Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Technocrats

On the left, Marion King Hubbert (1903-1989), originator of the "Hubbert Model" of oil production. On the right, Mario Monti (1943-), prime minister of the Italian government. They seem to share a certain style and both of them have been defined as "technocrats". 


Marion King Hubbert had foreseen many things correctly in his career, mainly about oil production. But he had also joined a group called the "technocrats" who proposed that technical experts should run governments. Maybe he was right also in this prediction, as the recent events in Italy may indicate.

Professor Mario Monti has been appointed by the President of the Republic as the new head of the Italian Government, replacing the democratically elected, but disastrous, Silvio Berlusconi. I am not sure of whether Mr. Monti likes to be defined as a "technocrat,"  but the term fits his present job very well. Is this the start of a new trend? It is too early to say but, who knows?


Big Gav has an interesting post on "peak Energy" about the rise of Mario Monti in Italy .

Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome, faculty member of the University of Florence, and the author of "Extracted" (Chelsea Green 2014), "The Seneca Effect" (Springer 2017), and Before the Collapse (Springer 2019)