..........Introduction part TWO
When power is used in vast quantities, the resultant is an abundance of goods and services. The rate of extraneous energy consumption on this continental area has reached an order of magnitude which results in a plethora of goods and services beyond the manageable limits of our present social control technique. Never in history has man faced the technical problem of distributing an achieved abundance.
His efforts in the past have been directed towards philosophical speculation as to how an abundance might be achieved. Now, abundance has been thrust upon him by technology. One technical problem has been solved, but man, not realizing that he is faced with another technical problem, has turned to philosophic speculation to solve the distribution conundrum.
The availability and use of vast quantities of power opens up many vistas of possible human achievement hitherto seen only as shining mirages by the utopian dreamers of history. It realizes the physical fact of abundance.
What then would be the technique whereby that abundance can be distributed? NOT just another variation of the method of haphazard exchange now in operation throughout the world, but a technique of menstruation, a physical accounting system on a Continental order of magnitude. This Continental accounting system in operation would be the arrival of certainty in all human physical requirements.
Science and technology have developed the method of research and analysis. Man is now adept with an honor-roll of in achievement in the discovery and classification of physical knowledge by which he has constructed energy consuming devices that have created a new world.
In the manner of design too, science and technology have made strides, but, only to the minutiae of science and technology. Man has designed and constructed enormous dams, power plants, and canals, but he has never designed and constructed a Continental "hydrology." Man has designed streamlined trains, and magnificent railroad terminals, but never an integrated Continental system of low-cost rail transportation. Man has designed automobiles and highways, but never a super highway system with control of traffic organization and load factor. Man has designed mammoth strip steel mills, but not an automated steel sequence from iron ore to finished product. Man has built haphazard price system economies and political empires, but never has he designed a self-contained technologically controlled social mechanism.
In other words the design of the past has been but the design of the minutiae, the working up from the part to the whole; and not the design of the whole, leading down into the microcosmic parts of the entity.
Technocracy -- the DESIGN:
When a Continental social mechanism is designed as an operational totality, then, and then only, will the results of the whole exceed the sum of its parts. When, and only when, all the factors relevant to the operation of a social mechanism, are measurable, is a planned social structure possible. Human history can become for the first time a planned progression, based on a quantitative analysis of the Continental totality.
With immeasurable factors, effective social planning is impossible. Today, the predominant immeasurable factor is `price,' (price is value in terms of money) which explains why neither the United States of America, nor Russia, nor any other area on earth has been able to effect a planned economy, but, of course science and technology have never had the opportunity until recently to design in this manner.
Science and technology are comparatively new. They have been engaged in building with the tools and knowledge at hand. They have never looked upon the social order, unless it be in a Jekyll and Hyde escape from their laboratory. Therefore, the discovery of the importance of the energy factor in social measurement was made by a scientist who never left his laboratory - a scientist whose laboratory was a Continent.
It is precisely the intricate immenseness of the Continental problems arising in the control and operation of a unique high-energy civilization that requires and results in: a unique and entirely new social methodology.
MEASUREMENT
by
energy cost.
The disrupted social conditions at the close of WWI led to a fourteen year investigation, which in turn uncovered the astounding yet almost obvious fact, that the only common denominator of all commodities and services, is energy.
The scientists who pointed this out simply proposed to measure the total amount of energy used by the Continent in a given period; measure the energy cost of physical production and services; and use these measurements as the basis for the regulation of all Continental production and distribution.
Most people will agree that our social system is not working anymore. Many also realize that it cannot be fixed. However it CAN be replaced. The forms of government that we are told of in the establishment schools are NOT the only ones possible.
The `price system':
The price system grew out of the days of scarcity, when trading his crude
materials, or stealing them was the only way in which man could require the articles
which he required. Through complex ramifications the trading system has grown
until it is now the overwhelming structure of finance, business, commerce, and
politics, in short the `price system' in total - a gigantic structure, but
still just method of exchanging goods, springing from the ancient custom and
necessity of barter. No intention or pretense is made of accurate mensurationor
control; no physical accounting is involved; no _accurate_ predictions can be
made; and no stabilization can be assured.
`Price system' is simply a method of erratic exchange. In scarcity it sufficed well enough as an exchange method; in abundance it cannot even do that.
When the possibility of assuring accurate measurement of all goods and services in quantitative physical terms was announced, it was treated with scorn by all of the institutions of the `price system'. To take science out of the laboratory and apply it to social operations was considered heretical. But now the inevitability of such a development it is fast becoming accepted.
Facts and social progression.:
Physical development has made the next step mandatory; on this Continent we
have built and are operating the largest and most complicated array of
technological equipment in existence; we have the highest average consumption
of extraneous energy per capita of any continent. There need be NO restriction
of our physical standard of living due to inadequate resources.
We can only continue toward maximum physical consumption by the increased substitution of kilowatt-hours for man-hours, and by a continuous improvement of our equipment; that we will be forced to a greater and greater integration of our physical equipment; that we will be forced to adopt a technological administration of all the `sequences' of all the social operations is then our social progression whether we like it or not. We must accept these physical conditions, and adopt a method of social operation capable of administering these processes. The North American people must demand that we move forward, we must conscript as our `leaders', the technologists, scientists, and engineers to lead us.
Control of things NOT people:
A functional government will put into operation a Continental control of all
flow lines of production and distribution - a Continental statistics expressing
the desires of _every_ citizen in his choice of consumable goods and available
services.
This energy credit system will do the following things, in a physical entity such as our Continent where abundance is certain;
(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 the 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 type, kind, size, et cetera of all goods and services, 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 wealth.
(7) Distribute goods and services to every member of the population.
The operation problem of distributing our Continental abundance is without precedence in the social history of man.
The magnitude of this operational problem prescribes that there can be only a unique solution. The physical wealth of a Continental abundance can be produced only by the technological application of extraneous energy to all means of production and distribution, namely, to the means whereby human beings live. This Continental production of abundance will therefore necessitate the largest per capita consumption of extraneous energy possible of achievement, consonant with the maximum conservation of natural resources.
The degradation of this volume of extraneous energy on the Continent in the processes of producing abundance would require the maximum efficiency at the closest approach to full load (24 hour) operation. It is obvious that the production of the physical wealth of the Continental abundance will be attained only with human toil at a minimum, and it therefore follows that the unique solution of this operational problem must be the accurate measurement of all extraneous energy converted on the Continental area, and the continuous recording of its allocated degradation in providing the citizens of this Continent with the physical wealth of abundance for individual consumption.
Technological requirement:
Science and technology have no values; only measurement. The only method know
to science in the measurement of the cost of all physical operations is that of
the amount of energy consumed per unit mass, per unit time, per unit distance.
Functional control requires metrical control of the conversion and consumption of
extraneous energy on this Continental area.