Parag Khanna Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State

Parag Khanna's 'Technocracy in America' (2017) offers interesting insights in the working (or not working) of democracy. Is liberal democracy the endgoal of all governmental systems or is it just one of the possible choices? According to Khanna, politics is not about the talk, it's about results. However quite some people nowadays feel abandonned by their politicians, because they don't produce the desired results anymore. Modern technology offers more possibilities for direct democracy ( like the referendums in Switzerland ) and meritocracy should prevail over political cronyism, the best technocrats should serve in governments ( like in Singapore ). This leads Khanna to the proposal of what he calls 'Direct Technocracy' as a form of government that could be preferred over democracy.

Technocracy, in the words of the author (paraphrasing), is essentially utilitarianism with an optimal amount of democracy. One does not surmise this until about the 60% mark in the book - an oversimplistic definition with unclear and non-experiential cause and effect. Singapore weighed more on the utilitarianism side and Switzerland weighed more on the democratic side, are the author's two shining examples of technocracies in the world with various small EU and Asian countries possessing convex combinations of the technocracy twin characteristics. In stark contrast, America is presented as a fumbling example of an over-democratized regime - complete with governmental elites. Trumpites see this as a timely proposal, but in fact, the author points out that the Trumpian cabinet picks are exact poster boys for the poison being described - elite friends with no technical prowess in their respective potential departments (in an interview about this book). In actuality, they are worse as they are the antithesis of each.The author assumes, in this thesis, that competent technical human beings will do just enough to uphold a democratic structure for all with some help from balancing counter-actors in the political structure while simultaneously optimizing the good of the state (usually financially). He downgrades lawyers and policy wonks as not being capable of this feat. While he lists examples of a technical approach to government, going overboard by way of historically brutal dictatorships and meritocracies, he seems to posit that a highly competent and technically minded leader will be able to be balanced by their own good-will towards a humanistic end. Alas, power corrupts absolutely when one believes they are in the existential right. Having a finite group (seven or so) presidents or high counsel leaders with meritocratic ties can still produce a potential for group-think in policy that would last until the next election cycle. In the meantime, election laws can be changed and congressional (lower level) election districts redrawn that would affect all future political structures barring an all out revolution. Technocrats have been shown to be equally capable of this deceit as are policy specialists, lawyers, clergy, military, law enforcement, and the average human activist. There are too many and numerous nebulous factors involved in societal group swaying and inceptions to label an equally nebulous label of technocracy as the next utopian (or dystopian) idea. The US Consitution remains the most mysterious of human inventions to govern a group in history. It (the founders) knew what they did not know about human behavior (a lot) and instead, under the stresses of being put to death, left it somewhat open to interpretation, extension, and contraction without a hint of automatic thinking. Singapore and Switzerland can learn from that as well.