Technocracy Now! part 1 w/ Noam Chomsky (Darts & Letters ep64)

Technocracy is the idea that experts should govern. For the common good, presumably. It makes a certain amount of sense, given how irrational our politics seem to be right now. So, technocracy is seductive.<br /><br />In fact, it’s an idea as old as politics itself. On this episode Darts & Letters begins the first of a three-part series telling stories of technocracies past, present, and future.<br /><br />In this first part, Ira Basen tells the story of Technocracy, Inc. This 1930s movement aimed to install non-democratic North American “technate” where we only work from the ages of 25 to 45, for 16 hours a week. It might surprise you to learn that Elon Musk’s grandfather was one of its leaders. Basen produced an extended CBC: Ideas documentary on the movement, and it’s worth checking out.<br /><br />Then, perhaps the most influential intellectual today: Noam Chomsky. What is the place of technical expertise in a radical left project? Chomsky’s famous “Responsibility of Intellectuals” is one of the best critiques of the liberal technocratic intelligentsia. However, his lesser-known writing on Mikhail Bakunin’s predictions about how the Marxist intellectual vanguard would “beat the people with the people’s stick” offers a warning to left technocrats. We have a wide-ranging conversation with Professor Chomsky on his critique of intellectuals, the place of technical expertise in a radical left project, his anarchist theory of expertise, and his thoughts on popular reason and popular intelligence.<br /><br />This is part of a wider series on techno-utopian thinking, produced with professors Tanner Mirrlees and Imre Szemen. For a full list of credits, contact information and more visit <a href="http://www.dartsandletters.ca" rel="noopener">www.dartsandletters.ca</a>