Energy-credits
An energy-credit, sometimes called an energy certificate, is a hypothetical unit of currency used in a technocracy, or technate as the movement likes to call it. Unlike traditional money, energy-credits cannot be saved or earned, only distributed evenly among a populace. The amount of credit given to each citizen would be calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technate and dividing it equally. The reason for the use of energy-credits serves to ensure equality among the technate's citizenry as well as prohibit a spending that is beyond the productive capacity of the technocracy.
The system is usually referred to as energy accounting.
Proclaimed Benefits
Under the energy-credit system, a car, for example, would be valued by the energy it takes to create the product (energy to run and supply the factory plus the energy to transport all materials and the final product). In this way, ecological costs are accounted for since energy is the main non-renewable resource consumed by humans. Any system which produces a car using less energy would be cheaper in price and cost fewer energy-credits. In this way, quality and efficiency are maximized through careful review of their toll on the total reserve of energy available to the population.
Another example of why technocrats support the energy-credit system is that they say it eliminates social problems which are caused by the current price system. Since the productive capacity of the technate is evenly distributed, technocrats state that things such as theft, gender inequality, and even racial hierarchies would be greatly discouraged.
Since technology is continuously evolving, there is much debate on what method would be used to distribute energy credits among the populace. In any case, people will have to use technology to eliminate security risks and make the process seamless.
Opposition
The primary arguments against energy accounting are briefly listed here and explained below:
- it creates too much equality; communism has never worked
- there is no structure to the society, and people need hierarchies
- the money incentive is lost; people will not work
Opponents of technocracy argue that a system of energy-credits is too communist in origin, and that people need hierarchies and unequal distributions of wealth because some people are more apt than others. Technocrats argue that their system allows hierarchies and positions of higher responsibility and accountability, and that if a corrupt person enters a position of power they will be thrown out because of their lack of competence or technical skills required for that position. An example the technocrats give is that of a scientist. If the scientist accomplishes a great feat, he would become well known and gain fame, thus more accountability, and most likely an increase in power or responsibilities.
The technocrats would agree that, economically, every person would be equal. In this way, they share some communist ideals, but technocrats argue that the post-cold war era has given the term Communism a negative connotation. They say that communism and capitalism are both systems evolved from scarcity, and that mankind has never attempted to implement a system based on abundance.
The primary argument that technocrats use against the money incentive is human nature. They argue that there are internal (initiative) and external (incentive) forces that act on a person. They state that the internal force usually wins, and things like the open-source movement are prime examples of a person's internal desires overriding the money incentive in our current society.
References
- Official Technocracy Inc Article
- Technocracy.ca: Energy Accounting
- Technocratic Glossary
- Technocracy, Inc.