Howard Scott (April 1, 1890 – January 1, 1970) was an American engineer and founder of the
Technocracy movement. He formed the
Technical Alliance and
Technocracy Incorporated.
Early life
Little is known about Scott's background or his early life and he has been described as a "mysterious young man".
[ He was born in Virginia in 1890 and was of Scottish-Irish descent. He claimed to have been educated in Europe, but his training did not include any formal higher education.][
In 1918, shortly before the end of WWI, Scott appeared in New York City. Scott worked in various construction camps, where he picked up on-the-job engineering experience, and in 1918 was working in a cement pouring group at Muscle Shoals.][ Following this, Scott established himself in Greenwich Village as "a kind of Bohemian engineer".][ Scott also ran a small business called ''Duron Chemical Company'' which made paint and floor polish at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Scott's job was to deliver his goods and show his customers how to use the floor polishing material.][William E. Akin (1977). ''Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement 1900-1941'', University of California Press, pp. 28-29.]
Technocracy
At the end of World War I, Howard Scott helped to form the Technical Alliance which explored economic and social trends in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
; the Technical Alliance disbanded in 1921.[ In 1920, the Industrial Workers of the World hired Scott as a research director.][
Scott, together with ]Walter Rautenstrauch
Walter Rautenstrauch (1880–1951) was an American mechanical and consulting engineer, and Professor at Columbia University's Department of Industrial Engineering in the 1930s. He coined the term break-even point, and developing the break-even cha ...
formed the Committee on Technocracy in 1932, which advocated a more rational and productive society headed by technical experts. The Committee disbanded in January 1933, after only a few months, largely because of different views held by Scott and Rautenstrauch as well as widespread criticism of Scott.[
On January 13, 1933, Scott gave a speech about technocracy at New York's Hotel Pierre, before a live audience of 400, which was also broadcast on radio nationwide.][ Unfortunately for Scott however, the speech was subsequently called a "grave mistake",][ as it was most likely that Scott had no experience or training as a public speaker.
]
Genesis of the technocratic movement
M. King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolog ...
joined the staff of Columbia University in 1931 and met Howard Scott. Hubbert and Scott co-founded Technocracy Incorporated in 1933, with Scott as leader and Hubbert as secretary. Scott remained as the chief engineer of Technocracy Incorporated until his death in 1970.[ Scott "argued indefatigably that scientific analysis of industrial production would show the path to lasting efficiency and unprecedented abundance". Scott gained many supporters within the movement. M. King Hubbert, for example, considered Scott extremely knowledgeable in physics. There was some discontent with Scott's leadership during WWII and a number of technocrats broke away from Technocracy Inc. and established their own breakaway organisation which only lasted for about a year.][Henry Elsner, jr. (1967). ''The Technocrats: Prophets of Automation'', Syracuse University.]
Radical reform
Technocracy Inc. formed in 1931 to promote the ideas of Howard Scott. Scott saw government and industry as wasteful and unfair and believed that an economy run by engineers would be efficient and equitable. He called for the " price system" and fiat currencies to be replaced with a system based on how much energy it takes to produce specific goods. Scott called for engineers to run a continental government, which he termed a ''technate'', to "optimize the use of energy to assure abundance." Virtually unknown today, the organization boasted over half a million members in California alone at its peak in the 1930s and 1940s.[https://www.wired.com/2015/06/technocracy-inc/ Retrieved June-13-2015]
References
External links
The Hotel Pierre Address
A pamphlet of a given address by Howard Scott before the National Technological Congress and the Continental Convention on Technocracy at the Morris Hotel, Chicago, Ill. in June, 1933
The Last Utopians
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Howard
1890 births
1970 deaths
Technocracy movement
20th-century American engineers
Industrial Workers of the World people
Engineers from Virginia