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Yesterday night in a TV show, the Chief Reporter who was talking about our new technocrats government asked mockingly and rhetorically:

What is the technocrat's antonym? Perhaps "pafarist"...

This is actually not a word in my language, it's an invented one meaning "beyond (out of) everything or good at nothing", but its slang use is very widely spread.

I wonder: Is there an antonym of the word technocrat in English? I'm thinking of "Jack of all trades, master of none", but I'm not sure if it would fit well.

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  • Outside of the political context, I would suggest technophobe or possibly Luddite.
    – mkennedy
    Commented Nov 17, 2015 at 0:24

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technocrat basically means an ​expert in ​science or ​technology who has a lot of ​power in or ​influence with the ​government or ​industry. I referred a few other dictionaries and everywhere I found that 'expert in technology/science' and 'influence' or 'high position' in government are two things necessary to explain the word. So, having an antonym that is opposite to both of those meanings may not be possible.

In such a trap, I'd simply use the suffix 'non-'.

non-technocrat

As I see some examples from the news sites and books, the word 'non-technocrat' is not strange to use.

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  • Thanks, very simple indeed. What about anarchist, can it ever be an antonym of the word in question?
    – Lucian Sava
    Commented Nov 16, 2015 at 11:32
  • No, it's completely different. Does not involve 'technology/science' and top of all, is not linked with any influence.
    – Maulik V
    Commented Nov 16, 2015 at 11:57

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