"Industrial Society and Its Future" Quotes

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system.

The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it may eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.

If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently, it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

The system has to force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior.

The industrial-technological system is sick. It is not simply that the system has no purpose except to sustain itself. What's even worse is that its efforts to sustain itself while preventing human suffering have led to human suffering of a different kind.

Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.

The system itself and not just individual misadventure and malfunctioning is the source of most social problems.

The system has put such a premium on efficiency that very little is being done to preserve natural beauty.