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<title>D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?</title>

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<h1>D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?</h1>

<p>
Technology has an obvious effect on individual freedom, in some ways
increasing it, in others restricting it. However, since capitalism is 
a social system based on inequalities of power, it is a truism that
technology will reflect those inequalities as it does not develop 
in a social vacuum. As Bookchin puts it:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Along side its positive aspects, technological advance has a distinctly
negative, socially regressive side. If it is true that technological
progress enlarges the historical potentiality for freedom, it is also
true that the bourgeois control of technology reinforces the 
established organisation of society and everyday life. Technology
and the resources of abundance furnish capitalism with the means 
for assimilating large sections of society to the established system
of hierarchy and authority . . . By their centralistic and 
bureaucratic tendencies, the resource of abundance reinforce the 
monopolistic, centralistic and bureaucratic tendencies in the 
political apparatus . . . [Technology can be used] for perpetuating
hierarchy, exploitation and unfreedom."</i> [<b>Post-Scarcity Anarchism</b>,
p. 3]
</blockquote></p><p>
No technology evolves and spreads unless there are people who benefit 
from it and have sufficient means to disseminate it. In a capitalist 
society, technologies useful to the rich and powerful are generally 
the ones that spread. This can be seen from capitalist industry, where 
technology has been implemented specifically to deskill the worker, so 
replacing the skilled, valued craftsperson with the easily trained and 
replaced "mass worker." By making trying to make any individual 
worker dispensable, the capitalist hopes to deprive workers of a means 
of controlling the relation between their effort on the job and the pay 
they receive. In Proudhon's words, the <i>"machine, or the workshop, after
having degraded the labourer by giving him a master, completes his
degeneracy by reducing him from the rank of artisan to that of common
workman."</i> [<b>System of Economical Contradictions</b>, p. 202]
</p><p>
So, unsurprisingly, technology within a hierarchical society will tend
to re-enforce hierarchy and domination. Managers/capitalists will select
technology that will protect and extend their power (and profits), not
weaken it. Thus, while it is often claimed that technology is "neutral"
this is not (and can never be) the case. Simply put, "progress" within
a hierarchical system will reflect the power structures of that system.
</p><p>
As sociologist George Reitzer notes, technological innovation under a 
hierarchical system soon results in <i>"increased control and the replacement 
of human with non-human technology. In fact, the replacement of human with
non-human technology is very often motivated by a desire for greater
control, which of course is motivated by the need for profit-maximisation. 
The great sources of uncertainty and unpredictability in any rationalising 
system are people . . . McDonaldisation involves the search for the means 
to exert increasing control over both employees and customers."</i> [<b>The 
McDonaldisation of Society</b>, p. 100] For Reitzer, capitalism is marked 
by the <i>"irrationality of rationality,"</i> in which this process of control 
results in a system based on crushing the individuality and humanity of 
those who live within it.
</p><p>
In this process of controlling employees for the purpose of maximising
profit, deskilling comes about because skilled labour is more expensive
than unskilled or semi-skilled and skilled workers have more power over 
their working conditions and work due to the difficulty in replacing
them. Unskilled labour makes it easier to "rationalise" the production 
process with methods like Taylorism, a system of strict production schedules 
and activities based on the amount of time (as determined by management) 
that workers "need" to perform various operations in the workplace, thus 
requiring simple, easily analysed and timed movements. As companies 
are in competition, each has to copy the most "efficient" (i.e. profit 
maximising) production techniques introduced by the others in order to 
remain profitable, no matter how dehumanising this may be for workers. 
Thus the evil effects of the division of labour and deskilling becoming 
widespread. Instead of managing their own work, workers are turned into 
human machines in a labour process they do not control, instead being
controlled by those who own the machines they use (see also Harry Braverman,
<b>Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth
Century</b>). 
</p><p>
As Max Stirner noted (echoing Adam Smith), this process of deskilling and
controlling work means that <i>"[w]hen everyone is to cultivate himself into
man, condemning a man to <b>machine-like labour</b> amounts to the same thing
as slavery. . . . Every labour is to have the intent that the man be
satisfied. Therefore he must become a <b>master</b> in it too, be able to
perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-factory only puts on heads, only
draws the wire, works, as it were mechanically, like a machine; he remains
half-trained, does not become a master: his labour cannot <b>satisfy</b> him,
it can only <b>fatigue</b> him. His labour is nothing by itself, has no object
<b>in itself,</b> is nothing complete in itself; he labours only into another's
hands, and is <b>used</b> (exploited) by this other."</i> [<b>The Ego and Its Own</b>, 
p. 121] Kropotkin makes a similar argument against the division of
labour (<i>"machine-like labour"</i>) in <b>The Conquest of Bread</b> (see chapter 
XV -- <i>"The Division of Labour"</i>) as did Proudhon (see chapters III and
IV of <b>System of Economical Contradictions</b>).
</p><p>
Modern industry is set up to ensure that workers do not become "masters"
of their work but instead follow the orders of management. The evolution
of technology lies in the relations of power within a society. This is
because <i>"the viability of a design is not simply a technical or even
economic evaluation but rather a political one. A technology is deemed
viable if it conforms to the existing relations of power."</i> [David Noble,
<b>Progress without People</b>, p. 63]
</p><p>
This process of controlling, restricting, and de-individualising labour 
is a key feature of capitalism. Work that is skilled and controlled by
workers is empowering to them in two ways. Firstly it gives them pride
in their work and themselves. Secondly, it makes it harder to replace
them or suck profits out of them. Therefore, in order to remove the
"subjective" factor (i.e. individuality and worker control) from the 
work process, capital needs methods of controlling the workforce to 
prevent workers from asserting their individuality, thus preventing 
them from arranging their own lives and work and resisting the authority 
of the bosses. This need to control workers can be seen from the type of 
machinery introduced during the Industrial Revolution. According to 
Andrew Ure (author of <b>Philosophy of Manufactures</b>), a consultant for 
the factory owners at the time: 
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"In the factories for spinning coarse yarn . . . the mule-spinners 
[skilled workers] have abused their powers beyond endurance, domineering 
in the most arrogant manner . . . over their masters. High wages, instead
of leading to thankfulness of temper and improvement of mind, have, in 
too many cases, cherished pride and supplied funds for supporting 
refractory spirits in strikes . . . During a disastrous turmoil of [this] 
kind . . . several of the capitalists . . . had recourse to the celebrated 
machinists . . . of Manchester . . . [to construct] a self-acting mule 
. . . This invention confirms the great doctrine already propounded, that 
when capital enlists science in her service, the refractory hand of labour 
will always be taught docility."</i> [quoted by Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 125]
</blockquote></p><p>
Proudhon quotes an English Manufacturer who argues the same point:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"The insubordination of our workmen has given us the idea of dispensing
with them. We have made and stimulated every imaginable effort to replace
the service of men by tools more docile, and we have achieved our object.
Machinery has delivered capital from the oppression of labour."</i> [<b>System
of Economical Contradictions</b>, p. 189]
</blockquote></p><p>
It is important to stress that technological innovation was not driven
by reasons of economic efficiency as such but rather to break the power
of workers at the point of production. Once that was done, initially 
uneconomic investments could become economically viable. As David Noble 
summarises, during the Industrial Revolution <i>"Capital invested in machines 
that would reinforce the system of domination [in the workplace], and this 
decision to invest, which might in the long run render the chosen technique 
economical, was not itself an economical decision but a political one, with 
cultural sanction."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 6] 
</p><p>
Needless to say, this use of technology within the class war continued.
A similar process was at work in the US, where the rise in trade unionism
resulted in <i>"industrial managers bec[oming] even more insistent that skill 
and initiative not be left on the shop floor, and that, by the same token, 
shop floor workers not have control over the reproduction of relevant 
skills through craft-regulated apprenticeship training. Fearful that 
skilled shop-floor workers would use their scare resources to reduce 
their effort and increase their pay, management deemed that knowledge 
of the shop-floor process must reside with the managerial structure."</i> 
[William Lazonick, <b>Organisation and Technology in Capitalist 
Development</b>, p. 273]
</p><p>
American managers happily embraced Taylorism (aka "scientific management"), 
according to which the task of the manager was to gather into his possession 
all available knowledge about the work he oversaw and reorganise it. Taylor
himself considered the task for workers was <i>"to do what they are told to
do promptly and without asking questions or making suggestions."</i> [quoted
by David Noble, <b>American By Design</b>, p. 268] Taylor also relied exclusively
upon incentive-pay schemes which mechanically linked pay to productivity
and had no appreciation of the subtleties of psychology or sociology (which
would have told him that enjoyment of work and creativity is more important
for people than just higher pay). Unsurprisingly, workers responded to
his schemes by insubordination, sabotage and strikes and it was <i>"discovered
. . . that the 'time and motion' experts frequently knew very little
about the proper work activities under their supervision, that often they
simply guessed at the optimum rates for given operations . . . it meant
that the arbitrary authority of management has simply been reintroduced
in a less apparent form."</i> [David Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 272] Although, now,
the power of management could hide begin the "objectivity" of "science."
</p><p>
Katherine Stone also argues that the <i>"transfer of skill [from the 
worker to management] was not a response to the necessities of production, 
but was, rather, a strategy to rob workers of their power"</i> by <i>"tak[ing]
knowledge and authority from the skilled workers and creating a management
cadre able to direct production."</i> Stone highlights that this deskilling 
process was combined by a <i>"divide and rule"</i> policy by management based 
on wage incentives and new promotion policies. This created a reward 
system in which workers who played by the rules would receive concrete 
gains in terms of income and status. Over time, such a structure would 
become to be seen as <i>"the natural way to organise work and one which 
offered them personal advancement"</i> even though, <i>"when the system was 
set up, it was neither obvious nor rational. The job ladders were created 
just when the skill requirements for jobs in the industry were diminishing 
as a result of the new technology, and jobs were becoming more and more
equal as to the learning time and responsibility involved."</i> The modern 
structure of the capitalist workplace was created to break workers 
resistance to capitalist authority and was deliberately <i>"aimed at altering 
workers' ways of thinking and feeling -- which they did by making workers' 
individual 'objective' self-interests congruent with that of the employers 
and in conflict with workers' collective self-interest."</i> It was a means of 
<i>"labour discipline"</i> and of <i>"motivating workers to work for the employers' 
gain and preventing workers from uniting to take back control of 
production."</i> Stone notes that the <i>"development of the new labour 
system in the steel industry was repeated throughout the economy in
different industries. As in the steel industry, the core of these new
labour systems were the creation of artificial job hierarchies and the
transfer of skills from workers to the managers."</i> [<i>"The Origins of Job 
Structure in the Steel Industry,"</i> pp. 123-157, Root & Branch (ed.), 
<b>Root and Branch: The Rise of the Workers' Movements</b>, p. 155, p. 153, 
p. 152 and pp. 153-4] 
</p><p>
This process of deskilling workers was complemented by other factors -- 
state protected markets (in the form of tariffs and government orders -- 
the <i>"lead in technological innovation came in armaments where assured 
government orders justified high fixed-cost investments"</i>); the use of 
<i>"both political and economic power [by American Capitalists] to eradicate 
and diffuse workers' attempts to assert shop-floor control"</i>; and <i>"repression, 
instigated and financed both privately and publicly, to eliminate radical 
elements [and often not-so-radical elements as well, we must note] in the 
American labour movement."</i> [William Lazonick, <b>Competitive Advantage on 
the Shop Floor</b>, p. 218 and p. 303] Thus state action played a key role 
in destroying craft control within industry, along with the large financial 
resources of capitalists compared to workers. Bringing this sorry story 
up to date, we find <i>"many, if not most, American managers are reluctant 
to develop skills [and initiative] on the shop floor for the fear of 
losing control of the flow of work."</i> [William Lazonick, <b>Organisation 
and Technology in Capitalist Development</b>, pp. 279-280] Nor should we
forget that many technologies are the product of state aid. For example,
in the case of automation <i>"the state, especially the military, has 
played a central role. Not only has it subsidised extravagant developments
that the market could not or refused to bear but it absorbed excessive 
costs and thereby kept afloat those competitors who would otherwise 
have sunk."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 83]
</p><p>
Given that there is a division of knowledge in society (and, obviously, 
in the workplace as well) this means that capitalism has selected to 
introduce a management and technology mix which leads to inefficiency 
and waste of valuable knowledge, experience and skills. Thus the 
capitalist workplace is both produced by and is a weapon in the class 
struggle and reflects the shifting power relations between workers and 
employers. The creation of artificial job hierarchies, the transfer of 
skills away from workers to managers and technological development are 
all products of class struggle. Thus technological progress and workplace 
organisation within capitalism have little to do with "efficiency" and 
far more to do with profits and power. <i>"Capitalism does not utilise a
socially nature technology for capitalist ends,"</i> Cornelius Castoriadis 
correctly argued. It has <i>"created a capitalist technology, which is by 
no means neutral. The real intention of capitalist technology is not 
to develop production for production's sake: It is to subordinate 
and dominate the producers"</i> and <i>"to eliminate the human element in 
productive labour."</i> This means that capitalist technologies will 
evolve, that there is <i>"a process of 'natural selection,' affecting
technical inventions as they are applied to industry. Some are 
preferred to others"</i> and will be <i>"the ones that fit in with capitalism's
basic need to deal with labour power as a measurable, supervisable, and
interchangeable commodity."</i> Thus technology will be selected <i>"within the
framework of its own class rationality."</i> [<b>Social and Political Writings</b>, 
vol. 2, p. 104]
</p><p>
This means that while self-management has consistently proven to be more 
efficient (and empowering) than hierarchical management structures, 
capitalism actively selects <b>against</b> it. This is because capitalism is 
motivated purely by increasing the power and profits for the bosses, and 
both are best done by disempowering workers and empowering bosses (i.e. 
the maximisation of power) -- even though this concentration of power 
harms efficiency by distorting and restricting information flow and the 
gathering and use of widely distributed knowledge within the firm (as 
in any command economy) as well as having a serious impact on the wider 
economy and social efficiency. Thus the last refuge of the capitalist
or technophile (namely that the productivity gains of technology outweigh 
the human costs or the means used to achieve them) is doubly flawed. 
Firstly, disempowering technology may maximise profits, but it need not 
increase efficient utilisation of resources or workers' time, skills or 
potential. Secondly, <i>"when investment does in fact generate innovation, 
does such innovation yield greater productivity? . . . After conducting 
a poll of industry executives on trends in automation, <b>Business Week</b> 
concluded in 1982 that 'there is a heavy backing for capital investment 
in a variety of labour-saving technologies that are designed to fatten 
profits without necessary adding to productive output.'"</i> David Noble 
concludes that <i>"whenever managers are able to use automation to 
'fatten profits' and enhance their authority (by eliminating jobs and 
extorting concessions and obedience from the workers who remain) without 
at the same time increasing social product, they appear more than ready 
to do."</i> [David Noble, <b>Progress Without People</b>, pp. 86-87 and p. 89]
As we argue in greater detail later, in 
<a href="secJ5.html#secj512">section J.5.12</a>, efficiency and 
profit maximisation are two different things, with such deskilling and 
management control actually <b>reducing</b> efficiency -- compared to workers' 
control -- but as it allows managers to maximise profits the capitalist 
market selects it.
</p><p>
Of course the claim is that higher wages follow increased investment and
technological innovation ("in the long run" -- although usually "the long 
run" has to be helped to arrive by workers' struggle and protest!). Passing
aside the question of whether slightly increased consumption really makes
up for dehumanising and uncreative work, we must note that it is usually
the capitalist who <b>really</b> benefits from technological change in money
terms. For example, between 1920 and 1927 (a period when unemployment
caused by technology became commonplace) the automobile industry (which was
at the forefront of technological change) saw wages rise by 23.7%. Thus,
claim supporters of capitalism, technology is in all our interests. However,
capital surpluses rose by 192.9% during the same period -- 8 times faster!
Little wonder wages rose! Similarly, over the last 20 years the USA and
many other countries have seen companies "down-sizing" and "right-sizing" 
their workforce and introducing new technologies. The result? Simply
put, the 1970s saw the start of <i>"no-wage growth expansions."</i> Before
the early 1970s, <i>"real wage growth tracked the growth of productivity 
and production in the economy overall. After . . ., they ceased to do 
so. . . Real wage growth fell sharply below measured productivity growth."</i> 
[James K. Galbraith, <b>Created Unequal</b>, p. 79] So while real wages have 
stagnated, profits have been increasing as productivity rises and the 
rich have been getting richer -- technology yet again showing whose 
side it is on. 
</p><p>
Overall, as David Noble notes (with regards to manufacturing in the
early 1990s):
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"U.S. Manufacturing industry over the last thirty years . . . [has
seen] the value of capital stock (machinery) relative to labour
double, reflecting the trend towards mechanisation and automation.
As a consequence . . . the absolute output person hour increased
115%, more than double. But during this same period, real earnings
for hourly workers . . . rose only 84%, less than double. Thus, after
three decades of automation-based progress, workers are now earning
less relative to their output than before. That is, they are producing
more for less; working more for their boss and less for themselves."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 92-3]
</blockquote></p><p>
Noble continues:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"For if the impact of automation on workers has not been ambiguous,
neither has the impact on management and those it serves -- labour's
loss has been their gain. During the same first thirty years of our
age of automation, corporate after tax profits have increased 450%,
more than five times the increase in real earnings for workers."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 95]
</blockquote></p><p>
But why? Because labour has the ability to produce a flexible amount 
of output (use value) for a given wage. Unlike coal or steel, a worker
can be made to work more intensely during a given working period and
so technology can be utilised to maximise that effort as well as
increasing the pool of potential replacements for an employee by
deskilling their work (so reducing workers' power to get higher
wages for their work). Thus technology is a key way of increasing
the power of the boss, which in turn can increase output per worker 
while ensuring that the workers'  receive relatively less of that output 
back in terms of wages -- <i>"Machines,"</i> argued Proudhon, <i>"promised us an 
increase of wealth they have kept their word, but at the same time 
endowing us with an increase of poverty. They promised us liberty . . . 
[but] have brought us slavery."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 199]
</p><p>
But do not get us wrong, technological progress does not imply that
we are victims. Far from it, much innovation is the direct result
of our resistance to hierarchy and its tools. For example, capitalists
turned to Taylorism and "scientific management" in response to the 
power of skilled craft workers to control their work and working
environment (the famous 1892 Homestead strike, for example, was a
direct product of the desire of the company to end the skilled 
workers' control and power on the shop-floor). Such management 
schemes never last in the long run nor totally work in the short 
run either -- which explains why hierarchical management continues, 
as does technological deskilling. Workers always find ways of using 
new technology to increase their power within the workplace, 
undermining management decisions to their own advantage). As 
left-wing economist William Lazonick puts it:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Because it is the workers, not managers, who are actually doing the
work, access to information on the effort-saving potential of a
machine will be asymmetric, giving workers a distinct advantage in
determining the pace of work. In addition, workers through their unions
will attempt to exert industry-wide control over the relation between
effort and pay on newly diffused technology. The resultant relation
between effort and earnings will depend on the exercise of social
power, not on abstract 'laws' of proportional change."</i> [<b>Competitive
Advantage on the Shop Floor</b>, pp. 66-7]
</blockquote></p><p>
This means that the <i>"economic effectiveness of the factory as a mode 
of work organisation did not occur within a social vacuum but depend[s]
on the historical evolution of conditions that determined the relative 
power of capitalists and workers to structure the relation between 
effort and pay."</i> As such, it is important not to overemphasise the 
<i>"independent influence of technology as opposed to the relations of 
production in the determination of work organisation. Because machinery 
does change the skill content of work, it can potentially serve as an
instrument of social power. How and to what extent it does so, however, 
depends not only on the nature of the technology but also on the nature 
of the social environment into which it is introduced."</i> Thus the 
introduction of machinery into the capitalist labour process <i>"is only 
a necessary, not sufficient, condition for the displacement of worker 
control over the relation between effort and pay."</i> [Lazonick, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 52 and p. 63] Needless to say, capitalists have always appealed to
the state to help create a suitable social environment.
</p><p>
This analysis applies to both the formal and informal organisation of 
workers in workplace. Just as the informal structures and practices 
of working people evolve over time in response to new technology and 
practices, so does union organisation. In response to Taylorism, 
factory and other workers created a whole new structure of working 
class power -- a new kind of unionism based on the industrial level. 
For example, the IWW was formed specifically to create industrial 
unions arguing that <i>"[l]abourers are no longer classified by 
difference in trade skill, but the employer assigns them according 
to the machine which they are attached. These divisions, far from 
representing differences in skill or interests among the labourers, 
are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one 
another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all 
resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial 
distinctions."</i> [quoted by Stone, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 157] 
</p><p>
For this reason, anarchists and syndicalists argued for, and built, 
industrial unions -- one union per workplace and industry -- in order 
to combat these divisions and effectively resist capitalist tyranny. 
This can be seen in many different countries. In Spain, the C.N.T. (an 
anarcho-syndicalist union) adopted the <b>sindicato unico</b> (one union) 
in 1918 which united all workers of the same workplace in the same 
union (by uniting skilled and unskilled in a single organisation, 
the union increased their fighting power). In the UK, the shop 
stewards movement arose during the first world war based on workplace 
organisation (a movement inspired by the pre-war syndicalist revolt 
and which included many syndicalist activists). This movement was 
partly in response to the reformist TUC unions working with the 
state during the war to suppress class struggle. In Germany, the
1919 near revolution saw the creation of revolutionary workplace 
unions and councils (and a large increase in the size of the 
anarcho-syndicalist union FAU which was organised by industry). 
</p><p>
This process was not limited to just libertarian unions. In the USA, 
the 1930s saw a massive and militant union organising drive by the 
C.I.O. based on industrial unionism and collective bargaining (inspired, 
in part, by the example of the I.W.W. and its broad organisation of 
unskilled workers). More recently, workers in the 1960s and 70s 
responded to the increasing reformism and bureaucratic nature of such 
unions as the CIO and TUC by organising themselves directly on the 
shop floor to control their work and working conditions. This informal 
movement expressed itself in wildcat strikes against both unions 
and management, sabotage and unofficial workers' control of production 
(see John Zerzan's essay <i>"Organised Labour and the Revolt Against
Work"</i> in <b>Elements of Refusal</b>). In the UK, the shop stewards' 
movement revived itself, organising much of the unofficial strikes 
and protests which occurred in the 1960s and 70s. A similar tendency 
was seen in many countries during this period. 
</p><p>
So in response to a new developments in technology and workplace 
organisation, workers' developed new forms of resistance which in turn 
provokes a response by management. Thus technology and its (ab)uses are 
very much a product of the class struggle, of the struggle for freedom 
in the workplace. With a given technology, workers and radicals soon 
learn to resist it and, sometimes, use it in ways never dreamed of to 
resist their bosses and the state (which necessitates a transformation 
of within technology again to try and give the bosses an upper hand!). 
The use of the Internet, for example, to organise, spread and co-ordinate 
information, resistance and struggles is a classic example of this 
process (see Jason Wehling, <i>"'Netwars' and Activists Power on the 
Internet"</i>, <b>Scottish Anarchist</b> no. 2 for details). There is 
always a "guerrilla war" associated with technology, with workers 
and radicals developing their own tactics to gain counter control 
for themselves. Thus much technological change reflects <b>our</b> 
power and activity to change our own lives and working conditions. 
We must never forget that.
</p><p>
While some may dismiss our analysis as "Luddite," to do so is 
make "technology" an idol to be worshipped rather than something 
to be critically analysed. Indeed, it would be temping to argue 
that worshippers of technological progress are, in effect, urging 
us <b>not</b> to think and to sacrifice ourselves to a new abstraction 
like the state or capital. Moreover, such attacks misrepresent 
the ideas of the Luddites themselves -- they never actually opposed 
<b>all</b> technology or machinery. Rather, they opposed <i>"all Machinery 
hurtful to Commonality"</i> (as a March 1812 letter to a hated Manufacturer 
put it). Rather than worship technological progress (or view it 
uncritically), the Luddites subjected technology to critical analysis 
and evaluation. They opposed those forms of machinery that harmed 
themselves or society. Unlike those who smear others as "Luddites," 
the labourers who broke machines were not intimidated by the modern 
notion of progress. As John Clark notes, they <i>"chose to smash the 
dehumanising machinery being imposed on them, rather than submit 
to domination and degradation in the name of technical progress."</i>
[<b>The Anarchist Moment</b>, p. 102] Their sense of right and wrong was 
not clouded by the notion that technology was somehow inevitable,
neutral or to be worshipped without question. 
</p><p>
The Luddites did not think that <b>human</b> values (or their own interests) 
were irrelevant in evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of a given 
technology and its effects on workers and society as a whole. Nor 
did they consider their skills and livelihood as less important 
than the profits and power of the capitalists. In other words, 
they would have agreed with Proudhon's later comment that machinery 
<i>"plays the leading role in industry, man is secondary"</i> <b>and</b> they 
acted to change this relationship. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 204] The Luddites 
were an example of working people deciding what their interests were 
and acting to defend them by their own direct action -- in this case 
opposing technology which benefited the ruling class by giving them 
an edge in the class struggle. Anarchists follow this critical 
approach to technology, recognising that it is not neutral nor 
above criticism. That this is simply sensible can be seen from the
world around us, where capitalism has, to quote Rocker, made
work <i>"soulless and has lost for the individual the quality of
creative joy. By becoming a dreary end-in-itself it has degraded
man into an eternal galley slave and robbed him of that which is
most precious, the inner joy of accomplished work, the creative
urge of the personality. The individual feels himself to be only
an insignificant element of a gigantic mechanism in whose dull
monotone every personal note dies out."</i> He has <i>"became the slave 
of the tool he created."</i> There has been a <i>"growth of technology
at the expense of human personality."</i> [<b>Nationalism and Culture</b>,
p. 253 and p. 254]
</p><p>
For capital, the source of problems in industry is people. Unlike
machines, people can think, feel, dream, hope and act. The "evolution" of
technology must, therefore, reflect the class struggle within society and
the struggle for liberty against the forces of authority. Technology, far
from being neutral, reflects the interests of those with power. Technology
will only be truly our friend once we control it ourselves and <b>modify</b>
to reflect <b>human</b> values (this may mean that some forms of technology
will have to be written off and replaces by new forms in a free society). 
Until that happens, most technological processes -- regardless of the other
advantages they may have -- will be used to exploit and control people.
Thus Proudhon's comments that <i>"in the present condition of society,
the workshop with its hierarchical organisation, and machinery"</i> could
only serve <i>"exclusively the interests of the least numerous, the least
industrious, and the wealthiest class"</i> rather than <i>"be employed for the
benefit of all."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 205]
</p><p>
While resisting technological "progress" which is considered harmful to
people or the planet (by means up to and including machine breaking) is 
essential in the here and now, the issue of technology can only be truly 
solved when those who use a given technology control its development, 
introduction and use. (<i>"The worker will only respect machinery <b>on the 
day</b> when it becomes his friend, shortening his work, rather than as 
<b>today</b>, his enemy, taking away jobs, killing workers,"</i> in the words
of French syndicalist Emile Pouget [quoted by David Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 15]).  Little wonder, therefore, that anarchists consider workers' 
self-management as a key means of solving the problems created by 
technology. Proudhon, for example, argued that the solution to the 
problems created by the division of labour and technology could only 
be solved by <i>"association"</i>, and <i>"by a broad education, by the obligation 
of apprenticeship, and by the co-operation of all who take part in the 
collective work."</i>  This would ensure that <i>"the division of labour can 
no longer be a cause of degradation for the workman [or workwoman]."</i> 
[<b>The General Idea of the Revolution</b>, p. 223] 
</p><p>
While as far as technology goes, it may not be enough to get rid of 
the boss this is a necessary first step. Unless this is done, it
will be impossible to transform existing technologies or create new
ones which enhance freedom rather than controlling and shaping the 
worker (or user in general) and enhancing the power and profits of 
the capitalist. This means that in an anarchist society, technology 
would have to be transformed and/or developed which empowered those 
who used it, so reducing any oppressive aspects of it. In the words of 
Cornelius Castoriadis, the <i>"conscious transformation of technology will 
therefore be a central task of a society of free workers."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 104] As German anarchist Gustav Landauer stressed, most are <i>"completely
unaware of how fundamentally the technology of the socialists differs
from capitalist technology . . . Technology will, in a cultured people,
have to be directed to the psychology of free people who want to use
it."</i> This will happen when <i>"the workers themselves determine under
what conditions they want to work,"</i> step out of <i>"capitalism mentally
and physically"</i>, and <i>"cease playing a role in it and begin to be men
[and women]."</i> [<i>"For Socialism,"</i> pp. 184-6, <b>Anarchism</b>, Robert Graham 
(ed.), p. 285 and p. 286] 
</p><p>
Thus most anarchists would agree with Bookchin's comment that technology
<i>"is necessarily liberatory or consistently beneficial to man's 
development"</i> but we <i>"do not believe that man is destined to be 
enslaved by technology and technological modes of thought."</i> A free
society <i>"will not want to negate technology precisely because it is
liberated and can strike a balance"</i> and create a <i>"technology for life,"</i>
a liberatory technology based on human and ecological needs. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 43 and p. 80] See <a href="secI4.html#seci49">section I.4.9</a> 
for more discussion on technology within an anarchist society.
</p>

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