In this article we are going to address the term technocracy. A complex signifier but widely used in some sectors of knowledge such as science, philosophy and politics . In addition, of important social relevance since since its establishment, the world has never been the same.
Its historical origin, the characteristics of technocratic societies and the different types will be some of the points that we will explain, but first, we will see what technocracy means and its official definition .
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What is technocracy
Technocracy literally means “government of technicians”; Being “techno-” the art or technique and “-cracy” the power or government the meanings of the two roots, we can get an idea of the definition of this concept.
However, the two definitions given by the RAE of technocracy are somewhat confusing:
1st. “Exercise of power by technocrats”.
2nd. “Group or team of leading technocrats.”
Ok, so we understand that technocracy is a system of government carried out by technocrats , so what is a technocrat
? What is a technocrat
Today we could say that a technocrat is any person who has a series oftechnical, technological and scientific knowledge, while exercising the power to govern a society (using such knowledge).
The RAE gives us its two meanings , clearer than the previous ones, to define what a technocrat is:
1st. “Professional specialized in some economic or administrative matter who, in the performance of a public office, applies effective measures that pursue social welfare regardless of ideological considerations.”
2º. “Supporter of technocracy or technocrats”.
Origin of the technocracy
To know the origin of technocracies we must go back to their philosophical origins. It was not until the nineteenth century when the term technocracy began to sound thanks to certain philosophers and sociologists.
The first official use of the word technocracy is attributed to the Frenchman Claude-Henri Rouvroy (1760 – 1825), who is one of the greatest representatives of utopian socialism.
It was this author who proposed for the first time that political power, unlike what was happening, should fall to those people who had the knowledge and the means to transform the economy of the country (France), including not only the sector of economists, but also representatives of industry and technology.
The last end would bereplace the politicians of the moment by a group of intellectuals who carried the banner of science as the main symbol and engine of change. As Rouvroy said, the “government of men” had to be changed to “the administration of things.”
Being for a large part of their lives contemporaries and also living in France, another eminence appears who promoted the idea of technocracy as a model of government. Nothing less than the philosopher Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) contemplated, like Rouvroy, the need for societies to be governed based on science and technology and not politics per se.
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