Technate of America
- Title:
- Technate of America
- Alternate Title:
- Technate of America
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Scott, Howard
- Date:
- 1940
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2551.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2551_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1940 - 1959
- Subject:
- Politics & Government
World War II
Between the Wars - Measurement:
- 28 x 57 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map illustrates "The American Technate," a radical geopolitical proposal by a radical organization based on pseudo-scientific economics and authoritarian, nationalist politics.
As the Great Depression deepened in the early 1930s, Americans looked in desperation to a variety of radical social and political solutions. One of the most popular was "Technocracy," which "offered a seemingly scientific explanation of America's ills," namely, the "disastrous inefficiency" of "the wage-price system, the very heart of capitalism." The technocrats proposed abandoning business and representative government as the driving forces of our economy, and replacing them with massive social engineering centered on "technicians - especially engineers . . . as the efficient, scientific, anticapitalistic, elite capable of reorienting the economic order around rational production and distribution. Theirs was a clarion call for technicians to plan and engineer the new order." Akin 1977, ix-x.
"Politically unbiased experts in red-and-gray Technocracy uniforms would assay each nation's yearly energy output, then divide it fairly among the citizenry." Goods and services could be purchased at prices set out "on a table of energy equivalents calculated by objective Technocratic savants," all led by the "Great Engineer." Mann 2018, 273. While originally based on energy calculations by scientists at Columbia University, the Technocracy dogma was written by "a charismatic Greenwich Village layabout named Howard Scott." Scott, who "dismissed the world's businesspeople, social scientists, lawyers, and teachers as charlatans" (ibid., 273-74), was the long-time Director-in-Chief of Technocracy Incorporated. Its program was essentially a "techno-autocracy," with a self-perpetuating elite, overt hostility to "aliens and Asiatics," and a wide range of "fascist trappings." Temple 1943, 118-119.
By the outset of World War II, the popularity of the Technocracy movement had declined substantially, but it continued to be active. In July 1940 - as war raged in Europe while America had not engaged - Scott published the organization's position, "America - Now and Forever," in the Official Magazine of Technocracy Inc. Consistent with the movement's isolationist policy, it proposed a dramatic increase in the nation's continental defense. Among other things, the government was to greatly increase the size of the military; "conscript" all American means of transportation, communications systems, public utilities, manufacturing industries, mining enterprises, and patents; close all bars; "abolish" all foreign language periodicals, advertising, radio programs, and organizations; and prohibit outgoing transfers of currency (pp. 13-14).
Along with these proposed steps, Scott wrote that the territory of the United States must be expanded in order to defend it properly. The new "Technate of America" was to include all of Canada, Greenland, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of Columbia, Venezuela and the Guyanas. "Defense Bases" were to be established around the perimeter as far afield as Attu; Pago Pago; the Galapagos; Georgetown, Guyana; Bermuda; St. John's, Newfoundland; and Cape Farewell, Greenland. In Scott's words, "On the map accompanying this issue is delineated the geographical territory required for the adequate defense and operation of this Continental Area. . . . We should immediately acknowledge our planned intentions of consolidating these territories, not as separate political entities, but as part of the Continent of North America. . . . America must possess all North American territories on the accompanying map of the Technate, for the defense of this Continent." (Pp. 10, 12.)
How to achieve this monumental consolidation? "The government of the United States should take immediate action to acquire these territories and others, such as Greenland and the Galapagos Islands. The acquisition of these territories should be a mandatory part of the program of Continental defense for immediate achievement - either by purchase, negotiation, or the force of arms." (P. 12.)
The success of the New Deal had already reduced the attractiveness of Technocracy's economic and political proposals at the time this map was published, and the attack on Pearl Harbor ended support for the isolation of the United States. Technocracy Inc. nevertheless continued to evolve, and it exists to this day (see technocracyinc.org).
For other maps in the collection of proposed utopian governments, Search > "Utopian".
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Scott, Howard. 1940. "America Now and Forever." Technocracy. The New America. July 1940.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.