Through the centuries, technological advancements have lifted up communities and societies all over the world, fueling economies and politics like never before. Today, technology infiltrates even one's personal autonomy, thanks to the changes brought about by automation, surveillance, data gathering, and other invasive technologies, all in the name of what is called technocracy.

But what is technocracy and how can Americans stop it from turning the U.S. into China?

"Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation" author Patrick Wood has an easy digestible definition of technocracy. In a recent chat with The Federalist, Wood calls back to the 1930's magazine called "The Technocrat," which gave the movement's name its meaning: "Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism, to produce and distribute services to the entire population."

Wood argues that what is called the "science of engineering" is in fact evident in China's social credit scoring system, the COVID-19 vaccine passports that are present in some American states, and propaganda. He explained that "social engineering" is the act of getting a group of people to do things that they may otherwise not agree to do.

Simply put, "it's just bullying," Wood said.

Wood warns that "technocracy is an economic system, not a political system" and yet many politicians are using its same concepts. Technocracy rose in the early 1930's in response to the Great Depression, during which Columbia University scientists and engineers saw that "capitalism was dead" and "invented a resource-based economic system that was intended to replace capitalism and free-market economics."

Like in the 1930's, technocracy today emerges as a response to a crisis, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. Boston Review's Jonathan White argued that "crisis management only blurs ever more the boundary between technocracy and politics."

"As personal discretion comes to the fore, the notion that technocrats are just enacting a set of delegated tasks becomes untenable -their power is more elastic," White wrote. He argued that contrary to scientific knowledge, know-how is "harder to objectify" because it is "more personalized and intuitive, invoked when things are already going wrong."

So the question is, "Should this authority not be contested?" The answer to that is, it should be.

Technocracy is evident in the West as it is in China with groups such as the World Economic Forum, which Wood said is using "The Great Reset" to "[bring] in the new international economic order." He believes that the World Economic Forum is pushing for a resource grab in which people "will own nothing" and live in "smart cities" where "controlling and monitoring of everything" goes on daily.

But Wood says that there is a way for technocracy to be prevented in the U.S. He encouraged people to engage with local elected leaders and "talk to people in an intelligent way." Wood believes that "civil discourse" must be taken back into the "civic community."

Wood pointed out that the United Nations did the same thing to America. Instead of going through "Washington DC or state governments," the UN "went directly to the cities." He said the UN was able to convince cities and counties "to go along with their agendas." He explained that if this is where the fight began, this is also where the push back needs to start.