Technopoly

Neil Postman’s Technocracy to Technopoly, describes how technocracy evolved to become technopoly from the 19^th to the 20^th century. Postman stated that the United States has become a Technopoly, and in the paragraph before, he describes how Technopoly relates to Brave New World. That means that United States and the novel Brave New World are slightly similar because both are technopoly societies.

Postman explains that a Technocracy was, “a society only loosely controlled by social customs and religious tradition, and driven by the impulse to invent” (Postman 41). He also explains that a, “Technopoly, in other words, is totalitarian technocracy” (Postman 48). This is scary to think that the United States is considered a technopoly just like Brave New World. According to Postman, the United States does not really care if it was the first Technopoly, all that really matter is, “to remain the most highly developed” (Postman 48). Postman mentions, Fredrick W. Taylor, who was a part of the hearings for the Northeastern railroads. Although, the railroads were ruled against, Taylor created a system that could ultimately “solve everyone’s problem” (Postman 50). Taylor later published the book, The Principles of Scientific Management. The book included his belief that, “the primary, if not only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; human judgment cannot be trusted because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity” (Taylor). This belief relates completely to the belief system in Brave New World, “Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself; it does not make them illegal. It does not make them immortal. It does not even make them unpopular. It makes them invisible and irrelevant.” This relates to Brave New World because in the novel, the government has lead their people to believe in whatever they choose for them to believe in; everyone is predestined to be a part of a certain social class and there is no alternative.

Even though, the United States is considered to be a Technopoly, it is not as severe as the Technopoly in Brave New World (sigh of relief). The people in Brave New World can not think for themselves because the government controls what they should believe. In America, we have the right to believe in whatever we want to believe in, we have freedoms. Us Americans are always looking to improve technology to help better us as a nation, we are always striving for progress.