"Politicians and economists who argued for perpetual economic growth were deluded, Hubbert said. The population of the United States would hit a maximum "of probably not more than 135,000,000 people" in the 1950s, and after that the nation simply would not contain enough new consumers to need more consumer products. Hoodwinked by the fantasy of continuing growth, the ruling class had lost sight of these basic scientific realities. They were rushing toward inevitable disaster--after which they would be replaced, thank Heaven, by an elite corps of eco-engineering mandarins with the technical know-how to "operate the entire physical equipment of the North American Continent." In other words, Technocracy."