|
Howard Scott was an admirer of Thorstein Veblen and the founder of the Technical Alliance, a research organization dedicated to promoting the scientific management of society. The Technical Alliance broke up in 1921. Scott later founded Technocracy, Inc. The "Technocracy movement" (which included other organizations, most notably the Continental Committee on Technocracy) received a great deal of attention in the Depression, as it seemed to promise boundless prosperity in a glittering, modern, scientifically-managed society. Its glamor soon faded as Scott's technical credentials were questioned in the press, Scott made several anti-democratic statements in public, and Technocracy took on more and more the appearance of a totalitarian personality cult.
Many Wobblies, including particularly Ralph Chaplin, came under Scott's influence around 1919-20. Under the name, "Industrial Engineer", Scott wrote two articles for the One Big Union Monthly, "The Scourge of Politics in the Land of Manna", September 1920, and "Political Schemes in Industry", October 1920, which the editor hailed as "epoch-making". His influence is also clearly seen in a number of articles by others, including "Shop Organization for the Industries of the East: a Plan and a Prophesy", November 1920, by "A Shovel Stiff", which is posted on this site.
Scott persuaded the G. E. B. to establish a Bureau of Industrial Research (although the idea had been knocking around the union for some time), and to hire him to run it. The I. W. W. and Scott, however, seem to have become disillusioned with one another pretty fast. He never wrote any more of the promised series of "epoch-making" articles for the One Big Union Monthly. The bureau produced one very bad "industrial handbook" on agriculture and a number of articles for the One Big Union Monthly and Industrial Pioneer, some quite good.*
Technocracy, Inc. is still in existence and welcomes inquiries. Mr. George A. Wright, the editor of the North American Technocrat, very kindly sent me several of Technocracy's publications, including a pamphlet containing both of Scott's above-mentioned articles and a letter from the1960s in which Scott recalls his involvement with the I. W. W. (Scott's recollections of the period are markedly different from those of Chaplin.)
References:
Chaplin, Ralph,
Wobbly: the Rough-and-Tumble Story of an American Radical. (U. of Chicago Press, 1948)
Elsner, Henry, Jr., The Technocrats: Prophets of Automation (Syracuse U. Press, 1966)
Tyler, Robert L., "The I.W.W. and the Brain Workers", American Quarterly, XV (Spring 1963), 41-51
Courtesy of: http://www.iww.org/cic/history/scott.html
|
