Worth noting that while fascism doesn’t have its own unique economic system per se, it does have some common tendencies, including a mutually supportive relationship between the largest and most well-connected companies and the government, and a “revolving door” by which business leaders also hold government office and vice versa.

I think a technocracy would initially be relatively better, but would rapidly decline and likely end up worse.

Initially, there would be some significant number of genuinely sincere people who would be well-positioned to move into the positions of power, and the requirement of technical expertise would eliminate a lot of the scumbags.

Over time though, the scumbags would figure out which hoops they needed to jump through in order to qualify for office, then they’d start co-opting that system, so that eventually, well-connected scumbags would, if anything, actually have an easier time of obtaining the necessary credentials than actual experts would.

I have no proposal for a non-hierarchical system because that’s the exact sort of collective thinking that leads to hierarchical systems.

A non-hierarchical system can’t be implemented. Rather, it can only be the result of all the paticipants in a system (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference) butting out of each other’s decisions.

At that point, it will and can only take whatever form it takes - whatever the manifestation of the unconstrained decisions of all of the participants might end up being.

There are two levels of problems with a technocracy.

The first is a problem that’s common to all hierarchical systems, entirely regardless of their specific nature. They will, each and all, sooner or later come to be dominated by people who hold the positions they hold solely because they most lust for those positions and are most willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to gain and hold them.

It makes no difference what sort of limitations or stipulations might be in place - if there is a position that holds authority over others, it will eventually come to be held by the most vicious and conniving bastard in the organization, because they will be willing and able to go to lengths to which nobody else will go.

The second problem with a technocracy is ancillary to the first, and common to all hierarchical systems that focus on some specific philosophy or identity. The positions of power will still come to be held by the most determined psychopaths, but unlike in a more general system, the abusers in power will have an additional claim to legitimacy by paying lip service to the ideal. They’re generally able to act even more destructively than other psychopaths, since they can hide their malevolence behind the philosophy or identity both before and after the fact.

Or more simply - problem 1 is that you end up with psychopathic assholes, and problem 2 is that you end up with psychopathic assholes who have even more power than your run-of-the-mill psychopathic assholes because, after all, they’re experts.

Shh!

Don’t let the Republicans know that their cynical attempt to further depress voter turnout is going to disproportionately affect their own supporters!

Some kind of dark ages - yes.

I suspect it will be considered the Lunatic Age or the Misinformation Age or the Willfully Ignorant Age or something like that, since its most distinctive characteristic, in retrospect, is likely to be the oddity that the creation of the most efficient and comprehensive information-sharing system the world has yet seen led pretty much directly to a worldwide epidemic of ignorance, stupidity, irrationality, and insanity.

Yes.

And even beyond that - hierarchical systems effectively reward and thus select for psychopathy.

People with morals, ethics, integrity and/or empathy will refrain from making choices that would conflict with their principles, while people without any of those things are free to pursue any course of action that will benefit them, with no concern for anything else.

So all other things being more or less equal, psychopaths actually have a competitive advantage in hierarchical systems.

And it shows.

If the world was a just place, it would cost them their lives, since by cutting the sole source of healthcare funding for many of the poorest Americans, they’re effectively committing mass murder, so should be tried, and if convicted, sentenced just as any other mass murderers would be.

Or better yet, if they were just minimally decent human beings, they wouldn’t condemn poor people to avoidable sickness and death in the first place.

I think this is only partly about the need to keep the value of commercial real estate inflated.

I think there’s a more fundamental psychological motivation.

The illusion that the C-suite actually contributes value sufficient to arguably justify their obscene salaries depends in large part on them sitting in offices at the top of a building full of workers.

If the building is not full of workers, that threatens the illusion.

psychopath /sī′kə-păth″/

noun

1. A person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized.

2. A person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse.

So… Trump voters?

I think they’re analogous to people who would stand and watch a stoning, then congratulate themselves on not having thrown any rocks themselves.