Authoritarianism/"Guided Democracy": Answer for the US?, page 1

Having read a bit about B.F. Skinner and a couple of his works, it seems I must respond to this thread. For the record, I have never actually read Beyond, but I have read Walden Two for a psych project a few years back (after delving into Law of Effects, and John Watson, etc).

I think I am going to delve very briefly into a bit of the Economics and History of such claims that Skinner has made.

Econ-

John Maynard Keynes himself said that central planning would be much easier to achieve without the bogging down of an aristocracy or politicians.
As much as you can plan an economy, create the carrot and the stick mentality, it can only work if all outcomes are predetermined and predicted.

I have two major problems with this.

In order to work, the outcome must be predicted. As much as the future can be predicted, there are huge levels of unknown. We cannot even perceive how the world would work in 100 years, unless we intentionally stunted technological growth. This goes into direct conflict with what Skinner says in his ideas of technological revolution. Even if certain aspects of technology can be orchastrated and guided toward the future, this would mean that the technological revolutions that could (and easily would) exist in black markets and grey markets would have to be suppressed. I see a scenario like this occuring.... The technocracy inches technology forward, while a seperate, illegal, and further advaced group acts in parallel creating technologies beyond the wildest dreams of the technocrats. The technocrats would render themselves irrelevant.

The other problem lies in the Dignity. If people are coached and coerced or 'pushed' into creating, and producing.... who does the pushing? If no one is to have credit for thier actions, certainly some unknown group of humans are responsible for the guidance. We must not forget that humans are humans, no matter how wise, or how many PHD's they have. You can't expect a group of people to be enlightened enough to guide others selflessly.

The problems lies with this idea is that, the central planner must be correct, and cannot be self-serving. The 20th and early part of the 21st century is a testament to how even these post-theocratic ideas won't work. The experiments have thus far failed.... mostof which, horrifically.

I hope this dicussion will expand.

My two basic premises to opposing Skinner:
1: The impossibility of accurately predicting the future, even while closely controlling it and....
2: The arragance of someone who thinks they can perform '1' while at the same time maintaining a level of objectivity.