The Technocracy Movement Wanted Engineers to Rule America

In the depths of the Great Depression, when politicians seemed helpless and the economy was in freefall, a radical idea emerged: fire all the politicians and economists, and let engineers run everything instead. This wasn't just cocktail party talk—it became a mass movement with over half a million members in California alone.

The Technocracy movement, founded by Howard Scott in 1932, proposed a complete overhaul of society. Scientists and engineers would replace elected officials, managing the economy not with money, but with calculations based on energy expenditure. Scott believed the "price system" was wasteful and unfair, and that technical experts could design a perfectly efficient, equitable society.

The Great Engineer Takes Command

Howard Scott styled himself as "the Great Engineer"—a title that perfectly captured the movement's blend of technical authority and quasi-religious fervor. He wasn't just proposing policy changes; he was offering salvation through slide rules and thermodynamics.

Under Scott's vision, money would be replaced by energy certificates—a currency based on the actual energy required to produce goods and services. Prices would be set by "objective Technocratic savants" using tables of energy equivalents. No more market speculation, no more boom-and-bust cycles. Just pure, engineered efficiency.

When Engineers Became Rock Stars

The movement exploded in popularity between June 1932 and early 1933. The New York Times covered it extensively. Scott got a nationwide radio broadcast. Technocracy Inc. became one of the fastest-growing movements in American history, with active centers in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.

Why did it resonate? The Depression had shattered faith in traditional institutions. If businessmen and politicians had wrecked the economy, why not try the people who built bridges and designed electrical grids? Engineers had actually made things work. Maybe they could fix society too.

The Collapse

But the movement's peak lasted less than a year. On January 13, 1933, Scott delivered a highly anticipated nationwide radio address that critics called confusing and uninspiring. The press turned hostile. The American Engineering Council condemned the technocrats for "unprofessional activity, questionable data, and drawing unwarranted conclusions."

It turned out that engineering expertise didn't automatically translate to governing expertise. Scott's grand plans were heavy on technical jargon but light on practical details about how this new society would actually function or how the transition would occur without massive disruption.

The Legacy

While Technocracy Inc. continued to exist and even maintained some influence into the 1940s, it never regained its brief moment of cultural prominence. Internal factionalism during World War II further weakened the organization.

Yet the core impulse—that technical experts should have more power than partisan politicians—never really went away. You can see echoes of technocratic thinking in modern movements: Silicon Valley's "disruption" ideology, Singapore's technocratic governance model, and every time someone says "we should run government like a business."

The difference is that today's technocrats rarely call themselves "the Great Engineer." They've learned that marketing matters—even if you think society should be run by people who don't care about marketing.