IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2018 - 49

Figure 3. Graphic displayed at Technocracy Inc meeting halls
and public exhibits from the 1930s [source: Technocracy Inc,
courtesy of George Wright].

said, "The engineers solved it easily. They built cars
that didn't have platforms" [10].
The tale communicated Scott's common-sense conviction that social measures could be rendered unnecessary by wise engineering. Streetcars with retracting steps
and closing doors ensured that passengers could not
harm themselves. The anecdote was so effective in
describing the essence of technological fixes that it
became a feature of Scott's speeches for the successor
organization, Technocracy Inc. and was reproduced as a
graphic (Figure 3) on postcards and placards over the following eight decades [11]. His second-in-command, oil
geologist Marion King Hubbert, featured similar examples in their Technocracy Study Course, which the organization updated into the twenty-first century [12].

Postwar Recovery and Optimism

Though the technocrats were most prominent during
science. Electric appliances, for example, extended
the 1930s, they also found fresh audiences after the
productivity and leisure pursuits; radio entertained,
Second World War. Rallies and long-distance road cavaleducated, and united the nation; motor vehicles and
cades across North America carried their message
aircraft provided a new mobility for at least a priviabout the power of technologies to transform society.
leged few.
Engineers and scientists comprised a significant fracBut praise of technological change was accomtion of their membership and audiences, including
panied by criticisms of the imperfections of modern
those who had worked on the Manhattan Project during
society, often by the same analysts. The longestthe war and were now imagining applications of nuclear
lived voices were members of a group initially called
energy. Their inspiration was to apply rapid innovation
the Technical Alliance, and later Technocracy Inc.
to recalcitrant human problems that had outlasted the
Although having no verifiable engineering training,
war (Figure 1).
Howard Scott became the Chief Engineer and persuaAmong them was Richard L. Meier (1920-2007, Figsive spokesperson for the Alliance, which included
ure 4), a wartime research chemist who turned to invesGeneral Electric engineer Charles Steinmetz, social
tigating technological solutions for postwar urban
philosopher Thorstein Veblen, and economist Stuart
problems. He was a technological optimist who conChase. The group railed against the problems of
ceived socio-technological systems to reduce inequity
waste, inefficiency, and incompetence
and yield wider societal benefits.
of industrialists and government leadAt least one contemporary reviewer
ers, and called for the application of
identified "naïve rationalism" and "the
"the achievements of science to socispirit of technocratic speculation" in
etal and industrial affairs" ([8], see
Meier's enthusiasms [13]. His work over
also [9]). They sought to collect relisubsequent decades was, however, the
a ble fact s a nd to apply rationa l
antithesis of the technocrats' casual
eng i neering principles to modern
claims as it carefully explored the poliproblems of all kinds.
tical, economic, social, and cultural
The group is noteworthy in the way
dimensions of complex technological
it boiled down popular ideas circulatsystems affecting urban and regional
ing among engineers for wider pubdevelopment (see for example, [14]-[16]).
lics. Scott first reached audiences
Other contemporary scientists supthrough a newspaper interview. He
ported similar views, some of whom -
described how streetcar design had
like Meier and Weinberg - joined the
been improved to safeguard passenFederation of Atomic Scientists, a new
gers, who often suffered injuries by
organization seeking to guide benefifalling from crowded running boards. Figure 4. Richard L. Meier c1965
cial applications of nuclear energy
Instead of relying on ineffective laws, [source: University of California,
[17]. A sounding board for Weinberg's
policing, and public education, Scott courtesy of Meier family].
ideas was Harvey Brooks, Dean of
march 2018

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