of
industrial operation, suppose, for example, that every separate manufacturer of
electric light sockets produced a different size. If these sizes were as many
as a few dozen almost hopeless confusion would result. Suppose likewise that
every different state in the union used a different sized railway gauge, as is
the case in Australia. This would mean that all trains would have to stop at
the state lines and transfer freight and passengers, because a train from Illinois would not be able to run on the Indiana tracks. These examples are taken merely to
show the importance of such progress in standardization as has already been
made. Few people realize
that our present quantity production in automobiles is rendered possible
entirely by the standardization of machine parts. Many automobile parts have to
fit with an accuracy of one ten thousandth part of one inch. In order that all
such parts in a quantity production flow line turning out thousands of units
per day may be mutually interchangeable, it is imperative that all these parts
be standardized with that degree of accuracy. Most of the difference in cost
between a Rolls-Royce and a Packard is due to the fact that the Packard is
produced by standardized quantity production methods, whereas the Rolls-Royce
is produced by handicraft methods where every individual bearing is fitted
separately and, in general, parts are not mutually interchangeable. If the
Packard of today were built by the same hand methods employed in the
Rolls-Royce, it would be no whit better than it is now, but it would have to
sell for a price comparable to that of the Rolls-Royce, and for the same
reasons.
Globalization has been the antithesis of
standardization
Most of our industrial progress up to the present time has been rendered
possible through standardization. The trouble is that standardization has not
been carried nearly far enough as yet. There are too many different arbitrary
sizes and varieties of what is functionally the same-commodity. Take a simple
product like soap. Chemically there are only a small number of separate basic
formulas for soap. The number of brands of soap on the market, however, runs
into the thousands.
Not only has the achievement of standardization made possible our quantity production methods, but the lack of standardization has at the same time been in no small part responsible for our low industrial load factors. In many fields, particularly in those of clothing and automobiles, the lack of standardization has been promoted as a highly remunerative racket the style racket. If styles can be manipulated properly it is possible to increase the consumption of goods by rendering the styles of the old goods obsolete long before the goods themselves are worn out. Thus clothing, which might last two years, is discarded at the end of a single season because it is out of style. Last year's automobile is traded in on this year's new extra-fancy model. The effect of all this upon the load factors of the industry concerned is to cause it to run with a short spurt at peak production while getting out the new model or the latest style, and then idling or remaining completely shut down for the rest of the year. In men's clothing, for example, with a relatively small variety of stabilized styles and an ample variety of materials and color combinations, clothing could be manufactured, if need be, for a year or even two years in advance, and thus completely even out the peaks and troughs resulting from seasonal demands for different kinds of clothing. Overcoats, for example, could be manufactured the year round with a high load factor, but at a rate just sufficient for the annual output to be equal to a single winter's needs.
As yet little emphasis has been placed on the fact that by far the greater part of all employees are engaged in one kind or another of financial accounting or other similar socially unnecessary activities. Even in so industrial a unit as a flour mill it is common for the number of employees engaged in the purely business operations of the plant to be considerably greater than the number required to operate the flour mill. In our electric light and power systems the bulk of the employees are the office clerks, the meter readers and repair men. Only a small percentage of the total staff are required for the socially necessary industrial function of operating and maintaining the power system.
All this is aside from the unnecessary duplication that exists. One single store, for instance, could supply all the distribution services required by a population of 10,000, or so, with only a matter of a couple of dozen employees,
Continent wide unemployment will cease to
be a problem once energy accounting is underway.
With a re-design of our social mechanism along the lines indicated, there will
be a much larger number of jobs which will cease to exist than of new jobs
which will be created. This would not imply then, as it does now, that there
would be unemployment. It merely signifies, on the one hand, that we are
assured of an ample supply of human services for all possible contingencies
while operating the mechanism at the highest output per capita ever achieved.
It means, in addition that all this will be accomplished simultaneously with a
shortening, rather than with a lengthening of the working day.
A Functional Sequence
would be one of the larger industrial or social units, the various parts of which are related one to the other in a direct functional sequence. Thus among the major industrial functional sequences we have transportation (railroads, waterways, airways, highways and pipe lines); communication (mail, telephone, www, radio and television); agriculture (farming, ranching, dairying, etc.); and the major industrial units such as textiles, iron and steel, etc. Among the Service Sequences are education (this would embrace the complete training of the younger generation), and public health (medicine, dentistry, public hygiene, and all hospitals and pharmaceutical plants as well as institutions).
Due to the fact that no Functional Sequence is independent of other Functional Sequences, there is a considerable amount of arbitrariness in the location of the boundaries between adjacent Functional Sequences. Consequently it is not possible to state a priori exactly what the number of Functional Sequences will be, because this number is itself arbitrary. It is possible to make each Sequence large, with a consequent decrease in the number required to embrace the whole social mechanism. On the other hand, if the sequences are divided into smaller units, the number will be correspondingly greater. It appears likely that the total number actually used will lie somewhere between 50 and 100. In an earlier layout the social mechanism was blocked into about 90 Functional Sequences, though future revision will probably change this number somewhat, plus or minus. The schematic relationship showing how these various Functional Sequences pyramid to a head and are there co-coordinated.
At the bottom of the chart on either side are shown schematically several Functional Sequences. In the lower left-hand corner there are shown five of the Industrial Sequences, and in the lower right-hand corner are five of the Service Sequences. In neither of these groups does the size of the chart allow all of the Functional Sequences to be shown. On a larger chart the additional Functional Sequences would be shown laterally in the same manner as those shown here. Likewise each of the Functional Sequences would spread downward with its own internal organization chart, but that is an elaboration which does not concern us here.
There are five other Sequences in this organization which are not in the class with the ordinary Functional Sequences that we have described. Among these is the Continental Research. The staffs described heretofore are primarily operating and maintenance staffs, whose jobs are primarily the maintaining of operation in the currently approved manner. In every separate Sequence, however, Service Sequences as well as Industrial Sequences, it is necessary, in order that stagnation may not develop, to maintain an alert and active research for the development of new processes, equipment and products. Also there must be continuous research in the fundamental sciences physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc. There must likewise be continuous analysis of data and resources pertaining to the Continent as a whole, both for the purposes of coordinating current activity, and of determining longtime policies as regards probable growth curves in conjunction with resource limitation and the like. The requirements of this job render it necessary that all research in whatever field be under the jurisdiction of a single research body, so that all research data are at all times available to all research investigators wishing to use them. This special relationship is shown graphically in the organization chart. The chief executive of this body, the Director of Research, is at the same time a member of the Continental Control, and also a member of the staff of the Continental Director.
On the other hand, branches of the Continental Research parallel laterally every Functional Sequence in the social mechanism. These bodies have the unique privilege of determining when and where any innovation in current methods shall be used. They have also the authority to cut in on any operating flow line for experimental purposes when necessary. In case new developments originate in the operating division, they still have to receive the approval of the Continental Research before they can be installed. In any Sequence a man with research capabilities may at any time be transferred from the operating staff to the research staff and vice versa.
Another all-pervading sequence which is related to the remainder of the organization in a manner similar to that of research is the Sequence of Social Relations. The nearest present counterpart is that of the judiciary. That is, its chief duty is looking after the 'law and order,' or seeing to it that everything as regards individual human relationships functions smoothly.
While the Sequence of Social Relations is quite similar to that of the present judiciary, its methods are entirely different. None of the outworn devices of the present legal profession, such as the sparring between scheming lawyers, or the conventional passing of judgment by 'twelve good men and true' would be allowed. Questions to be settled by this body would be investigated by the most impersonal and scientific methods available. As will be seen later, most of the activities engaging the present legal profession, namely litigation over property rights, will already have been eliminated.
Another of these special Sequences is the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces, as the name implies, embraces the ordinary military land, water and air forces, but most important of all, it also includes the entire internal police force of the Continent, the Continental Constabulary. This latter organization has no precedent at the present time. At the present the internal police force consists of the familiar hodge-podge of local municipal police, county sheriffs, state troopers, and various denominations of federal agents, most of the former being controlled by local political machines and racketeers. This Continental Constabulary, by way of contrast, is a single disciplined organization under one single jurisdiction. Every member of the Constabulary is subject to transfer from any part of the country to any other part on short notice, rendering a hook-up with any form of local racketeering impossible.
While the Continental Constabulary is under the discipline of the Armed Forces, it receives its instructions and authorization for specific action from the Social Relations and Area Control. This Sequence the Area Control is the coordinating body for the various Functional Sequences and social units operating in any one geographical area of one or more Regional Divisions. It operates directly under the Continental Control.
The Foreign Relations occupies a similar position, except that its concern is entirely with international relations. All matters pertaining to the relation of the North American Continent with the rest of the world are its domain.
The personnel of all Functional Sequences will pyramid on the basis of ability to the head of each department within the Sequence, and the resultant general staff of each Sequence will be a part of the Continental Control. A government of function!
The Continental Director, as the name implies, is the chief executive of the entire social mechanism. On his immediate staff are the Directors of the Armed Forces, the Foreign Relations, the Continental Research, and the Social Relations and Area Control. Next downward in the sequence comes the Continental Control, composed of the Directors of the Armed Forces, Foreign Relations, Continental Research, Social Relations and Area Control, and also of each of the Functional Sequences. This superstructure has the last word in any matters pertaining to the social system of the North American Continent. It not only makes whatever decisions pertaining to the whole social mechanism that have to be made, but it also has to execute them, each Director in his own Sequence. This latter necessity, by way of contrast with present political legislative bodies, offers a serious curb upon foolish decisions.
So far nothing has been said specifically as to how vacancies are filled in each of these positions. It was intimated earlier that within the ranks of the various Functional Sequence jobs would be filled or vacated by appointment from above. This still holds true for the position of Sequence Director. A vacancy in the post of Sequence Director must be filled by a member of the Sequence in which the vacancy occurs. The candidates to fill such position are nominated by the officers of the Sequence next in rank below the Sequence Director. The vacancy is filled by appointment by the Continental Control from among the men nominated.
The only exception to this procedure of appointment from above occurs in the case of the Continental Director due to the fact that there is no one higher. The Continental Director is chosen from among the members of the Continental Control by the Continental Control. Due to the fact that this Control is composed of only some 100 or so members, all of whom know each other well, there is no one better fitted to make this choice than they.
The tenure of office of every individual continues until retirement or death, unless ended by transfer to another position. The Continental Director is subject to recall on the basis of preferred charges by a two-thirds decision of the Continental Control. Aside from this, he continues in office until the normal age of retirement. Similarly in matters of general policy he is the chief executive in fact as well as in title. His decisions can only be vetoed by two-thirds majority.
Note that this is the organizational chart of the United States of America with the political and financial parts removed.
Continental Control
It will be noted that the above is
the design of a strong organization with complete authority to act. All
philosophic concepts of human equality, democracy and political economy have
upon examination been found totally lacking and unable to contribute any
factors of design for a Continental technological control. The purpose of the
organization is to operate the social mechanism of the North American
Continent. It is designed along the lines that are incorporated into all
functional organizations that exist at the present time. Its membership
comprises the entire population of the North American Continent. Its physical
assets with which to operate consist of all the resources and equipment of the
same area.
Regional Divisions
It will be recognized that such an organization as we have outlined is not only functional in its vertical alignment, but is geographical in its extent. Some one or more of the Functional Sequences operates in every part of the Continent. This brings us to the matter of blocking off the Continent into administrative areas. For this purpose various methods of geographical division are available. One would be to take the map of North America and amuse oneself by drawing irregularly shaped areas of all shapes and sizes, and then giving these names. The result would be equivalent to our present political subdivisions into nations, states or provinces, counties, townships, precincts, school districts, and the like a completely unintelligible hodge-podge.
A second method, somewhat more rational than the first, would be to subdivide the Continent on the basis of natural geographical boundaries such as rivers, mountain ranges, etc., or else to use industrial boundaries such as mining regions, agricultural regions, etc. Both of these methods are objectionable because of the irregularity of the boundaries that would result, and also because there are no clean-cut natural or industrial boundaries in existence. The end-product, again, would be confusion.
A third alternative remains, that of adopting some completely arbitrary rational system of subdivisions such that all boundaries can be defined in a few words and that every subdivision can be designated by a number for purposes of simplicity of administration and of record keeping. For this purpose no better system than our scientific system of universal latitude and longitude has ever been devised. Any point on the face of the earth can be accurately and unambiguously defined by two simple numbers, the latitude and longitude. Just as simply, areas can be blocked off by consecutive parallels of latitude and consecutive meridians. It is the latter system of subdividing the Continent on the basis of latitude and longitude that we shall adopt. By this system we shall define a Regional Division to be a quadrangle bounded by two successive degrees of longitude and two successive degrees of latitude. The number assigned to each Regional Division will be that of the combined longitude and latitude of the point at the southeast corner of the quadrangle. Thus the Regional Division in which New York City is located is 7340; Cleveland, 8141; St. Louis, 9038; Chicago, 8741; Los Angeles, 11834; Mexico City, 9919; Edmonton, 11353, etc.
In this manner all the present political boundaries are dispensed with. The whole area is blocked off into a completely rational and simple system of Regional Division, the number for each of which not only designates it but also locates it.
It is these Regional Divisions that form the connecting link between the present provisional organization of Technocracy and the proposed operating one. In the process of starting an organization the membership of a particular unit is much more likely to be united by geographic proximity than as members of any particular functional sequence. Accordingly, the provisional organization is of necessity, in the formative period, built and administered on a straight line basis where the individual administrative units are blocked off according to the Regional Divisions in which they happen to occur. As the organization evolves, the transition over into the functional form that we have outlined occurs spontaneously. Already the activities of the organization embrace education, publication and public speaking, as well as research. As time goes on not only will these activities expand but other functions will be added. As fast as the membership in the Functional Sequences will allow, Sequences of Public Health, Transportation, Communication, etc., will be instituted. Even in this formative period a network of amateur short-wave radio stations between the various Regional Divisions is being built. None of these occur overnight, but as the organization evolves there will be an orderly transition over to administration along the functional lines as indicated.
The energy acquisition cards
designing a system of distribution
Now that we have sketched in outline the essential features required to successfully operate our Continent for the benefit of all who reside here. There remains the problem of distribution of goods and services.
Production will be maintained with a minimum of oscillation, or at a high load factor. The last stage in any industrial flow line is use or consumption. If in any industrial flow line an obstruction is allowed to develop at one point, it will slow down, and, if uncorrected, eventually shut down that entire flow line. This is no less true of the consumption stage than of any other stage. Present industrial shut down, for instance, has resulted entirely from a blocking of the flow line at the consumption end. If the production is to be non-oscillatory and maintained at a high level so as to provide a high standard of living, it follows that consumption must be kept equal to production, and that a system of distribution must be designed which will allow this. This system of distribution must do the following things:
(1) Register on a continuous 24-hour time period
basis the total net conversion of energy, which would determine
(a) the availability of energy for Continental plant construction and
maintenance,
(b) the amount of physical wealth available in the form of consumable goods and
services for consumption by the total population during the balanced load
period.
(2) By means of the registration of energy converted and consumed, make
possible a balanced load.
(3) Provide a continuous 24-hour inventory of all production and consumption.
(4) Provide a specific registration of the type, kind, etc., of all goods and
services, where they are, where produced, and where used.
(5) Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a
record and description of the individual.
(6) Allow the citizen the widest latitude of choice in consuming his individual
share of Continental physical wealth.
(7) Distribute goods and services to every member of the population.
On the basis of these requirements, it is interesting to consider money as a possible medium of distribution. But before doing this, let us bear in mind precisely what the properties of money are. In the first place, money relationships are all based upon 'value,' which in turn is a function of scarcity. Hence, as we have pointed out previously, money is not a 'measure' of anything. Secondly, money is a debt claim against society, and is valid in the hands of any bearer. In other words, it is negotiable; it can be traded, stolen, given, or gambled away. Thirdly, money can be saved. Fourthly, money circulates, and is not destroyed or cancelled out upon being spent. On each of these counts money fails to meet our requirements as our medium of distribution.
Suppose, for instance, that we attempted to distribute by means of money, the goods and services produced. Suppose that it were decided that 200 billion dollars worth of goods and services were to be produced in a given year, and suppose further that 200 billion dollars were distributed to the population during that time with which to purchase these goods and services. Immediately the foregoing properties of money would create trouble. Due to the fact that money is not a physical measure of goods and services, there is no assurance that the prices would not change during the year, and that 200 billion dollars at the end of the year would be adequate to purchase the goods and services it was supposed to purchase. Due to the fact that money can be saved, there is no assurance that the 200 billion dollars issued for use in a given year would be used in that year, and if it were not used this would immediately begin to curtail production and to start oscillations. Due to the fact that money is negotiable, and that certain human beings, by hook or crook, have a facility for getting it away from other human beings, this would defeat the requirement that distribution must reach all human beings. A further consequence of the negotiability of money is that it can be used very effectively for purposes of bribery. Hence the most successful accumulators of money would be able eventually not only to disrupt the flow line, but also to buy a controlling interest in the social mechanism itself, which brings us right back to where we started from. Due to the fact that money is a species of debt, and hence cumulative, the amount would have to be continuously increased, which, in conjunction with its property of being negotiable, would lead inevitably to concentration of control in a few hands, and to general disruption of the distribution system which was supposed to be maintained.
Thus, money, in any form whatsoever, is completely inadequate as a medium of distribution in an economy of abundance. Any social system employing commodity evaluation (commodity valuations are the basis of all money) is a Price System. Hence it is not possible to maintain an adequate distribution system in an economy of abundance with a Price System control.
Replacing money on our Continent
The energy acquisition card
A Mechanism of Distribution
We have already enumerated the operating characteristics that a satisfactory mechanism of distribution must possess, and we have found that a monetary mechanism fails signally on every count. A mechanism possessing the properties we have enumerated, however, is to be found in the physical cost of production the energy degraded in the production of goods and services. In the Technocracy Study Course there is discussion in some detail as to the properties of energy, together with the thermodynamic laws in accordance with which energy transformations take place. We found that, for every movement of matter on the face of the earth, a unidirectional degradation of energy takes place, and that it was this energy loss incurred in the production of goods and services that, in the last analysis, constitutes physical cost of production. This energy, as we have seen, can be stated in invariable units of measurements-units of work such as the erg or the kilowatt-hour, or units of heat such as the kilogram calorie or the British thermal unit. It is therefore possible to measure with a high degree of precision the energy cost of any given industrial process, or for that matter the energy cost of operating a human being. This energy cost is not only a common denominator of all goods and services, but a physical measure as well, and it has no value connotations whatsoever.
The energy cost of producing a given item can be changed only by changing the process. Thus, the energy cost of propelling a car a distance of 15 miles is approximately the energy contained in one gallon of gasoline. If the motor is in excellent condition somewhat less than a gallon of gasoline will suffice, hence the energy cost is lower. On the other hand, if the valves become worn and the pistons become loose, somewhat more than a gallon of gasoline may be required and the energy cost increases. A gallon of gasoline of the same grade always contains the same amount of energy. In an exactly similar manner energy derived from coal or water power is required to drive factories, hence the energy cost of the product would be the total amount of energy consumed in a given time divided by the total number of products produced in that time. Energy, likewise, is required to operate the railroads, telephones, telegraphs and radio. It is required to drive agricultural machinery and to produce the food that we consume. Everything that moves does so only with a corresponding transformation of energy.
Now suppose that the Continental Control, after taking into due account the amount of equipment on hand, the amount of new construction of roads, plant, etc., required for the needs of the population, and the availability of energy resources, decides that for the next two years the social mechanism can afford to expend a certain maximum amount of energy (equivalent to that contained in a given number of millions of barrels of oil). This energy can be allocated according to the uses to which it is to be put. The amount required for new plant, including roads, houses, hospitals, schools, etc., and for local transportation and communication will be deducted from the total as a sort of overhead, and not chargeable to individuals. After all of these deductions are made, including that required for the education and care of children and the maintenance of hospitals and public institutions generally, the remainder will be devoted to the production of goods and services to be consumed by the adult public-at-large.
Suppose, next, that a system of record keeping be instituted, whereby a consuming power be granted to this adult public-at-large in an amount exactly equal to this net remainder of energy available for the producing of goods and services to be consumed by this group. This equality can only be accomplished by stating the consuming power itself in denominations of energy. Thus, if there be available the means of producing goods and services at an expenditure of 200,000 kilogram calories per each person per day, each person would be granted an income, or consuming power, at a rate of 200,000 kilogram calories per day.
Now let us see what further details will have to be incorporated in this distributive system in order to satisfy the requirements we have laid down. First, let us remember that this income is usable for the obtaining of consumers' goods and services, and not for the purchase of articles of value. That being the case, there is a fairly definite limit to how many goods and services a single individual can consume, bearing in mind the fact that he only lives 24 hours a day, one-third of which he sleeps, and a considerable part of the remainder of which he works, loafs, plays, or indulges in other pursuits many of which do not involve a great physical consumption of goods.
Let us recall that every individual in the society must be supplied, young and old alike. Since it is possible to set arbitrarily the rate of production at a quite high figure, it is entirely likely that the average potential consuming power per adult can be set higher than the average adult's rate of physical consumption. Since this is so, there is no point in introducing a differentiation in adult incomes in a manner characteristic of economies of scarcity. From the point of view of simplicity of record-keeping, moreover, enormous simplification can be effected by making all adult incomes male and female, alike, equal. Thus, all would receive a large income, quite probably larger than they would find it convenient to spend. This income would continue without interruption until the death of the recipient. The working period, however, after the period of transition would probably not need to exceed the 20 years from the age of 25 to 45, on the part of each individual.
Still further properties that must be incorporated into this energy income received by individuals are that it must be non-negotiable and non-savable. That is, it must be valid only in the hands of the person to whom issued, and in no circumstances transferable to any other individual. Likewise, since it is issued on the basis of a budget expenditure covering two years, it must only be valid for that two-year period and null and void thereafter. Otherwise it would be saved in part, and serve to completely upset the balance in the operating load in future periods. On the other hand, there is no need for saving, because an income and social security is already guaranteed independently to each individual until death.
The reason for taking two years as the balanced-load period of operation of the social mechanism is a technological one. The complete industrial cycle for the whole North American Continent, including the growing period of tropical plants, such as Cuban sugar cane, is somewhat more than one year. Hence a two-year period is taken as the nearest integral number of years to this industrial cycle. All operating plans and budgets would thus be made on a two-year basis, and at the end of that time the books would be balanced and closed for that period.
No debts would be possible, and the current habit of mortgaging the future to pay for present activities would be completely eliminated. This is quite do-able so let’s do it.
If, as is quite likely, the public find it inconvenient to consume all their allotted energy for that time period. the unspent portion of their allotment will merely be cancelled at the end of the period. The saving will be effected by society rather than by the individual, and the energy thus saved, or the goods and services not consumed, will be carried over into the next balanced load period. This will not, as will be amplified later, throw the productive system into oscillation, because production will always be geared to the rate of consumption, and not to the total energy allotment. In other words, if for a given balanced load period the total energy allotment be equivalent to that contained in, say four billion barrels of oil, this merely means that we are prepared if need be to burn four billion barrels of oil, and distribute the resultant goods and services during that time period. This merely sets a maximum beyond which consumption for that time period will not be allowed to go. If the public, however, finds it inconvenient to consume that amount of goods and services, and actually consumes only an amount requiring three billion barrels of oil to produce, production will be curtailed by that amount, and the extra billion barrels of oil will not be used, but will remain in the ground until needed.
Energy Credits There are a large number of different bookkeeping devices whereby the distribution to and records of rate of consumption of the entire population can be kept. In a technological administration of abundance, there is only one efficient method that of employing a system of Energy Accounting.
The significance of this, from the point of view of knowledge of what is going on in the social system, and of social control, can best be appreciated when one surveys the whole system in perspective. First, one single organization is manning and operating the whole social mechanism. This same organization not only produces but distributes all goods and services. Hence a uniform system of record-keeping exists for the entire social operation, and all records of production and distribution clear to one central headquarters. Tabulation of the information contained on the cancelled Energy Credits day by day provides a complete record, of distribution, or of the public rate of consumption by commodity, by sex, by regional division, by occupation, and by age group with this information clearing continuously to a central headquarters.
The clearing of the Energy Credits, tabulated in all the various ways we have indicated, gives precise information at all times on the state of consumption of every kind of commodity or service in all parts of the Continent. In addition to this there is also corresponding information on stocks of materials and rates of operation in every stage of every industrial flow line. There is, likewise, a complete record on all hospitals, on the educational system, amusements, and others on the more purely social services. This information makes it possible to know exactly what to do at all times in order to maintain the operation of the social mechanism at the highest possible load factor and efficiency.
With a governance of skill. The end products attained by a high-energy
social mechanism on the North American Continent will be:
(a) a high physical standard of living,
(b) a high standard of public health,
(c) a minimum of unnecessary labor,
(d) a minimum of wastage of non-replaceable resources,
(e) an educational system to train the entire younger generation
indiscriminately as regards all considerations other than inherent ability, a
Continental system of human conditioning.
(f) No military presence in any other part of the world.
The achievement of these ends will result from a centralized control with a social organization built along functional lines, similar to that of the operating force of any large functional unit of the present such as the telephone system or the power system.
Non-oscillatory operation at high load factor
demands not only functional organization of society but a mechanism of
distribution that will:
(a) Insure a continuous distribution of goods and services to every member of
the population;
(b) enable all goods and services to be measured in a common physical
denominator;
(c) allow the standard of living for the whole of society to be arbitrarily set
as an independent variable, and
(d) insure continuous balance between production and consumption.
Such a mechanism is to be found in the physical cost of production, namely, the energy degradation in the production of goods and services. Incomes can be granted in denominations of energy in such a manner that they cannot be lost, saved, stolen or given away. All adult incomes are to be made equal, though probably larger than the average ability to consume.
The Consumer Profile
The properties of The Energy Certificate as set forth in the Study Course identify it as a transaction record, whereby an indent (a purchase order) for a goods or service is recorded at the time the purchase is made by an identified consumer. The transcendent need for a comprehensive consumer profile is a result of the distinctive characteristics of a Technocracy: it is a high-energy high-speed economy producing an abundance of goods and services. An abundance of the basic requirements of a high standard of living on a continental area such as North America is a consequence of converting energy of the order of 200,000 Kg. cal. per capita, per day. Equality of income in a Technocracy is also a consequence of that condition. It is not an ideological objective. It would be both difficult (impossible?) and pointless to seek a basis for differentiating incomes in an environment of abundance.
The maintenance of these conditions requires a defense against any abuse or interference that could destabilize the system; or re-establish a condition of scarcity; or permit the re-introduction of prices and values characteristic of the trading in a Price System. This requires rigorous identification of the purchaser, i.e. a consumer profile, to match that consumer to an appropriate range of consumables. It does not interfere in any way with the usual choices of goods and services appropriate to the various life-styles and aspirations of the individual. Remember that each adult has independent income and cannot hire others or give gifts or otherwise impose conditions of welfare or servitude on anyone else.
Every transaction by the citizen/purchaser must involve such identification. Some elements were included in the original design of the Energy Certificate identification included: signature, sex, holders registration number, the regional Division where the holder works; the e Functional Sequence and its Subdivisions; down through the Unit in which the holder works; and the number of workers in this Unit, of which the worker (in this case) is Number Eleven.
There are 3 classes of information involved here. First there is information that does not change, including birth date, sex, registration number at birth, and other bio-identifiers such as tattoos (?), iris scan, etc. These are basic elements of the purchasing profile: ‘the bio-identity’, to give it a name. (The original Certificate included these data.)
Second, there are functional identifiers such as the ‘employment identity’. These can change frequently throughout a career. They help define a current consumer profile. The original Certificate {see below} included an example of this class of information, in this case a foundry worker (No, 11). It provides for consumables related to employment.
Third there are the social status identifiers, the ‘socio-identity’, (to coin a term) reflecting achievements and status. There could be a principal one with supplementals.
Be it a doctor, scientist, sports professional, amateur astronomer, private pilot, paraplegic, blind person, etc., each such defined functional status may profoundly influence a consumer profile. This third category was not expressly described in the original Certificate but can have an important bearing on a citizen’s identity and the appropriate consumer definition.
Now it is 2012. Much has changed since 1934 in the technology available to process such records. Computer based programs such as an augmented bar code can make this large accumulation of data readily available both by a constantly up-dated web site for each individual and by dated personal identity card. It is possible that both the design and the name of the Energy Certificate may change with time, but the vital functions it performs will be maintained.
Socio-Identity -- consumer profile some comments.
It was commented: “…under Social Identity, you identify the socio-identity as a supplemental. What would be the purpose of this addition, as you say “it may profoundly influence a Consumer Profile”?
Answer: Re the Socio-identity portion of the Consumer Profile consider the following examples as it might apply to an individual Consumer Profile.
Consumer A: He is a hunter. His Consumer Profile must qualify him for the gun, the ammunition, appropriate apparel, vehicle, license, quota, etc etc. Also for Membership in related community and continental organizations.
Consumer B: He is a retired anthropologist. His Consumer Profile must provide for him to have sets of bones and models and a place for them and for his workplace at home as he writes his papers. He will be accredited to several societies.
Consumer C: She is a fabric and clothing designer. She will need access to bulk fabrics, special machines, and a place to work. Possibly support persons. An out-of-home work place. Appropriate memberships.
Consumer D: A gardener. A home with garden space. A variety of seed stock, equipment. materials, reference sources, cultivating services, waste disposal, product disposal, etc. Appropriate memberships.
Consumer E: A private pilot. Valid certification. Experience on type. Log book certification, etc., etc. Appropriate memberships.
And so on. Much of this is in place today through various organizations, sometimes supported by law, sometimes self-regulating. It is all part of a high energy active society of busy well educated adults.
Comment: “Hard to imagine a data base that could contain all this information but with computers it is possible”.
Answer: It helps sometimes, to consider how the problem is handled now. Overall it is largely accomplished today by the ‘Market Place’. The Price System places strict limits on who buys or does what, depending primarily on income. But without the Market Place, and in Technocracy’s environment of ‘abundance’ and ‘equal incomes’ how would a Technocracy cope? By subdividing the problem, we suggest, into areas, functions, associations, etc. that would serve as subsidiary Agencies of the Distribution Sequence.
A private pilot is used as an example. The local flying club could be developed into a Depot or Agency controlling most associated economic operations, certificate validation, appropriate supplies for a specific region, and so on. It would then consolidate returns to the main distribution center – The Distribution Sequence.
THE ENERGY CERTIFICATE – ENERGY AQUSITION CARD
Definition:
“Energy Certificate” is a term coined in the study course to designate the record of a purchase by a citizen of a Technocracy. It is the record of a transaction; i.e. it is a Bill of Sale, a receipt for a purchase. Its cost (charge to consumer) is denominated in energy units. It has very important additional functions in the operation of the economy of the Technate, including the balancing of production with consumption, as explained in the following paragraphs.
First and foremost The Energy Certificate must be defined as a record of a purchase. It is the equivalent of a Sales Slip. It shows the supply source (Distribution Depot or other Agency), the identity (name and catalogue number) of the item purchased and its assigned energy cost as a charge against the purchaser’s account, as well as the identity of the purchaser (name and associated reference number for this citizen’s Consumer Profile). Assigned energy cost’ will be an approximation, rather than an exact energy costing of an individual item. It will be an accumulation of associated inputs of energy involved in production, leading to an assigned energy cost of production for the unit of a ‘batch’, ‘model’, ‘run’, or other defined quantity.
The second function, in combination with the first, is the credit balance of this consumer’s energy account. An individual’s energy account is automatically augmented electronically at specific intervals by the Distribution Sequence, valid for the balanced load period of the Technate, proposed initially at around two years.
The third function, not shown on the Certificate, is to provide data input for inventory and stock planning of this Distribution Depot; also data for statistical analysis and operating information for administration at all levels and regions of governance.
The fourth function is to provide to the supplier (Distribution Depot or Agency) access to the Consumer Profile of the ‘purchaser’. (There may be many transactions where the Consumer Profile is irrelevant and not involved: i.e. such as many food services and many health services. Sometimes the Identity Card would be sufficient, as in the case of local transit. In other cases it may be of great importance to the smooth operation of the economy). Some features of this Consumer’s Profile may appear on the completed Energy Certificate, such as Sex, and Stage of Life (Youth; In-Service; Retired). The potential scope of a Consumer Profile to provide additional information is outlined below.
A fifth function is a contingent one, dependent upon special circumstances where there is a need to know a citizen’s location and movements. Energy Certificates could be a helpful record in such cases. (A similar function in the Price System is termed a ‘Paper Trail’ based upon credit card usage).
The details of a Technocracy (a Technate) are conjectural at this point. Such a society has never existed. The combination of modern technology and mankind’s ability to adapt (and assuming adequate energy and other resources) make it not only possible, but probable. The sooner those involved with the NAU programs understand the operating characteristics of a Technate the sooner we will have one so do your part get this file to them ASAP.
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How to reorganize our Continent
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