Technocracy

Technocracy refers to any political–social–economic system that is governed and managed using purportedly objective scientific and technical principles, and in which ultimate power and authority rests with technical and scientific experts. The concept had its initial origins in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution (with antecedents stretching back to the rationalism of ancient Greece and, later, the Enlightenment in the West). Henri Saint-Simon in early 19th century France was the earliest exponent of a technocratic system which involved overall political and economic government by industrialists. Technocracy was formally coined as a term in the early 20th century in the United States in the context of a specific intellectual movement under the same name which laid out a more detailed system of economic and social management by industrialists and scientists that supposedly would guarantee maximum efficiency in production, consumption and distribution without the self-defeating tendencies of political systems of the time, either democratic or authoritarian. Technocracy is currently used to refer to any policy or governmental arrangement that purportedly emphasizes technical criteria above non-technical values in policy, planning and public decision-making, and which gives significant authority to experts. Singapore is often referred to as a leading example of such an approach. Various controversies have arisen around technocracy, especially its potential incompatibility with democracy and social values that are not easily translated into technical terms. There is also debate about how feasible a genuine technocracy actually is in practice.