Technocrats believed that politicians and businessmen could not coordinate a complex, rapidly advancing industrial society. The technocrats proposed replacing politicians with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to coordinate the economy. The technocratic philosophy assumed that energy was the critical factor determining economic and social development. The technocrats measured social change in physical terms: the average number of kilocalories used per capita per day. Money would be replaced by energy certificates, the total supply of which would be determined by the total amount of energy used in the production of goods and services.^[6] The coming of the Great Depression created an opening for some of these radical ideas of social engineering.^[7][8] By late 1932, various groups across the United States were calling themselves "technocrats" and proposing reforms.^[9]

However, by the mid-1930s, interest in the technocracy movement was declining. Most historians have attributed the loss of popularity of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal,^[8] a more democratic method of accomplishing the planning and economic reconstruction that the technocrats had called for. According to author Beverly Burris, the Technocracy movement was interpreted as being non-democratic and controversial, and that may also have led to it losing mainstream appeal.^[10][11] Other sources have similarly reviewed the rise and decline of the technocracy movement in the 1930s.^[12][13]

Fed up with the Republican, Democratic and Tea parties? Well, 80 years ago the political landscape was full of splinter parties offering innovative solutions to the nation's troubles -- some of them quite good, some horrifying. Here's one movement that people were buzzing about back in 1932. Technocracy even got a mention in an Our Gang comedy.