[15][16] Before the term technocracy was coined, technocratic or quasi-technocratic ideas involving governance by technical experts were promoted by various individuals, most notably early socialist theorists such as Henri de Saint-Simon.
Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings, which were highly influential, suggest that he was concerned that a coming revolution against capitalism could lead to a technocratic society.
Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable with the applied use of technology and related applications.
The administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson theorizes that technocrats are primarily driven by their cognitive "problem-solution mindsets" and only in part by particular occupational group interests.
Their activities and the increasing success of their ideas are thought to be a crucial factor behind the modern spread of technology and the largely ideological concept of the "information society".
[28] The briefing suggests that this system, which elevates the European Parliament to a vetoing and amending body, was "originally rooted in the mistrust of the political process in post-war Europe".
[4] Since the 1990s, Italy has had several such governments (in Italian, governo tecnico) in times of economic or political crisis,[29][30] including the formation in which economist Mario Monti presided over a cabinet of unelected professionals.
[36][37][38][39]: 34 The article "Technocrats: Minds Like Machines"[5] states that Singapore is perhaps the best advertisement for technocracy: the political and expert components of the governing system there seem to have merged completely.
This was underlined in a 1993 article in Wired by Sandy Sandfort,[40] where he describes the information technology system of the island even at that early date making it effectively intelligent.
[42] The American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen was an early advocate of technocracy and was involved in the Technical Alliance, as were Howard Scott and M. King Hubbert (the latter of whom later developed the theory of peak oil).
Veblen saw socialism as one intermediate phase in an ongoing evolutionary process in society that would be brought about by the natural decay of the business enterprise system and the rise of the engineers.
The group argued that apolitical, rational engineers should be vested with the authority to guide an economy into a thermodynamically balanced load of production and consumption, thereby doing away with unemployment and debt.
[49][50] As major multinational technology corporations (e.g., FAANG) swell market caps and customer counts, critiques of technocratic government in the 21st century see its manifestation in American politics not as an "authoritarian nightmare of oppression and violence" but rather as an éminence grise: a democratic cabal directed by Mark Zuckerberg and the entire cohort of "Big Tech" executives.
[59] In a broader sense, critics fear that the rise of social media networks (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest), coupled with the "decline in mainstream engagement", imperil the "networked young citizen" to inconspicuous coercion and indoctrination by algorithmic mechanisms, and, less insidiously, to the persuasion of particular candidates based predominantly on "Social Media engagement".
[60][61][62] In a 2022 article published in Boston Review, political scientist Matthew Cole highlights two problems with technocracy: that it creates "unjust concentrations of power" and that the concept itself is poorly defined.
With respect to the second, he argues that the value of expertise is overestimated in technocratic systems, and points to an alternative concept of "smart democracy" which enlists the knowledge of ordinary citizens.