Technocracy

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Technocracy Mean?

Technocracy is an ideology that models government in such a way that emphasizes technical skill and efficiency. In theory, technocracy is pragmatist before it is populist. Ideally, technocratic leadership is assigned based on merit, rather than influence or inheritance. Technocracy is naturally not conducive to career politicians, instead favoring government leaders who specialize in other relevant trades and industries than politics and government.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Technocracy

The idea of technocracy dates back to at least the Great Depression era, but has never been implemented into government in any universally recognizable way. Nevertheless, there have been some notable attempts to establish technocracy as an accepted political movement, and there is reason to believe that it could gain new traction in the twenty-first century.

The movement has intersected with both communist and capitalist circles. It is difficult to identify who coined the term “technocracy,” however it is known for having been temporarily appropriated by a controversial figure named Howard Scott in order to try to start a political movement of sorts in the period between World Wars I and II.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.