Technopoly: Monopoly to the Extreme!

In Brave New World, we see a Technopoly through the progression of society since Ford’s Model T.  Progression grew exponentially, as was mentioned in Kurzweil’s article from last week’s post.  By employing a Technopolic society, "...workers would have to abandon any traditional rules of thumb they were accustomed to using:  in fact, workers were relieved of any responsibility to think at all.  The system would do their thinking for them.  That is crucial, because it led to the idea that technique of any kind can do our thinking for us, which is among the basic principles of Technopoly."  In the novel, the Technopolic society isn’t as bad as we may see it today, because in the novel, everything revolves around efficiency and pleasure.  In comparison, Postman insightfully writes, "In a technocracy- that is, a society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent- an "unseen hand" will eliminate the incompetent and reward those who produce cheaply and well the goods that people want."  In other words, As long as the citizens keep the quotas up and do not go against the customs of society, they can have pleasure at will.  Postman also states, "Arkwright trained workers, mostly children, "to conform to the regular celerity of the machine,"".  Is this not present in both 1984 and Brave New World?  In the former, children were trained by the media and society from a young age to report traitors and heretics; sometimes they reported their own parents.  In the latter, children are produced—not born—to be efficient.  Everything they do is for “Our Ford” and to replicate his example of efficiency and technological progress.  Continually, Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote a book stating that, "the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking, that what  cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value, and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts."  But then again, why would we want to be anything but efficient?  Wouldn’t our economy prosper more if we pushed efficiency of machines and people to the maximum?  By doing this, however, we could lose some of the characteristics that make us human, as I mentioned last week.  Efficiency=pleasure, peace, and prosperity?  I’m not so sure.