Technocracy ...
I rember when the local chapter of the Technocracy League had a booth at the Univ. of Alberta.
one leaflet talked about dredging the rivers of western Canada deeper and running barges of coal and other resources downstream to the ocean.
it would have taken longer than by truck but would've been cheap transport.
most technocrats though are IMO anti-democrat and trample over local rights, property owners, voters who get in way of technological solution to problems.
there is a large book by Robert Caro The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, telling how he would see a pleasant little island off of Manhattan (something like Satlspring Island maybe) and pictured how a freeway could run through it to link up other islands, and then pushing tjhe project through.
And how elected polticians found they coud not stop him, as he himself was the head of commisioner board, the heado fiance and the head of public infrasturucture and had such power - and how he held jobs as hostage to get supporrt from the construction unions, a large voting block in the city.
Caro: "His voter-anatagonizing personality meant that he was never going to be able to obtain that supreme power which, in a democratic society, only the people can, through their vote, confer." (p. 630)
by 1938 New York City was on edge of bankruptcy mostly caused by his maseive consturction projects.
1937 had seen the first PR (STV) election, in part as attempt to rid city of Tammany Hall machinations.
But still nothing could stop Moses.
Caro: "The image was of the fearless independent above politics. The public believed authorities [planning boards] - entities outside the normal governmental setup, entities whose members were unsalaried and appointed to terms long enough in theory to ensure their independence from politicians
- to be "nonpolitical.""
but apparently such nonpolitical positions did not stop persons from establishing little empires and wielding power without public control...
Moses began having state revenue go to special funds that came to NY City for him to spend on city projects.
and the freeways he built collected tolls, the tolls going to his boards and offices to spend on more projects...
Caro: "He no longer needed the support of the mayor and he wasted little time letting him know it.... "
The mayor looked at documents he had signed based on Moses's adivce and found --
- that Moses could launch a lawsuit against the city on behalf of bondholders if projects Moses proposed were not passed by the council
- and politically he could not fire Moses, for if he was fired, the NY state would likely cut funding to the city, funding that Moses had secured based on his personal presence as head of the projects.
so despite best aspirations of PR, Moses was in position to overrun whole communities despite will of people.
Caro actually found cases where as many as 50,000 to 100,000 residents or more were relocated to open space for some of Moses's freeways and urban redevelopments...
...
lesson: let's try not to let things go until they can't hardly be fixed...
Moses finally got his comeuppance in the 1960s, after something like 40 years of commanding presence in NYC.
Wiki: "Moses's reputation began to fade during the 1960s.
Around this time, Moses's political acumen began to fail him, as he unwisely picked several controversial political battles he could not possibly win.
For example, his campaign against the free Shakespeare in the Park program received much negative publicity, and his effort to destroy a shaded playground in Central Park to make way for a parking lot for the expensive Tavern-on-the-Green restaurant earned him many enemies among the middle-class voters of the Upper West Side."...
Likely not all technocrats are like Moses but there may be problems if there is not political, democratic control of decision-makers.
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