技術(shù)治國運動的啟示

One of history’s recurring themes is that technology sometimes outruns society, leaving politicians gasping to catch up with the consequences. So it was with the impact of the printing press, the steam engine and the computer. Arguably, so it is again today with gene editing, social media and artificial intelligence. 歷史上反復出現(xiàn)的一個主題是，科技發(fā)展有時會超前于社會，讓政治人士滿頭大汗地跟在后面處理隨之而來的后果。印刷機、蒸汽機和電腦的出現(xiàn)就是如此。如今，基因編輯、社交媒體和人工智能的出現(xiàn)可以說同樣如此。

While technologists often rail that politicians just do not “get” technology, politicians counter that technologists all too rarely grasp politics. 技術(shù)專家經(jīng)常抱怨政治人士不“懂”技術(shù)，政治人士則反擊道，技術(shù)專家大多數(shù)時候也不懂政治。

One fascinating example of both sides of the debate was the history of the technocracy movement that briefly flourished in North America in the 1930s. The “revolt of the engineers”, as it was called, holds some interesting lessons for today. 對辯論雙方都適用的一個有趣例子是上世紀30年代在北美短暫興盛的技術(shù)治國(technocracy)運動。這場當時被稱為“工程師起義”(revolt of the engineers)的運動，有不少地方值得今天的人們思考。

It was understandable that radical movements emerged in the US in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression, just as communism and fascism proliferated in Europe. The technocracy movement argued that the best way out of the crisis was to reject the messiness of the market and old-fashioned politics and adopt a “modern scientific point of view”. 可以理解的是，上世紀30年代，各種回應“大蕭條”(Great Depression)的激進運動在美國興起，正如共產(chǎn)主義和法西斯主義當時在歐洲興起。技術(shù)治國運動提出，擺脫危機的最佳方法是拒絕亂糟糟的市場體系以及老式的政治，采用一種“現(xiàn)代、科學的觀點”。

In their Introduction to Technocracy 在1933年出版的《技術(shù)治國序言》(Introduction to Technocracy)中，這項運動的領(lǐng)導人宣布，過時的社會體制“糟粕”阻礙了進步，應該讓政治人士靠邊站，就像煉金術(shù)士和占星家以前為科學讓路一樣。傳統(tǒng)經(jīng)濟學一味關(guān)注主觀的定價機制、而不是理性的生產(chǎn)，無異于一套“債務(wù)病理學”。

, published in 1933, the movement’s leaders declared that the “riff-raff” of outdated social institutions was blocking progress and politicians should be swept aside, just as alchemists and astrologers had previously given way to science. Traditional economics, obsessed with arbitrary pricing mechanisms rather than rational production, was nothing more than the “pathology of debt”. “與政治的爾虞我詐、金融和經(jīng)商的胡亂摸索不同……我們有運用于科學和技術(shù)中的方法。”這項運動的宣言稱，“如今，現(xiàn)代常識在呼吁自然科學和技術(shù)擴大它們領(lǐng)域的邊界。”

“In contrast to the devious ways of politics, the fumbling methods of finance and business . . . we have the methods of science and technology,” the movement’s manifesto declared. “Modern common sense is now calling upon physical science and technology to extend the frontiers of their domain.” 歷史學家威廉•E•埃金(William E Akin)指出了新興的技術(shù)治國論的3個源泉：進步改革者對中央規(guī)劃的日益重視;認為工程師能夠拯救美國社會的大眾迷思;以及費雷德里克•W•泰勒(Frederick W Taylor)的科學管理理論。

The historian William E Akin identified three wellsprings for budding technocrats: a growing fashion for centralised planning among progressive reformers; the popular mythology of the engineer as the saviour of American society; and the scientific management theories of Frederick W Taylor. 取消價格機制和生產(chǎn)最大化與當時蘇聯(lián)正在發(fā)生的事情有明顯的可比性。在閃爍著思想光芒的反烏托邦小說《我們》(We)中，俄羅斯作家葉甫蓋尼•扎米亞京(Yevgeny Zamyatin)痛斥了這種技術(shù)治國思維，在他預見的社會里，人們沒有名字，只有數(shù)字代號，就像一臺大型工業(yè)機器中的齒輪一樣活著。不過，北美的技術(shù)治國運動強烈反對共產(chǎn)主義和法西斯主義，并自稱有人情味得多。

Abolishing the price mechanism and maximising production had some obvious parallels with what was happening in the Soviet Union. In his brilliant dystopian novel We 盡管媒體給予高度關(guān)注，但技術(shù)治國運動在美國始終沒有成功，這主要是因為其領(lǐng)導人對政治一竅不通。拯救了資本主義的是美國總統(tǒng)富蘭克林•D•羅斯福(Franklin D Roosevelt)的“羅斯福新政”(New Deal)?；蛟S，這項運動的最大失敗在于它始終未提出一套普通選民能夠理解的切合實際的解決方案。對于純理性未能所向披靡感到失望的技術(shù)治國運動最終分崩離析，這項運動的一個分支最終變成一個準法西斯粉絲俱樂部。

, the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin savaged such technocratic thinking, foreseeing a society in which people had numbers, not names, and operated like cogs in a vast industrial machine. The North American technocracy movement, though, argued fiercely against both communism and fascism and claimed to be much more humane. 在北邊的加拿大，技術(shù)治國運動備受重視，以至于遭到了當局的禁止——因為擔心該運動計劃推翻政府。該黨心灰意冷的領(lǐng)導人、冒險家喬書亞•霍爾德曼(Joshua Haldeman)后來拋棄了加拿大，搬到了南非。

In spite of the media interest, the technocracy movement never succeeded in the US, largely because its leaders were hopeless politicians. President Franklin D Roosevelt was the one to salvage capitalism through his New Deal. Perhaps the movement’s greatest failing was that it never spelt out practical solutions that ordinary voters could understand. Disappointed that pure reason had not swept all before it, the movement eventually split, with one splinter group ending up as a quasi-fascist fan club. 該運動的核心是這樣一種理念：人類行為是可計量的，最終也是可預測的。其宣言聲稱：“技術(shù)治國做出了一個基本假設(shè)：一種社會機制的正常運行所包含的現(xiàn)象是可以測量的。”

North of the border, the technocracy movement was taken so seriously that it was banned by the Canadian authorities, fearing it planned to overthrow the government. The party’s disillusioned leader, the adventurer Joshua Haldeman, later abandoned Canada and moved to South Africa. 這種思想的余暉如今似乎在美國的西海岸再次閃現(xiàn)，體現(xiàn)為作家葉夫根尼•莫羅佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)所稱的技術(shù)“解決主義”(solutionism)。根據(jù)這種世界觀，技術(shù)可以解決幾乎所有問題，分析人類的最好辦法是將其視為數(shù)據(jù)點的集合。

At the heart of the movement was the belief that human action was measurable and, ultimately, predictable. “Technocracy makes one basic postulate: that the phenomena involved in the functional operation of a social mechanism are metrical,” its manifesto claimed. 政治人士的回應是，人類行為無法計算。無論個人還是人類集體的行為，都變著花樣地不理性。我們很難超越伊曼努爾•康德(Immanuel Kant)的名言：“人性這根曲木，決然造不出任何筆直的東西。”

Flashes of that mentality appear to have resurfaced on the West Coast of the US today in what the writer Evgeny Morozov has called technological “solutionism”. According to this worldview, technology has the answer to almost every problem and humans can best be analysed as collections of data points. 不過，技術(shù)治國運動這段歷史留下了一個微小但頗為有趣的腳注，在今天可能格外有意義。霍爾德曼有一個外孫叫埃隆•馬斯克(Elon Musk)，這位航天企業(yè)家計劃把我們變成一個穿梭于星際的物種。

The politicians’ response is that human behaviour is not computable. Both individually and collectively we act in refreshingly irrational ways. It is hard to improve on Immanuel Kant’s famous dictum: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” 或許，技術(shù)治國最終將在火星上大放異彩——這倒是挺搭的。

One small, but intriguing, footnote in the history of the technocracy movement, though, may have particular resonance today. One of Haldeman’s grandsons is Elon Musk, the space entrepreneur who aims to turn us into an interplanetary species.