THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY JACQUES ELLUL With an Introduction by Robert K. Merton A penetrating analysis of our technical civilization and of the effect of an increasingly standardized culture on the future of man A Vintage Book THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY BY JACQUES ELLUL TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN WILXINSON & WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT K. MERTON, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY VINTAGE BOOKS A Division of Random House NEW YORK /f\ • .1 . -jn.oi v *ir i i t-_r t *11 - w v^upyugm, ±w*t, uy rvuicu n. xvnupi, jlihj. .rvn i ignis ic- served under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in French as La Technique ou Venjeu du sidcle by Librairie Armand Colin. Copyright, 1954, by Max Leclerc et Cie, Proprietors of Librairie Armand Colin. Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 3 5 7 9D8 6 4 2 VINTAGE BOOKS are published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Random House, Inc. Statement from the Publisher I would never have heard of this book and its author were it not for my friend W. H. Ferry, Vice-President of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions of the Fund for the Republic, Inc., at Santa Barbara, California. Sometime in 1961, Robert M. Hutchins and Scott Buchanan told Aldous Huxley of the Center's interest in technology and asked his opinion about contemporary European works on the subject. Huxley recommended above all Ellul's La Technique, which had been pub- lished in Paris by Armand Colin in 1954 without having attracted much attention. At any rate the copies of the French original which the Center hastened to procure were from the first edition, as was also the copy I secured after my old friend Ferry had written me about it. I couldn’t possibly read Ellul's French, which apart from the matters with which he deals is very difficult, but since Scott Bu- chanan and Columbia's distinguished sociologist Robert K. Merton both said the book deserved publication in English, and since Mr. Buchanan had a translator at hand in John Wilkinson of the Center staff, who was willing to tackle this difficult and almost sure to be thankless job, I committed our firm to an undertaking that I soon began to call “Knopf's folly." Members of the Center met Ellul in Greece in 1961, where he at- tended a conference as the Center's guest and read a paper he had written at their request. They later paid him for a new introduction he had written for the American edition of La Technique. And the Center also helped to defray some extraordinary expenses in- curred by Professor Wilkinson in the course of his work. I wish belatedly to thank the Center publicly for ail they did to help us with one of the most difficult editorial tasks Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., has ever undertaken. This note should have appeared in our first printing and I am sorry it did not. Foreword In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul formulates a compre- hensive and forceful social philosophy of our technical civilization. Less penetrating than Thorstein Veblen’s The Engineers and the Price System, it nevertheless widens the scope of inquiry into the consequences of having a society pervaded by technicians. Ellul’s book is more colorful and incisive than Oswald Spengler’s Man and Technics—which by contrast seems faded and unperceptive—and it is more analytical than Lewis Mumford’s trilogy—although Ellul handles the historical evidence much more sparingly and with less assurance than Mumford. And it is more far-ranging and system- atic than Siegfried Giedion’s Mechanization Takes Command, which, of all the books overlapping Ellul’s subject, comes close to giving the reader a sense of what the dominance of technique might mean for the present and the future of man. In short, what- ever its occasional deficiencies. The Technological Society requires us to examine anew what the author describes as the essential tragedy of a civilization increasingly dominated by technique. Despite Ellul’s forceful emphasis upon the erosion of moral values brought about by technicism, he has written neither a latter- day Luddite tract nor a sociological apocalypse. He shows that he it thoroughly familiar with the cant perpetuated by technophobes Vi) and for the most part manages to avoid their cliches. Indeed, he takes these apart with masterly skill to show them for the empty assertions they typically are. Neither does he merely substitute a high moral tone or noisy complaints for tough-minded analysis. His contribution is far more substantial. He examines the role of technique in modern society and offers a system of thought that, with some critical modification, can help us understand the forces behind the development of the technical civilization that is distinctively ours. Enough of Ellul's idiosyncratic vocabulary has survived the hazards of transoceanic migration to require us to note the special meanings he assigns to basic terms. By technique, for example, he means far more than machine technology. Technique refers to any complex of standardized means for attaining a predetermined result. Thus, it converts spontaneous and unreflective behavior into behavior that is deliberate and rationalized. The Technical Man is fascinated by results, by the immediate consequences of setting standardized devices into motion. He cannot help admiring the spectacular effectiveness of nuclear weapons of war. Above all, he is committed to the never-ending search for “the one best way” to achieve any designated objective. Ours is a progressively technical civilization: by this Ellul means that the ever-expanding and irreversible rule of technique is ex- tended to all domains of life. It is a civilization committed to the quest for continually improved means to carelessly examined ends. Indeed, technique transforms ends into means. What was once prized in its own right now becomes worthwhile only if it helps achieve something else. And, conversely, technique turns means into ends. “Know how” takes cn an ultimate value. The vital influence of technique is of course most evident in the economy. It produces a growing concentration of capital (as was presciently observed by Marx). Vast concentrations of capital re- quire increasing control by the state. Once largely confined within the business firm, planning now becomes the order of the day for the economy as a whole. The dominance of technique imposes centralism upon the economy (despite comparatively inconsequen- tial efforts to decentralize individual industrial firms), for once technique develops beyond a given degree, there is no effective Foreword (t)ii alternative to planning. But this inevitable process is impersonal. Only the naive can really believe that the world-wide movement toward centralism results from the machinations of evil statesmen. The intellectual discipline of economics itself becomes techni- cized. Technical economic analysis is substituted for the older po- litical economy included in which was a major concern with the moral structure of economic activity. Thus doctrine is converted into procedure. In this sphere as in others, the technicians form a closed fraternity with their own esoteric vocabulary. Moreover, they are concerned only with what is, as distinct from what ought to be. Politics in turn becomes an arena for contention among rival techniques. The technician sees the nation quite differently from the political man: to the technician, the nation is nothing more than another sphere in which to apply the instruments he has de- veloped. To him, the state is not the expression of the will of the people nor a divine creation nor a creature of class conflict. It is an enterprise providing services that must be made to function effi- ciently. He judges states in terms of their capacity to utilize tech- niques effectively, not in terms of their relative justice. Political doctrine revolves around what is useful rather than what is good. Purposes drop out of sight and efficiency becomes the central con- cern. As the political form best suited to the massive and un- principled use of technique, dictatorship gains in power. And this in turn narrows the range of choice for the democracies: either they too use some version of effective technique—centralized control and propaganda—or they will fall behind. Restraints on the rule of technique become increasingly tenuous. Public opinion provides no control because it too is largely oriented toward “performance” and technique is regarded as the prime in- strument of performance, whether in the economy or in politics, in art or in sports. Not understanding what the rule of technique is doing to him and to his world, modem man is beset by anxiety and a feeling of insecurity. He tries to adapt to changes he cannot comprehend. The conflict of propaganda takes the place of the debate of ideas. Technique smothers the ideas that put its rule in question and filters out for public discussion only those ideas that are in substantial v I ii) accord with the values created by a technical civilization. Social criticism is negated because there is only slight access to the techni- cal means required to reach large numbers of people. In Ellul’s conception, then, life is not happy in a civilization domi- nated by technique. Even the outward show of happiness is bought at the price of total acquiescence. The technological society requires men to be content with what they are required to like; for those who are not content, it provides distractions—escape into absorp- tion with technically dominated media of popular culture and communication. And the process is a natural one: every part of a technical civilization responds to the social needs generated by technique itself. Progress then consists in progressive de-humani- zation—a busy, pointless, and, in the end, suicidal submission to technique. The essential point, according to Ellul, is that technique pro- duces all this without plan; no one wills it or arranges that it be so. Our technical civilization does not result from a Machiavellian scheme. It is a response to the ‘‘laws of development” of technique. In proposing and expanding this thesis, Ellul reopens the great debate over the social, political, economic, and philosophical mean- ing of technique in the modem age. We need not agree with Ellul to learn from him. He has given us a provocative book, in the sense that he has provoked us to re-examine our assumptions and to search out the flaws in his own gloomy forecasts. By doing so, he helps us to see beyond the banal assertion that ours has become a mass society, and he leads us to a greater understanding of that society. Robert K. Merton Columbia University January 1964 Translator s Introduction Jacques Ellul as the Philosopher of the Technological Society Ernst Jiinger once wrote that technology is the real metaphysics of the twentieth century. The irreversible collectivist tendencies of technology, whether it calls itself democratic or authoritarian, were already apparent to him, at the end of World War I. It is this so- ciety, in all its forms, which Jacques Ellul, of the Faculty of Law of Bordeaux, seeks to analyze. Professor Ellul, unlike most of the other surviving leaders of the French Resistance, still functions as a voice of conscience for a France which seems to feel itself in danger of being overwhelmed from literally every point of the compass by the materialistic values of the cold war—consumer society. Greater influence is enjoyed by others such as Malraux and Sartre; but Malraux is in the service of the welfare state (albeit one with Gallic flourishes) and Sartre is growing rich by dispensing absinthe morality in the cellars of the Left Bank. “I sometimes wonder," says Ellul in a related con- nection, "about the revolutionary value of acts accompanied by such a merry jingle of the cash register." *) Ellul’s principal work, this book, appeared under the title La Technique and the subtitle L’enjeu du siecle. The subtitle, which means literally “the stake of the century/* is a characteristically dark and difficult Ellulian phrase which may or may not refer to a kind of “Pascal wager” put on technology by twentieth-century man. The Technique of the title, however, lends itself more easily to in- terpretation, although, characteristically, it too is used in a sense it does not usually enjoy. Technique, the reader discovers more or less quickly, must be distinguished from the several techniques which are its elements. It is more even than a generalized mechani- cal technique; it is, in fact, nothing less than the organized ensemble of all individual techniques which have been used to secure any end whatsoever. Harold Lasswell’s definition comes closest to Ellul’s conception: “The ensemble of practices by which one uses available resources to achieve values.” This definition has the merit of emphasizing the scope of technique; but Ellul’s further account makes it clear that it does not go far enough, since technique has become indifferent to all the traditional human ends and values by becoming an end-in-itself. Our erstwhile means have all become an end, an end, furthermore, which has nothing human in it and to which we must accommodate ourselves as best we may. We cannot even any longer pretend to act as though the ends justified the means, which would still be recognizably human, if not particularly virtuous. Technique, as the universal and autonomous technical fact, is revealed as the technological society itself in which man is but a single tightly integrated and articulated component. The Technological Society is a description of the way in which an autonomous technology is in process of taking over the traditional -1.....-f .. ViliUCS Ui. CVCii.j' VYicAiv/cic uwii, ouuvwuug aiiu oim- pressing these values to produce at last a monolithic world culture in which all nontechnological difference and variety is mere ap- pearance. The technical malaise so deeply felt in non-Communist Europe at the imminent takeover has brought forth in recent years an as- tonishingly large number of literary, philosophic, and sociological analyses of the technical phenomenon. One of the great merits of Ellul’s book arises from the fact that he alone has pushed such analysis to the limit in all spheres of human activity and in the totality of their interrelatedness. It may be added that what some Translators Introduction (xi authors feel to be the book’s demerits arise from the same source; they maintain that society more often than not refuses to be pushed to that reductio ad absurdum which is the inevitable end point of every thoroughgoing analysis. The books of such authors generally end on a note of optimism. A final chapter always asks: “What is to be done?” Unfortunately, their answers to the question are either inefficacious myths which confront reality with slogans, or only too efficacious technical solutions to technical problems which end only in subjecting man the more thoroughly to technology. The former are exemplified by most modern religions, philosophical systems, and political doctrines; the latter by schemes for mass education or mass cultivation of leisure, which, in Ellul’s analysis, are themselves highly impersonal and technicized structures hav- ing much more in common with the assembly line than with what mankind has traditionally designated by these names. The technological malaise seems to have been much less acutely felt in the United States. Individuals such as Aldous Huxley, Paul Tillich, and Erich Fromm, who have raised their voices in protest, are of European origin and received their education in Europe. Technolaters such as Professors B. F. Skinner of Harvard and most other American professors represent the familiar type of the Ameri- can intellectual caught in an ecstatic technical vertigo and seldom proceeding beyond certain vague meditations on isolated problem areas such as the “population explosion,” if indeed he considers the real problems posed by technology at all. Ellul holds the Ameri- cans to be the most conformist people in the world, but in fairness it must be objected that, in his own analysis, the Soviets seem better to deserve this dubious honor since they have made even politics into a technique. The Americans, apart from technicizing the electoral process, have left at least the sphere of politics to the operations of amateurish bunglers and have thereby preserved a modicum of humanity. It may be added that France, too, has been taken into the technological orbit with a speed which must have astonished Ellul. De Gaulle's plans for his new France contem- plate the complete technicization of French society in nine years instead of the quarter century of grace which Ellul predicts in his book. Since the religious object is that which is uncritically wor- shipped, technology tends more and more to become the new god. xii) This is true for all modern societies, but especially so for Com- munist societies, since Marxism, in Ellul’s analysis of it, consciously identifies the material infrastructure, upon which the social super- structure is raised, with technology.1 The expression of technologi- cal malaise in the Soviet Union or in Red China, where technolatry has become the new Establishment, would be blasphemy in the strictest sense of the word. In composition and style, Ellul’s book is certain to be an enigma, and even a scandal, to many. It is not sociology, political economy, history, or any other academic discipline, at least as these terms are usually understood. It will not even appear to be philosophy to a generation whose philosophic preoccupations are almost exclu- sively analytic. Ellul himself is in doubt about the value of the designation philosopher. But, if we think back to the dialectical philosophies of the whole of thinkers such as Plato and Hegel, Ellul’s book is philosophy. If an American specialist, say, in eco- nomics, with his “terribly linear” logic and his apparently un- shakable conviction that his arbitrarily delimited systems can and should be studied in isolation from all others, were to flip open Ellul’s book to those sections which treat of matters economic, it is conceivable that he would be repelled by what he found. But if this same specialist could somehow or other implausibly be persuaded to persevere in the attempt to see with Ellul economics in the light of the whole of modern technical culture, it is likewise conceivable that he would gain important insights, not perhaps into the fine- structure of academic economic problems, but in the border region where his subject abuts on other disciplines, in that area where basic discoveries in economics (and everything else) are always made by gifted amateurs, who faute de mieux must be called philosophers. Ellul’s admittedly difficult style is not to be referred to that style heurte affected by so many postwar French existentialists. An element of this is doubtless present, but it would be much more accurate to say that, in an essentially dramatic work such as the present book must be deemed to be, the transitions and turns of thought must have a character entirely different from those to be 1 Ellul once again showed much prescience. Marxist publications of the last few years have come to speak of the “technical-material infrastructure” instead of the ‘'material infrastructure." Translators Introduction (x Hi encountered in the ultra-respectable academic texts which have taken over from mathematics certain linear and deductive modes of presentation; modes, which, whatever their pedagogic value may be, serve, even in mathematics, only to obscure the way in which truth comes into being. To its dramatic presentation of what are, after all, well-known facts, Ellul's book owes its high persuasive quality. This dramatic character would have been clearly evident if the book had been written as a dialogue. Indeed, a reader could easily cast it into this form by representing to himself the various thinkers who are introduced by name as the dramatis personae, and by treating the nameless “On the one hands'* and “On the other hands'* in the same way. In this way the "successive recantations’* of some positions and the development of others in the light of a guiding concept of the whole become clear, and the book’s essen- tial affinity to a Platonic dialogue like the Republic is evident. (No- where is this successive recantation more evident than in the first chapter's search for definitions.) Even clearer is the similarity of the book to Hegel's Phdnomenologie des Geistes, the last work of Western philosophy with which, in the translator's opinion, the present work bears comparison. The Technological Society is not a “phenomenology of mind" but rather a “phenomenology of the technical state of mind." Like Hegel’s book, it is intensely his- trionic; and like it, it shows, without offering causal mechanisms, how its subject in its lowest stage (technique as machine tech- nique) develops dialectically through the various higher stages to become at last the fully evolved phenomenon (the technical phenomenon identical with the technical society). Again, as with Hegel, what the philosopher J. Loewenberg has called the “his- trionic irony" of statement must drive the literal-minded reader mad. The Danish historian of philosophy, Harald Hoeffding, says of Hegel's Phenomenology: The course of development described in this unique work is at once that of the individual and of the race; it gives at the same time a psychology and a history of culture—and in the exposition the two are so interwoven that it is often impossible to tell which of the two is intended. xi v) With the stipulation that Ellul is treating of culture in the sense of the technological society, Hoeffding s penetrating remark holds as well for Elluls book. In such a work it is impossible to separate method from content. Yet, in another sense, and especially for a translator, it is impera- tive to do so. Although, after the time of Descartes, French savants in general were preoccupied with clarifying problems of method, it has been almost impossible in the twentieth century to extort from French writers on sociology and economics an adequate ac- count of their procedures. Some of them have doubtless been over- sensitive to Poincares famous jibe concerning the sciences "with the most methods and the fewest results.” In Elluls case, however, disinclination to discuss methodology specifically is almost cer- tainly due in large part to his pervasive distrust of anything at all resembling a fixed doctrine. Nevertheless, throughout the book are scattered a large number of references to method, and it is possible and necessary to reconstruct from them a satisfactory account of the author’s methodology. Ellul first “situates” the “facts” of experience in a general context, and then proceeds to “focus” them. This figure of speech, drawn from, or at least appropriate to, descriptive astronomy, appears over and over again in connection with each supervening stage of complexity of the subject matter. The final result of the procedure is to bring to a common focal point rays proceeding from very difft;ieiil 5plicicj», The reader should be warned that it is only pos- sible to approximate in English the mixed metaphors and the studied imprecisions of each new beginning of the process, which are gradually refined to yield at the focus a precise terminology. The lianslalox was always uncomfortably aware of too little pre- cision, or too much, in his choice of English words. The reader seri- ously interested in these nuances has no recourse but to consult the original. The translator can do little more for him than to call his attention to the problem. Anyone familiar with similar “dialectic moments” in the works of Hegel or of Max Weber will understand at once what is meant. Ellul repeats again and again that he is concerned not to make value judgments but to report things as they are. One might be tempted to smile at such statements in view of the intensely per- sonal and even impassioned quality of a work in which one is never Translators Introduction ( xv for a moment unaware where the author's own sympathies lie. Nonetheless, on balance, it seems clear that he has not allowed his own value judgments to intrude in any illegitimate way on ques- tions of fact. "Fact" is very important to Ellul, but only as ex- perienced in the context of the whole. Facts as they figure in un- interpreted statistical analyses of a given domain, or as they may be revealed by opinion polls and in newspapers, are anathema to him; and he permits himself many diatribes against this kind of “abstract,” disembodied fact which is so dear to the hearts of Americans, at least as Ellul imagines them to be. With this proviso, Ellul can echo the dictum of Hegel’s Phenomenology that the only imaginable point of departure of philosophy is experience. The insistence on rendering a purely phenomenological account of fact, without causal explanation of the interrelation of the sub- ordinate facts, may seem distasteful to some readers. Since Aristotle it has been a common conception of science that we have knowl- edge only when we know the Why. Admittedly, whenever causal knowledge is available, it is indeed valuable. But it ought not to be forgotten that such knowledge is increasingly hard to come by, and, in fact, hardly makes its appearance at all in modem physics, say, where one must, for the most part, be content with purely func- tional (that is, phenomenological) equations, which dispense with any appeal to mechanism but which are nonetheless adequate for prediction and explanation, and which have the enormous addi- tional advantage of containing no hidden concepts unconfront- able by experience. The important questions concerning the techno- logical society rarely turn for Ellul on how or why things came to be so, but rather on whether his description of them is a true one. Ellul’s methodology is fundamentally dominated by the prin- ciple which has come to be called Engel’s law, that is, the law asserting the passage of quantity into quality. To give a common- place example, the city, after it reaches a certain threshold of population, is supposed to pass over into a qualitatively different type of urban organization. Unfortunately, both the popular and the usual philosophical accounts of Engel’s law are incomplete, to use no worse word. First, it is incorrect to speak at all of a “threshold” of quantity which, having been transcended, gives rise to a change of quality and to a new set of laws and explanatory principles. In dialectical xvi) logic, every change of quantity is simultaneously a change of quality; and the discernment of a “threshold” quantity is partly a psychological fact of awareness, and partly an illicit attempt to try to import back into a dialectical logic some of the unequivocalness of the ordinary either/or logic. Now, Ellul's explanation of the technical takeover is based fundamentally on the fact that the ma- terial (that is, technical) substratum of human existence, which was traditionally not allowed to be a legitimate end of human ac- tion, has become so “enormous,” so “immense,” that men are no longer able to cope with it as means, so that it has become an end-in-itself, to which men must adapt themselves. But, with a better understanding of the illusory nature of the “threshold quan- tity,” we are able to turn aside the objections which are always raised by those who rightly but extraneously urge that historical societies have always had to struggle with the possibility of a ma- terial takeover and that the present state of affairs is therefore not something new. The answer, of course, is that the objection is ir- relevant. Ellul could not mean to assert that men in the past have not had to contend with material means which threatened to ex- ceed their capacity to make good use of them, but that men in the past were not confronted with technical means of production and organization which in their sheer numerical proliferation and ve- locity unavoidably surpassed man’s relatively unchanging biologi- cal and spiritual capacities to exploit them as means to human ends. Second, Engel's law must never be taken to imply a one-way transition of quantity into quality. In dialectical logic the trans- formation of quality into quantity is a necessary concomitant q£ th'* rAvArciW** franc form qfirm of mianHfv info rmalitv. Tf is in ~~ -w -----~ -- 1- / A ’ / * fact, the essence of technique to compel the qualitative to become quantitative, and in this way to force every stage of human activity and man himself to submit to its mathematical calculations. Ellul gives examples of this at every level. Thus, technique forces all sociological phenomena to submit to the clock, for Ellul the most characteristic of all modern technical instruments. The substitution of the tempos mortuum of the mechanical clock for the biological and psychological time “natural” to man is in itself sufficient to suppress all the traditional rhythms of human life in favor of the mechanical. Again, genuine human communities are suppressed by Translator9s Introduction (xvii the technological society to form collectivities of “mass men* in* capable of obeying any other law than the statistical “law of large numbers,* All the technical devices of education, propaganda, amusement, sport, and religion are mobilized to persuade the hu- man being to be satisfied with his condition of mechanical, mind* less “mass man,* and ruthlessly to exterminate the deviant and the idiosyncratic. The reduction of everything to quantity is partly a cause, and partly an effect, of the modem omnipresence of computing ma* chines and cybernated factories. It should not be imagined, however, that the universal concentra* tion camp which Ellul thinks is coming into being in all technical societies without exception will be felt as harsh or restrictive by its inmates. Hitler's concentration camps of hobnailed boots were symptoms of a deficient political technique. The denizen of the technological state of the future will have everything his heart ever desired, except, of course, his freedom. Admittedly, modem man, forced by technique to become in reality and without residue the imaginary producer-consumer of the classical economists, shows disconcertingly little regard for his lost freedom; but, according to Ellul, there are ominous signs that human spontaneity, which in the rational and ordered technical society has no expression except madness, is only too capable of outbreaks of irrational suicidal de- structiveness. The escape valves of modem literature and art, which technique has contrived, may or may not turn out to be adequate to the harm* less release of the pent-up “ecstatic” energies of the human being. Technique, which can in principle only oppose technical and quan- titative solutions to technical problems, must, in such a case, seek out other technical safety valves. It could, for example, convince men that they were happy and contented by means of drugs, even though they were visibly suffering from the worst kind of spiritual and material privation. It is obvious that all such ultimate technical measures must cause the last meager “idealistic* motifs of the whole technical enterprise to disappear. Ellul does not specifically say so, but it seems that he must hold that the technological society, like everything else, bears within itself the seeds of its own destruc- tion. It must not be imagined that the autonomous technique ea* xviii) visioned by Ellul is a kind of “technological determinism,” to use a phrase of Veblen. It may sometimes seem so, but only because all human institutions, like the motions of all physical bodies, have a certain permanence, or vis inertiae, which makes it highly probable that the near future of statistical aggregations will see them con* tinue more or less in the path of the immediate past. Things could have eventuated in the technological society otherwise than as they have. Technique, to Ellul, is a “blind” force, but one which unfortu- nately seems to be more perspicacious than the best discernible human intelligences. There are other ways out, Ellul maintains, but nobody wants any part of them. Ellul’s insistence that the technical phenomenon is not a de- terminism is not weakened by the enumeration (in the second chapter) of five conditions which are said to be “necessary and sufficient” for its outburst in the recent past, since the sufficient con- ditions for the conditions (for example, the causes of the popula- tion explosion) are not ascertainable. The inertia of the technical phenomenon guarantees not only the continued refinement and production of relatively beneficial arti- cles such as flush toilets and wonder drugs, but also the emergence of those unpredictable secondary effects which are always the re- sult of ecological meddling and which today are of such magnitude and acceleration that they can scarcely be reconciled with even semis table equilibrium conditions of society. Nuclear explosions and population explosions capture the public’s imagination; but I have argued that Ellul’s analysis demands that all indices of mod- em technological culture are exploding, too, and are potentially just as dangerous to the continued well-being of society, if by well- being we understand social equilibrium. Reference to the vis inertiae of technique should not obscure the fact that technique has become the only fully spontaneous activity of the modem world. Art and science are mentioned as other hu- man activities by Ellul. But art, though it is concrete, is subjective; and science, though objective in its description of reality, is ab- stract. Only technique is at once both concrete and objective in that it creates the reality it describes. Ellul must conclude that trom among the data of science technique legislates those which it deems most efficient and reiects the rest Economic and social Translators Introduction (xix "model builders” those assiduous technocratic apes, may seek to soften the violence of this description by pointing out that all sciences "specify a universe of discourse.” It remains unfortunately true, however, that such "specification” proceeds by way of elimina- tion of the human. Ellul is no machinoclast like the partisans of the weak-minded Ludd seeking to wreck the stocking frames. He has no doctrinal de- lusions at all, a fortiori none like those of Rousseau and certain of his disciples, who imagined that man would be happy in a state of nature. In view of the fact that Ellul continually apostrophizes technique as "unnatural” (except when he calls it the “new nature”), it might be thought surprising that he has no fixed conception of nature or of the natural. The best answer seems to be that he considers "natural” (in the good sense) any environment able to satisfy man's material needs, if it leaves him free to use it as means to achieve his individual, internally generated ends. The necessary and suffi- cient condition for this state of affairs is that man's means should be (qualitatively and quantitatively) "at the level” of man's ca- pacities. Under these dubiously realizable circumstances, Ellul apparently thinks of techniques as so many blessings. Since men are unwilling to acknowledge their demotion to the status of joyous robots, and since they demand justification for their individual and collective acts as never before in history, it is easy to understand why the modern intellectuals (and their forcing- house, the university) have become veritable machines for the in- vention of new myths and the propagation of old ones. It would be easy to compile a list of all the things which Ellul must deem "myth.” Such a list would quite simply contain all philosophical, historical, religious, and political doctrines known to man, except insofar as such doctrines have technological components. The Western democracies, for example, are out after money and the Eastern Communists are out after power; otherwise they share an identical view of life, and the epiphenomenal variant ideologies which accompany identical acts can only be described as a cruel hoax. It is disconcerting in the extreme to contemplate the possibility that cherished democratic institutions have become empty forms which have no visible connection with the acts of democratic na XX ) tions, except perhaps to render these acts technically less efficient than they otherwise need have been. But the fact that they have no connection is, paradoxically, a powerful reason for their survival. Ellul evidently contemplates a long future in which sclerotic rival ideologies will carry on their sham polemics. Ellul, in agreement with much of Greek philosophy, seems to think that the distinction usually drawn between thought and ac- tion is a pernicious one. To him, to bear witness to the fact of the technological society is the most revolutionary of all possible acts. His personal reason for doing so is that he is a Christian, a fact which is spelled out in his book La Presence. His concept of the duty of a Christian, who stands uniquely (is '‘present”) at the point of intersection of this material world and the eternal world to come, is not to concoct ambiguous ethical schemes or programs of social action, but to testify to the truth of both worlds and thereby to affirm his freedom through the revolutionary nature of his religion. It is clear that many people who will accept Ellul's diagnosis of the technical disease will not accept his Christian therapy. The is- sue is nevertheless joined: if massive technological intervention is the only imaginable means to turn aside technology from its head- long career, how may we be sure that this intervention will be something other than just some new technical scheme, which, more likely than not, will be catastrophic? John Wilkinson Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Santa Barbara, California January 1964 Contents NOTE TO THE READER XXV FOREWORD TO THE REVISED AMERICAN EDITION XXVii AUTHORS PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION XXXV charter I—Technique* SITUATING THE TECHNICAL PHENOMENON Machines and Technique 3 Science and Technique 7 Organization and Technique 11 Definitions 13 Technical Operation and Technical Phenomenon 19 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT Primitive Technique *3 Greece 27 Rome 29 Christianity and Technique 32 The Sixteenth Century 38 The Industrial Revolution 42 xxii) chapter 11—The Characterology of Technique TECHNIQUE IN CIVILIZATION Traditional Techniques and Society 64 The New Characteristics 77 CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN TECHNIQUE Automatism of Technical Choice 79 Self-augmentation 85 M onism 94 The Necessary Linking Together of Techniques 111 Technical Universalism 116 The Autonomy of Technique 133 chapter 111—Technique and Economy THE BEST AND THE WORST The Influence of Technique on the Economy 149 Economic Consequences 153 THE SECRET WAY The Economic Techniques of Observation 163 The Economic Techniques of Action 171 Planning and Liberty 177 THE GREAT HOPES Economic Systems Confronted by Technique 183 Progress 190 Centralized Economy 193 The Authoritarian Economy 200 The Antidemocratic Economy 208 ECONOMIC MAN chapter iv—Technique and the State THE STATE’S ENCOUNTERS WITH TECHNIQUE Ancient Techniques 229 New Techniques 233 Contents (xxiii Private and Public Techniques 239 The Reaction of the State to Techniques 243 REPERCUSSIONS ON THE STATE Evolution 248 The Technical Organism 252 The Conflict Between the Politicians and the Technicians 255 Technique and Constitution 267 Technique and Political Doctrines 280 The Totalitarian State 284 SUMMUM JUS: SUMMA INJURIA REPERCUSSION ON TECHNIQUE Technique Unchecked 301 The Role of the State in the Development of Modern Tech- niques 307 Institutions in the Service of Technique 311 chapter v—Human Techniques NECESSITIES Human Tension 319 Modification of the Milieu and Space 325 Modification of Time and Motion 328 The Creation of the Mass Society 332 Human Techniques 335 REVIEW Educational Technique 344 The Technique of Work 349 Vocational Guidance 358 Propaganda 363 Amusement 375 Sport 382 Medicine 384 ECHOES Techniques, Men, and Man 387 Jhomme-machine 395 The Dissociation of Man The Triumph of the Unconscious Mass Man TOTAL INTEGRATION Technical Anesthesia Integration of the Instincts and of the Spiritual The Final Resolution chapter vi—A Look at the Future A Look at the Year 2000 BIBLIOGRAPHY 398 402 4<>5 41* 415 418 43* INDEX 437 follow* page 450 Note to the Reader I I think the task of the reader will be lightened if at the outset I at- tempt a definition of technique. The whole first chapter is devoted to making clear what constitutes technique in the present-day world, but as a preliminary there must be a simple idea, a defini- tion. The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, tech- nology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of de- velopment ) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past. This definition is not a theoretical construct. It is arrived at by examining each activity and observing the facts of what modern man calls technique in general, as well as by investigating the dif- ferent areas in which specialists declare they have a technique. In the course of this work, the word technique will be used with varying emphasis on one or another aspect of this definition. At one point, the emphasis may be on rationality, at another on efficiency or procedure, but the over-all definition will remain the same. Finally, we shall be looking at technique in its sociological aspect; xxvi) that is, we shall consider the effect of technique on social relation- ships, political structures, economic phenomena. Technique is not an isolated fact in society (as the term technology would lead us to believe) but is related to every factor in the life of modem man; it affects social facts as well as all others. Thus technique itself is a sociological phenomenon, and it is in this light that we shall study it. June J963 Jacques Ellul Author s Foreword to the Revised American Edition At the beginning I must try to make clear the direction and aim of this book. Although descriptive, it is not without purpose, I do not limit myself to describing my findings with cold objectivity in the manner q£ a research worker reporting what he sees under a microscope. I am keenly aware that I am myself involved in technological civilization, and that its history is also my own. I may be compared rather with a physician or physicist who is describing a group situation in which he is himself involved. The physician in an epidemic, the physicist exposed to radioactivity: in such situations the mind may remain cold and lucid, and the method objective, but there is inevitably a profound tension of the whole being. Although I have deliberately not gone beyond description, the reader may perhaps receive an impression of pessimism. I am neither by nature, nor doctrinally, a pessimist, nor have I pessimis- tic prejudices. I am concerned only with knowing whether things are so or not. The reader tempted to brand me a pessimist should begin to examine his own conscience, and ask himself what causes him to make such a judgment. For behind this judgment, I believe, will always be found previous metaphysical value judgments, such xxviii) as: “Man is free"; “Man is lord of creation"; “Man has always over- come challenges" (so why not this one too?); “Man is good." Or again: “Progress is always positive"; “Man has an eternal soul, and so cannot be put in jeopardy." Those who hold such convictions will say that my description of technological civilization is in- correct and pessimistic. I ask only that the reader place himself on the factual level and address himself to these questions: “Are the facts analyzed here false?" “Is the analysis inaccurate?” “Are the conclusions unwarranted?" “Are there substantial gaps and omis- sions?" It will not do for him to challenge factual analysis on the basis of his own ethical or metaphysical presuppositions. The reader deserves and has my assurance that I have not set out to prove anything. I do not seek to show, say, that man is deter- mined, or that technique is bad, or anything else of the kind. Two other factors may lead the reader to the feeling of pessi- mism. It may be that he feels a rigorous determinism is here de- scribed that leaves no room for effective individual action, or that he cannot find any solution for the problems raised in the book. These two factors must now engage our attention. As to the rigorous determinism, I should explain that I have tried to perform a work of sociological reflection, involving analysis of large groups of people and of major trends, but not of individual actions. I do not deny the existence of individual action or of some inner sphere of freedom. I merely hold that these are not discerni- ble at the most general level of analysis, and that the individual’s acts or ideas do not here and now exert any influence on social, political, or economic mechanisms. By making this statement, I explicitly take a partisan position in a dispute between schools of sociology. To me the sociological does not consist of the addition and combination of individual actions. I believe that there is a col- lective sociological reality, which is independent of the individual. As I see it, individual decisions are always made within the frame- work of this sociological reality, itself pre-existent and more or less determinative. I have simply endeavored to describe technique as a sociological reality. We are dealing with collective mechanisms, with relationships among collective movements, and with modifi- cations of political or economic structures. It should not be sur- prising, therefore, that no reference is made to the separate, inde- Author*s Foreword to the Revised American Edition (xxix pendent initiative of individuals. It is not possible for me to treat the individual sphere. But I do not deny that it exists. I do not maintain that the individual is more determined today than he has been in the past; rather, that he is differently determined. Primi- tive man, hemmed in by prohibitions, taboos, and rites, was, of course, socially determined. But it is an illusion—unfortunately very widespread—to think that because we have broken through the prohibitions, taboos, and rites that bound primitive man, we have become free. We are conditioned by something new: techno- logical civilization. I make no reference to a past period of history in which men were allegedly free, happy, and independent. The determinisms of the past no longer concern us; they are finished and done with. If I do refer to the past, it is only to emphasize that present determinants did not exist in the past, and men did not have to grapple with them then. The men of classical antiquity could not have found a solution to our present determinisms, and it is useless to look into the works of Plato or Aristotle for an answer to the problem of freedom. Keeping in mind that sociological mechanisms are always sig- nificant determinants—of more or less significance—for the indi- vidual, I would maintain that we have moved from one set of determinants to another. The pressure of these mechanisms is today very great; they operate in increasingly wide areas and pene- trate more and more deeply into human existence. Therein lies the specifically modern problem. This determinism has, however, another aspect. There will be a temptation to use the word fatalism in connection with the phe- nomena described in this book. The reader may be inclined to say that, if everything happens as stated in the book, man is entirely helpless—helpless either to preserve his personal freedom or to change the course of events. Once again, I think the question is badly put. I would reverse the terms and say: if man—if each one of us—abdicates his responsibilities with regard to values; if each of us limits himself to leading a trivial existence in a technological civilization, with greater adaptation and increasing success as his sole objectives; if we do not even consider the possibility of making a stand against these determinants, then everything will happen as I have described it, and the determinants will be transformed into inevitabilities. But, in describing sociological currents, I obviously XXX ) cannot take into account the contingent decisions of this or that individual, even if these decisions could modify the course of social development. For these decisions are not visible, and if they are truly personal, they cannot be foreseen. I have tried to describe the technical phenomenon as it exists at present and to indicate its probable evolution. Fatalism is not involved; it is rather a question of probability, and I have indicated what I think to be its most likely development. What is the basis for this most likely eventuality? I would say that it lies in social, economic, and political phenomena, and in certain chains of events and sequences. If we may not speak of laws, we may, at any rate, speak of repetitions. If we may not speak of mechanisms in the strict sense of the word, we may speak of interdependencies. There is a certain logic (though not a formal logic) in economic phenomena which makes certain forecasts pos- sible. This is true of sociology and, to a lesser degree, of politics. There is a certain logic in the evolution of institutions which is easily discernible. It is possible, without resorting to imagination or science fiction, to describe the path that a social body or institu- tional complex will follow. An extrapolation is perfectly proper and scientific when it is made with care. Such an extrapolation is what we have attempted. But it never represents more than a probability, and may be proved false by events. External factors could change the course of history. The probable development I describe might be forestalled by the emergence of new phenomena. I give three examples—widely different, and de- liberately so—of possible disturbing phenomena: 1) If a general war breaks out, and if there are any survivors, -■••.Till nr\ rt..p « n-r-xr- nf m ri i m! U1C ucauuuuuu mu uv ju uuuiiuvuj, »uu uiv> wuutuv/ua ui iiuiutiu so different, that a technological society will no longer exist. %) If an increasing number of people become fully aware of the threat the technological world poses to man's personal and spiritual life, and if they determine to assert their freedom by upsetting the course of this evolution, my forecast will be invalidated. 3) If God decides to intervene, man's freedom may be saved by a change in the direction of history or in the nature of man. But in sociological analysis these possibilities cannot be con- sidered. The last two lie outside the field of sociology, and confront us with an upheaval so vast that its consequences cannot be as- Author*s Foreword to the Revised American Edition ( xxxi sessed. But sociological analysis does not permit consideration of these possibilities. In addition, the first two possibilities offer no analyzable fact on which to base any attempt at projection. They have no place in an inquiry into facts; I cannot deny that they may occur, but I cannot take them rationally into account. I am in the position of a physician who must diagnose a disease and guess its probable course, but who recognizes that God may work a miracle, that the patient may have an unexpected constitutional reaction, or that the patient—suffering from tuberculosis—may die unex- pectedly of a heart attack. The reader must always keep in mind the implicit presupposition that if man does not pull himself to- gether and assert himself (or if some other unpredictable but decisive phenomenon does not intervene), then things will go the way I describe. The reader may be pessimistic on yet another score. In this study no solution is put forward to the problems raised. Questions are asked, but not answered. I have indeed deliberately refrained from providing solutions. One reason is that the solutions would necessarily be theoretical and abstract, since they are nowhere ap- parent in existing facts. I do not say that no solutions will be found; I merely aver that in the present social situation there is not even a beginning of a solution, no breach in the system of tech- nical necessity. Any solutions I might propose would be idealistic and fanciful. In a sense, it would even be dishonest to suggest solu- tions: the reader might think them real rather than merely literary. I am acquainted with the “solutions* offered by Emmanuel Mou- nier, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ragnor Frisch, Jean Fourastie, Georges Friedmann, and others. Unfortunately, all these belong to the realm of fancy and have no bearing on reality. I cannot ration- ally consider them in analyzing the present situation. However, I will not make a final judgment on tomorrow before it arrives. I do not presume to put chains around man. But I do insist that a distinction be made between diagnosis and treat- ment. Before a remedy can be found, it is first necessary to make a detailed study of the disease and the patient, to do laboratory re- search, and to isolate the virus. It is necessary to establish criteria that will make it possible to recognize the disease when it occurs, and to describe the patient’s symptoms at each stage of his illness. xxxii) This preliminary work is indispensable for eventual discovery and application of a remedy. By this comparison I do not mean to suggest that technique is a disease of the body social, but rather to indicate a working proce- dure. Technique presents man with multiple problems. As long as the first stage of analysis is incomplete, as long as the problems are not correctly stated, it is useless to proffer solutions. And, before we can pose the problems correctly, we must have an exact descrip- tion of the phenomena involved. As far as I know, there is no over-all and exact description of the facts which would make it possible to formulate the problems correctly. The existing works on the subject either are limited to a single aspect of the problem—the effect of motion pictures on the nerv- ous system, for example—or else propose solutions without the req- uisite preliminary study. I offer these pages as a first effort in lay- ing the necessary ground; much more work will have to follow before we can see what man's true response is to the challenge be- fore him. But this must not lead the reader to say to himself; “All right, here is some information on the problem, and other sociologists, economists, philosophers, and theologians will carry on the work, so I have simply got to wait.” This will not do, for the challenge is not to scholars and university professors, but to all of us. At stake is our very life, and we shall need all the energy, inventiveness, imagina- tion, goodness, and strength we can muster to triumph in our pre- dicament While waiting for the specialists to get on with their work on behalf of society, each of us, in his own life, must seek ways of resisting and transcending technological determinants. Each man must make this effort in every area of life, in his profes- sion and in his social, religious, and family relationships. In my conception, freedom is not an immutable fact graven in nature and on the heart of man. It is not inherent in man or in so- ciety, and it is meaningless to write it into law. The mathematical, physical, biological, sociological, and psychological sciences reveal nothing but necessities and determinisms on all sides. As a matter of fact, reality is itself a combination of determinisms, and freedom consists in overcoming and transcending these determinisms. Free- dom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity. To say that freedom Author s Foreword to the Revised American Edition ( xxxiii is graven in the nature of man, is to say that man is free because he obeys his nature, or, to put it another way, because he is condi- tioned by his nature. This is nonsense. We must not think of the problem in terms of a choice between being determined and be- ing free. We must look at it dialectically, and say that man is in- deed determined, but that it is open to him to overcome necessity, and that this act is freedom. Freedom is not static but dynamic; not a vested interest, but a prize continually to be won. Hie mo- ment man stops and resigns himself, he becomes subject to deter- minism. He is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably settled in freedom. In the modem world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it How is this to be done? I do not yet know. That is why this book is an appeal to the individual's sense of responsibility. The first step in tbe quest, the first act of freedom, is to become aware of the necessity. The very fact that man can see, measure, and analyze the determinisms that press on him means that he can face them and, by so doing, act as a free man. If man were to say These are not necessities; I am free because of technique, or despite technique,* this would prove that he is totally determined. However, by grasping the real nature of the technological phenomenon, and the extent to which it is robbing him of freedom, he confronts the blind mechanisms as a conscious being. At the beginning of this foreword I stated that this book has a purpose. That purpose is to arouse the reader to an awareness of technological necessity and what it means. It is a call to the sleeper to awake. Jacques Ellul Le Marierre, Pessae, Gironde, France January 1Q64 Author s Preface to the French Edition * I Let us, first of all, clear up certain misunderstandings that inevitably arise in any discussion of technique. It is not the business of this book to describe the various tech- niques which, taken together, make up the technological society. It would take a whole library to describe the countless technical means invented by man; and such an undertaking would be of little value. Moreover, quite enough elementary works describing the various techniques are already available. I shall frequently allude to some of these techniques on the assumption that their applications or their mechanics are familiar to the reader. I do not intend to draw up a balance sheet, positive or negative, of what has been so far accomplished by means of these tech- niques, or to compare their advantages and disadvantages. I shall not repeat what has so often been stated, that through technology the work week has been materially shortened, that living stand- ards have risen, and so forth; or, on the other side of the ledger, that the worker has encountered many difficulties in adapting to the machine. Indeed, no one is capable of making a true and item- ized account of the total effect of existing techniques. Only frag- mentary and superficial surveys are possible. xxxvi) Finally, it is not my intention to make ethical or aesthetic judg- ments on technique. A human being is, of course, human and not a mere photographic plate, so that his own point of view inevitably appears. But this does not preclude a deeper objectivity. The sign of it will be that worshippers of technique will no doubt find this work pessimistic and haters of technique will find it optimistic. I have attempted simply to present, by means of a comprehen- sive analysis, a concrete and fundamental interpretation of tech- nique. That is the sole object of this book. J. E. 1954 THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAPTER CO TECHNIQUES No social, human, or spiritual fact is so important as the fact of tech- nique in the modem world. And yet no subject is so little under- stood. Let us try to set up some guideposts to situate the technical phenomenon. Situating the Technical Phenomenon Machines and Technique. Whenever we see the word technology or technique, we automatically think of machines. Indeed, we commonly think of our world as a world of machines. This notion— which is in fact an error—is found, for example, in the works of Oldham and Pierre Ducasse. It arises from the fact that the ma- chine is the most obvious, massive, and impressive example of tech- nique, and historically the first. What is called the history of tech- nique usually amounts to no more than a history of the machine; this very formulation is an example of the habit of intellectuals of regarding forms of the present as identical with those of the past. Technique certainly began with the machine. It is quite true that all the rest developed out of mechanics; it is quite true also that without the machine the world of technique would not exist. But 4 ) TECHNIQUES to explain the situation in this way does not at all legitimatize it. It is a mistake to continue with this confusion of terms, the more so because it leads to the idea that, because the machine is at the origin and center of the technical problem, one is dealing with the whole problem when one deals with the machine. And that is a greater mistake still. Technique has now become almost com- pletely independent of the machine, which has lagged far behind its offspring. It must be emphasized that, at present, technique is applied out- side industrial life. The growth of its power today has no relation to the growing use of the machine. The balance seems rather to have shifted to the other side. It is the machine which is now en- tirely dependent upon technique, and the machine represents only a small part of technique. If we were to characterize the relations between technique and the machine today, we could say not only that the machine is the result of a certain technique, but also that its social and economic applications are made possible by other technical advances. The machine is now not even the most impor- tant aspect of technique (though it is perhaps the most spectac- ular); technique has taken over all of man’s activities, not just his productive activity. From another point of view, however, the machine is deeply symptomatic: it represents the ideal toward which technique strives. The machine is solely, exclusively, technique; it is pure technique, one might say. For, wherever a technical factor exists, it results, almost inevitably, in mechanization: technique transforms everything it touches into a machine. Another relationship exists between technique and the machine, and this relationship penetrates to the very cor* of the problem of our civilization. It is said (and everyone agrees) that the machine has created an inhuman atmosphere. The machine, so characteris- tic of the nineteenth century, made an abrupt entrance into a soci- ety which, from the political, institutional, and human points of view, was not made to receive it; and man has had to put up with it as best he can. Men now live in conditions that are less than human. Consider the concentration of our great cities, the slums, the lack of space, of air, of time, the gloomy streets and the sallow lights that confuse night and day. Think of our dehumanized factories, our unsatisfied senses, our working women, our estrangement from The Technological Society ( 5 nature. Life in such an environment has no meaning. Consider our public transportation, in which man is less important than a parcel; our hospitals, in which he is only a number. Yet we call this prog- ress. . . . And the noise, that monster boring into us at every hour of the night without respite. It is useless to rail against capitalism. Capitalism did not create our world; the machine did. Painstaking studies designed to prove the contrary have buried the obvious beneath tons of print. And, if we do not wish to play the demagogue, we must point out the guilty party. "The machine is antisocial," says Lewis Mumford. "It tends, by reason of its progressive character, to the most acute forms erf human exploitation." The machine took its place in a social milieu that was not made for it, and for that reason created the in- human society in which we live. Capitalism was therefore only one aspect of the deep disorder of the nineteenth century. To restore order, it was necessary to question all the bases of that society— its social and political structures, its art and its way of life, its com- mercial system. But let the machine have its head, and it topples everything that cannot support its enormous weight. Thus everything had to be re- considered in terms of the machine. And that is precisely the role technique plays. In all fields it made an inventory of what it could use, of everything that could be brought into line with the ma- chine. The machine could not integrate itself into nineteenth- century society; technique integrated it. Old houses that were not suited to the workers were tom down; and the new world tech- nique required was built in their place. Technique has enough of the mechanical in its nature to enable it to cope with the machine, but it surpasses and transcends the machine because it remains in close touch with the human order. The metal monster could not go on forever torturing mankind. It found in technique a rule as hard and inflexible as itself. Technique integrates the machine into society. It constructs the kind of world the machine needs and introduces order where the in- coherent banging of machinery heaped up ruins. It clarifies, ar* ranges, and rationalizes; it does in the domain of the abstract what the machine did in the domain of labor. It is efficient and bring* efficiency to everything. Moreover, technique is sparing in the usa of the machine, which has traditionally been exploited to conceal TECHNIQUES «) defects of organization. "Machines sanctioned social inefficiency says Mumford. Technique, on the other hand, leads to a more rational and less indiscriminate use of machines. It places ma- chines exactly where they ought to be and requires of them just what they ought to do This brings us to two contrasting forms of social growth. Henri Guitton says: "Social growth was formerly reflexive or instinctive, that is to say, unconscious. But new circumstances (the machine) now compel us to recognize a kind of social development that is ra- tional, intelligent, and conscious. We may ask ourselves whether this is the beginning not only of the era of a spatially finite world but also of the era of a conscious world.” All-embracing technique is in fact the consciousness of the mechanized world. Technique integrates everything. It avoids shock and sensational events. Man is not adapted to a world of steel; technique adapts him to it. It changes the arrangement of this blind world so that man can be a part of it without colliding with its rough edges, without the anguish of being delivered up to the inhuman. Technique thus provides a model; it specifies attitudes that are valid once and for all. The anxiety aroused in man by the turbulence of the machine is soothed by the consoling hum of a unified society. As long as technique was represented exclusively by the ma- chine, it was possible to speak of "man and the machine.” The ma- chine remained an external object, and man (though significantly influenced by it in his professional, private, and psychic life) re- mained none the less independent. He was in a position to assert himself apart from the machine; he was able to adopt a position with respect to it. But when technique enters into every area of life, including the human, it ceases to be external to man and becomes his very sub- stance. It is no longer face to face with man but is integrated with him, and it progressively absorbs him. In this respect, technique is radically different from the machine. This transformation, so obvi- ous in modem society, is the result of the fact that technique has become autonomous. When I state that technique leads to mechanization, I am not referring to the simple fact of human adaptation to the machine. Of course, such a process of adaptation exists, but it is caused by the ac- The Technological Society ( 7 tion of the machine. What we are concerned with here, however, is a kind of mechanization in itself. If we may ascribe to the machine a superior form of “know-how," the mechanization which results from technique is the application of this higher form to all domains hitherto foreign to the machine; we can even say that technique is characteristic of precisely that realm in which the machine itself can play no role. It is a radical error to think of technique and ma- chine as interchangeable; from the very beginning we must be on guard against this misconception. Science and Technique. Almost immediately we come up against a second problem. It is true that it is another pons asinorum; one hesitates even to mention it since the question has been so often discussed. The relation between science and technique is a stand- ard subject for graduate theses—in all the trappings of nineteenth- century experimental science. Everyone has been taught that tech- nique is an application of science; more particularly (science being pure speculation), technique figures as the point of contact between material reality and the scientific formula. But it also appears as the practical product, the application of the formulas to practical life. This traditional view is radically false. It takes into account only a single category of science and only a short period of time: it is true only for the physical sciences and for the nineteenth century. It is not possible therefore to base a general study on it nor, as we are attempting to do here, an up-to-date review of the situation. A few simple remarks suffice to destroy our confidence in these views. Historically, technique preceded science; even primitive man was acquainted with certain techniques. The first techniques of Hellenistic civilization were Oriental; they were not derived from Greek science. Thus, historically speaking, the relationship between science and technique ought to be reversed. However, technique began to develop and extend itself only after science appeared; to progress, technique had to wait for science. Bertrand Gille has rightly said, in this historical perspective: “Tech- nique, by means of repeated experiments, posed the problems, derived general notions and the four primary elements; but it had to wait for the solutions"—which science provided. In the present era, the most casual inspection reveals an entirely TECHNIQUES «) different relationship. In every instance, it is clear that the border between technical activity and scientific activity is not at all sharply defined. When we speak of technique in historical science, we mean a cer- tain kind of preparatory work: textual research, reading, collation, study of monuments, criticism, and exegesis. These represent an ensemble of technical operations which aim first at interpretation and then at historical synthesis, the true work of science. Here, again, technique comes first. Even in physics, in certain instances, technique precedes science. The best-known example is the steam engine, a pure achievement of experimental genius. The sequence of inventions and improvements of Solomon De Caus, Christian Huygens, Denes Papin, Thomas Savery, and so on, rest on practical trial and error. The scientific explanation of the various phenomena involved was to come much later, after a lapse of two centuries, and even then it was not easy to formulate. There is still no automatic link between science and technique. The relation is not that simple; there is more and more interaction between them. Today all scientific research presupposes enormous technical preparation (as, for example, in atomic re- search). And very often it is some simple technical modification which allows further scientific progress. When the technical means do not exist, science does not advance. Michael Faraday was aware of the most recent discoveries concern- ing the constitution of matter, but was unable to formulate precise theories because techniques for the production of vacua did not yet exist. Scientific results had to await high-vacuum techniques. The medical value of penicillin was discovered in 1912 by a French physician, but he had no technical means of producing and con- serving penicillin; misgivings therefore arose about the discovery and led to its eventual abandonment. The majority of investigators in a laboratory are technicians who perform tasks far removed from what is commonly imagined to be scientific work. The research worker is no longer a solitary genius. As Robert Jungk says: “He works as a member of a team and is will- ing to give up his freedom of research as well as personal recognition in exchange for the assistance and equipment a great laboratory offers him. These two tilings are the indispensable conditions with- out which he cannot even dream of realizing his projects. . . .* The Technological Society ( 9 Pure science seems to be yielding its place to an applied science which now and again reaches a brilliant peak from which new technical research becomes possible. Conversely, certain technical modifications—in airplanes, for instance—which may seem simple and mechanical, presuppose complex scientific work. The problem of reaching supersonic velocities is one. The considered opinion of Norbert Wiener is that the younger generation of research workers in the United States consists primarily of technicians who are un- able to do research at all without the help of machines, large teams of men, and enormous amounts of money. The relation between science and technique becomes even less clear when we consider the newer fields, which have no boundaries. Where does biological technique begin and where does it end? In modern psychology and sociology, what can we call technique, since in the application of these sciences everything is technique? But it is not application which characterizes technique, for, with- out technique (previous or concomitant), science has no way of existing. If we disown technique, we abandon the domain of science and enter into that of hypothesis and theory. In political economy (despite the recent efforts of economists to distinguish the bounda- ries between science and economic technique), we shall demon- strate that it is economic technique which forms the very substance of economic thought. The established foundations have indeed been shaken. But the problem of these relations, in view of the enormity of the technical world and the reduction of the scientific, would seem to be an aca- demic problem of interest only to philosophers—speculation with- out content. Today it is no longer the frontiers of science which are at issue, but the frontiers of man; and the technical phenomenon is much more significant with regard to the human situation than with regard to the scientific. It is no longer in reference to science that technique must be defined. We need not pursue philosophy of science here, or establish, ideally or intellectually, what may be the relations between action and science. What we must do is look about us and note certain obvious things which seem to escape the all too intelligent philosophers. It is not a question of minimizing the importance of scientific ac- tivity, but of recognizing that in fact scientific activity has been superseded by technical activity to such a degree that we can no TECHNIQUES 10) longer conceive of science without its technical outcome. As Charles Camichel has observed, the two are closer than ever before. The very fact that techniques advance with great rapidity demands a corresponding scientific advance, and sets off a general accelera- tion. Moreover, techniques are always put to immediate use. The in- terval which traditionally separates a scientific discovery and its application in everyday life has been progressively shortened. As soon as a discovery is made, a concrete application is sought. Capi- tal becomes interested, or the state, and the discovery enters the public domain before anyone has had a chance to reckon all the consequences or to recognize its full import. The scientist might act more prudently; he might even be afraid to launch his carefully cal- culated laboratory findings into the world. But how can he resist the pressure of the facts? How can he resist the pressure of money? How is he to resist success, publicity, public acclaim? Or the gen- eral state of mind which makes technical application the last word? How is he to resist the desire to pursue his research? Such is the dilemma of the researcher today. Either he allows his findings to be technologically applied or he is forced to break off his research. Such is the drama of the atomic physicists who saw that only the laboratories at Los Alamos could provide them with the technical instruments necessary to the continuation of their work. The state, then, exercises a very real monopoly, and the scientist is obliged to accept its conditions. As one of the atomic scientials put it: “What keeps me here is the possibility of using for my work a special mi- croscope which exists nowhere else” (Jungk). The scientist is no longer able to hold out: “Even science, especially the magnificent science of cur o%vn day, has become an element Oi iec unique, a mere means” (Mauss). There we have, indeed, the final word: science has become an instrument of technique. Later, we shall consider how it has come about that scientific utilitarianism has gained such momentum from technique that a disinterested piece of research is no longer possible. It has always been necessary to have a scientific substructure, but today it is scarcely possible to effect a separation between scientific and techni- cal research. Indeed, our omnivorous technique (and this repre- sents in part Einstein’s thought) may in the end make science sterile. The Technological Society (11 I shall often use the term technique in place of the more com- monly used term science, and designate as techniques work that is usually termed scientific. This is due to the close association of technique and science which I have pointed out and which I shall discuss more fully later on. Organization and Technique. A third element will help us formu- late our problem more clearly. I have already pointed out that we must understand the term technique in a broader sense. But some authors, not wishing to deviate from traditional linguistic usage, prefer to keep to its current meaning and seek another term to designate the phenomena we are describing here. According to Arnold Toynbee, history is divided into three pe- riods, and it is on the point of passing from the technical period into the period of organization. I agree with Toynbee that mechani- cal technique no longer characterizes our times. However important and impressive mechanical technique remains, it is only accessory to other factors which are much more decisive, if less spectacular. I have in mind the vast amount of organization in every field, the recognition of which led James Burnham to write The Managerial Revolution. But I cannot agree with Toynbee in his choice of terms or in the line he draws between the technical period and the period of or- ganization. In his sketchy conception of technique, for which he has been severely criticized, the confusion between machine and technique remains. He has limited the realm of technique to what it was in the past, without considering what it is now. In reality, what Toynbee calls organization, and Burnham calls managerial action, is technique applied to social, economic, or ad- ministrative life. What but technique is the “organization” defined in the following? “Organization is the process which consists in assigning appropriate tasks to individuals or to groups so as to at- tain, in an efficient and economic way, and by the coordination and combination of all their activities, the objectives agreed upon” (Sheldon). This leads to the standardization and the rationaliza- tion of economic and administrative life, as Antoine Mas has well shown. “Standardization means resolving in advance all the prob- lems that might possibly impede the functioning of an organization. It is not a matter of leaving it to inspiration, ingenuity, nor even intelligence to find a solution at the moment some difficulty arises; TECHNIQUES 12) it is rather in some way to anticipate both the difficulty and its resolution. From then on, standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals.” We thus have all the marks of a technique. Organization is a technique—and Andre L. A. Vincent had good reason to write: “To approach the optimum combination of factors, or the optimum dimension is ... to accomplish technical prog- ress in the form of a better organization.” It will no doubt be asked: What is the point of discussing these terms, since, at bottom, you are in agreement with Toynbee? But these discussions are important: Toynbee separates centuries and phenomena which ought to remain united. He would have us be- lieve that organization is something other than technique, that man has in a way discovered a new field of action and new methods, and that we must study organization as a new phenomenon, when it is nothing of the sort. I, on the other hand, insist on the con- tinuity of the technical process. It is this process which is taking on a new aspect (I would say, its true aspect) and is developing on a world-wide scale. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems cre- ated by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree as yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to ad- ministration and to all spheres of life, Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a coun- terbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old proce- dure of digging a new hole to fill up an old one. A second consequence: If what we are witnessing is only an ex- tension of the domain of technique, what was said above about mechanization is understandable. Toynbee writes of organization as a phenomenon whose effects cannot yet be seen. However, we can be confident that the final result will be that technique will assimilate everything to the machine; the ideal for which technique strives is the mechanization of everything it encounters. It is clear, therefore, that my opposition to Toynbee, even if it appears to be merely verbal, is significant. The technical age continues to ad- The Technological Society (13 vance and we cannot even say that we are at the peak 0£ its ex- pansion. In fact, some decisive conquests remain to be made— man, among others—and it is hard to see what is to prevent technique from making them. Thus, even if this is not a question of a new factor, it is at least clear now what the phenomenon in- volves and what it signifies. Definitions. Once we stop identifying technique and machine, the definitions of technique we find are inadequate to the established facts. Marcel Mauss, the sociologist, understands the problem ad- mirably, and has given various definitions of technique, some of which are excellent. Let us take one that is open to criticism and, by criticizing it, state our ideas more precisely: “Technique is a group of movements, of actions generally and mostly manual, or- ganized, and traditional, all of which unite to reach a known end, ' for example, physical, chemical or organic.” This definition is perfectly valid for the sociologist who deals with the primitive. It offers, as Mauss shows, numerous advantages. For example, it eliminates from the realm of techniques questions of religion or art (magic, however, ought to be classified among techniques, as we shall see later). But these advantages apply only in a historical perspective. In the modern perspective, this defini- tion is insufficient Can it be said that the technique of elaboration of an economic plan (purely a technical operation) is the result of such movements as Mauss describes? No particular motion or physical act is in- volved. An economic plan is purely an intellectual operation, which nevertheless is a technique. When we consider Mauss’s statement that technique is restricted to manual activity, the inadequacy of his definition is even more apparent. Today most technical operations are not manual Whether machines are substituted for men, or technique becomes intellectual, the most important sphere in the world today (because in it lie the seeds of future development) is scarcely that of manual labor. True, manual labor is still the basis of mechanical operation, and we would do well to recall Jijnger's principal argument against the illusion of technical progress. He holds that the more technique is perfected, the more it requires secondary manual labor; and, furthermore, that the volume of manual operations increases faster than the volume of mechanical operations. This TECHNIQUES may be so, but the most important feature of techniques today is that they do not depend on manual labor but on organization and on the arrangement of machines. I am willing to accept the term organized, as Mauss uses it in his definition, but I must part company with him in respect to his use of the term traditional. And this differentiates the technique of today from that of previous civilizations. It is true that in all civiliza- tions technique has existed as tradition, that is, by the transmission of inherited processes that slowly ripen and are even more slowly modified; that evolve under the pressure of circumstances along with the body social; that create automatisms which become hereditary and are integrated into each new form of technique. But how can anyone fail to see that none of this holds true today? Technique has become autonomous; it has fashioned an omnivo- rous world which obeys its own laws and which has renounced all tradition. Technique no longer rests on tradition, but rather on previous technical procedures; and its evolution is too rapid, too upsetting, to integrate the older traditions. This fact, which we shall study at some length later on, also explains why it is not quite true that a technique assures a result known in advance. It is true if one considers only the user: the driver of an automobile knows that he can expect to go faster when he steps on the ac- celerator. But even in the field of the mechanical, with the advent of the technique of servo-mechanisms,1 this axiom does not hold true. In these cases the machine itself adapts as it operates; this very fact makes it difficult to predict the final result of its activity. This becomes clear when one considers not use but technical progress—although, at the present time, the two are closely asso- ciated. It is less and less exact to maintain that the user remains for very long in possession of a technique the results of which he can predict; constant invention ceaselessly upsets his habits. Finally, Mauss appears to think that the goal attained is of a chemical or a physical order. But today we recognize that tech- niques go further. Psychoanalysis and sociology have passed into the sphere of technical application; one example of this is propa- 1 Mechanisms which involve so-called “feedback,''* in which information measuring the degree to which an effector (e.g., an oil furance) is in error with respect to producing a desired value (e.g., a fixed room temperature) is “fed back" to the effector by a monitor (e.g., a thermostat). (Trans.) The Technological Society (15 ganda. Here the operation is of a moral, psychic, and spiritual character. However, that does not prevent it from being a tech- nique. But what we are talking about is a world once given over to the pragmatic approach and now being taken over by method. We can say, therefore, that Mauss’s definition, which was valid for technique until the eighteenth century, is not applicable to our times. In this respect Mauss has been the victim of his own socio- logical studies of primitive people, as his classification of tech- niques (food gathering, the making of garments, transport, etc.) clearly shows. Further examples of inadequate definition are those supplied by Jean Fourastie and others who pursue the same line of research as he. For Fourastie, technical progress is “the growth of the volume of production obtained through a fixed quantity of raw material or human labor”—that is, technique is uniquely that which promotes this increase in yield. He then goes on to say that it is possible to analyze this theorem under three aspects. In yield in kind, tech- nique is that which enables raw materials to be managed in order to obtain some predetermined product; in financial yield, tech- nique is that which enables the increase in production to take place through the increase of capital investment; in yield of human labor, technique is that which increases the quantity of work produced by a fixed unit of human labor. In this connection we must thank Fourastie for correcting Jiinger’s error—Jiinger opposes technical progress to economic progress because they would be, in his opin- ion, contradictory; Fourastie shows that, on the contrary, the two coincide. However, we must nevertheless challenge his definition of technique on the ground that it is completely arbitrary. It is arbitrary, first of all, because it is purely economic and contemplates only economic yield. There are innumerable tradi- tional techniques which are not based on a quest for economic yield and which have no economic character. It is precisely these which Mauss alludes to in his definition; and they still exist. Among the myriad modern techniques, there are many which have nothing to do with economic life. Take, for example, a technique of mastication based on the science of nutrition, or techniques of sport, as in the Boy Scout movement—in these cases we can see a kind of yield, but this yield has little to do with economics. In other cases, there are economic results, but these results are 1 6 ) TECHNIQUES secondary and cannot be said to be characteristic. Take, for ex- ample, the modem calculating machine. The solving of equations in seventy variables, required in certain econometric research, is impossible except with an electronic calculating machine. How- ever, it is not the economic productivity which results from the utilization of this machine by which its importance is measured. A second criticism of Fourastie’s definition is that he assigns an exclusively productive character to technique. The growth of the volume of production is an even narrower concept than yield. The techniques which have shown the greatest development are not techniques of production at all. For example, techniques in the care of human beings (surgery, psychology, and so on) have nothing to do with productivity. The most modern techniques of destruc- tion have even less to do with productivity; the atomic and hydro- gen bombs and the Germans’ Vi and V2 weapons are all examples of the most powerful technical creations of mans mind. Human ingenuity and mechanical skill are today being exploited along lines which have little reference to productivity. Nothing equals the perfection of our war machines. Warships and warplanes are vastly more perfect than their counterparts in ci- vilian life. The organization of the army—its transport, supplies, administration—is much more precise than any civilian organiza- tion. The smallest error in the realm of war would cost countless lives and would be measured in terms of victory or defeat. What is the yield there? Very poor, on the whole. Where is the productivity? There is none. Vincent, in his definition, likewise refers to productivity: 'Tech- nical progress is the relative variation in world production in a given sphere between two given periods.” This definition, useful of course from the economic point of view, leads him at once into a dilemma. He is obliged to distinguish technical progress from progress of technique (which corresponds to the progression of techniques in all fields) and to distinguish these two from “techni- cal progress, properly speaking,” which concerns variations in productivity. This is an inference made from natural phenomena, for, in his definition, Vincent is obliged to recognize that technical progress includes natural phenomena (the greater or lesser richness of an ore, of the soil, etc.) by definition the very contrary of tech- nique! The Technological Society (17 These linguistic acrobatics and hairsplittings suffice to prove the inanity of such a definition, which aims at a single aspect of techni- cal progress and includes elements which do not belong to tech- nique. From this definition, Vincent infers that technical progress is slow. But what is true of economic productivity is not true of technical progress in general. If one considers technique shorn of one whole part, and that its most progressive, one can indeed assert that it is slow in its progress. This abstraction is even more illusory when one claims to measure technical progress. The definition proposed by Fourastie is inexact because it excludes everything which does not refer to production, and all effects which are not economic. This tendency to reduce the technical problem to the dimensions of the technique of production is also present in the works of so enlightened a scholar as Georges Friedmann. In his introduction to the UNESCO Colloquium on technique, he appears to start out with a very broad definition. But in the second paragraph, without warning, he begins to reduce everything to the level of economic production. What gives rise to this limitation of the problem? One factor might be a tacit optimism, a need to hold that technical progress is unconditionally valid—which leads to the selection of the most positive aspect of technical progress, as though it were its only one. This may have guided Fourastie, but it does not seem to hold true in Friedmann’s case. I believe that the reasoning behind Fried- mann’s way of thinking is to be found in the turn of the scientific mind. All aspects—mechanical, economic, psychological, socio- logical—of the techniques of production have been subjected to innumerable specialized studies; as a result, we are beginning to learn in a more precise and scientific way about the relationships between man and the industrial machine. Since the scientist must use the materials he has at hand; and since almost nothing is known about the relationship of man to the automobile, the telephone, or the radio, and absolutely nothing about the relationship of man to the Apparat or about the sociological effects of other aspects of technique, the scientist moves unconsciously toward the sphere of what is known scientifically, and tries to limit the whole question to that. There is another element in this scientific attitude: only that is TECHNIQUES 18) knowable which is expressed (or, at least, can be expressed) in numbers. To get away from the so-called “arbitrary and subjec- tive,” to escape ethical or literary judgments (which, as everyone knows, are trivial and unfounded), the scientist must get back to numbers. What, after all, can one hope to deduce from the purely qualitative statement that the worker is fatigued? But when bio- chemistry makes it possible to measure fatigability numerically, it is at last possible to take account of the worker’s fatigue. Then there is hope of finding a solution. However, an entire realm of effects of technique—indeed, the largest—is not reducible to num- bers; and it is precisely that realm which we are investigating in this work. Yet, since what can be said about it is apparently not to be taken seriously, it is better for the scientist to shut his eyes and regard it as a realm of pseudo-problems, or simply as non- existent. The “scientific” position frequently consists of denying the existence of whatever does not belong to current scientific method. The problem of the industrial machine, however, is a numerical one in nearly all its aspects. Hence, all of technique is unintentionally reduced to a numerical question. In the case of Vincent, this is intentional, as his definition shows: "We embrace in technical progress all kinds of progress . . . provided that they are treatable numerically in a reliable way.” H. D. Lasswell’s definition of technique as “the ensemble of prac- tices by which one uses available resources in order to achieve certain valued ends” also seems to follow the conventions cited above, and to embrace only industrial technique. Here it might be contested whether technique does indeed permit the realization of values. However, to judge from Lasswell’s examples, he con- ceives the terms of his definition in an extremely broad manner. He gives a list of values and the corresponding techniques. As values, for example, he lists riches, power, well-being, affection; and as techniques, the techniques of government, production, medicine, the family, and so on. Lasswell’s conception of value may seem somewhat strange; the term is obviously not apt. But what he has to say indicates that he gives techniques their full scope. Moreover, he makes it quite clear that it is necessary to show the effects of technique not only on inanimate objects but also on people. I am, therefore, in substantial agreement with this conception. The Technological Society (19 Technical Operation and Technical Phenomenon. With the use of these few guideposts, we can now try to formulate, if not a full definition, at least an approximate definition of technique. But we must keep this in mind: we are not concerned with the different in- dividual techniques. Everyone practices a particular technique, and it is difficult to come to know them all. Yet in this great di- versity we can find certain points in common, certain tendencies and principles shared by them all. It is clumsy to call these common features Technique with a capital T; no one would recognize bis particular technique behind this terminology. Nevertheless, it takes account of a reality—the technical phenomenon—which is world- wide today. If we recognize that the method each person employs to attain a result is in fact, his particular technique, the problem of means is raised. In fact, technique is nothing more than means and the ensemble of means. This, of course, does not lessen the importance of the problem. Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends. Any other assessment of the situation is mere idealism. Techniques considered as methods of operation present certain common characteristics and certain general tendencies, but we cannot devote ourselves exclusively to them. To do this would lead to a more specialized study than I have in mind. The technical phenomenon is much more complex than any synthesis of char- acteristics common to individual techniques. If we desire to come closer to a definition of technique, we must in fact differentiate between the technical operation and the technical phenomenon. Tke technical operation includes every operation carried out in accordance with a certain method in order to attain a particular end. It can be as rudimentary as splintering a flint or as compli- cated as programming an electronic brain. In every case, it is the method which characterizes the operation. It may be more or less effective or more or less complex, but its nature is always the same. It is this which leads us to think that there is a continuity in techni- cal operations and that only the great refinement resulting from scientific progress differentiates the modern technical operation from the primitive one. Every operation obviously entails a certain technique, even the TECHNIQUES 20) gathering of fruit among primitive peoples—climbing the tree, picking the fruit as quickly and with as little effort as possible, dis- tinguishing between the ripe and the unripe fruit, and so on. How- ever, what characterizes technical action within a particular ac- tivity is the search for greater efficiency. Completely natural and spontaneous effort is replaced by a complex of acts designed to im- prove, say, the yield. It is this which prompts the creation of tech- nical forms, starting from simple forms of activity. These technical forms are not necessarily more complicated than the spontaneous ones, but they are more efficient and better adapted. Thus, technique creates means, but the technical operation still occurs on the same level as that of the worker who does the work. The skilled worker, like the primitive huntsman, remains a techni- cal operator; their attitudes differ only to a small degree. But two factors enter into the extensive field of technical opera- tion: consciousness and judgment. This double intervention pro- duces what I call the technical phenomenon. What characterizes this double intervention? Essentially, it takes what was previously tentative, unconscious, and spontaneous and brings it into the realm of clear, voluntary, and reasoned concepts. When Andre Leroi-Gourhan tabulates the efficiency of Zulu swords and arrows in terms of the most up-to-date knowledge of weaponry, he is doing work that is obviously different from that of the swordsmith of Bechuanaland who created the form of the sword. The swordsmith’s choice of form was unconscious and spontaneous; although it can now be justified by numerical calcu- lations, such calculations had no place whatever in the technical operation he performed. But reason did, inevitably, enter into the process because man spontaneously imitates nature in his activi- ties. Accomplishments that merely copy nature, however, have no future (for instance, the imitation of birds’ wings from Icarus to Ader). Reason makes it possible to produce objects in terms of certain features, certain abstract requirements; and this in turn leads, not to the imitation of nature, but to the ways of technique. The intervention of rational judgment in the technical operation has important consequences. Man becomes aware that it is possible to find new and different means. Reason upsets pragmatic tradi- tions and creates new operational methods and new tools; it examines rationally the possibilities of more extensive and less rigid The Technologiccd Society (21 experimentation. Reason in these ways multiplies technical opera- tions to a high degree of diversity. But it also operates in the op- posite direction: it considers results and takes account of the fixed end of technique—efficiency. It notes what every means devised is capable of accomplishing and selects from the various means at its disposal with a view to securing the ones that are the most efficient, the best adapted to the desired end. Thus the multiplicity of means is reduced to one: the most efficient. And here reason appears clearly in the guise of technique. In addition, there is the intervention of consciousness. Conscious- ness shows clearly, and to everybody, the advantages of technique and what it can accomplish. The technician takes stock of alterna- tive possibilities. The immediate result is that he seeks to apply the new methods in fields which traditionally had been left to chance, pragmatism, and instinct. The intervention of conscious- ness causes a rapid and far-flung extension of technique. The twofold intervention of reason and consciousness in the technical world, which produces the technical phenomenon, can be described as the quest of the one best means in every field. And this “one best means” is, in fact, the technical means. It is the aggregate of these means that produces technical civilization. The technical phenomenon is the main preoccupation of our time; in every field men seek to find the most efficient method But our investigations have reached a limit. It is no longer the best relative means which counts, as compared to other means also in use. The choice is less and less a subjective one among several means which are potentially applicable. It is really a question of finding the best means in the absolute sense, on the basis of nu- merical calculation. It is, then, the specialist who chooses the means; he is able to carry out the calculations that demonstrate the superiority of the means chosen over all others. Thus a science of means comes into being—a science of techniques, progressively elaborated. This science extends to greatly diverse areas; it ranges from the act of shaving to the act of organizing the landing in Normandy, or to cremating thousands of deportees. Today no human activity es- capes this technical imperative. There is a technique of organiza- ticyi (the great fact of organization described by Toynbee fits very well into this conception of the technical phenomenon), just as 2 2) TECHNIQUES there is a technique of friendship and a technique of swimming. Under the circumstances, it is easy to see how far we are from confusing technique and machine. And, if we examine the broader areas where this search for means is taking place, we find three principal subdivisions of modern technique, in addition to the mechanical (which is the most conspicuous but which I shall not discuss because it is so well known) and to the forms of in- tellectual technique (card indices, libraries, and so on). 1) Economic technique is almost entirely subordinated to pro- duction, and ranges from the organization of labor to economic planning. This technique differs from the others in its object and goal. But its problems are the same as those of all other technical activities. 2) The technique of organization concerns the great masses and applies not only to commercial or industrial affairs of magnitude (coming, consequently, under the jurisdiction of the economic) but also to states and to administration and police power. This organi- zational technique is also applied to warfare and insures the power of an army at least as much as its weapons. Everything in the legal field also depends on organizational technique. 3) Human technique takes various forms, ranging all the way from medicine and genetics to propaganda (pedagogical tech- niques, vocational guidance, publicity, etc.). Here man himself be- comes the object of technique. We observe, in the case of each of these subdivisions, that the subordinate techniques may be very different in kind and not necessarily similar one to another as techniques. They have the same goal and preoccupation, however, and are thus related. The three subdivisions show the wide extent of the technical phenome- non* In fact, nothing at all escapes technique today. There is no field where technique is not dominant—this is easy to say and is scarcely surprising. We are so habituated to machines that there seems to be nothing left to discover. Has the fact of technique no intrinsic importance? Does it spring merely from the march of time? Or does it represent a problem pe- culiar to our times? Our discussion of the biology of technique will bring us face to face with this question. But first we must survey in detail the vast field which the technical phenomenon covers, in order to become fully cognizant of what it signifies. The Technological Society (*3 Historical Development Primitive Technique. It is scarcely possible to give here a his- tory of technique in its universal aspect, as we have just defined it. We are only now beginning to know a little of the history of me- chanical technique. It is enough to recall the works of Andre Leroi-Gourhan, Richard Lefebvre des Noettes, Marc Bloch, and others. But the full history of technique has yet to be written. My book is not a history. I shall speak in a historical vein only when it is necessary to the understanding of the technical problem in soci- ety today. Technical activity is the most primitive activity of man. There is the technique of hunting, of fishing, of food gathering; and later of weapons, clothing, and building. And here we face a mystery. What is the origin of this activity? It is a phenomenon which ad- mits of no complete explanation. By patient research, one finds areas of imitation, transitions from one technical form to another, examples of penetration. But at the core there is a closed area— the phenomenon of invention. It can be shown that technique is absorbed into man’s psychol- ogy and depends upon that psychology and upon what has been called technical motivation. But we have no explanation of how an activity which once did not exist came to be. How did man come to domesticate animals, to choose certain plants to cultivate? The motivating force, we are told, was religious,2 and the first plants were cultivated with some magical end in mind. This is likely, but how was the selection made? And how did it happen that the majority of these plants were edible? How did man come to refine metals and make bronze? Was it chance, as the legend of the discovery of Phoenician glass has it? This is obviously not the answer. One is left with an enigma; and there is some point in emphasiz- ing that there is here the same mysterious quality as in the appear- ance of life itself. Each primitive operation of man implies the bridging of such an enormous gulf between instinct and the techni- * See, for example, Pierre Deffontaiaes* Geographic des religions. TECHNIQUES *4) cal act that a mystic aura hovers about all subsequent develop- ment Our modern worship of technique derives from man's ancestral worship of the mysterious and marvelous character of his own handiwork. It has not been sufficiently emphasized that technique has evolved along two distinct paths. There is the concrete technique of homo faber—man the maker—to which we are accustomed, and which poses the problems we have normally studied. There is also the technique, of a more or less spiritual order, which we call magic. It may seem questionable; nevertheless, magic is a technique in the strictest sense of the word, as has been clearly demonstrated by Marcel Mauss. Magic developed along with other techniques as an expression of man's will to obtain certain results of a spiritual order. To attain them, man made use of an aggregate of rites, formulas, and procedures which, once established, do not vary. Strict adherence to form is one of the characteristics of magic; forms and rituals, masks which never vary, the same kind of prayer wheels, the same ingredients for mystical drugs, for formulae for divination, and so on. All these became set and were passed on: the slightest variation in word or gesture would alter the magical equilibrium. There is a relationship between the ready-made formula and a precise result. The gods being propitiated obey such an invocation out of necessity; all the more reason that they be given no oppor- tunity to escape compliance because the invocation is not correctly formulated. This fixity is a manifestation of the technical character of magic: when the best possible means of obtaining the desired result has been found, why change it? Every magical means, in the eyes of the person who uses it, is the most efficient one. In the spiritual realm, magic displays all the characteristics of a technique. It is a mediator between man and ‘‘the higher powers,” just as other techniques mediate between man and matter. It leads to efficacy because it subordinates the power of the gods to men, and it secures a predetermined result. It affirms human power in that it seeks to subordinate the gods to men, just as tech- nique serves to cause nature to obey. Magic clearly displays the characteristics of primitive technique, as Leroi-Gourhan indicates when he says that technique is a The Technological Society (55 cloak for man, a kind of cosmic vestment. In his conflict with mat- ter, in his struggle to survive, man interposes an intermediary agency between himself and his environment, and this agency has a twofold function. It is a means of protection and defense: alone man is too weak to defend himself. It is also a means of assimilation: through technique, man is able to utilize to his profit powers that are alien or hostile. He is able to manipulate his surroundings so that they are no longer merely his surroundings but become a factor of equilibrium'and of profit to him. Thus, as a result of tech- nique* man transforms his adversaries into allies. These characteristics of material technique correspond perfectly to the characteristics of magical technique. There, also, man is in conflict with external forces, with the world of mystery, spiritual powers, and mystical currents. But there, too, man erects a barrier around himself, for he would not know how to defend him- self by his own unaided intellect. He uses any means that will serve him both for defense and for adjustment. He turns to his own profit the hostile powers, which are obliged to obey him by virtue of his magical formulas. Masson-Oursel, in a recent study, confirms this. He shows that magic is basically a "scholasticism of efficiency” which man employs as an instrument against his en- vironment; that magic is pragmatic, yet has a precision that must be called objective; and that its efficiency is demonstrated only in certain “consecrations or disqualifications.” Masson-Oursel rightly believes that magic preceded technique—in fact, that magic is the first expression of technique. Plainly, we have had two streams of technique from the very be- ginning. How does it happen that we never take cognizance of the second? There are a number of reasons. We can leave aside the causes that come from modem psychology. Because we are ob- sessed with materialism and do not take magic seriously, it has little interest for us, and we are unaware even today, as we study technique—the techniques that relate to men—that we are draw- ing on the great stream of magical techniques. But this neglect is due as well to objective causes: in relation to purely material factors, it has been demonstrated that every milieu resists imitating the techniques of another social or ethnic group. Surely, this resistance was much stronger in the realm of magical techniques. Here were all the taboos and prohibitions, the im- TECHNIQUES 26) mense strength of magical conservatism. Then, too, whereas ma- terial techniques are relatively distinct and independent of one another, magical techniques are rapidly elaborated into a rigid system. Everything is of a piece, everything is dependent upon everything else; consequently, nothing can be meddled with, noth- ing modified without threat to the whole structure of beliefs and activities. Hence, their weak expansive power and their strong power of defense against alien magical techniques. The realm of magical practice is limited, and there is little or no diffusion. Propagation begins with “spiritualist” religions which are not bound to special magical rites. There is, then, no possibility of choice between different rival magical techniques; yet expansion and choice are decisive factors in technical progress. There is no real progress in the realm of magic; here lies its fundamental dif- ference. There is no progress in space, no progress in time; indeed, the tendency of magic is to regress. And because magical technique is tied to one ethnic group, to one given form of civilization, it dis- appears completely when that group or civilization disappears. When a civilization dies, it transmits to its heirs its material but not its spiritual apparatus. Tools, houses, and methods of manu- facture live on and, more or less reincarnated, are to be met with again. There may be a temporary material regression in periods of great destruction, but the lost ground is recovered, as if a collective historical memory made possible the recovery of what had been lost several generations before. But magical techniques, rites, for- mulas, and sacrificial practices disappear irremediably. The new civilization will fashion its own new stock of magic, which has little in common with the old. Only a set of generalizations so broad as to mean nothing, and overhasty analogies, create the belief that magical forms are perpetuated and renewed. Indeed, they live on only in the minds of the “initiates” and not in any human or social reality. Consequently, a magical technique that is not passed on in time or space does not follow the same evolutionary curve as ma- terial technique. There is not a progression of discoveries built one upon the other; rather, discoveries remain side by side and do not affect one another. There is another factor in the regression of magical techniques: the problem of evidence. In material techniques, choice is relatively The Technological Society (27 simple. Since every technique is subordinate to its immediate result, it is only a question of choosing the one that produces the most satisfactory result; and, in the material domain, that result can readily be seen. That one form of axe is superior to another is a judgment not beyond a normal man (in spite of the extreme diffi- culty primitive man experienced when faced with such a choice). But with magical techniques the same certainty or force of evi- dence does not exist. Who can judge their relative efficiency? Magical efficiency is not always to be measured by a clear material result such as making rain fall, but may have to do with some purely spiritual phenomena or even with material phenomena over a long period of time. Here matters are not clear nor the choice easy; the difficulty becomes even more acute when we think about the uncertainty of the reasons for failure. Was the magical tech- nique really inefficient? Or was the one who used it incompetent? The common reaction is to blame the magician rather than the technique, and here again we see an element of immobility in magic. The two great streams of technique which we have traced from their beginnings evolved in completely different ways. In manual technique we observe an increase and later a multiplication of dis- coveries, each based on the other. In magic we see only endless new beginnings, as the fortunes of history and its own inefficiency call its procedures into question. Explanation becomes even more difficult when we note that in the magical domain too our own era has achieved an overwhelming superiority; our magical techniques have become really effective. These techniques obviously must not be confused with religious life or anything of that kind. This is purely a social phenomenon, both in aim and in form. However, the two aspects of technique, although both are social, are sharply separated, and would seem to have interacted very little anywhere. Greece. Technique is essentially Oriental: it was principally in the Near East that technique first developed, and it had very little in the way of scientific foundation. It was entirely directed toward practical application and was not concerned with general theories, which alone can give rise to scientific movements. This predomi- nance of technique in the East points up an error which is found throughout Western thought: that the Oriental mind is turned TECHNIQUES *«> toward the mystical and has no interest in concrete action, whereas the Western mind is oriented toward "know-how* and action, and hence toward technique. In fact, the East was the cradle of all action, of all past and primitive technique in the present sense of the word, and later of spiritual and magical technique as well. The Greeks, however, were the first to have a coherent scientific activity and to liberate scientific thought. But then a phenomenon occurred which still astonishes historians: the almost total separa- tion of science and technique. Doubtless, this separation was less absolute than the example of Archimedes has led historians to believe. But it is certain that material needs were treated with con- tempt, that technical research was considered unworthy of the in- tellect, and that the goal of science was not application but con- templation. Plato shunned any compromise with application, even in order to forward scientific research. For him, only the most ab- stract possible exercise of reason was important. Archimedes went even further. True, he rationalized practice and even made “appli- cations” to a certain degree; but his machine was to be destroyed after it had demonstrated the exactness of his numerical reckon- ings. Why did the Greeks adopt this Malthusian attitude toward ac- tivity? There are two possible answers: either they were not willing or they were not able. And it is likely that both are true. Abel Rey has devoted the fifth volume of his Science Technique to the Greeks. According to him, Greece in her decline became “in- capable of sustaining the ideal of hard, disinterested labor (the ideal of an essentially contemplative intelligence disdainful of all utility). She then fell back on the techniques of the East She was involved in them by her own techniques, for she had none the less sought to satisfy men's vital needs, in spite of the contempt in which she held them.” Confronted with technical necessity, Greece lost her inventive genius and turned to Eastern technique. She did not know, says Abel Rey, how to find the bridge between “know- how” and “know-why.” This is true for the period of decadence, the second and first centuries b.c., but it does not seem to be the case in the preceding period; in the fifth century b,c., Greece experienced rapid technical development, although later it came to an abrupt halt. In their golden age of science, the Greeks could have deduced The Technological Society ( the technical consequences of their scientific activity. But they did not wish to. Walter asks: “Did the Creeks, obsessed with harmony, check themselves at the very point at which inquiry ran the risk of going to excess and threatened to introduce a monstrosity into their civilization?" This was the result of a variety of factors, most of which were of a philosophic nature. For one thing, theirs was a conception of life which scorned material needs and the improvement of practical life, discredited manual labor (because of the practice of slavery), held contemplation to be the goal of intellectual activity, refused the use of power, respected natural things. The Greeks were suspicious of technical activity because it represented an aspect of brute force and implied a want of moderation. Man, however humble his technical equipment, has from the very beginning played the role of sorcerer’s apprentice in relation to the machine. This feeling on the part of the Greeks was not a reflection of a primitive man’s fear in the face of something he does not under- stand (the explanation given today when certain persons take fright at our techniques). Rather, it was the result, perfectly mastered and perfectly measured, of a certain conception of life. It repre- sented an apex of civilization and intelligence. Here we find the supreme Greek virtue, lypkrt4* (self-control). The rejection of technique was a deliberate, positive activity in- volving self-mastery, recognition of destiny, and the application of a given conception of life. Only the most modest techniques were permitted—those which would respond directly to material needs in such a way that these needs did not get the upper hand. In Greece a conscious effort was made to economize on means and to reduce the sphere of influence of technique. No one sought to apply scientific thought technically, because scientific thought corresponded to a conception of life, to wisdom. The great occupation of the Greeks was balance, harmony and moderation; hence, they fiercely resisted the unrestrained force inherent in technique, and rejected it because of its potentialities. For these same reasons, magic had relatively little importance in Greece. Rome. Social technique was still in its infancy. Doubtless, there had been some attempts at social organization—those of certain Pharaohs, and those of the Persian empire, were not neglibible. But such organizations could be maintained only by police power. TECHNIQUES 3«) whereas the exact opposite is true of genuine social organization. By the very fact of its existence, coercion demonstrates the ab- sence of political, administrative, and juridical technique; for this reason the great empires of the past are of little importance to our study. Correlatively, an army (even the army of the Chaldeans, who advanced the art of war furthest) was a fairly inorganic crew whose aim was pillage and which applied no social technique. The army of Alexander made use of genuine strategy, but this was al- most exclusively military and had no sociological foundations or attributes. It was the expression not of a people but of a state—and therefore lacked the substance necessary to technique. In Rome, however, we pass on, at one step, to the perfection of social technique, both civil and military. Everything in Roman so- ciety was related to Roman law in its multiple forms, both public and private. To characterize the technique of this law in the period during which it flourished (from the second century b.c. to the second century a.d.), we can say first of all that it was not the fruit of ab- stract thought, but rather of an exact view of the concrete situation, which the Romans attempted to turn to account with the fewest possible means. This realism respected justice and acknowledged history and necessity. From this concrete, experimental view, which the Romans held consciously, their administrative and judi- cial technique developed. And a kind of discipline appeared: the use of a minimum of means. This discipline, which probably had its foundations in religion, is one of the secrets of the whole de- velopment. To the degree that the Roman had to respond to neces- sity, and at the same time not permit himself excessive luxury, it was necessary to refinp pvery means, to bring it to perfection, to exploit it in every possible way, and to give it free rein, without shackling it with exceptions and secondary rules. No social situa- tion developed which did not immediately find its response in or- ganization. Nor could this response be the creation of a new means, but rather the perfection of an old means. Indeed, the proliferation of means is thought even today to denote technological weakness. A second element in the Roman development of organization was the search for an equilibrium between the purely technical factor and the human factor. Judicial technique did not begin as a substitute for man. In Roman judicial technique there was no The Technological Society (31 question of eliminating initiative and responsibility, but rather of allowing them to operate and to assert themselves. It was not until the third century a.d. that judicial technique attempted to deal with the details of life, to regulate everything, to foresee everything, thereby leaving the individual in a state of complete inertia. But the great judicial era of Rome was one of equilibrium: the law laid down the framework and supplied the means that men could use in following their own initiative. Of course, this presupposed a civic sense corresponding to the technical conception. The equilibrium between the two was evident in the system of pro- cedure we call bureaucracy; in it is found, with an almost dis- concerting simplicity, the perfect type of procedure. And there we find that one of the conditions of technique is respect for the in- dividual, who is not yet considered apart from society. A third characteristic of Roman technique was that it was di- rected toward a precise end: the internal coherence of society. This technique was not self-justifying, it did not have as its raison (Tetre its own self-development, and it was not imposed from the out- side. It was not a kind of scaffolding which held independent ele- ments together; it sought rather to promote cohesion. The founda- tion of society was not the police; it was an organization which enabled society to make the least possible use of the police. A wide variety of techniques—religious, administrative, and finan- cial—were obviously needed to execute this design, but in no case was there recourse to force. When it appeared that the state would be compelled to use force, the organizational sense of the Romans led them to abandon a given project rather than attempt to maintain it by force. Force is never economical, and Rome was economical in all things. This social coherence was the first judicial technique the world had known. It was also the basis for the Roman military system, which was a direct expression of civil society in that it had the same respect for efficiency and economy. From it came the development of organs of transport, food supply, and so on; and the Roman con- ception of mass strategy and their refusal to create heroes: combat was thus reduced to its most utilitarian level. A fourth element was continuity. The judicial technique of the Romans was constantly being readapted in accordance with a his- torical plan. It involved a policy of watchful waiting while circum- 3* ) TECHNIQUES stances were not propitious, at the same time making preparations for the right moment, and when that moment came, carrying out the plan decisively. As regards material techniques, the Romans did not develop them as brilliantly. From the fourth to the first century b.c., and after the second century a.d., there was almost total stagnation— tools and armaments no longer evolved. But from the first century b.c. to the first century a.d., a technical revival took place. Practical necessity (on the economic and military levels and with regard to transport) was met by the production of animal-powered ma- chines (forges, water wheels, pumps, plows, the screw press, cord-operated ballistic engines, etc.). The Romans possessed a remarkable understanding of applica- bility. Their judicial system could be applied always and every- where (in the Empire); it was adapted to an unfailing continuity. And these were totally new phenomena which Rome introduced. Later, Rome was allowed to drift into a technical vertigo; the end was near. Christianity and Technique. The East: passive, fatalist, contemptu- ous of life and action; the West: active, conquering, turning nature to profit. These contrasts, so dear to popular sociology, are said to result from a difference in religion: Buddhism and Islam on the one hand; on the other, Christianity, which is credited with having forged the practical soul of the West. These ideas are hardly beyond the level of the rote repetitions found even in the works of serious historians. It is not for me to examine religious doctrines in themselves or as absolute if unreal- ized dogma, but rather to interpret them sociologically. After all, I am not writing theology; I am writing history. And there is a world or difference between dogma and its sociological application. (I shall not touch upon the personal interpretation of religion, which concerns the relationship between the individual and God.) This being the case, it is obvious that certain statements call for modification. For example, the assertion that as a consequence of the teachings of Mohammed, the Islamic conquests of the seventh century are evidence of passivism. This might also be said of the determined Islamic resistance to Western encroachments during the last two centuries. We attribute to Buddhist indifferentism the remarkable artistic, political, and military development in India The Technological Society (33 from the second to the fifth century. In fact, however, these civili- zations were little advanced technically, though they had de- veloped in many other areas. Christianity in Russia, on the other hand, gave rise to a mystical civilization which was indifferent to material life and had no technical drive and no interest in economic exploitation. “Ah, yesT is the reply. “But Christianity in Russia had Eastern overtones . . Here, then, indifference to technique would appear to be a ques- tion of temperament and not of religion. Another embarrassing fact: when in her decline Greece applied herself to technical inquiry and the development of industry, she looked to the East for methods. And in the first century, when Rome—the perfect example of the technical spirit in antiquity— took up industry, she too turned to the East for industrial tech- niques—the refining of silver and gold, glassmaking, the tempering of weapons, pottery, ship construction, and so on. All these tech- niques came to Rome from the East, either early, through the Etruscans, or much later, after the conquests. We are far indeed from being able to support this traditional cleavage between East and West. In fact, during classical antiquity it was the East which possessed the concrete, inventive mind that grasps the truth and exploits it. The West is making a prodigious advance in technique at the present, and the West is traditionally Christian. Nor can it be main- tained that Christianity is a negligible factor in that advance. How- ever, there were several distinct historical periods in the West. The West was officially Christian until the fourteenth century; there- after, Christianity became controversial and was breached by other influences. What do we find, from a technical standpoint, in the so-called Christian era, the period from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries, the “sociological moment”? First, we observe the break- down of Roman technique in every area—on the level of organiza- tion as well as in the construction of cities, in industry, and in transport. From the fourth to the tenth centuries, in fact, there was a complete obliteration of technique, a condition so deplored that it became a focus of anti-Christian polemic, and rightly so. It was because the Christians held judicial and other technical activity in such contempt that they were considered the “enemies of the hu- man race”—and not only because they opposed Caesar. The re- TECHNIQUES 34) proach of Celsus was not without truth. After the Christian triumph in Rome, there was not one great jurist left who could guarantee the life and the value of the Roman organization. Decadence? No —complete disinterest in such activity. Saint Augustine devoted much of his De Civitate Dei to justifying the Christians in this respect, and to denying that their influence was detrimental. “They are good citizens,” he proclaimed. That may have been so, but their focus of interest was nevertheless on something other than the state and practical activity. I shall show later on that the technical state of mind is one of the principal causes of technical progress. It is not a coincidence that Rome declined as Christianity tri- umphed. The Emperor Julian was certainly justified in accusing the Christians of ruining the industry of the Empire. After this period of decadence (for which, of course, Christianity was not solely responsible), what does the historian find? The res- toration, under Christian influence, of an active civilization— methodical, exploiting the riches of the world as a gift given by God to be put to good use? Not at all. The society which developed from the tenth to the fourteenth century was vital, coherent, and unanimous; but it was characterized by a total absence of the tech- nical will. It was “a-capitalistic” as well as “a-technical.” From the point of view of organization, it was an anarchy in the etymological sense of the word—and it was completely nontechni- cal. Its law was principally based on custom. It had no social or political organization based on reasoned, elaborated rules. In all other areas—for example, in agriculture and industry—there was the same nearly total absence of technique. This was also true with regard to the military, the principal activity of the time. Combat was reduced to its most elementary—to charging in a straight line and to hand-to-hand engagement. Only architectural technique developed and asserted itself; but this was prompted not by a technical state of mind but by religious impulse. Little effort was made to improve agricultural or industrial prac- tices. There was no effort at useful creation—evidence of the re- markable practical genius of the Christian religion! And when at the beginning of the twelfth century, at first very feebly a technical movement began to take form, it developed under the influence of the East. The Technological Society ( 35 The technical impetus of our civilization came from the East, at first through the intermediacy of the Judaei3 and the Venetians, and later through the Crusades. But even so, it limited itself to imitating what it had seen—except in art. Certain autonomous dis- coveries did take place, especially as a result of commercial neces- sity; but this development was no more intense than it had been under the Roman Empire. In fact, the Middle Ages created only one new, complete tech- nique, an intellectual technique, a mode of reasoning: scholasti- cism. The very name evokes its mediocrity. With its gigantic ap- paratus, it was in the end nothing but an extremely cumbersome formalism; it wandered for centuries in intellectual blind alleys, notwithstanding the prodigious intellects of the men who used it and were deformed by it. The balance sheet shows no triumphs, even on the historical plane. The technical movement of the West developed in a world which had already withdrawn from the dominant influence of Christian- ity. A point can doubtless be made of the effects of the Reformation, but the economic consequences of this movement have been singu- larly exaggerated. In any case, this is not the place to take up this question. Although, practically speaking, it seems clear that Christianity was scarcely an important cause of technical progress (not to men- tion regression), it is nevertheless customary to hold that Chris- tianity, from the theological point of view, paved the way for technical development. Let us consider the two arguments advanced for this point of view. First, and most important, it is held that Christianity sup- pressed slavery, the great obstacle to technical development. The moment men are free, they supposedly turn toward technique to be delivered from the misery of labor. Slavery was thus a hindrance to technique because no attempt was made either to relieve the miserable condition of the slave or to replace him by some other motive force. The second argument is more intelligent: that an- tiquity was possessed of a holy fear of nature, and dared not lay hand on the secrets which to the ancients were gods. They dared not make use of natural forces, which for them were supernatural. A particular kind of trader. (Trans.) TECHNIQUES 36) Christianity secularized nature: with Christianity nature once again became simply nature and no one scrupled to exploit it. Unfortunately, however, neither of these arguments is quite ac- curate. There was in fact greater technical progress in civilizations where slavery was prevalent (for example, Egypt) than in others where that institution was practically unknown (for example, Israel). There was greater technical progress in the slaveholding period of Homan history than in the period when slaves were freed whole- sale. And the liberation of the slaves during the era of the barbarian invasions produced no technical improvement, even at long term; almost seven centuries elapsed between the suppression of slavery and the beginning of even a feeble technical advance. The rela- tion between technique and the absence of slavery is in no sense absolute; as Bertrand Gille has rightly pointed out, human trans- port by means of slaves was not known in Roman antiquity; yet the harnessing of animals had not been developed. We have here one of those facile, impressive, and altogether antihistorical explanations which theorists are so fond of. The slave, in fact, represented capital which it was not in the owner's interest to lose or to use haphazardly. And, as the elder Cato indi- cates, had it been possible to make the slave's labor more efficient and less fatiguing, his master had every interest in doing so. More- over, it did not cost anything to make use of the free men who lived on the vast domains of the public treasury or the limes or the Marches/ and later, on the ecclesiastical and seignorial lands. Certainly, it was not respect for human life which prompted the Romans to spare these people. And the people themselves scarcely possessed the freedom of mind or the material possibilities to im- prove their techniques. Gille has shown admirably that in Athens the Greek slaves may have had greater value than the free work- men. The second argument is no more applicable. It is true that Chris- tianity secularized nature. But did this benefit technique? We have noted, in passing, the religious origin of many forms of tech- nique; indeed, nature, as the theater of spiritual forces, gives rise to one particular teclinique already mentioned: magic. One of the * * The limes designated the Empire’s boundary regions to the north; the Marches, the Scottish and Welsh border areas. (Trans.) The Technological Society (37 goals of magic is to render the gods propitious to practical action and to put the “powers'* at the service of material technique. The representation of nature as inhabited by the gods was itself a potent act, and favorable, if not to all applications, certainly to technique itself. Taboos applied only to certain concrete applica- tions which were determined by ideas of right and wrong. Man thus felt that his actions were justified by the help given him by the gods of nature. Christianity, however, deprived him of this justification. What was the doctrinal position of early Christianity regarding practical activity, from the very beginning? On the moral plane, Christianity condemned luxury and money—in short, everything that represented the earthly city, which was consecrated to Satan and opposed to the City of God. This was the era of the anchorite, of the renunciation of city life, of cenobitism presented as an ideal. The tendency was toward the restriction of economic life. On the theological plane, there was the conviction that the world was ap- proaching its end, that it was useless to strive to develop or cultivate it, for the Lord was soon to return. It was wiser to be concerned with eschatology than with worldly affairs. At the beginning of the medieval period, these doctrines lost some of their hold (although they persisted under other guises— the feeling about death, for instance). But another element of Christianity remained which was opposed to technical develop- ment: the moral judgment which Christians passed on all human activities. Technical activity did not escape Christian moral judgment The question “Is it righteous?" was asked of every attempt to change modes of production or of organization. That something might be useful or profitable to men did not make it right and just. It had to fit a precise conception of justice before God. When an element of technique appeared to be righteous from every point of view, it was adopted, but even then with excessive caution. Only inven- tions (representing a choice among techniques made by individ- uals versed in Greek or Latin) judged worthy were applied or even allowed to become known. It was within this narrow compass that certain monks propagated and improved technical instru- ments. The spread of the hydraulic mill by the Cistercians is well known; likewise the many specialized mills to be found at the TECHNIQUES 38) Abbey of Royaumont (the smith’s mill, the fuller’s mill, etc.). But these exceptions were few. The search for justice before God, the measuring of technique by other criteria than those of technique itself—these were the great obstacles that Christianity opposed to technical progress. They operated in the Middle Ages in all areas of life, and made history coincide with theology. The age of the Reformation, in its effort to return to the most primitive conception of Christianity, broke down many barriers. But, even then, it was not so much from the influence of the new theology as from the shock of the Renaissance, from humanism and the authoritarian state, that technique received a decisive im- petus. The Sixteenth Century. In the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century the absence of technique in all areas but the mechanical is striking. There was an absence of human reasoning concerning action, of efforts directed toward simplification and systematization, and of concern for efficiency. Certain important technical achievements were made—for example, guns and gun factories—and there was some agricultural research. But it is sig- nificant that histories of technique (Pierre Ducasse’s, for ex- ample) leap from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. Indeed, the period which followed the Renaissance and the Reformation was much less fertile in invention than the period which had preceded them. Printing, the nautical compass, gunpowder (also copied from the East), all date from the fifteenth century. It would not do to minimize the importance of these inventions. For Norbert Wiener, they “constitute the lorn? of an industrial revolution which pre- ceded the principal industrial revolution.” Wiener, in a remarkable way, relates the principal inventions of this period to navigation, which, he proposes, was the propulsive force behind research. Alongside these major inventions, this period also saw a multitude of discoveries and new applications in banking, armaments, ma- chinery, architecture (for example, the discovery of a new system for constructing the dome, as applied to Sainte-Marie-des-Fleurs), and in agriculture and the making of furniture. The fifteenth century, in addition, is notable for a number of technical manuals from southern Germany and northern Italy The Technological Society (39 (written at the beginning of the century and printed and circulated at the end of it). These show a general interest in these problems, a technical preoccupation on the part of the men of the times. The great voyages were probably a consequence rather than a cause of this technical progress. But this technical drive slackened during the sixteenth century, which became poorer and poorer in technique, and technical weak- ness persisted through the seventeenth century and into the be- ginning of the eighteenth. This poverty of technical achievement, which lasted two centuries, leads us once more to question the influence of the Reformation. What caused this slowdown of tech- nical progress after the fifteenth century, which had been so rich in discoveries of all kinds? An uninitiated reader who opens a scientific treatise on law, econ- omy, medicine, or history published between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries is struck most forcibly by the complete ab- sence of logical order. The materials are treated successively with- out any connection, progression of thought, development, or show of proof. The reader is apparently to be guided only by the au- thor’s fancy. Every chapter in a scientific work, say, of the sixteenth century, is a self-contained unit which justifies and proves itself. A mere affirmation by the author generally serves as proof. And he lets himself go in a free association of ideas which are in no way pertinent to the subject; his thoughts often wend off to matters completely unconnected with the subject of the book. Purely personal reflection and private experience form the foun- dations of these books; in no sense do they represent an effort at common inquiry, reciprocal control, or search for the best method, all of which are indispensable for technique. The plan of a book was not laid out with the reader in mind; it was not based on subject matter, but rather on the personal fancy of the author, or on more obscure reasonings. Even men of powerful intellect such as Jean Bodin did not escape these failings. A second characteristic of this scientific literature is that it at- tempts to set down in one book the whole realm of knowledge. It is not rare to find, in works on law in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, extended treatments of archaeology, theology, psy- chology, and linguistics, not to mention history and literature. En- tire chapters concerned with magical practices or Peruvian soci- TECHNIQUES 40) ology may interrupt the course of a book devoted to revenues or to the jurisprudence of the Parliament of Bordeaux. This amalgam of reflections and miscellaneous bits of knowledge is found in the works of the best authors; it demonstrates the ab- sence of intellectual specialization. The intellectual ideal was uni- versality, and it was a rare thing for a judge, say, to be ignorant of alchemy, or a historian, of medicine. This was, in effect, an extension by humanism of the universalism to which medieval theology aspired. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries every intellectual had perforce to be a universalist. He had to have complete knowledge, and when he wrote on a given subject he felt constrained to put into the work everything he knew, pertinent or not. This was by no means a sign of muddleheadedness but rather of the prevailing search for a synthesized, universal system of knowledge. Every author sought to put his whole self into his work, even in the case of a technical book. Not the subject but the author dominated the work: this tendency itself is contrary to technical inquiry. The search was not for practical knowledge but for a comprehensive explication of phenomena. Thus Descartes, after having established an impeccable method of reasoning, gives himself over to the out- pourings of his imagination in order to explain—to take a single example—the movements of the tides. This explains another characteristic of the books written after the century of humanism: their lack of convenience. We find few tables of contents, no references, no division into sections, no indices, no chronology, sometimes not even pagination. The ap- paratus standard for scientific works today is not found even rudi- mentarily in the most perfect works of the period; and its absence is characteristic of the absence of intellectual technique. The books of the time were not written to be used, along with hundreds of others, to locate a piece of information accurately and quickly, or to validate or invalidate an experiment, or to furnish a formula. They were not written to be consulted. They were written to be read patiently in their entirety and to be meditated upon. Again, this goes back to the ideal of universality. The presentation of a book as an author's entire self, as a per- sonal expression of his very being, supposes that the reader sought in it not the solution of a given difficulty or the answer to a given The Technological Society ( 41 problem, but rather to make personal contact with the author. It was more a question of a personal exchange than of taking an ob- jective position. \ This applies to every other field of endeavor until the eighteenth century. Thus, in the simpjest technical form, the mechanical, no decisive progress was made during this time (unless Pascal were to be considered the sole exception; but even Pascal merely extended already known techniques). The same holds true for financial, ad- ministrative, and military techniques, in spite of what Vauban says to the contrary. Then an intermediate situation developed. But despite the efforts at co-ordination and systematization made by such great techni- cians as Richelieu and Colbert, the only result was a greater com- plication of the system, without much gain in efficiency. On the ad- ministrative and political level, all the new organs (each valuable in itself and without doubt efficient, but representing only an addi- tion to what already existed) had to take into consideration every other organ already functioning in the same field. New complicated departments, jurisdictions, and hierarchies unceasingly weighed down the machinery. On the financial plane, the same monstrous growth occurred—for valid reasons—but it resulted in enfeeble- ment beneath a seeming efficiency. There was no change in finan- cial technique, in spite of all the efforts of Colbert, who saw what should be done. There was no change in the technique of recruit- ment, supply, and administration of the army, in spite of the efforts of Louvois, who saw just as clearly what had to be done. Louis XIV was an impotent monarch, despite his authority, because of the absence of technical means. Society was at a crossroads. More and more the need was felt to create new means; even the structure these must take was clearly perceived. But the framework of society, the ideas in currency, the intellectual positions of the day were not favorable to their realiza- tion. It was necessary to employ technical means in a framework foreign to them; these techniques were powerless to force a deci- sion or to eliminate outmoded means. They ran up against the profound humanism, issue of Renaissance humanism, which still haunted the seventeenth century—it believed not only in knowl- edge and respect for the human being but in the genuine su- premacy of man over means. This humanism, bound up with the 4 2 ) TECHNIQUES idea of universalism, did not allow techniques to grow. Men re- fused to conform to any uniform law, even when it operated for their own good. This refusal was found in all strata of society: in the most complex way when finance directors and parliamentary counselors refused to utilize new and precise techniques of ac- counting and legislative supremacy; in the most summary way when the peasants rejected new and rational methods of recruit- ment proposed for the army. The world had to wait for the eighteenth century to see techni- cal progress suddenly explode in every country and in every area of human endeavor. The Industrial Revolution. The term industrial revolution is ap- plied exclusively to the development of machinery, but that is to see only one side of it. In actual fact, the industrial revolution was merely one aspect of the technical revolution. It is preposterous that a specialist such as Lewis Mumford can write that he has found in the various modes of exploiting energy the key to the evolution of technique and the moving force behind its transformations. In his view, a first period, which lasted until about 1750, knew only hydraulic energy; a second period, from 1750 to 1880, is the age of coal; and a third, that of electricity. (The use of nuclear energy has only recently appeared; it is perhaps to be reckoned as part of the age of electricity.) Mumford’s thesis is incomprehensible unless technique is re- stricted to the machine; Mumford actually makes this identifica- tion. His distinction is then valid as a plan for the historical study of machines, but it is totally invalid for the study of technical civilization. When technical civilization is considered as a whole, this classification and explanation are shockingly summary and superficial. Norbert Wiener likewise rejects the classification founded on the different sources of energy. For him there has been only one industrial revolution, and that consisted in the replace- ment of human muscle as a source of energy. And, he adds, there is a second revolution in the making whose object is the replace- ment of the human brain. Of this last we have as yet only prepara- tions and indications. We are not yet there. What we are witnessing at the moment is a rearrangement of the world in an intermediate stage; the change is not in the use of a natural force but in the application of technique to all spheres of life. The Technological Society (43 The technical revolution meant the emergence of a state that was truly conscious of itself and was autonomous in relation to anything that did not serve its interests—a product of the French Revolu- tion. It entailed the creation of a precise military technique (Fred- erick the Great and Napoleon) in the field of strategy and in the fields of organization, logistics, and recruitment; the beginning of economic technique with the physiocrats, and later the liberals. In administration and police power, it was the period of rationalized systems, unified hierarchies, card indices, and regular reports. With Napoleon particularly, there was a tendency toward mecha- nization which resulted from the application of technique to more or less human spheres of action. The revolution also entailed the exertion and the regrouping of all the national energies. There were to be no more loafers (under the French Revolution, they were imprisoned), no more privileged persons, no special interests. Everyone must serve in accordance with the strictures of technique. From the judicial point of view, the technical revolution entailed the great systematization of law in the Napoleonic codes and the definitive suppression of spontaneous sources of law; for example, custom. It involved the unification of legal institutions under the iron rule of the state and the submission of law to policy. And throughout Europe, except in Great Britain, the nations, amazed by such an efficient operation, abandoned their traditional judicial systems in favor of the state. This systematization, unification, and clarification was applied to everything—it resulted not only in the establishment of budget- ary rules and in fiscal organization, but in the systematization of weights and measures and the planning of roads. All this repre- sented technique at work. From this point of view, it might be said that technique is the translation into action of mans concern to master things by means of reason, to account for what is subcon- scious, make quantitative what is qualitative, make clear and pre- cise the outlines of nature, take hold of chaos and put order into it. In intellectual activity the same effort was evident, particularly in the creation of an intellectual technique for history and biology. The principles established by Descartes were applied and resulted not only in a philosophy but in an intellectual technique. These phenomena are so far from being sources of energy that it 44) can scarcely be maintained that mechanical transformation brought about all the rest. In fact, the widespread mechanical de- velopment, spurred by the exploitation of energy, came after most of these other techniques. It would almost seem that the order was reversed, that the appearance of these other techniques was nec- essary to the evolution of the machine—which certainly had no greater influence on society than, say, the organization of the police. The revolution resulted not from the exploitation of coal but rather from a change of attitude on the part of the whole civiliza- tion. Here we are faced with a most difficult question: Why, after such slow progress for centuries, did such an eruption of technical progress take place in a century and a half? Why, at a certain moment in history, did something become possible which had not seemed possible before? We must confess that the ultimate reason escapes us. Why did inventions suddenly burst forth in the second half of the eighteenth century? We cannot say. Here we are at the center of the mystery of invention, which strangely came to life for this brief moment. The inventions of the nineteenth century are much more easily explained. A kind of chain reaction was set up: the discoveries made at the beginning of the century generated those that followed. There was a logical and foreseeable succession of events, once the first steps had been taken. But why were the first steps taken? We will never know, and, in any case, that is not the purpose of this investigation. We ask rather why technical inventions have proliferated so radically and developed to the point where they threaten to engulf society. Why did the limitless applicability of the sciences become a reality when hitherto it had been restrained and equivocal? The Greeks knew that machines could be utilized; why did it devolve upon the nineteenth century to utilize them? The question, indeed, is why the nineteenth century not only made applications but did so on such a grand scale. Leonardo da Vinci invented a prodigious num- ber of useful devices (the alarm clock, the silk-winder, a machine for carding textile fabrics, and so on), and proposed many technical improvements (double-hulled ships, the universal joint, conical gears, etc.). Why did none of his inventions and improvements find practical application? The Technological Society (45 There are a number of general answers. One can relate everything to scientific progress, for example. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw advances in application, not in pure knowledge or in speculation. It is useless to recount the scientific evolution of thi* period or to enumerate the sensational series of principles and laws formulated and applied at this time. Parenthetically, it might be noted that the scientific revolution began as early as the first half of the seventeenth century. Experiments were then performed to prove the exactness of quantitative hypotheses. Moreover, a psy* chological transformation occurred which led to the consideration of phenomena as worthy of study in themselves. This prepared the way for technical progress, but it cannot explain it. These scientific discoveries represent necessary conditions—but not imperatives. It is evident that applications are impossible without principles, but, once principles have been established, applications do not neces- sarily follow. Applications may be made out of simple curiosity, as among the Greeks or among the makers of automatons in the eighteenth century. (These automatons were not without experi- mental value. Research in cybernetics today likewise ends in the making of automatons.) The close link between scientific research and technical inven- tion appears to be a new factor in the nineteenth century. Accord- ing to Mumford, “the principal initiatives came, not from the inventor-engineer, but from the scientist who established the gen- eral law.” The scientist took cognizance both of the new raw ma- terials which were available and of the new human needs which had to be met. Then he deliberately oriented his research toward a scientific discovery that could be applied technically. And he did this either out of simple curiosity or because of definite commercial and industrial demands, Pasteur, for instance, was encouraged in his bacteriological research by wine producers and silkworm grow- ers. In the twentieth century, this relationship between scientific re- search and technical invention resulted in the enslavement of science to technique. In the nineteenth century, however, science was still the determining cause of technical progress. The society of the eighteenth century was not yet mature enough to allow the sys- tematic development of inventions. As Siegfried Giedion says, die France of that period was a testing ground. Ideas proliferated but 46) TECHNIQUES could take no final form until society had undergone a transforma- tion. What distinguishes the eighteenth century is that applications were made for reasons of utility; soon the only justification of science was applicability. Most historians of technique content themselves with invoking philosophy to explain this. The philosophy of the eighteenth century did indeed favor tech- nical applications. It was naturalistic and sought not only to know but also to exploit nature. It was utilitarian and pragmatic. It con- cerned itself with easing human life, with bringing more pleasure into it and simplifying its labor. For the eighteenth century, man's life was narrowly confined to the material; it seemed evident that the problem of life would be resolved when men were able to work less while consuming more. The goal of science thus appeared to be fixed by philosophy. This philosophy was concrete; it was bound up with material re- sults. What cannot be seen cannot be judged, and this explains this century’s judgment of history: that the foundation of civilizations is technique, not philosophy or religion. For these admirable philosophers, technique had the enormous superiority of manifesting itself in a concrete way and of leaving its tracks for all to read. Voltaire and Diderot were its principal ex- ponents. But I am unable to give this philosophy the highest place in the history of the development of techniques. It played a role, but it was not the prime force behind the technical movement. To say it was would be to exaggerate the force of these philosophic ideas and systems, which affected only a small minority of French- men and a minute elite abroad. The technical movement was a European movement; the ideas of these philosophic minorities could scarcely have penetrated Europe in such a way as to make evident to everyone the excellence of technical progress. We have only to recall popular reactions to machinery—for example, to Vaucanson’s loom, to the first steamboat, and to the first blast fur- naces. These philosophic ideas scarcely suffice to explain the re- markable mobilization of all human forces in the nineteenth cen- tury. It is even questionable whether this philosophy was universally accepted. At other times there have been utilitarian currents in philosophy, but they represented only one branch of philosophy The Technological Society ( 4 7 among several and did not lead to such a radical transformation of society. The optimistic atmosphere of the eighteenth century, more than this philosophy, created a climate favorable to the rise of technical applications. The fear of evil diminished. There was an improve- ment in manners; a softening of the conditions of war; an increasing sense of mans responsibility for his fellows; a certain delight in life, which was greatly increased by the improvement of living conditions in nearly all classes except the artisan; the building of fine houses in great numbers. All these helped persuade Europeans that progress could only be achieved by the exploitation of natural resources and the application of scientific discoveries. This state of mind created, in the second half of the eighteenth century, a kind of good conscience on the part of scientists who de- voted their research to practical objectives. They believed that hap- piness and justice would result from their investigations; and it is here that the myth of progress had its beginning. It is clear that this atmosphere was favorable to technical de- velopment. But, in itself, it was not enough. How, then, are we to explain the sudden blossoming of technique in the nineteenth cen- tury? (The eighteenth century was only the preliminary phase of technical application; the nineteenth century is the really interest- ing period.) I feel that this transformation of civilization can be explained by the conjunction in time of five phenomena: the frui- tion of a long technical experience; population expansion; the suit- ability of the economic environment; the plasticity of the social milieu; and the appearance of a clear technical intention. The first of these factors must not be neglected: every modem technical application had ancestors. Arthur Vierendeel and Lewis Mumford have analyzed these preparations. Every invention has its roots in a preceding technical period, and every period bears in itself “not only the trivial residue but also the valuable survivals of past technologies, and the nuclei of new ones.” What appears to be genuinely new is the formation of a “technical complex,” which, ac- cording to Mumford, consists of a series of partial inventions that combine into an ensemble. This unit begins to function when the greatest number of its constituents have been assembled, and its trend is toward continuous self-perfection. From 1000 to about 1750, there had been a slow fermentation which had no immediate <*) consequences but which had amassed materials in every area of life. They had only to be drawn on for the technical miracle to take place. This continuity has been analyzed by Vierendeel in particu- lar; and Wiener emphasizes it when he writes: “It is interesting to reflect on the fact that every tool possesses a genealogy and is the result of the tools which served to make it.” This enormous sum of experiments, of apparatus, of inquiries was put to use abruptly at the end of an evolutionary period which had lasted for nearly ten centuries without social catastrophe. Continuity of this kind was important because it made unnecessary the transmission of the technical legacy from one civilization to another, an operation which inevitably involves the loss of a part of it, especially a part of the social forces that apply to nontechnical areas. This continuity is found in all fields of technique, from finance to transport. If technical progress does not appear at a given moment, it is only because the social milieu is not completely favorable. But it is ripening underground; it is self-perpetuating even while it is dor- mant, as in the seventeenth century. This long preparation was necessary as support and foundation for the structure the nine- teenth century was to build; it represented what Charles Moraze in his Essai sur la civilisation & Occident calls “collective incuba- tion” This incubation, consisting of millions of accumulated ex- periments, was the preparation for the moment of formulation, of expression. A second factor was equally necessary: the population expansion. Here again we find ourselves face to face with a familiar problem. For two decades population studies in relation to the development of civilization have demonstrated that there is a close link between technique and population: the growth of population entails a growth of needs which cannot be satisfied except by technical de- velopment. From another viewpoint, a population expansion offers favorable grounds for research and technical growth by furnishing not only the necessary market but also the requisite human ma- terial. The third condition has been analyzed by Vincent. If technical progress is to take place, the economic milieu must combine two apparently contradictory traits: it must be at once stable and in flux. The foundations of economic life must be stable so that primary technical research can be devoted to well-defined objects The Technological Society (49 and situations. But at the same time this milieu must be capable of great change, so that technical inventions can be absorbed into the economy, and research stimulated. A rigid economy brings with it fixed customs which stifle the inventive faculty. Studies of the eco- nomic situation in the second half of the eighteenth century show that it had precisely these two opposed characteristics. But this is well known. I shall do no more than point it out and shall devote greater space to the last two conditions, which are usually neg- lected. The fourth condition is possibly the most decisive. It is the plasticity of the social milieu, which involves two factors: the dis- appearance of social taboos and the disappearance of natural social groups. The first of these appears in various forms, depending on the society involved. In the Western civilization of the eighteenth cen- tury there are two large categories: the taboos resulting from Christianity, and sociological taboos. The first category takes in all religious and moral ideas, judgments concerning action, the prevail- ing conception of man, and the ends proposed for human life. These were, theoretically and factually, opposed to technical de- velopment. When faith had been translated into prejudice and ideology, and personal religious experience incorporated into a so- cial institution, a hardening of moral positions took place which corresponded to the creation of genuine taboos. The natural order must not be tampered with and anything new must be submitted to a moral judgment—which meant an unfavorable prejudgment. This was the popular mentality created by Christianity, particu- larly during the seventeenth century. Closely related to these were sociological taboos, in particular the conviction that a natural hierarchy exists which nothing can modify. The position of the nobility and the clergy, and above all of the king, could not be questioned. When in the middle of the eighteenth century these be- gan to be questioned, the reaction of the people was that sacrilege was being committed; the stupor that accompanied the execution of Louis XVI was a religious stupor. In fact, regicide was seen as deicide. This constitution of society, which everyone relied on and recognized as the only one possible, was an obstacle to technique within it; technique was held to be fundamentally sacrilegious. The natural hierarchy operated against the practice of the mechani- TECHNIQUES 50) cal arts, which would only bring conveniences to the lower classes. And since the lower classes too believed in the natural hierarchy, they could only be submissive and passive; they did not try to better their lot. The important point here was not the reality of the facts or the existence of the hierarchy; it was belief in its natural and sacred character which stood in the way of technique. The very structure of society—based on natural groups—was also an obstacle. Families were closely organized. The guilds and the groups formed by collective interests (for example, the Uni- versity, the Parliament, the Confraternities and Hospitals) were distinct and independent. The individual found livelihood, patron- age, security, and intellectual and moral satisfactions in collectives that were strong enough to answer all his needs but limited enough not to make him feel submerged or lost. They sufficed to satisfy the average man who does not try to gratify imaginary needs if his position is fairly stable, who opposes innovation if he lives in a balanced milieu, even though he is poor. This fact, which is so salient in the three millennia of history we know, is misunderstood by modern man, who does not know what a balanced social en- vironment is and the good he could derive from it. Man himself may feel less need to improve his condition. In ad- dition, the very existence of natural groups is an obstacle to the propagation of technical invention. For primitive peoples, inven- tion spreads in certain geographical areas within certain groups according to existing social bonds. Exterior diffusion, however, the crossing of a sociological frontier, is extremely difficult. This phe- nomenon exists in every society. Division into closely constituted groups is an obstacle to the propagation of inventions. The same holds for guilds. Guilds act not only spontaneously and as socio- logical units, but also voluntarily and according to the lawful con- stitution of each. This is also true of religious groups. Consider, for example, the manufacturing secrets jealously guarded by the French Protestants in the seventeenth century. The diffusion of every technique tends to be checked by these social divisions. These obstacles disappeared at the time of the French Revolu- tion, in 1789. With the disappearance of religious and social taboos came the creation of new religions, the affirmation of philosophic materialism, the suppression of the various hierarchies, regicide, and the struggle against the clergy. These factors acted powerfully The Technological Society (51 upon the popular consciousness and contributed to the collapse of the belief in these taboos. At the same time (and this is the second factor which made for the plasticity of the social milieu) a systematic campaign was waged against all natural groups, under the guise of a defense of the rights of the individual; for example, the guilds, the com- munes, and federalism were attacked, this last by the Girondists. There were movements against the religious orders and against the privileges of Parliament, the Universities, and the Hospitalers. There was to be no liberty of groups, only that of the individual. There was likewise a struggle to undermine the family. Revolu- tionary legislation promoted its disintegration; it had already been shaken by the philosophy and the fervors of the eighteenth century. Revolutionary laws governing divorce, inheritance, and paternal authority were disastrous for the family unit, to the benefit of the individual. And these effects were permanent, in spite of temporary setbacks. Society was already atomized and would be atomized more and more. The individual remained the sole sociological unit, but, far from assuring him freedom, this fact provoked the worst kind of slavery. The atomization we have been discussing conferred on society the greatest possible plasticity—a decisive condition for technique. The breakup of social groups engendered the enormous displace- ment of people at the beginning of the nineteenth century and resulted in the concentration of population demanded by modem technique. To uproot men from their surroundings, from the rural districts and from family and friends, in order to crowd them into cities still too small for them; to squeeze thousands into unfit lodg- ings and unhealthy places of work; to create a whole new environ- ment within the framework of a new human condition (it is too often overlooked that the proletariat is the creation of the indus- trial machine)—all this was possible only when the individual was completely isolated. It was conceivable only when he literally had no environment, no family, and was not part of a group able to resist economic pressure; when he had almost no way of life left. Such is the influence of social plasticity. Without it, no technical evolution is possible. For the individual in an atomized society, only the state was left: the state was the highest authority and it became omnipotent as well. The society produced was perfectly malleable 5*) and remarkably flexible from both the intellectual and the material points of view. The technical phenomenon had its most favorable environment since the beginning of history. At the same time, by a historical coincidence (whether fortuitous or not, I shall not undertake to say), what I have called a clear technical intention came into being. In all other civilizations there had been a technical movement—more or less extensive work of this kind—but not a mass intention, clearly understood and de- liberately guiding the whole society in a technical direction. Giedion says of the period from 1750 to 1850: “Invention was a part of the normal course of life. Everyone invented. Every entre- preneur dreamed of more rapid and economical means of fabrica- tion. The work was done unconsciously and anonymously. No- where else and never before was the number of inventions per capita as great as in America in the 6o’s of that century” It is possible that a similar phenomenon took place in prehistoric times when technique appeared out of sheer necessity. Pressed on all sides, man reacted by creating technique. In historical times the situation changed, however. Homo sapiens had by then established his supremacy over the other mammals with respect to natural forces. Some technical efforts had been pursued, now in one field, now in another; for example, in the military art of the Assyrians or in the art of construction of the Egyptians. There were always in- dividuals who possessed a clear vision of technical supremacy; say, Archimedes in mechanics, or Loyola in spiritual technique. But we almost never find the distinctive characteristic of our time—a precise view of technical possibilities, the will to attain certain ends, ap- plication in all areas, and adherence of the whole of society to a conspicuous technical objective. All these, taken together, con- stitute what I have termed a clear technical intention. Whence arose this intention? Many causes conspired to produce it, among them the influence of the philosophy of the eighteenth century, reinforced by the philosophy of Hegel and later that of Marx. But there were other factors which were as important. What really produced the general movement in favor of technique was special interest. This technical movement has been studied by men as different as Descartes and Mare. But it was only when industrial self-inter- The Technological Society (53 est, for the sake of efficiency, demanded a search for the "one best way to do work” that research was begun by Gilbreth in the field of technique, with the amazing results we see today. Special interest was and is the great motive force behind the de- velopment of technical consciousness—but not necessarily any par- ticular interest; say, the capitalistic interest or the moneyed inter- est. The state interest was the first to become conscious in France, at the time of the Revolution. The state developed political and in- dustrial technique, and later, with Napoleon, military and judicial technique, because it found them to be potent forces against its enemies within and without. The state protected "the arts and the sciences” (in reality, techniques) not out of greatness of spirit or concern for civilization, but out of the instinct for power. After the state, it was the bourgeoisie who discovered how much profit could be extracted from a consciously developed technique. In fact, the bourgeoisie has always been more or less involved with technique. They were the initiators of the first financial techniques and, later on, of the modern state. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they saw the possibilities of drawing huge profits from this system, especially as they were favored by the crumbling "of morals and religion” and felt themselves free, in spite of the idealistic smoke screen they raised, to exploit individuals. This class put the interests of technique before the interests of individuals, who had to be sacrificed in order that technique might progress. It is solely be- cause the bourgeoisie made money, thanks to technique, that tech- nique became one of their objectives. This alliance is well known and we need recall but a few facts. James Watt, his steam engine perfected, was ruined and at a dead end. It was a bourgeois, Matthew Boulton, who grasped the industrial and financial possibilities of Watt's invention and de- cided to apply it. Two further facts are pertinent: commercial capitalism preceded industrial capitalism; industry owed its rise to the accumulation of capital originating from commerce. And where did industrialization first occur and become most widespread? In England, because capitalism was more highly developed there and the bourgeoisie more at liberty to act than anywhere else. This is well known. The union between the bourgeoisie and technique was expressed not only in the development of factories, but much TECHNIQUES 54) more subtly in the fact that the majority of technicians came from this class. It was the bourgeoisie which promoted the advance of science. Moreover, the bourgeoisie were so well aware of the relation be- tween economic success and the scientific foundations of that suc- cess that they kept in their own hands, almost as a monopoly, the instruction which was the only means of access to the great schools and faculties that trained the technicians of science and the tech- nicians of society.5 Technical progress is a function of bourgeois money. Yet today the Marxists claim that the bourgoisie either have attempted to restrain technical progress or make it serve the purposes of war. Their claim, however, does not prevent history from contradicting their theories. Marx himself would never have made such state- ments; what is true today was not true in his time. However, this self-interest of the bourgeoisie was not enough to carry the whole of society along with it—witness the popular re- actions against technical progress. As late as 1848, one of the de- mands of the workers was the suppression of machinery. This is easily understood. The standard of living had not risen, men still suffered from the loss of equilibrium in their lives brought about by a too rapid injection of technique, and they had not yet felt the in- toxication of the results. The peasants and the workers bore all the hardships of technical advance without sharing in the triumphs. For this reason, there was a reaction against technique, and so- ciety was split. The power of the state, the money of the bour- geoisie were for it; the masses were against. In the middle of the nineteenth century the situation changed. Karl Marx rehabilitated technique in the eyes of the workers. He preached that technique can be liberating. Those who exploited it enslaved the workers, but that was the fault of the masters and not of technique itself. Marx was perhaps not the first to have said this, but he was the first to convince the masses of it. The working class would not be liberated by a struggle against technique but, on the contrary, by technical progress itself, which would automatically bring about the collapse of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism. This reconcilia- * * The author includes here not only faculties such as the Ecole Polytechnique, but also administrative tribunals such as the Conseil d’Etut. (Trans.) The Technological Society ( 55 tion of the masses to techniques was decisive. But it would not have been sufficient to result in a clear consciousness of the tech- nical objective, the new consensus omnium, had it not appeared simultaneously with a second historical fact, namely, the diffusion of the so-called benefits of techniques among the masses. These benefits included, for example, the conveniences of daily life, the progressive shortening of the work day, facilities for public trans- portation and medicine, new possibilities of making one’s fortune (in the United States and in the colonies), housing improvements, and so forth. A prodigious upheaval took place between 1850 and 1914 which convinced everyone of the excellence of a technical movement that could produce such marvels and alter human life. All this, Marx explained, presaged even better things and pointed to the road to follow. Fact and theory were for once in agreement. How could public opinion resist? Drawn by self-interest (the ideal of comfort, for instance), the masses went over to the side of technique; society was converted. A common will developed to exploit the possibilities of technique to the maximum, and groups of the most conflicting interests (state and individual, bourgeoisie and working class) united to hymn its praises. Literally everyone was agreed on its excellence. True, after 1914, certain criticisms came from the intellectuals, but these were ineffective because they were usually beside the point —manifestations of vague idealism or of sentimental humanitar- ianism. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when technique had hardly begun to develop, another voice was raised in prophetic warning against it. The voice was Kierkegaard’s. But his warnings, solidly thought out though they were, and in the strongest sense of the word prophetic, were not heeded—for very different reasons. They were too close to the truth. This analysis applies chiefly to the countries where the technical movement first developed—England and France. In England events took a somewhat different course than in France, but they had the same scope and profound significance. The historical se- quence varied, but the orientation in both countries was toward technical development. Social plasticity developed in England by different paths and at a different time than in France. Sociological taboos were broken at an early date. The regicide of Charles I by $6 ) TECHNIQUES Cromwell gave the initial and primary impulse to social plasticity; as all writers agree, after this date a rigid social hierarchy no longer existed in England. The supreme value was productive and efficient labor which permitted the industrious to rise high on the social ladder (William Pitt is a good example). The king no longer rep- resented divine authority, nor was he able to resist the nation. No longer was there sociological rigidity based on the royal person or on the power of money. It would be an error to interpret sociologi- cally the England of the eighteenth century in accordance with the stability which is discernible in the nineteenth, and which was achieved after the technical revolution, when society had entered new paths. In the eighteenth century, England was essentially mobile and unstable in all its structures. Christianity itself was not the conservative force it proved to be on the Continent. Two great currents divided English society before the advent of Methodism: the Church of England and the Puritans. The Puritans, even after their political failure, were the predominant influence. In keeping with the trend the Reformation set, they exploded all prevailing religious taboos and developed a practical and utilitarian mental- ity that emphasized the use and even the exploitation of the good things of this world given by God to men. The relationship of this trend to the development of capitalism is well known. The Church of England had favored tolerance since the end of the eighteenth century and had adopted as its leading principle Bishop War- burton’s idea of social utility. Here, too, there was a kind of secular- ization of religion. Religion is no longer the framework of society; it can no longer impose its taboos or forms upon it. Rather, it inte- grates itself into society, adjusts to it, and adopts the notion of social utility as criterion and justification. At the same time the disintegra- tion and atomization of English social groups occurred—brought about not so much by the influence of the state (as in France) as by the destruction of peasant society which began in the early eighteenth century and of which Defoe and Swift were such elo- quent witnesses. The peasant commune and the peasant family were slowly ruined in the eighteenth century. The historian notes the collapse, relentless and more rapid than in France, of a whole society which had been in equilibrium until then. The struggle between the landed and the moneyed interests ended with the victory of the The Technological Society (5 7 moneyed interests. It is not important here to detail the ways a new peasant society, based on the moneyed interest, came into being. Newly rich entrepreneurs bought up the great estates and took the place of the old gentry, but that is not our concern. Our concern is the merchants whose influence changed the organic structure of the traditional world. The small landowners and the yeomen were eliminated or reduced to an agricultural proletariat, or they were forced to migrate to the city. The rural corporations were ruined, the communes passed almost completely into the hands of the new landlords and ceased to constitute coherent sociological units. The movement was accelerated by the application of new agricultural methods, which were accepted much more rapidly than in France. The enclosure of the commons, which in France took place chiefly after 1780, began in England in 1730. The new agricultural tech- niques were plainly so superior that it was not possible to preserve the old “open field” system—the commons, the pastures, and the forests; thus the final blow was dealt to the old, organic, peasant society. The peasant could not survive as such, and with him, the whole of society entered into a state of flux. The plasticity we refer to came about in England as a result of this evolution in the use of land, which furnished the technical movement with the necessary manpower: apathetic, vacant, and uprooted. Not only was this manpower necessary for the development of industry; the masses thus created were indispensable to faith in techniques and the spread of techniques. To summarize: social plasticity came about earlier in England than in France, and the technical movement developed along with it. Moreover, the state, which was dominant in French society, did not have the same influence in Great Britain. This applies too to the development of a clear technical con- sciousness. In Great Britain this consciousness appeared as a bour- geois interest. The spirit behind the introduction of new techniques in the rural districts was very different from that which character- ized France a short time later. The technical movement in France was launched by the monarchy and took a scientific form: the academies and the research institutes propagated the new tech- niques throughout the country; and the nobles applied them, very often disinterestedly. In England, profit was from the very begin- ning the prime motive. And empiricism was the dominant factor TECHNIQUES 5« ) because technique was more efficient. Techniques were developed because it paid to develop them; commercial activity found them advantageous. This was true in agriculture as well as in industry. The English technical movement was marked by the fact that all the different financial systems (banks, stock exchanges, insurance companies) were perfected. The clear consciousness of the value of technique expressed itself primarily in terms of money, and was located at the center of the systems of distribution. And the accel- eration of invention in this area influenced all other techniques. The British state attained this clear technical consciousness at a comparatively last date, and then only when it saw that techniques were to its immediate interest. This phenomenon of technical clarity sometimes came about through an association of the interests of the state and the interests of private individuals. In steelmaking, for example, the fact that Henry Cort was supplier to the Admiralty was decisive, in 1780, for the application and development of steel puddling. The state found in this procedure an excellent means of improving its naval vessels. However, it was competition with the Napoleonic empire that started His Majesty's government down the road of tech- nique. Thereafter, both governments understood that only technical efficiency in all governmental relations and enterprises could com- mand the paths of peace as well as the affairs of war. The English state henceforth had the same influence on the development of techniques as the French revolutionary state had exerted through the establishment of a clear technical consciousness. The way had already been paved in England by the emergence of the British bourgeoisie. Whatever the differences in its development in Eng- land and France, however, the technical consciousness that ap- peared was identical in both countries. In the United States this took place at the beginning of the nine- teenth century. Until then, the society of this country was inor- ganic. But at that time the American social milieu was favorable; moreover, the Americans profited from the technical conscious- ness evolved in Europe, and so they arrived immediately at a model for technique. Giedion has noted that the Americans began by mechanizing complex operations, which produced the assembly line, whereas die Europeans tended to mechanize simple opera- The Technological Society (59 tions, such as spinning. This American accomplishment was the result of the exceptional flexibility of the American milieu. These conditions were not found in the other European coun- tries: Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Russia. In these nations the social structures remained as they were and the social hierarchy was not attacked. The taboos of religion were fanatically respected, and those of society were not questioned. The Inquisition and the Tribunal of the Empire jealously guarded the spiritual and socio- logical divisions of society. This world was already undermined, ruined, and emptied of content, but its rigid forms were univer- sally accepted as good. There were few changes in the cities and none at all in the rural areas. The traditional organism remained intact. And when enlightened despotism began to create some ex- citement, this world was so little prepared that it exhausted itself in the struggle against the old social structures. Consider, for ex- ample, the fate of Peter the Great, Joseph II, and the melancholy and celebrated Marquis de Pombal. Great inventions may have been made in Germany and Russia during this period. Everyone is familiar with the claims of Hitler, and later of Stalin, that all important discoveries were made in their respective countries. Allowing for exaggeration, there is per- haps some truth in these claims. But the discoveries were not applied, and only application counts in the rise of technique. Application did not take place because the felicitous combination of factors we have discussed was lacking. The social milieu of these countries, their spiritual tendencies, group psychology, sociological structures, and past history were all unfavorable to the rise of tech- nique. The state in some countries, principally Prussia, was fav- orable to it; but a clear technical consciousness on the part of the state alone was obviously insufficient to open the door to the great mobilization of men and things necessary for this multiform prog- ress. The joint occurrence of the five factors we have briefly analyzed explains the exceptional growth of technique. Never before had these factors coincided. They are, to summarize: (1) a very long technical maturation or incubation without decisive checks before the final flowering; (2) population growth; (3) a suitable eco- nomic milieu; (4) the almost complete plasticity of a society mal- TECHNIQUES 6o) leable and open to the propagation of technique; (5) a clear tech- nical intention, which combines the other factors and directs them toward the pursuit of the technical objective. Some of these condi- tions had existed in other societies; for example, the necessary tech- nical preparation and the destruction of taboos in the Roman Em- pire in the third century. But the unique phenomenon was the simultaneous existence of all five—all of them necessary to bring about individual technical invention, the mainspring of everything else. What else can history teach us? Only the vanity of believing we can impose our theories on history. Any philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual. CHAPTER Da THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE In discussing technique today it is impossible not to take a position. And the position we take is determined by a historical choice, con* scious or unconscious. Acknowledging that the technical phenomenon is a constant of human history, is there anything new about its present aspect? There are two distinct positions on this question. The first main* tains that there is no more real technical innovation in the modem world than there was in the Stone Age. Jean Fourastie asks hu- morously whether prehistoric man, the first time he saw a bronze sword used, did not feel as menaced by it as we feel by the atom bomb. It would seem, then, that technical innovations have al- ways had the same surprising and unwelcome character for men. (This is an inexhaustible source of jokes for motion pictures and cartoons.) If we become frightened, we are merely obeying ances- tral instincts. There is no more real reason to be frightened by the THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 62) atomic bomb than by any invention thousands of years old—which, as we see, has not destroyed the human race. The technique of to- day has the same characteristics as all preceding techniques. This normal development, however rapid and surprising, cannot be of danger to us. In opposition to this resolutely optimistic position, there is an- other which maintains that we are confronted with a genuinely new phenomenon. There is nothing in common between the modern technical complex and the fragments of it which are laboriously sought out in the course of history to demonstrate that there has al- ways been technique. For those who hold this viewpoint, the techni- cal phenomenon represents a complete change, not only of degree, but of kind. Modern society is confronted with a transition (her- alded by Marx and particularly by Engels) which involves change of quality as a consequence of change of quantity. This postulate, which Engels applied to physical phenomena, holds true for so- ciological phenomena as well. Beyond a certain quantity, the phe- nomenon, even though in a sense it remains the same, does not have the same quality, is not of the same nature. One cannot choose between these two theses in a subjective and a priori manner. It is necessary to examine the objective char- acteristics of technique to determine whether there has really been a change. But what characteristics shall we examine? Not the in- trinsic ones; these do not change. If we consider intrinsic charac- teristics, the first position is right. The mental operation by means of which Archimedes constructed certain engines of war is iden- tical with that of any modern engineer who improves a motor. And the same instinct impels a man to catapult stones and to construct a machine gnn Likewise, the same laws of propagation of techni- cal invention operate, no matter what the stage of technical evolu- tion. However, these identities are not at all convincing. Many men who have studied the problems posed by different techniques admit that there is a radical difference between the tra- ditional situation and the situation we face today. On the basis of intrinsic characteristics, these men have established a distinction be- tween (a) the fundamental techniques which, as Ducasse says, “sum up all man’s relations with his environment,” and (b) the techniques which are the results of applied science. The first group is composed of techniques which, although seldom identical in The Technological Society (63 method and form, are identical in intrinsic characteristics. They constitute the complex of fundamental techniques which sociolo- gists such as LeRoi-Gourhan usually study and on the basis of which they elucidate the laws of technique. Primitive techniques have no reality in themselves; they are merely the intermediary be- tween man and his environment. The techniques which result from applied science date from the eighteenth century and characterize our own civilization. The new factor is that the multiplicity of these techniques has caused them literally to change their character. Certainly, they derive from old principles and appear to be the fruit of normal and logical evolu- tion. However, they no longer represent the Same phenomenon. In fact, technique has taken substance, has become a reality in itself. It is no longer merely a means and an intermediary. It is an object in itself, an independent reality with which we must reckon. However, this often admitted difference does not seem to me to characterize conclusively the singularity of the technical situation today. The characterization can be challenged because it does not rest upon deep historical experience. It is not enough simply to de- clare, by drawing on everyone’s experience of the disparity be- tween our technique and the limited needs of our bodies, that technique is a reality in itself. We may keep this in mind, but we must also recognize that it is incomplete and not altogether con- vincing. It is not, then, the intrinsic characteristics of techniques which reveal whether there have been real changes, but the characteristics of the relation between the technical phenomenon and society. Let us take a very simple comparison. A shell explodes and the explo- sion is normally always the same. Any fifty shells of the same cali- ber when exploded display approximately the same objective char- acteristics from a physical or chemical point of view. The sound, light, and projection of fragments remain nearly identical. The in- trinsic characteristics of the fifty explosions are the same. But if forty-nine shells go off in some remote place and the fiftieth goes off in the midst of a platoon of soldiers, it cannot be maintained that the results are identical. A relation has been established which en- tails a change. To assess this change, it is not the intrinsic character of the explosion which must be examined, but rather its relation to the environment. In the same way, to learn if there has been, for THE OF TECHNIQUE *4) man, a change in modem technqiue in relation to the old, we must assess, not the internal characteristics of the technique, but the ac- tual situation of technique in human society. To go beyond this and to imagine, for example, what might nave been the psychological reaction of primitive men when faced with technical invention is pure fantasy. The question put by Jean Fourastie, strictly speaking, has no meaning. The working of the mind varies according to place and time, and we cannot project our- selves with any assurance into the mind of primitive man. In order to remain within the limits of what can be known, we must be content to study the relation between technique and society, a relation which has the advantage of being meaningful. Technique in Civilization Traditional Techniques and Society. What was the position of technique in the different societies which have preceded ours? Most of these societies resembled one another in their technical aspects. But it is not enough to say that technique was restricted. We must determine the precise characteristics of the limitations, which are four in number. First, technique was applied only in certain narrow, limited areas. When we attempt to classify techniques throughout history, we find principally techniques of production, of war and hunting, of con- sumption (clothing, houses, etc.), and, as we have said, magic. This complex of techniques would seem to modem man to represent a rather considerable domain and, indeed, to correspond to the whole of life. What more could there be than producing, consum- ing, fighting, and practicing magic? But we must look at these things in perspective. In so-called primitive societies, the whole of life was indeed en- closed in a network of magical techniques. It is their multiplicity that lends them the qualities of rigidity and mechanization. Magic, as we have seen, may even be the origin of techniques; but the pri- mary characteristic of these societies was not a technical but a reli- gious preoccupation. In spite of this totalitarianism of magic, it is not possible to speak of a technical universe. Moreover, the im- portance of techniques gradually diminishes as we reach historical The Technological Society ( 65 societies. In these societies, the life of the group was essentially nontechnical. And although certain productive techniques still ex- isted, the magical forms which had given a technique to social rela- tions, to political acts, and to military and judicial life tended to disappear. These areas ceased to respond to techniques and became subject instead to social spontaneities. The law, which had tradi- tionally expressed itself in certain customs, no longer had any char- acter of technical rigor; even the state was nothing but a force which simply manifested itself. These activities depended more on private initiative, short-lived manifestations or ephemeral tradi- tions, than on a persevering technical will and rational improve- ments. Even in activities we consider technical, it was not always that aspect which was uppermost. In the achievement of a small eco- nomic goal, for example, the technical effort became secondary to the pleasure of gathering together. "Formerly, when a New Eng- land family convoked a ‘bee* (that is, a meeting for working in common), it was for all concerned one of the most pleasurable times of the year. The work was scarcely more than a pretext for coming together."1 The activity of sustaining social relations and human contacts predominated over the technical scheme of things and the obligation to work, which were secondary causes. Society was free of technique. And even on the level of the indi- vidual, technique occupied a place much more circumscribed than we generally believe. Because we judge in modern terms, we be- lieve that production and consumption coincided with the whole of life. For primitive man, and for historical man until a comparatively late date, work was a punishment, not a virtue. It was better not to consume than to have to work hard; the rule was to work only as much as absolutely necessary in order to survive. Man worked as little as possible and was content with a restricted consumption of goods (as, for example, among the Negroes and the Hindus)— a prevalent attitude, which limits both techniques of production and techniques of consumption. Sometimes slavery was the answer: an entire segment of the population did not work at all and de- pended on the labor of a minority of slaves. In general, the slaves 1 George G Homans, quoted by Jerome Scott and It F. Lyntoa. THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 66) did constitute a minority. We must not be misled by Imperial Rome, Greece under Pericles, or the Antilles in the eighteenth century. In most slaveholding nations, slaves were in a minority. The time given to the use of techniques was short, compared with the leisure time devoted to sleep, conversation, games, or, best of all, to meditation. As a corollary, technical activities had little place in these societies. Technique functioned only at certain pre- cise and well-defined times; this was the case in all societies before our own. Technique was not part of man's occupation nor a subject for preoccupation. This limitation of technique is attested to by the fact that in the past technique was not considered nearly as important as it is today. Heretofore, mankind did not bind up its fate with technical progress. Man regarded technical progress more as a relative in- strument than as a god. He did not hope for very much from it. Let us take an example from Giedion’s admirable book, in which he elucidates the small importance technique had traditionally. In our day, we are unable to envisage comfort except as part of the technical order of things. Comfort for us means bathrooms, easy chairs, foam-rubber mattresses, air conditioning, washing ma- chines, and so forth. The chief concern is to avoid effort and pro- mote rest and physical euphoria. For us, comfort is closely asso- ciated with the material life; it manifests itself in the perfection of personal goods and machines. According to Giedion, the men of the Middle Ages also were concerned with comfort, but for them comfort had an entirely different form and content. It represented a feeling of moral amd aesthetic order. Space was the primary ele- ment in comfort. Man sought open spaces, large rooms, the possi- bility of moving about, of seeing beyond his nose, of not con- stantly colliding with other people. These preoccupations are alto- gether foreign to us. Moreover, comfort consisted of a certain arrangement of space. In the Middle Ages, a room could be completely “finished,” even though it might contain no furniture. Everything depended on pro- portions, material, form. The goal was not convenience, but rather a certain atmosphere. Comfort was the mark of the man's personal- ity on the place where he lived. This, at least in part, explains the extreme diversity of architectural interiors in the houses of the pe- riod. Nor was this the result of mere whim; it represented an The Technological Society ( 6 7 adaptation to character; and when it had been realized, the man of the Middle Ages did not care if his rooms were not well heated or his chairs hard. This concept of comfort, closely bound up with the person, clearly takes death for granted, as did man himself; man’s aware- ness of death likewise profoundly influences his search for an ade- quate milieu. Giedion’s study is convincing. Medieval man did not dream for an instant, that technique had any influence at all, even on objects which today we consider completely material and con- sequently of a technical order. This limitation of the sphere of action of technique was in- creased even more by the limitation of the technical means em- ployed in these fields. There was no great variety of means for attaining a desired result, and there was almost no attempt to per- fect the means which did exist. It seems, on the contrary, that a conscious Malthusian tendency prevailed. It was expressed, for example, in the regulations of the guilds concerning tools, and in Roman law, by the principle of the economy of forms. Man tended to exploit to the limit such means as he possessed, and took care not to replace them or create other means as long as the old ones were effective. From the judicial point of view, the principle of the economy of forms led to the creation of the fewest possible legal instruments. Laws were few, and so were institutions. Man used the utmost ingenuity to obtain a maximum of results from a mini- mum of means at the price of fictions, transpositions, applications a pari and a contrario, and so on. This was also true industrially. Society was not oriented toward the creation of a new instrument in response to a new need. The emphasis was rather on the applica- tion of old means, which were constantly extended, refined, and perfected. The deficiency of the tool was to be compensated for by the skill of the worker. Professional know-how, the expert eye were what counted: man’s talents could make his crude tools yield the maximum efficiency. This was a kind of technique, but it had none of the characteristics of instrumental technique. Everything varied from man to man according to his gifts, whereas technique in the modem sense seeks to eliminate such variability. It is understand- able that technique in itself played a very feeble role. Everything was done by men who employed the most rudimentary means. The 68) THE CHARACTEROLOCT OF TECHNIQUE search for the “finished," for perfection in use, for ingenuity of ap- plication, took the place of a search for new tools which would have permitted men to simplify their work, but also would have involved giving up the pursuit of real skill Here we have two antithetical orders of inquiry. When there is an abundance of instruments that answer all needs, it is impossible for one man to have a perfect knowledge of each or the skill to use each. This knowledge would be useless in any case; the perfection of the instrument is what is required, and not the perfection of the human being. But, until the eighteenth century, all societies were primarily oriented toward improvement in the use of tools and were little concerned with the tools themselves. No clean-cut divi- sion can be made between the two orientations. Human skill, hav- ing attained a certain degree of perfection in practice, necessarily entails improvement of the tool itself. The question is one of tran- scending the stage of total utilization of the tool by improving it. There is, therefore, no doubt that the two phenomena do inter- penetrate. But traditionally the accent was on the human being who used the tool and not on the tool he used. The improvement of tools, essentially the result of the prac- tice of a personal art, came about in a completely pragmatic way. For this reason, we can put in the first category all the techniques we have classified with regard to intrinsic characteristics. A small number of techniques, not very efficient: this was the situation in Eastern and Western society from the tenth century b.c. to the tenth century a.d. The world of technique had still a third characteristic prior to the eighteenth century: it was local. Social groups were very strong and closed to outsiders. There was little communication, materially speaking, and even less from the spiritual point of view. Technique spread slowly. Certain examples of technical propagation are al- ways cited; the introduction of the wheel into Egypt by the Hyksos; the Crusades; and so on. But such events took millennia and were accidental. In the majority of cases, there was little transmission. Imitation took place very slowly and mankind passed from one tech- nical stage to the next with great difficulty. This is true of material techniques, and even more so of non-material techniques. Greek art remained Greek in industrial projects such as pottery- making, even when imitated by the Romans. Roman law did not The Technological Society (6 9 extend beyond the Roman borders, whereas the Napoleonic code was adopted by Turkey and Japan. As for magic, that technique re- mained completely secret. Every technical phenomenon was isolated from similar move- ments elsewhere. There was no transmission, only fruitless grop- ings. Geographically, we can trace the compass of a given tech- nique, follow the zones of its influence, imitation, and extension; in almost every case we find how small was the extent of its radiation. Why was this so? The explanation is simple: technique was an intrinsic part of civilization. And civilization consisted of numerous and diversified elements—natural elements such as temperament and flora, climate and population; and artificial elements such as art, technique, the political regime, etc. Among all these factors, which mingled with one another, technique was only one. It was inexorably linked with them and depended on them, as they de- pended on it. It was part of a whole, part of the determinate so- ciety, and it developed as a function of the whole and shared its fate. Just as one society is not interchangeable with another, so tech- nique remained enclosed in its proper framework; no more would it become universal than the society in which it was embedded. Geographically there could be no technical transmission because technique was not some anonymous piece of merchandise but rather bore the stamp of the whole culture. This entails much more than the existence of a simple barrier between social groups. Technique was unable to spread from one social group to another except when the two were in the same stage of evolution and ex- cept when civilizations were of the same type. In the past, in other words, technique was not objective, but subjective in relation to its own culture. It is understandable, therefore, that technique, incorporated in its proper framework, did not evolve autonomously. On the con- trary, it depended on a whole ensemble of factors which had to vary with it. It is not accurate to conceive the movement in the oversimplified manner of Marxism, as first the evolution of tech- nique, and subsequently the alignment of the other factors. This veiw is accurate for the nineteenth century but it is false for history as a whole. Certain important covariations traditionally existed, and these factors, covariant with technique, changed according THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 70) to the type of civilization. There was, for example, the association of technique and the state among the Egyptians and the Incas; of technique and philosophy in Greece and China. Francastel has shown how technique could be “absorbed and directed by the arts," as happened, say, in the fifteenth century, when it was sub- ordinated to a plastic vision of the world, which imposed on it limits and demands. At that time, there existed a whole “civiliza- tion well provided with technical inventions, but which deliber- ately undertook to use them only to the degree in which these in- ventions would allow it to realize an imaginative construction." Thereafter, we find a complicated “art technique” and, as else- where, we almost never find technique in a pure state. The consequence was an extreme local diversity of techniques for attaining the same result. No comparison or competition existed yet between these different systems; the formulation: “The one best way in the world" had not yet been made. It was a question of the “best way" in a given locality. Because of this, arms and tools took very different forms, and social organizations were extremely di- verse. It is impossible to speak of slavery as all of a piece. Roman slav- ery, for example, had nothing to do with Teutonic slavery, or Teu- tonic slavery with Chaldean. We habitually use one term to cover very different realities. This extreme diversity divested technique of its most crucial characteristic. There was no single means which was judged best and able to eliminate all others by virtue of its efficiency. This diversity has made us believe that there was an epoch of experimentation, when man was groping to find his way. This is a false notion; it springs from our modern prejudice that the stage we find ourselves in today represents the highest level of humanity. In reality, diversity resulted not from various experimen- tal attempts on the part of various peoples, but from the fact that technique was always embedded in a particular culture. Alongside this spatial limitation of technique, we find a time limitation. Until the eighteenth century, techniques evolved very slowly. Technical work was purely pragmatic, inquiry was empiri- cal, and transmission slow and feeble. Centuries were required for: (a) utilization of an invention (for example, the water mill); (b) transition from a plaything to a useful object (gunpowder, automatons); (c) transition from a magical to an economic opera- The Technological Society ( 71 tion (breeding of animals); (d) simple perfecting >r instru- ment (the horse yoke and the transition from the simple stick plow to the train plow). This was even more true for abstract techniques. Abstract techniques, I maintain, are almost nontransmissible in time from a given civilization to its successor. We must be some- what skeptical, and in any case prudent, when the evolution of techniques is presented as an evolution of inventions; actually this development was never more than potential. There is nothing to prove that true technique existed heretofore, that is, in the sense of generalized application. It is possible to compile a fine catalogue of seventeenth-century inventions, and to deduce from it that a great technical movement was in force at that time. Many writers have fallen into this error—among them, Jean Laloup and Jean N'elis. It is not because Pascal invented a calculating machine and Papin a steam engine that there was a technical evolution; nor was it because a “prototype” of a power loom was built; nor because the process of the dry distillation of coal was discovered. As Gille has very judiciously noted: “The best-described machines in the eight- eenth century Encyclopedic are possibly better conceived than those of the fifteenth century, but scarcely constitute a revolution” The initial problem was to construct the machine, to make the in- vented technique actually work. The second consisted in the diffu- sion of the machine throughout the society; and this second step proceeded very slowly. This divergence between invention and technique, which is the cause of the time lag we have spoken of, is correctly interpreted by Gille in these words: “There was a discontinuity of technical progress but there was probably a continuity of research.” Gille shows clearly that technical progress develops according to a dis- continuous rhythm: “It is tied up with demographic or economic rhythms and with certain internal contradictions.” This discontinu- ity still contributes to evolutionary lag today. Slowness in the evolution of techniques is evident throughout history. Very few variations seem to have occurred in this constant. But it cannot be maintained that this slowness was completely uni- form. Yet, even in periods that appear rather fertile, it is clear that evolution was slow. For example, Roman law, which was particu- larly rich in the classical period, took two centuries to find a perfect form. Moreover, the number of applied inventions was sharply re- THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 7*) stricted. The fifteenth century, in spite of its importance, produced no more than four or five important technical applications. The natural consequence of this evolutionary slowness was that tech- nique could be adapted to men. Almost unconsciously, men kept abreast of techniques and controlled their use and influence. This resulted not from an adaptation of men to techniques (as in mod- em times), but rather from the subordination of techniques to men. Technique did not pose the problem of adaptation because it was firmly enmeshed in the framework of life and culture. It developed so slowly that it did not outstrip the slow evolution of man himself. The progress of the two was so evenly matched that man was able to keep pace with his techniques. From the physical point of view, techniques did not intrude into his life; neither his moral evolu- tion nor his psychic life were influenced by them. Techniques en- abled man to make individual progress and facilitated certain developments, but they did not influence him directly. Social equilibrium corresponded to the slowness of general evolution. This evolutionary slowness was accompanied by a great irra- tional diversification of designs. The evolution of techniques was produced by individual efforts accompanied by a multitude of scat- tered experiments. Men made incoherent modifications on instru- ments and institutions which already existed; but these modifica- tions did not constitute adaptations. We are amazed when we inspect, say, a museum of arms or tools, and note the extreme di- versity of form of a single instrument in the same place and time. The great sword used by Swiss soldiers in the sixteenth century had at least nine different forms (hooked, racked, double-handed, hex- agonal blades, blades shaped like a fleur-de-lis, grooved, etc.). This diversity was evidently due to various modes of fabrication peculiar to the smiths; it cannot be explained as a manifestation of a techni- cal inquiry. The modifications of a given type were not the out- come of calculation or of an exclusively technical will. They re- sulted from aesthetic considerations. It is important to emphasize that technical operations, like the instruments themselves, almost always depended on aesthetic preoccupations. It was impossible to conceive of a tool that was not beautiful. As for the idea, fre- quently accepted since the triumph of efficiency, that the beautiful is that which is well adapted to use—assuredly no such notion guided the aesthetic searchings of the past No such conception of * The Technological Society (73 beauty (however true) moved the artisan who carved a Toledo blade or fabricated a harness. On the contrary, aesthetic considera- tions are gratuitous and permit the introduction of uselessness into an eminently useful and efficient apparatus. This diversity of forms was manifestly conditioned by vainglory and pleasure—the vainglory of the user, the pleasure of the artisan. Both caused changes in the classic type. And why not include as well that pure fantasy which runs through all the creations of Greece and the Middle Ages? All this led to a modification of the given type. The search for greater efficiency likewise played a role, but it was one factor among several. The different forms were subject to trial and error, and certain forms were progressively stabilized and imitated, either because of their plastic perfection or because of their usefulness. The final result was the establishment of a new type derived from its predecessor. This diversity of influences, which operated on all technical mechanisms, explains in part the slow tempo of progress in these areas. To obey a multiplicity of motives and not reason alone seems to be an important keynote of man. When, in the nineteenth cen- tury, society began to elaborate an exclusively rational technique which acknowledged only considerations of efficiency, it was felt that not only the traditions but the deepest instincts of humankind had been violated. Men sought to reintroduce indispensable factors of aesthetics and morals. Out of this effort came the unprecedented creation of certain aspects of style in the 1880's: the tool with ma- chine-made embellishments. Sewing machines were decorated with cast-iron flowers, and the first tractors bore engraved bulls' heads. That it was wasteful to supply such embellishments soon became evident; their ugliness doubtless contributed to the realiza- tion. Moreover, these flourishes represented a wrong road, techni- cally speaking. The machine can become precise only to the degree that its design is elaborated with mathematical rigor in accordance with use. And an embellishment could increase air resistance, throw a wheel out of balance, alter velocity or precision. There was no room in practical activity for gratuitous aesthetic preoccu- pations. The two had to be separated. A style then developed based on the idea that the line best adapted to use is the most beautiful. Abstract techniques and their relation to morals underwent the THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 74) same evolution. Earlier, economic or political inquiries were inex- tricably bound with ethical inquiry, and men attempted to main- tain this union artificially even after they had recognized the inde- pendence of economic technique. Modern society is, in fact, con- ducted on the basis of purely technical considerations. But when men found themselves going counter to the human factor, they re- introduced—and in an absurd way—all manner of moral theories related to the rights of man, the League of Nations, liberty, jus- tice. None of that has any more importance than the ruffled sun- shade of McCormick's first reaper. When these moral flourishes overly encumber technical progress, they are discarded—more or less speedily, with more or less ceremony, but with determination nonetheless. This is the state we are in today. The elimination of these evolutionary factors and of technical diversification has brought about a transformation of the basic process of this evolution. Technical progress today is no longer conditioned by anything other than its own calculus of efficiency. The search is no longer personal, experimental, workmanlike; it is abstract, mathematical, and industrial. This does not mean that the individual no longer participates. On the contrary, progress is made only after innumerable individual experiments. But the individual participates only to the degree that he is subordinate to the search for efficiency, to the degree that he resists all the currents today considered secondary, such as aesthetics, ethics, fantasy. Insofar as the individual represents this abstract tendency, he is permitted to participate in technical creation, which is increasingly independ- ent of him and increasingly linked to its own mathematical law. It was long believed that rational systematization would act to reduce the number of technical types: in the measure that the fac- tors of diversification were eliminated, the result would be fewer and more simple and precise types. Thus, during the latter part of the nineteenth century—in the mechanical, medical, and adminis- trative spheres—-exact instruments wrere available from which fan- tasy and irrationality had been totally eliminated. The result was fewer instruments. As further progress was made, however, a new element of diversification came into play: in order that an instru- ment be perfectly efficient, it had to be perfectly adapted. But the most rational instrument possible takes no account of the extreme diversity of the operational environment. This represents an essen^ The Technological Society ( 75 tial characteristic of technique. Every procedure implies a single, specific result. As Porter Gale Perrin puts it: “Jus* as a word evokes an idea which exactly corresponds to no other word/* so a fixed technical procedure generates a fixed result. Technical methods are not multipurposive, or adaptable, or interchangeable. Perrin has demonstrated this in detail with reference to judicial technique, but it also holds for everything else. Take the well-known example, cited by Pierre de Latil, of a machine, brought to the highest possi- ble pitch of perfection, the purpose of which was to produce from cast iron, at a single stroke, cylinder heads for aircraft engines. The machine was 28 meters long and cost $100,000. But the mo- ment the required type of cylinder head was changed, the machine became good for nothing; it was unadaptable to any new operation. A judicial system may function perfectly adequately in France but not in Turkey. For true efficiency, not only must the rational aspect of the machine be taken into account, but also its adaptation to the environment. A military tank will have a different form de- pending on whether it is to be used in mountainous terrain or in rice paddies. The more an instrument is designed to execute a sin- gle operation efficiently and with utmost precision, the less can it be multipurposive. A new diversification of technical apparatus thus appears: today instruments are differentiated as a result of the con- tinually more specialized usage demanded of them. The field of aviation gives us one of the best examples of this. Aircraft are described by the use to which they are put. We have, correspondingly, extremely precise and more and more diversified types. The list of French military aircraft, consisting at the present of five great categories, is as follows: (1) strategic bombers, (2) tactical bombers, (3) pursuit planes, (4) reconnaissance planes, and (5) transport planes. These five categories are sub- divided further; there are altogether thirteen different subtypes, none of which are interchangeable with one another. Each has very different characteristics resulting from more and more refined tech- nical adaptations. The same extensive differentiation is found in much less impor- tant areas. A recent brochure of the world's largest refiner of lubri- cating oils lists fifteen different kinds of lubricants designed exclu- sively for automobiles. Each type corresponds to a definite use, each possessing specific qualities, and all equally necessary. 76 ) THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE A fourth characteristic of technique, which results from the characteristics just enumerated, is the possibility, reserved to the human being, of choice. Inasmuch as all techniques were geo- graphically and historically limited, societies of many different types were able to exist. For the most part, there was an equilib- rium between two major types of civilization—the active and the passive. This distinction is well known. Some societies are oriented toward the exploitation of the earth, toward war, conquest, and ex- pansion in all its forms. Other societies are inwardly oriented; they labor just enough to support themselves, concentrate on them- selves, are not concerned with material expansion, and erect solid barriers against anything from without. From the spiritual point of view, these societies are characterized by a mystical attitude, by a desire for self-dissolution and absorption into the divine. Human societies are variable, however. A group which has hitherto been active might become passive. The Tibetans, for in- stance, were conquerors and believers in magic until their conver- sion to Buddhism. Thereafter they became the world’s most pas- sive and mystical people. The reverse can also take place. The two types of society coexisted throughout history; indeed, this seemed necessary to the equilibrium of world and man. Until the nineteenth century, technique had not yet excluded one of them. Moreover, man could isolate himself from the influence of tech- nique by attaching himself to a given group and exerting influence on this group. Of course, other constraints acted on him; the indi- vidual was never completely free with respect to his group, but these constraints were not completely decisive or imperative in character. Whether we are considering unconscious sociological cohesion or the power of the state, we find these forces always necessarily counterbalanced by the existence of other neighboring groups and other loyalties. There was no irrefutable constraint on man, because nothing absolutely good in respect to everything else had been dis- covered. We have noted the diversity of technical form and the slowness of imitation. But it was always human action which was decisive. When several technical forms came into contact, the indi- vidual made his choice on the basis of numerous reasons. Efficiency was only one of them, as Pierre Deffontaines has demonstrated in his work on religious geography. The Technological Society (77 Although the individual existing in the framework of a civiliza- tion of a certain type was always confronted with certain tech- niques, he was nevertheless free to break with that civilization and to control his own individual destiny. The constraints to which he was subject did not function decisively because they were of a non* technical nature and could be broken through. In an active civili- zation, even one with a fairly good technical development, the in- dividual could always break away and lead, say, a mystical and contemplative life. The fact that techniques and man were more or less on the same level permitted the individual to repudiate tech- niques and get along without them. Choice was a real possibility for him, not only with regard to his inner life, but with regard to the outer form of his life as well. The essential elements of life were safeguarded and provided for, more or less liberally, by the very civilization whose forms he rejected. In the Roman Empire (a technical civilization in a good many respects), it was possible for a man to withdraw and live as a hermit or in the country, apart from the evolution and the principal technical power of the Em- pire. Roman law was powerless in the face of an individual's deci- sion to evade military service or, to a very great degree, imperial taxes and jurisdiction. Even greater was the possibility of the indi- viduals freedom with respect to material techniques. There was reserved for the individual an area of free choice at the cost of minimal effort. The choice involved a conscious decision and was possible only because the material burden of technique had not yet become more than a man could shoulder. The existence of choice, a result of characteristics we have already discussed, ap- pears to have been one of the most important historical factors gov- erning technical evolution and revolution. Evolution was not, then, a logic of discovery or an inevitable progression of techniques. It was an interaction of technical effectiveness and effective human decision. Whenever either one of these elements disappeared, social and human stagnation necessarily followed. Such was the case, for example, when effective technique was (or became) rudi- mentary and inefficacious among the Negroes of Africa. As to the consequences of a lapse in the second element, we are experiencing them today. The New Characteristic*. The characteristics of the relationship of technique, society, and the individual which we have analyzed THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 78) were, I believe, common to all civilizations up to the eighteenth century. Historically, their existence admits of little discussion. Today, however, the most cursory review enables us to conclude that all these characteristics have disappeared. The relation is not the same; it does not present any of the constants recognizable until now. But that is not sufficient to characterize the technical phenomenon of our own day. This description would situate it in a purely negative perspective, whereas the technical phenomemon is a positive thing; it presents positive characteristics which are pe- culiar to it. The old characteristics of technique have indeed dis- appeared; but new ones have taken their place. Today’s technical phenomenon, consequently, has almost nothing in common with the technical phenomenon of the past I shall not insist on demon- strating the negative aspect of the case, the disappearance of the traditional characteristics. To do so would be artificial, didactic, and difficult to defend. I shall point out, then, in a summary fash- ion, that in our civilization technique is in no way limited. It has been extended to all spheres and encompasses every activity, in- cluding human activities. It has led to a multiplication of means without limit. It has perfected indefinitely the instruments available to man, and put at his disposal an almost limitless variety of inter- mediaries and auxiliaries. Technique has been extended geo- graphically so that it covers the whole earth. It is evolving with a rapidity disconcerting not only to the man in the street but to the technician himself. It poses problems which recur endlessly and every more acutely in human social groups. Moreover, technique has become objective and is transmitted like a physical thing; it leads thereby to a certain unity of civilization, regardless of the en- vironment or the country in which it operates. We are faced with the exact opposite of the traits previously in force. We must, there- fore, examine carefully the positive characteristics of the technique of the present. There are two essential characteristics of today’s technical phe- nomenon which I shall not belabor because of their obviousness. These two, incidentally, are the only ones which, in general, are emphasized by the “best authors.” The first of these obvious characteristics is rationality. In tech- nique, whatever its aspect or the domain in which it is applied, a rational process is present which tends to bring mechanics to bear The Technological Society (79 on all that is spontaneous or irrational. This rationality, best exem- plified in systematization, division of labor, creation of standards, production norms, and the like, involves two distinct phases: first, the use of “discourse” in every operation; this excludes spontaneity and personal creativity. Second, there is the reduction of method to its logical dimension alone. Every intervention of technique is, in effect, a reduction of facts, forces, phenomena, means, and in- struments to the schema of logic. The second obvious characteristic of the technical phenomenon is artificiality. Technique is opposed to nature. Art, artifice, artifi- cial: technique as art is the creation of an artificial system. This is not a matter of opinion. The means man has at his disposal as a function of technique are artificial means. For this reason, the com- parison proposed by Emmanuel Mounier between the machine and the human body is valueless. The world that is being created by the accumulation of technical means is an artificial world and hence radically different from the natural world. It destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural world, and does not allow this world to restore itself or even to enter into a symbiotic relation with it. The two worlds obey different impera- tives, different directives, and different laws which have nothing in common. Just as hydroelectric installations take waterfalls and lead them into conduits, so the technical milieu absorbs the natural. We are rapidly approaching the time when there will be no longer any natural environment at all. When we succeed in producing artificial aurorae boreales, night will disappear and perpetual day will reign over the planet. I have given only brief descriptions of these two well-known characteristics. But I shall analyze the others at greater length; they are technical automatism, self-augmentation, monism, universalism, and autonomy. Characteristics of Modern Technique Automatism of Technical Choice. “The one best way”: so runs the formula to which our technique corresponds. When everything has been measured and calculated mathematically so that the method which has been decided upon is satisfactory from the rational point THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 8o) of view, and when, from the practical point of view, the method i* manifestly the most efficient of all those hitherto employed or those in competition with it, then the technical movement becomes self- directing. I call the process automatism. There is no personal choice, in respect to magnitude, between, say, 3 and 4; 4 is greater than 3; this is a fact which has no personal reference. No one can change it or assert the contrary or personally escape it Similarly, there is no choice between two technical meth- ods. One of them asserts itself inescapably: its results are calculated, measured, obvious, and indisputable. A surgical operation which was formerly not feasible but can now be performed is not an object of choice. It simply is. Here we see the prime aspect of technical automatism. Technique itself, ipso facto and without indulgence or possible discussion, selects among the means to be employed. The human being is no longer in any sense the agent of choice. Let no one say that man is the agent of technical progress (a question I shall discuss later) and that it is he who chooses among possible techniques. In reality, he neither is nor does anything of the sort. He is a device for recording effects and results obtained by various techniques. He does not make a choice of complex and, in some way, human motives. He can decide only in favor of the technique that gives the maximum efficiency. But this is not choice. A machine could effect the same operation, Man still appears to be choosing when he abandons a given method that has proved excellent from some point of view. But his action comes solely from the fact that he has thoroughly analyzed the re- sults and determined that from another point of view the method in question is less efficient. A good example is furnished by the attemnts to deconcentrate our industrial plants after we had 1 o jr concentrated them to the maximum possible degree. Another ex- ample would be the decision to abandon certain systems of high production in order to obtain a more constant productivity, al- though it might be less per capita. It is always a question of the improvement of the method in itself. The worst reproach modem society can level is the charge that some person or system is impeding this technical automatism. When a labor union leader says: "In a period of recession, productivity is a social scourge,’* his declaration stirs up a storm of protest and con- demnation, because he is putting a personal judgment before the The Technological Society (Si technical axiom that what can he produced must be produced. If a machine can yield a given result, it must be used to capacity, and it is considered criminal and antisocial not to do so. Technical autom- atism may not be judged or questioned; immediate use must be found for the most recent, efficient, and technical process. Communism’s fundamental criticism of capitalism is that finan- cial capitalism checks technical progress that produces no profits; or that it promotes technical progress only in order to reserve for itself a monopoly. In any case, as Rubinstein points out, technical progress occurs under capitalism for reasons which have nothing to do with technique, and it is this fact which is to be criticized. Since the Communist regime is oriented toward technical progress, the mark of the superiority of Communism is that it adopts all technical progress. Rubinstein concludes his study by remarking that this progress is the goal of all efforts in the Soviet Union, where it is said to be possible to allow free play to technical automatism without checking it in any way. Another traditional analysis supplements Rubinstein’s. This seri- ous study, carried out by Thorstein Veblen, maintains that there is a conflict between the machine and business. Financial investment, which originally accelerated invention, now prolongs technical in- activity. Capitalism does not give free play to technical activity, the goal of which is that a more efficient method or a more rapidly acting machine should ipso facto and automatically replace the pre- ceding method or machine. Capitalism does not give free play to these factors because it inadmissibly subordinates technique to ends other than technique itself, and because it is incapable of absorbing technical progress. The replacement of machines at the tempo of technical invention is completely impossible for capitalist enter- prise because there is no time to amortize one machine before new ones appear. Moreover, the more these machines are improved, and hence become more efficient, the more they cost. The pursuit of technical automatism would condemn capitalist enterprises to failure. The reaction of capitalism is well known: the patents of new machines are acquired and the machines are never put into operation. Sometimes machines that are already in operation are acquired, as in the case of England’s largest glass fac- tory in 1932, and destroyed. Capitalism is no longer in a position to pursue technical automatism on the economic or social plane. It THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 82) is incapable of developing a system of distribution that would per- mit the absorption of all the goods which technique allows to be produced. It is led inevitably to crises of overproduction. And in the same way it is unable to utilize the manpower freed by every new technical improvement. Crises of unemployment ensue. Thus we return to the old schema of Marx: it is the automatism of technique, with its demand that everything be brought into line with it, that endangers capitalism and heralds its final disappear- ance. This is an accurate criticism, and reveals two things. First, that we are correct in speaking of automatism. If the situation of capitalism is indeed as described, it is so because technical progress acts automatically. The choice between methods is no longer made according to human measure, but occurs as a mechanical process which nothing can prevent. Capitalism, in spite of all its power, will be crushed by this automatism. Second, that for the men of our time, this automatism is just and good. If Communism can make this critique of capitalism a successful springboard for propa- ganda, it is only because the criticism is valid. And it is valid be- cause everything can be called into question (God first of all), ex- cept technical progress. There is nothing left to do but wonder at a mechanism that functions so well and, apparently, so tirelessly. But, above all else, no finger must be laid upon it, nor its automatism in- terfered with. It is in this that the headway of technical progress becomes automatic; when modern man renounces control over it and cannot bring himself to raise his hand against it so as to make the choice himself. This, then, is the first aspect of technical automatism. Inside the technical circle, the choice among methods, mechanism, organiza- tions, and formulas is carried out automatically. Man is stripped of his faculty of choice and he is satisfied. He accepts the situation when he sides with technique. Let us examine the second aspect of automatism. When we leave the technical domain proper, we find a whole ensemble of nontech- nical means; among them a kind of preliminary process of elimina- tion is taking place. The various technical systems have invaded all spheres to the point that they are everywhere in collision with modes of life which were heretofore nontechnical. Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision The Technological Society ( 8 3 between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities. Technical activity automatically eliminates every nontechnical activity or transforms it into technical activity. This does not mean, however, that there is any conscious effort or directive will. From the point of view which most interests modern man, that of yield, every technical activity is superior to every nontechnical activity. Take, for example, politics. It used to be said that politics was an art, consisting of finesse, aptness, a particular kind of ability, even genius; in short, of personal qualities which seemed to operate by chance. If politics was to become a technical activity, chance must be eliminated. The results to be obtained must be certain. Un- predictability, which all men share to a greater or lesser degree, must also be eliminated. Rules had to be established for this par- ticularly unstable game if certainty of result was to be achieved. The difficulty was great, but not greater, perhaps, than the difficulty involved in harnessing atomic energy. It was Lenin who established political technique. He did not suc- ceed in formulating a complete set of principles for it, but from the beginning he attained a twofold result. Even a mediocre politician, by the application of the “method,” was able to achieve a good aver- age policy, to ward off catastrophes, and to assure a coherent politi- cal line. Moreover, the method was far superior to nontechnical policy; the same result could be obtained with fewer resources and with much less expense. On the military plane, the technique applied by Hitler (and it was a technique, not military genius as with Napoleon—although it is a mark of genius to develop a technique for war or for politics) not only enabled him to achieve what was not necessarily a direct result of his technique but, more important, it enabled him to resist for three years an adversary who possessed approximately a fivefold superiority in all areas—in numbers of men and military machines, in economic power, and so on. This capacity to resist resulted from the remarkable military technique of the Germans and from the per- fectly developed relationship they worked out between nation and army. In the same way, the political technique of Lenin’s school made, and is making, possible the achievement of successes over all other political forms, even when these political forms are able to bring THE OF TECHNIQUE ««) infinitely superior resources to bear. The tide of Leninian policy retreats for certain periods before the superior weight of the enor- mous politico-economic machines of the opponents. But to such a political technique only another political technique can be opposed; and since the American political technique, for example, is so in- ferior, it must deploy instead an enormous expenditure of resources. The superiority of a technique to enormous but inefficiently used resources and machinery means that the point at which technique inserts itself becomes a real turning point. The milieu into which a technique penetrates becomes completely, and often at a stroke, a technical milieu. If a desired result is stipulated, there is no choice possible between technical means and nontechnical means based on imagination, individual qualities, or tradition. Nothing can compete with the technical means. The choice is made a priori. It is not in the power of the individual or of the group to decide to follow some method other than the technical. The individual is in a dilemma: either he decides to safeguard his freedom of choice, chooses to use traditional, personal, moral, or empirical means, thereby entering into competition with a power against which there is no efficacious defense and before which he must suffer defeat; or he decides to accept technical necessity, in which case he will himself be the victor, but only by submitting irreparably to technical slavery. In effect he has no freedom of choice. We are today at the stage of historical evolution in which every- thing that is not technique is being eliminated. The challenge to a country, an individual, or a system is solely a technical challenge. Only a technical force can be opposed to a technical force. All else is swept away. Serge Tchakotin reminds us of this constantly. In the face of the psychological outrages of propaganda, what reply can there be? It is useless to appeal to culture or religion. It is use- less to educate the populace. Only propaganda can retort to propa- ganda, or psychological rape to psychological rape. Hitler formu- lated this long before Tchakotin. He writes, in Mein Kampf: "Unless the enemy learns to combat poison gas with poison gas, this tactic, which is based on an accurate evaluation of human weak- nesses, must lead almost mathematically to success The exclusive character of technique gives us one of the reasons for its lightning progress. There is no place for an individual today unless he is a technician. No social group is able to resist the pres- The Technological Society (8 $ sures of the environment unless it utilizes technique. To be in pos- session of the lightning thrust of technique is a matter of life or death for individuals and groups alike; no power on earth can with- stand its pressures. Will the technical phenomena of today be able to maintain itself, or must it suffer in its turn impairment or even liquidation? It is difficult to see ahead, and, in any case, this is not the place to try to do so. Doubtless, technique has its limits. But when it has reached these limits, will anything exist outside them? Its limits are presup- posed by its object and its method. But is it not succeeding in under- mining everything which is outside it? Beyond its precise and lim- ited compass, whatever its size, will there remain anything in exist- ence? We shall be answering this question all through this book. Within the technical circle nothing else can subsist because tech- nique's proper motion, as Jiinger has shown, tends irresistibly to- ward completeness. To the degree that this completeness is not yet attained, technique is advancing, eliminating every lesser force. And when it has received full satisfaction and accomplished its vocation, it will remain alone in the field. Technique thus reveals itself at once destroyer and creator, and no one wishes or is able to master it. Self-augmentation• The self-augmentation of technique also has two aspects. At the present time, technique has arrived at such a point in its evolution that it is being transformed and is progressing almost without decisive intervention by man. Modern men are so enthusiastic about technique, so assured of its superiority, so im- mersed in the technical milieu, that without exception they are oriented toward technical progress. They all work at it, and in every profession or trade everyone seeks to introduce technical improve- ment. Essentially, technique progresses as a result of this common effort. Technical progress and common human effort come to the same thing. Vincent analyzes with great subtlety the multitude of factors which intervene, each in its small way, in technical pro- gress: the consumer, accumulation of capital, research bureaus and laboratories, and the organization of production, which acts “in some sense mechanically.* Technical progress appears to Vincent to be “the resultant* of all these factors. In one sense, technique indeed progresses by means of minute improvements which are the result of common human efforts and are indefinitely additive until 86) THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE they form a mass of new conditions that permit a decisive forward step. But it is equally true that technique sharply reduces the role of human invention. It is no longer the man of genius who discovers something. It is no longer the vision of a Newton which is decisive. What is decisive is this anonymous accretion of conditions for the leap ahead. When all the conditions concur, only minimal human intervention is needed to produce important advances. It might almost be maintained that, at this stage of evolution of a technical problem, whoever attacked the problem would find the solution. The example of the steam engine and its manifold successive small alterations is well known. This example is being repeated today in all fields. The accretion of manifold minute details, all tending to perfect the ensemble, is much more decisive than the intervention of the individual who assembles the new data, adds some element which transforms the situation, and thus gives birth to a machine or to some spectacular system that will bear his name. This is the way progress takes place in the field of education, too. After the general direction given by initiators (like Decroly or Montessori), it is the findings of thousands of educators which ceaselessly nourish the improvement of technique. In fact, educa- tional systems are completely transformed as a result of practice— without any one’s being quite aware of it. In industrial plants, the discovery of details is utilized in another way; to create interest on the part of the worker in hia work. The worker is asked not only to use the machine he operates, but also to study it to find flaws in its operation, then to find remedies against these faults, and in addition to determine how its productivity might be improved. The result is the “suggestion box” by means of which workers may indicate their ideas and plans for improvement. This collective, anonymous research advances techniques almost everywhere in the world by a like impulse, a striking result of self- augmentation. It is noticeable that identical technical inventions are produced simultaneously in many countries. To the degree that science is taking on a more and more technical aspect, these dis- coveries are made everywhere at the same time—a further indica- tion that scientific discoveries are, in reality, governed by technique. The smashing of the atom and the atomic bomb are characteris- The Technological Society (87 tic of this simultaneity. In Germany, Norway, the U.S.S.R., the United States, and France, research had reached almost the same point in 1939. But circumstances upset European technical evolu- tion and gave superiority to the United States. Among these circum- stances were the invasion of Norway and France, the collapse of Germany several months after the discovery, and the lack of means and raw material in the U.S.S.R. What is true of scientific inventions is much more true of technical inventions. Only lack of means halts progress in certain countries. The more advanced a country is in the employment of technique, the more material is required, whether in numbers of men, raw materials, or complexity of machines. A country must be wealthy to exploit techniques to a maximum. And when the country is able to do this, technique returns a hundredfold increase in its wealth. This is another element in self-augmenta- tion. It is still necessary to justify the term self-augmentation, since it appears to be contradicted by what I have just been saying. If technical advance is assured by the joint effort of thousands of technicians, each of whom makes his contribution, it would seem impossible to speak of self-augmentation. But there is another as- pect which must be brought to light. There is an automatic growth (that is, a growth which is not calculated, desired, or chosen) of everything which concerns technique. This applies even to men. Statistically, the number of scientists and technicians has doubled every decade for a century and a half. Apparently this is a self-generating process: technique engenders itself. When a new technical form appears, it makes possible and conditions a number of others. To take a plain and elementary example: the internal-combustion engine made possible and conditioned the techniques of the automobile, the submarine, and so on. In the same way, once a technical procedure has been discovered, it is applicable in many fields other than the one for which it was primarly invented. The techniques of 4 operational research,” for example, were devised to help make certain military decisions. But it was immediately noted that they could be ap- plied wherever any decision had to be made. As Barache, a special- ist in these techniques, says: 44The nature of the problems them- •elves was secondary . . the methods of approach and the tech- THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 88) niques employed proved to have a general scope.” The same could be said for the techniques of organization. There is, therefore, a self* augmentation of the areas of application. This does not necessarily mean an infinite or indefinite augmen- tation of technique. I do not wish at this point to enter the realm of prognosis, but predictions of the more or less rapid extinction of technical progress seem to me to be contradicted by the facts. Whether it be Lewis Mumford, say, declaring that the era of mechanical progress is almost at an end, or Colin Clark announc- ing the transition of secondary mechanical activities to tertiary ac- tivities, they are exhibiting what can only be termed a dangerous confidence. Lewis Mumford shows that certain of our inventions cannot be improved, that the possible domain of mechanical activity cannot be extended, and that mechanical progress is limited by the nature of the physical world. This last is true. But we are far from knowing the total possibilities of the physical world. And after Mumford had written that statement fifteen years ago, servomechanisms, radar, and atom smashing were discovered. It is obvious that the augmen- tation of machines cannot be unlimited. But, so as not to rest our hopes on an alleged stagnation, it will be enough for this progress to continue for another century. What is true of mechnical techniques is also true of economic techniques. I agree fully with the remarks of Leon Hugo Dupriez when he points out the error of the "stagnation's”—of Wolf, for example, who writes: "The law of the limit of technico-economic development is that past progress closes the door to future progress. For future progress there remains in every case only a ®iargih, only a fraction, indeed only a small fraction, of past progress.” Dupricz’s exposure of the error of statements like this seems to me so con- vincing that I shall content myself with referring the reader to his work. On the other hand, Lewis Mumford shows (and, from another perspective, this is also Colin Clark’s thought) that the best organi- zation will tend to reduce the use of certain machines. This is rigorously exact. But this "best organization” is precisely technique itself and, moreover, it comprises a mechanical element as well. When Fourastie announces an augmentation of the tertiary, non- mechanized sector, the extraordinary progress of administrative The Technological Society (8$ mechanization of the last ten years must be considered. This mecha- nization completely modifies the conditions of human work by what has been termed *the replacement of the organic and the psychological by the mechanical.” It is certain that this fact will entail the same social crisis of unemployment as in the '‘secondary” sector. To take an example, the tabulator adds and prints 45,000 numbers an hour (as compared with 1,500 for a trained employee). It reads, calculates, analyzes, and prints 150 lines a minute. A punching machine, attached to it, produces the punched cards which recapitulate the results. The Gamma (a magnetic-drum machine) has a '‘memory” with a capacity for 200,000 individual items of data. A 1960-model calculating machine can handle 40,000 operations a second. The machine, along with organizational devel- opment, is now the means of reducing both the number of em- ployees and expenses, and also of reducing, on the collective plane, the tertiary sector of manpower. We can hardly agree that mechanical augmentation is decelerat- ing. We are simply in another phase of technical progress: the phase of assimilation, organization, and conquest of the other areas. Here the progress to be made seems limitless, and consists primarily in the efficient systematization of society and the conquest of the human being. All that can be said is that, at best, technical activity has changed its field of operation; it cannot be said that it has slowed down. Moreover, nothing argues that subsequently technical activity will not again turn toward the world of machines with renewed vigor. On the whole, it is the principle of the combination of tech- niques which causes self-augmentation. Self-augmentation can be formulated in two laws: 1. In a given civilization, technical progress is irreversible. 2. Technical progress tends to act, not according to an arith- metic, but according to a geometric progression. The first of these laws—and we base our conviction on the whole of history—makes us certain that every invention calls forth other technical inventions in other domains. There is never any question of an arrest of the process, and even less of a backward movement Arrest and retreat only occur when an entire society collapses. In the transition to a successor, a certain number of technical proce dures are lost. But, in the framework of the same civilization, THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE .90) technical progress is never in question. Later I shall examine the reasons for this. Technical progression is of the same nature as the process of numbering; there is no good ground for halting the pro- gression, because after each number we can always add 1. In tech- nical evolution also, it seems that limits no longer exist. Improve- ments that result from the application of technique to the matter at hand (whether it be physical or social) can be added uninter- ruptedly; there is no reason for arresting the process. In arguing thus, the qualification must be made that this can be said only of the ensemble of techniques, of the technical phenomenon, and not of any particular technique. For every technique taken by itself there apparently exist barriers that act to impede further progress, barriers to the addition of new inventions—but these can sometimes be cleared, as the sound barrier has been for aircraft. For the tech- nical phenomenon in its ensemble, however, a limitless progress is open. This progress, as Wiener has shown, is a necessity. Since techniques, proportionally to their development, exhaust the re- sources of nature, it is indispensable to fill the vacuum so created by a more rapid technical progress. Only inventions perpetually more numerous and automatically increasing can make good the unheard-of expenditures and the irremediable consumption of raw materials such as wood, coal, petroleum, and even water. What is it that determines this progression today? We can no longer argue that it is an economic or a social condition, or educa- tion, or any other human factor. Essentially, the preceding tech- nical situation alone is determinative. When a given technical discovery occurs, it has followed almost of necessity certain other discoveries. Human intervention in this succession appears only as an incidental cause; and no one man can do tills by himself. But anyone who is sufficiently up-to-date technically can make a valid discovery which rationally follows its predecessors and rationally heralds what is to follow. Two points must be made more precise here. First, the tech- nical consequences of a technical improvement are not necessarily of a kind. Thus, a purely mechanical discovery may have repercus- sions in the domain of social techniques or in that of organizational techniques. For example, machines that use perforated cards affect statistics and the organization of certain business enterprises. Con* The Technological Society (91 versely, some kind of social technique (for instance, full employ- ment) may entail an improvement in the techniques of economic production. Here we note the interdependence of techniques which is stated in the second law of self-augmentation: technical progress tends to be brought about according to a geometric progression. A technical discovery has repercussions and entails progress in several branches of technique and not merely in one. Moreover, techniques combine with one another, and the more given techniques there are to be combined, the more combinations are possible. Thus, almost with- out deliberate will, by a simple combination of new data, incessant discoveries take place everywhere; and whole fields are opened up to technique because of the meeting of several currents. Material techniques of communication, psychological techniques, commer- cial techniques, techniques of authoritarian government, all com- bine to produce the important phenomenon of propaganda, which represents a new technique independent of all the rest and neces- sarily produced as a consequence of the preceding phenomena. This second law of self-augmentation explains a characteristic of the technical movement which has engaged the attention of con- temporary sociologists. This is the unevenness of technical develop- ment. Enormous disparities exist not only in the various global areas of technical expansion but also in each field within the various sec- tors. Technique progresses more rapidly in one branch than in another—and certain retrogressions are always possible. To Franlcel this unevenness of development is the key to the disturbances of equilibrium and the social difficulties that the technical phenom- enon provokes. According to Frankel, if all branches evolved in the same rhythm, there would be no problem. FrankeFs view, certainly too simple, is probably not inexact. However, it explains little. In fact, these clashing rhythms cannot be altered because of tech- nical automatism. Fourastie is right in arguing that technical progress is unpredict- able. It cannot be known with certainty even a short time in advance in what quarter the new technical invention will be produced, precisely because such inventions are, for the most part, the result of self-augmentation. (Of course, a distinction must be made be- tween invention and discovery.) Short of halting progress by force THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 9*) in an advanced sector, there are no means of bringing these rhythms back into harmony; and the role of the individual is progressively weakened. The final point to make in discussing self-augmentation is that technique, in its development, poses primarily technical problems which consequently can be resolved only by technique. The present level of technique brings on new advances, and these in turn add to existing technical difficulties and technical problems, which de- mand further advances still. This is a concrete problem in town planning. A large city supposes a concentration of the means of transport, air control, traffic organization, and so on. Each of these permits the city to grow even larger and promotes new technical advances. For example, to make housework easier, garbage-disposal units have been put into use which allow the garbage to run off through the kitchen sinks. The result is enormous pollution of the rivers. It is then necessary to find some new means of purifying the rivers so that water can be used for drinking. A great quantity of oxygen is required for bacteria to destroy these organic materials. And how shall we oxygenate rivers? This is an example of the way in which technique engenders itself. The mechanization of administrative work in business offices raises the problem of a necessarily different kind of organization. It is not merely a question of replacing human beings with machines or of speeding up the work (of bookkeeping, for example), but rather of effecting operations of a new type which must be inte- grated into a new kind of organization. For example, the organiza- tion of the whole system of inventory analysis (with its four func- tions of entering, grouping, totaling, and comparing) becomes necessary. An ensemble of new techniques must be elaborated with- out which the machine in question would be good for nothing, resulting only in what Mas terms “pseudo-systematization,* The implications of self-augmentation become clearer: the in- dividual’s role is less and less important in technical evolution. The more factors there are, the more readily they combine and the more evident is the urgent need for each technical advance. Advance for its own sake becomes proportionately greater and the expression of human autonomy proportionately feebler. Human beings are, indeed, always necessary. But literally anyone The Technological Society ( 9 3 can do the job, provided he is trained to it. Henceforth, men will be able to act only in virtue of their commonest and lowest nature, and not in virtue of what they possess of superiority and individ- uality. The qualities which technique requires for its advance are precisely those characteristics of a technical order which do not represent individual intelligence. And here we enter into another area, the nature of the technician. In this decisive evolution, the human being does not play a part. Technical elements combine among themselves, and they do so more and more spontaneously. In the future, man will apparently be confined to the role of a recording device; he will note the effects of techniques upon one another, and register the results. A whole new kind of spontaneous action is taking place here, and we know neither its laws nor its ends. In this sense it is possible to speak of the “reality” of technique—with its own substance, its own particular mode of being, and a life independent of our power of decision. The evolution of techniques then becomes exclusively causal; it loses all finality. This is what economists such as Alfred Sauvy mean when they say that “by a slow reversal . . . produc- tion is more and more determined by the wishes of individuals in their capacity as producers, than by their decisions as consumers." In reality, it is not the “wishes” of the “producers" which control, but the technical necessity of production which forces itself on the consumers. Anything and everything which technique is able to produce is produced and accepted by the consumer. The belief that the human producer is still master of production is a dangerous illusion. Technique is organized as a closed world. It utilizes what the mass of men do not understand. It is even based on human igno- rance. As Charles Camichel says: “The worker cannot understand the workings of modern industry.” The individual, in order to make use of technical instruments, no longer needs to know about his civilization. And no single technician dominates the whole com- plex any longer. The bond that unites the fragmentary actions and disjointedness of individuals, co-ordinating and systematizing their work, is no longer a human one, but the internal laws of technique. The human hand no longer spans the complex of means, nor does the human brain synthesize man’s acts. Only the intrinsic monism THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 94) of technique assures cohesion between human means and acts. Technique reigns alone, a blind force and more clear-sighted than the best human intelligence. This phenomenon of self-augmentation gives technique a strangely harsh aspect. It resembles nothing other than itself. What- ever the domain to which it is applied, man or God, technique simply is; it undergoes no modifications in the movement which is its being and essence. It is the only locus where form and being are identical. It is only a form, but everything conforms to it. Here technique assumes the peculiar characteristics which make it a thing apart. A precise and well-defined boundary surrounds it: there is that which is technique, and there is everything else, which is not. Whoever passes this boundary and enters into technique is constrained to adopt its characteristics. Technique modifies what- ever it touches, but it is itself untouchable. Nothing in nature, or in social or human life, is comparable with it. The intelligence of art or war comes nowhere near that of technique, no more than does the industry of ants or bees. A hybrid but not sterile being, and capable of self-generation, technique traces its own limits and fashions its own image. Whatever the adaptations nature or circumstances demand of it, technique remains self-identical in its characteristics and its course. Hindrances seem to compel it to become, not something else, but even more itself. Everything it assimilates strengthens it in its traits. There is no hope of seeing it change into a fine and gracious being: it is neither Caliban nor Ariel, but it has been able to take Ariel and Caliban into the unconditioned circles of its universal method. Monism* The technical phenomenon, embracing all the separate techniques, forms a whole. This monism of technique was already obvious to us when we determined, on the basis of the evidence, that the technical phenomenon presents, every- where and essentially, the same characteristics. It is useless to look for differentiations. They do exist, but only secondarily. The common features of the technical phenomenon are so sharply * The French word is unicttt or instcabUiti. I have adopted “monism” as the Eng- lish equivalent. “Holism” might have been betfer. In any case, the accumulated philosophical baggage of both these terms must be rejected and the meaning of the term understood contextually. (Trans.) The Technological Society (95 drawn that it is easy to discern that which is the technical phenom- enon and that which is not. The difficulties experienced in the study of technique arise partly from the method to be used and partly from terminology. They do not arise from the phenomenon itself, which is eminently simple to fix. To analyze these common features is tricky, but it is simple to grasp them. Just as there are principles common to things as dif- ferent as a wireless set and an internal-combustion engine, so the organization of an office and the construction of an aircraft have certain identical features. This identity is the primary mark of that thoroughgoing unity which makes the technical phenomenon a single essence despite the extreme diversity of its appearances. As a corollary, it is impossible to analyze this or that element out of it—a truth which is today particularly misunderstood. The great tendency of all persons who study techniques is to make distinc- tions. They distinguish between the different elements of technique, maintaining some and discarding others. They distinguish between technique and the use to which it is put. These distinctions are completely invalid and show only that he who makes them has understood nothing of the technical phenomenon. Its parts are ontologically tied together; in it, use is inseparable from being. It is common practice, for example, to deny the unity of the technical complex so as to be able to fasten one's hopes on one or another of its branches. Mumford gives a remarkable example of this when he contrasts the grandeur of the printing press with the horridness of the newspaper. “On the one side there is the gigantic printing press, a miracle of fine articulation ... On the other the content of the papers themselves recording the most vulgar and elementary emotional states . . . There the impersonal, the co- operative, the objective; here the limited, the subjective, the recalci- trant, the ego, violent and full of hate and fear, etc. . . .” Unfortu- nately, it did not occur to Mumford to ask whether the content of our newspapers is not really necessitated by the social form imposed on man by the machine. This content is not the product of chance or of some economic form. It is the result of precise psychological and psychoanalytical techniques. These techniques have as their goal the bringing to the individual of that which is indispensable for his satisfaction in the conditions in which the machine has placed him, of inhibiting in THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 9$) him the sense of revolution, of subjugating him by flattering him. In other w ords, journalistic content is a technical complex expressly intended to adapt the man to the machine. It is certain that a press of high intellectual tone and great moral elevation either would not be read (and then one would scarcely see the wherefore of these beautiful machines) or would provoke in the long run a violent reaction against every form of technical society, including the machine. This reaction would come about not because of the ideas such a press would disseminate, but because the reader would no longer find in it the indispensable instrument for releasing his repressed passions. In a sound evaluation of the problem, it ought never to be said: on the one side, technique; on the other, the abuse of it. There are different techniques which correspond to different necessities. But all techniques are inseparably united. Everything hangs together in the technical world, as it does in the mechanical; in both, the advisability of the isolated means must be distinguished from the advisability of the mechanical "complex.* The claims of the me- chanical "complex" must prevail when, for example, a machine too costly or overrefined threatens to wreck the ensemble. There is an attractive notion which would apparently resolve all technical problems: that it is not the technique that is wrong, but the use men make of it. Consequently, if the use is changed, there will no longer be any objection to the technique. I shall return more than once to this conception. Let us examine a single aspect of it now. First, it manifestly rests on the confusion between machine and technique. A man can use his automobile to take a trip or to kill his neighbors. But the second use is not a use; it is a crime. The automobile was not created to kill people, so the fact is nut important I know, of course, that killing people is not what those w!ho explain things in this way have in mind. They prefer to say that man orients his pursuits in the direction of good and not of evil. They mean that technique seeks to invent rational therapies and not poison gases, useful sources of energy and not atomic bombs, commercial and not military aircraft, etc. This leads them straight back to man—man who decides in what direction to orient his researches. (Must it not be, then, that man is becoming better?) But all this is an error. It resolutely refuses to recognize technical reality. It supposes, to begin with, that men orient technique in a The Technological Society ( 9 7 given direction for moral, and consequently nontechnical, reasons. But a principal characteristic of technique (which we shall study at length) is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. Technique never observes the distinction between moral and immoral use. It tends, on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality. Here, then, is one of the elements of weakness of this point of view. It does not perceive technique's rigorous autonomy with respect to morals; it does not see that the infusion of some more or less vague sentiment of human welfare cannot alter it. Not even the moral conversion of the technicians could make a difference. At best, they would cease to be good technicians. This attitude supposes further that technique evolves with some end in view, and that this end is human good. Technique, as I believe I have shown, is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed. It evolves in a purely causal way: the combination of preceding elements furnishes the new technical elements. There is no purpose or plan that is being pro- gressively realized. There is not even a tendency toward human ends. We are dealing with a phenomenon blind to the future, in a domain of integral causality. Hence, to pose arbitrarily some goal or other, to propose a direction for technique, is to deny technique and divest it of its character and its strength. There is a final argument against this position. It was said that the use made of technique is bad. But this assertion has no meaning at all. As I have pointed out, a number of uses can always be made of the machine, but only one of them is the technical use. The use of the automobile as a murder weapon does not represent the tech- nical use, that is, the one best way of doing something. Technique is a means with a set of rules for the game. It is a “method of being used” which is unique and not open to arbitrary choice; we gain no advantage from the machine or from organization if it is not used as it ought to be. There is but one method for its use, one possibility. Lacking this, it is not a technique. Technique is in itself a method of action, which is exactly what a use means. To say of such a technical means that a bad use has been made of it is to say that no technical use has been made of it, that it has not been made to yield what it could have yielded and ought to have yielded. The THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 9*) driver who uses his automobile carelessly makes a bad use of it. Such use, incidentally, has nothing to do with the use which moralists wish to ascribe to technique. Technique is a use. Moralists wish to apply another use, with other criteria. What they wish, to be precise, is that technique no longer be technique. Under the cir- cumstances, there are no further significant problems. There is no difference at all between technique and its use. The individual is faced with an exclusive choice, either to use the technique as it should be used according to the technical rules, or not to use it at all. It is impossible to use it otherwise than according to the technical rules. Unfortunately, men today accept this reality only with difficulty. Thus, when Mumford makes the statement: “The army is the ideal form towards which a purely mechanical industrial system must tend,” he is unable to restrain himself from adding: “But the result is not ideal.” What is the “ideal” doing here? The ideal is not the problem. The problem is solely to know whether this mode of organization responds to technical criteria. Mumford is able to show that it is nothing of the kind, because he limits techniques to machines. But if he were to accept the role of human techniques in the organization of the army he could account for the fact that the army indeed remains the irreproachable model of a technical organization, and its value has nothing to do with an ideal. It is infantile to wish to submit the machine to the criterion of the ideal. It is also held that technique could be directed toward that which ia puMlive, constructive, and enriching, omitting that which is negative, destructive, and impoverishing. In demagogic formula- tion, techniques of peace must be developed and techniques of war rejected. In a less simple-minded version, it is held that means ought lo be suughi which palliate, without increasing, the draw- backs of technique. Could not atomic engines and atomic power have been discovered without creating the bomb? To reason thus is to separate technical elements with no justification. Techniques of peace and alongside them other and different techniques of war simply do not exist, despite what good folk think to the contrary. The organization of an army comes to resemble more and more that of a great industrial plant. It is the technical phenomenon presenting a formidable unity in all its parts, which are inseparable. The fact that the atomic bomb was created before the atomic The Technological Society (99 engine was not essentially the result of the perversity of technical men. Nor was it solely the attitude of the state which determined this order. The action of the state was certainly the deciding factor in atomic research (I shall take up this point later). Research was greatly accelerated by the necessities of war and consequently directed toward a bomb. If the state had not been oriented toward the ends of war, it would not have devoted so much money to atomic research. All this caused an undeniable factor of orientation to intervene. But if the state had not promoted such efforts, it would have been the whole complex of atomic research which would have been halted without distinction between the uses of war and peace. If atomic research is encouraged, it is obligatory to pass through the stage of the atomic bomb; the bomb represents by far the sim- plest utilization of atomic energy. The problems involved in the military use of atomic energy are infinitely more simple to resolve than are those involved in its industrial use. For industrial use, all the problems involved in the bomb must be solved, and in addition certain others, a fact corroborated by J. Robert Oppenheimer in his Paris lecture of 1958. The experience of Great Britain between 1955 and i960 in producing electricity of nuclear origin is very significant in this respect. It was, then, necessary to pass through the period of research which culminated in the bomb before proceeding to its normal sequel, atomic motive power. The atomic-bomb period is a transi- tory, but unfortunately necessary, stage in the general evolution of this technique. In the interim period represented by the bomb, the possessor, finding himself with so powerful an instrument, is led to use it. Why? Because everything which is technique is necessarily used as soon as it is available, without distinction of good or evil. This is the principal law of our age. We may quote here Jacques Soustelle’s well-known remark of May, i960, in reference to the atomic bomb. It expresses the deep feeling of us all: “Since it was possible, it was necessaryReally a master phrase for all technical evolution. Even an author as well disposed toward the machine as Mumford recognizes that there is a tendency to utilize all inventions whether there is need for them or not. “Our grandparents used sheet iron for walls although they knew that iron is a good conductor of 2 O 0 ) THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE heat . . . The introduction of anesthetics led to the performance of superfluous operations. . . * To say that it could be otherwise is simply to make an abstraction of man. Another example is the police. The police have perfected to an unheard of degree technical methods both of research and of action. Everyone is delighted with this development because it would seem to guarantee an increasingly efficient protection against criminals. Let us put aside for the moment the problem of police corruption and concentrate on the technical apparatus, which, as I have noted, is becoming extremely precise. Will this apparatus be ap- plied only to criminals? We know that this is not the case; and we are tempted to react by saying that it is the state which applies this technical apparatus without discrimination. But there is an error of perspective here. The instrument tends to be applied everywhere it can be applied. It functions without discrimination—because it exists without discrimination. The techniques of the police, which are developing at an extremely rapid tempo, have as their neces- sary end the transformation of the entire nation into a concentra- tion camp. This is no perverse decision on the part of some party or government. To be sure of apprehending criminals, it is necessary that everyone be supervised. It is necessary to know exactly what every citizen is up to, to know his relations, his amusements, etc. And the state is increasingly in a position to know these things. This does not imply a reign of terror or of arbitrary arrests. The best technique is one which makes itself felt the least and which represents the least burden. But every citizen must be thoroughly known to the police and must live under conditions of discreet surveillance. All this results from the perfection of technical meth- ods. The police cannot attain technical perfection unless they have total control. And, as Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt has remarked, this total control has both an objective and a subjective side. Sub- jectively, control satisfies the desire for power and certain sadistic tendencies. But the subjective aspect is not the dominant one. It is not the major aspect, the expression of what is to come. In reality, the objective aspect of control—more and more, that is to say, the pure technique which creates a milieu, an atmosphere, an environ- ment, and even a model of behavior in social relations—dominates more and more. The police must move in the direction of anticipat- The Technological Society (101 ing and forestalling crime. Eventually intervention will be useless. This state of affairs can come about in two ways: first, by constant surveillance, to the end that noxious intentions be known in advance and the police be able to act before the premeditated crime takes place; second, by the climate of social conformity which we have mentioned. This goal presupposes the paternal surveillance of every citizen and, in addition, the closest possible tie-in with all other techniques—administrative, organizational, and psychological. The technique of police control has value only if the police are in close contact with the trade unions and the schools. In particular, it is allied with propaganda. Wherever the phenomenon is observed, this connection exists. Propaganda itself cannot be efficient unless it brings into play the whole state organization, and particularly the police power. Conversely, police power is a genuine technique only when it is supplemented by propaganda, which plays a leading role in the psychological environment necessary to the completeness of the police power. But propaganda must also teach acceptance of what the police power is and what it can do. It must make the police power palatable, justify its actions, and give it its psychosociological structure among the masses of the people. All this is equally true for dictatorial regimes in which police and propaganda concentrate on terror, and for democratic regimes in which the motion pictures, for example, show the good offices of the police and procure it the friendly feeling of the public. The vicious circle mentioned by Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt (past terror accentuates present propaganda, and present propaganda paves the way for future terror) is as true of democratic as of dictatorial regimes, if the term terror is replaced by efficiency. This type of police organization is not an arbitrary prospect. It is maintained by every authoritarian government, where every citizen is regarded as a suspect ignorant of his own capabilities. It is the tendency in the United States, and we are beginning to see the first elements of it in France. The administration of the French police was oriented, in 1951, toward an organization of the system “in depth.” This took place, for example, at the level of the Record Office. Certain elements of this are simple and well known: finger- print files, records of firearms, application of statistical methods which allow the police to obtain in a minimum of time the most varied kinds of information and to know from day to day the current THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 102) state of criminality in all its forms. Other elements are somewhat more complicated and new. For example, a punched-card mechan- ical index system (Recherches) has been installed in the Criminal Division. This system offers four hundred possible combinations and permits investigations to begin with any element of the crime: hour of commission, nature, objects stolen, weapons used, etc. The combination obviously does not give the solution but a series of approximations. The most important item in this catalogue of police techniques is the creation of the so-called “suspect files,” which show whether the police ever suspected any individual for any reason or at any time whatsoever, even though no legal document or procedure ever existed against him (from the press conference of M. Baylot, Pre- fect of Police, 1951). This means that any citizen who, once in his life, had anything to do with the police, even for noncriminal rea- sons, is put under observation—a fact which ought to affect, speak- ing conservatively, half the adult male population. It is obvious that these lists are only a point of departure, because it will be tempting, as well as necessary, to complete the files with all observa- tions which may have been collected. Finally, this technical conception of the police supposes the institution of concentration camps, not in their dramatic aspects, but in their administrative aspects. The Nazi's use of concentration camps has warped our perspectives. The concentration camp is based on two ideas which derive directly from the technical con- ception of the police: preventive detention (which completes pre- vention), and re-education. It is not because the use of these terms has not corresponded to reality that we feel it necessary to refuse to see in the concentration camp a very advanced form of the system. Nor is it because the so-called methods of re-education have, on the whole, been methods of destruction that we feel we must consider such a concept of “re-education” an odious joke. The further we v advance, the more will the police be considered responsible for the re-education of social misfits, a goal that is a part of the very order which they are charged with protecting. We are experiencing at present the justification of this develop- ment. It is not true that the perfection of police power is the result of the state's Machiavellianism or of some transitory influence. The whole structure of society implies it, of necessity. The more we mo- The Technological Society ( 2 03 bilize the forces of nature, the more must we mobilize men and the more do we require order, which today represents the highest value. To deny this is to deny the whole course of modern times. This order has nothing spontaneous in it. It is rather a patient accretion of a thousand technical details. And each of us derives a feeling of security from every one of the improvements which make this order more efficient and the future safer. Order receives our com* plete approval; even when we are hostile to the police, we are, by a strange contradiction, partisans of order. In the blossoming of modern discoveries and of our own power, a vertigo has taken hold of us which makes us feel this need to an extreme degree. After all, it is the police who are charged, from the external point of view, with insuring this order which covers organization and morals. How then can we possibly deny to the police indispensable improve- ments in their methods? ‘ We in France are still in the preparatory phase of this develop- ment, but the organization of police power has been pushed very far in Canada and New Zealand, to take two examples. Technical necessity imposes the national concentration camp (which, I must point out, does not involve the suffering usually associated with it). Let us take another example. A new machine of great productive power put into circulation "releases” a great quantity of work; it replaces many workers. This is an inevitable consequence of tech- nique. In the crude order of things, these workers are simply thrown out of work. Capitalism is blamed for this state of affairs and we are told that technique itself is not responsible for technological unemployment and that the establishment of socialism would set things right. The capitalist replies: “Technological unemployment always dies out of itself. For example, it creates certain new activi- ties which will in the long run create employment for qualified workers,” This appears to be a dreadful prospect because it implies a readaptation in time and a more or less lengthy period of un- employment. But what does socialism propose? That the “liberated” worker will be used somewhere else and in some other capacity. In the Soviet Union the worker is either adapted to a new skill by means of vocational training or he is sent to another part of the country. In the Beveridge Plan the worker is employed wherever the state opens a plant of any sort. This socialist solution involves readaptation in space. But this solution, too, appears to be com- THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 104) pletely alien to human nature. Man is not a mere package to be moved about, an object to be molded and applied wherever there is need. These two forms of readaptation, the only ones possible, are both inhumane. The New Work Code promulgated in the (East) German Democratic Republic in November, i960, shows this inhumanity in operation in the socialist camp. And none of these adaptations can be separated from the machine which re- places human labor. They are its necessary and inevitable conse- quence. Of course, idealists will speak of the reduction of the work week. But this reduction can only be effected when equivalent technical improvements are produced in all fields of work. Accord- ing to Colin Clark, it seems that this reduction, too, must “ceiling out** before long. But this consideration passes over into the area of economics. I could cite innumerable examples, but the ones I have given suffice to show that technique in itself (and not the use made of it, or its non-necessary consequences) leads to a certain amount of suffering and to social scourges which cannot be completely sepa- rated from it. This is its very mechanism. Of course, a technique can be abandoned when it proves to have evil effects which were not provided for. From then on, there will be an improvement in the technique. A characteristic example is furnished by J. de Castro in The Geography of Hunger. De Castro shows in detail, with regard to Brazil, what was already known superficially about other countries, that certain techniques of ex- ploitation have proved disastrous. According to de Castro, certain regions were deforested in order to grow sugar cane. But only the immediate technical productivity was considered. In a further work, de Castro seeks to show that the hunger problem was created aODlicatiO" ormil-oltet- polnniali*:!- tn fl(Tr{ntltur#». J ir------- —-------r----------------------j---------- o------- His reasoning, however, is correct only to a very limited extent. It is true that when an agriculture of diversified crops is replaced by a single-crop economy for commercial ends (tobacco and sugar cane), capitalism is to blame. But most often crop diversification is not disturbed. What happens is that new areas are brought under cultivation, producing a population increase and also a unilateral utilization of the labor forces. And this is less a capitalist than a technical fact. If the possibility of industrializing agriculture exists, why not use it? Any engineer, agronomist, or economist of a hun- The Technological Society (i o $ dred years ago would have agreed that bringing uncultivated lands under cultivation constituted a great advance. The applica- tion of European agricultural techniques represented an incom- parable forward step, when compared, for example, to Indian methods. But it involved certain unforeseen consequences: the re- sulting deforestation modified hydrographic features, the rivers became torrents, and the drainage waters provoked catastrophic erosion. The topsoil was completely carried away and agriculture became impossible. The fauna, dependent on the existence of the forest, disappeared. In this way, the food-producing possibilities of vast regions vanished. The same situation is developing as a result of the cultivation of peanuts in Senegal, of cotton in the South of the United States, and so on. None of this represents, as is com- monly said, a poor application of technique—one guided by selfish interest. It is simply technique. And if the situation is rectified “too late” by the abandonment of the old technique, it will only be as a consequence of some new technical advance. In any case, the first step was inevitable; man can never foresee the totality of conse- quences of a given technical action. History shows that every tech- nical application from its beginnings presents certain unforeseeable secondary effects which are much more disastrous than the lack of the technique would have been. These effects exist alongside those effects which were foreseen and expected and which represent something valuable and positive. Technique demands the most rapid possible application; the problems of our day are evolving rapidly and require immediate solutions. Modern man is held by the throat by certain demands which will not be resolved simply by the passage of time. The quickest possible counter-thrust, often a matter of life or death, is necessary. When the parry specific to the attack is found, it is used. It would be foolish not to use the available means. But there is never time to estimate all the repercussions. And, in any case, they are most often unforeseeable. The more we understand the inter- relation of all disciplines and the interaction of the instruments, the less time there is to measure these effects accurately. Moreover, technique demands the most immediate application because it is so expensive. It must “pay off,” in money, prestige, or force (depending on whether the regime is capitalist, Com- munist, or Fascist, respectively). There is no time for precautions THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 106) when the distribution of dividends or the salvation of the prole- tariat is at stake. Nor can we permit ourselves to say that these motives are no affair of technique. If none of them existed, there would be no money for technical research and there would be no technique. Technique cannot be considered in itself, apart from its actual modes of existence. We are brought back, then, to serious facts of this order: in certain agricultural research in England, antiparasitic agents called systemics were applied. An injection was made into a fruit tree, which as a consequence was infected with the agent from its roots to its leaves. Every parasite died. But nothing is known of the effects on the fruit, or of the effects on man, and in the long run of the effects on the tree. All that is known is that the agent is not an immediate deadly poison for the consumer. Such products are al- ready commercially available, and it is probable that they will shortly be used on a large scale. What we have said about systemics holds for the specific insecticide, D.D.T. It was announced origi- nally that this insecticide was completely harmless for warm- blooded animals. Subsequently, D.D.T. was widely used. But it was noted in 1951 that D.D.T. in fatty solution (oily or otherwise) is actually a poison for warm-blooded animals and causes a whole complex of disturbances and diseases, in particular, rickets. This fatty solution may be produced entirely by accident, as when cows treated with this chemical produce milk containing D.D.T. Rickets has been detected in calves nourished with such milk. And several international medical congresses since 1956 have drawn attention to the grave danger to children. But the real question is not the question of error. Errors are always possible. Two facts alone concern us: it is impossible to foresee ail the consequences of a technical action; and technique demands that everything it produces be brought into a domain that affects the entire public. The weight of technique is such that no obstacle can stop it. And every technical advance is matched by a negative reverse side. An excellent study of the effect of petroleum explorations in the Sahara (1958) concludes with the observation that the most serious prob- lem is the increase in the wretchedness of the local population. The causes of this growing misery, among others, are: the supplanting of caravan traffic by motor vehicles; the disappearance of the date The Technological Society (107 palms (diseased through widespread chemical wastes); and the disappearance of cereal grains because of nonmaintenance of the irrigation works. This complex seems to represent a typical example. The human being is delivered helpless, in respect to life’s most important and most trivial affairs, to a power which is in no sense under his control. For there can be no question today of man’s con- trolling the milk he drinks or the bread he eats, any more than of his controlling his government. The same holds for the development of great industrial plants, transport systems, motion pictures, and so on. It is only after a period of dubious experimentation that a tech- nique is refined and its secondary consequences are modified through a series of technical improvements. Henceforth, someone will say, it will be possible to tame the monster and separate the good results of a technical operation from the bad. That may be. But, in the same framework, the new technical advance will in its turn produce further secondary and unpredictable effects which are no less disastrous than the preceding ones (aithough they will be of another kind). De Castro declares that the new techniques of soil cultivation presuppose more and more powerful state control, with its police power, its ideology, and its propaganda machinery. This is the price we must pay. William Vogt, surveying the same problem, is still more precise: in order to avoid famine, resulting from the systematic destruction of the topsoil, we must apply the latest technical methods. But con- servation will not be put into practice spontaneously by individuals; yet, these methods must be applied globally or they will not amount to anything. Who can do this? Vogt, like all good Americans, asserts that he detests the authoritarian police state. However, he agrees that only state controls can possibly produce the desired results. He extols the efforts made by the liberal administration of the United States in this respect, but he agrees that the United States continues “to lose ground literally and figuratively,” simply because the methods of American agricultural administration are not authori- tarian enough. What measures are to be recommended? The various soils must be classified as to possible ways to cultivate them without destroy- ing them. Authoritarian methods must be applied in order (a) to evacuate the population and to prevent it from working the im- periled soil; and (b) to grow only certain products on certain type* 108) THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE of soil. The peasant can no longer be allowed freedom in these respects. This evolution is to be facilitated by centralization of the great land holdings. In Latin America there are today from 20 to 40 million ecologically displaced persons, persons occupying lands which ought not to be under cultivation. They are living on hillsides from which it is absolutely necessary to drive them if the means of existence of their countries are to be saved from destruction. It will be difficult and costly to relocate these people, but Latin America has no choice. If she does not solve this problem, she will be re- duced to the most miserable standard of living. All experts on agricultural questions are in fact in fundamental agreement De Castro (although hostile to the ideas of Vogt) and Dumont (critical of de Castro on certain points) come to the con- clusion that only strict planning on a world scale can solve the prob- lems of agriculture, and that only human relocation and collective distribution of wealth can solve the problem of famine. This can only mean that man, if he is to improve the traditional agricultural techniques and be rid of their drawbacks, will be obliged to apply extremely rigorous administrative and police techniques. Here again we have a good example of the interconnection of different elements and of the unpredictability of the secondary effects. It was believed for a long time that the TVA was a praiseworthy response to certain problems raised by technique. Today, however, certain major flaws have become apparent. For example, the correct application of methods of reforestation and animal reproduction were not understood. Flood control was not carried out by retention of the water in the soil but by submerging permanently a good part of the lands which have been saved to protect others. Man, we repeat, is never able to foresee the totality of effects of his tech- nique. No one could have foreseen that regulating the Colorado River for irrigation purposes would lead the Pacific Ocean to en- croach upon the coast of California, or that it would endanger the valleys (which had been “regulated”) by the removal of up to 500 tons a day of sand and rock. It is likewise impossible to foresee the effect of techniques intended to control the weather, dispel clouds, precipitate rain or snow, and so on. In another area, Professor Lemaire, in a study of narcotic drugs, shows that tech- nique permits the manufacture of synthetic narcotics with greater and greater ease and in increasing quantities. But, according to The Technological Society (109 Lemaire, the control of these drugs is thereby rendered more and more difficult because "we cannot predict whether they will or will not be dangerous. The only proof is their habitual use by addicts. But to obtain this proof requires) ears of experience." There is scarcely need to recall that universal famine, the most serious danger known to humanity,* is caused by the advance of certain medical techniques which have brought with them good and evil inextricably mixed. This is not a question of good or bad use. No more so is the problem, posed by atomic techniques, of the dis- posal of atomic waste. Atomic explosions are not the real problem. The real problem continues to be that of the disposal of the ceaselessly accumulating waste materials, despite the reassuring but unfortunately partisan explanations of some atomic scientists. The International Agency for Atomic Energy recognized, in 1959, that these wastes represent a deadly peril and that there is no sure way of avoiding it, except perhaps by means of the difficult process of “vitrification” being undertaken in Canada. And all this involves the peaceful use of the atom! In every case, what can really be foreseen more or less clearly is the need of state intervention to control the effects of technical applications. But by the time a technique is modified in the light of these effects, the evil has already been done. When it is proposed to "choose” between effects, it is always too late. It is doubtless still possible to modify any given element, but only at the price of secondary repercussions. Again, it is doubtless possible to produce, by means of rational exploitation of natural resources, enough food to nourish five billion human beings. But this can be accomplished only at the price of forced labor and a new kind of slavery. What- ever point we choose to examine, we always perceive this inter- relation of techniques. In i960, the World Congress for the Study of Nutrition considered the problem of how modem nutrition is viti- ated by the use of chemical products which are themselves sig- nificant contributory causes of the so-called diseases of civilization (cancer, cardiovascular illnesses, etc.). But the Congress's studies indicate that the solution can no longer be a return to a "natural" nutrition. On the contrary, a further step must be taken which involves completely artificial alimentation, so-called rational ali- * That this problem can be solved seem* doubtful to most recent congresses, the Vevey Congress of i960 among them. THE CHARACTEROLOGY OP TECHNIQUE 110 ) mentation. It will not be sufficient merely to control grains, meat, butter, and so forth. The stage at which this would have been feasible has been passed. New technical methods must be found. But can we be assured that this new alimentation will in its turn present no danger? Every rejection of a technique judged to be bad entails the appli- cation of a new technique, the value of which is estimated from the point of view of efficiency alone. But we are always unaware of the more remote repercussions. History shows us that these are seldom positive, at least when we consider history as a whole instead of contenting ourselves with examining disconnected phenomena such as the population increase, the prolongation of the average life span, or the shortening of the work week. These are symptoms which perhaps would have meaning if man were merely an animal, but which have no conclusive significance if man is something more than a production machine. However, it is not my intention to show that technique will end in disaster. On the contrary, technique has only one principle: efficient ordering. Everything, for technique, is centered on the concept of order. This explains the development of moral and political doc- trines at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Everything which represented an ordering principle was taken in deadly earnest. At the same time the means destined to elaborate this order were exploited as never before. Order and peace were required for the development of the individual techniques (after society had reached the necessary stage of disintegration). Peace is indispensa- ble to the triumph of industrialization. It will be hastily concluded from this that industrialization will promote peace. But, as always, logical deductions falsify reality, j. U. Nef has shown admirably that industrialization cannot act otherwise than to promote wars. This is no accident, but rather an organic relation. It holds not only because of the direct influence of industrialization on the means of destruction but also because of its influence on the means of ex- istence. Technical progress favors war, according to Nef, because (a) the new weapons have rendered more difficult the distinction between offense and defense; and (b) they have enormously re- duced the pain and anguish implied in the act of killing. On another plane, the distinction between peaceful industry and military industry is no longer possible. Every industry, every tech- The Technological Society (in nique, however humane its intentions, has military value. “The humanitarian scientist finds himself confronted by a new dilemma; Must he look for ways to make people live longer so that they are better able to destroy one another?” Nef has described all this remarkably well. It is no longer a question of simple human be- havior, but of technical necessity. The technical phenomenon cannot be broken down in such a way as to retain the good and reject the bad. It has a “mass” which renders it monistic. To show this we have taken only the simplest, and hence the most easily debatable, examples. To enable the reader to grasp fully the reality of this monism, it would be neces- sary to present every problem with all its implications and ramifi- cations into other fields. The case of the police, for example, cannot be considred merely within its specific confines; police technique is closely connected with the techniques of propaganda, adminis- tration, and even economics. Economics demands, in effect, an increasing productivity; it is impossible to accept the nonproducers into the body social—the loafers, the coupon-clippers, the social misfits, and the saboteurs—none of these have any place. The police must develop methods to put these useless consumers to work. The problem is the same in a capitalist state (where the Communist is the saboteur) and in a Communist state (where the saboteur is the internationalist in the pay of capitalism). The necessities and the modes of action of all these techniques combine to form a whole, each part supporting and reinforcing the others. They constitute a co-ordinated phenomenon, no element of which can be detached from the others. It is an illusion, a perfectly understandable one, to hope to be able to suppress the “bad” side of technique and preserve the “good.” This belief means that the essence of the technical phenomenon has not been grasped. The Necessary Linking Together of Techniques. We have seen how the two technical characteristics, self-augmentation and monism, combine. Now we must consider the historical, necessary linking up of all the different techniques. This analysis will complete my discussion of these two characteristics. Machine technique appeared after 1750. The technical state of mind was first manifested in the application of the principles of science. We already know how this necessity arose (it is emphasized in all textbooks). The flying shuttle of 1733 made a greater pro- THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE lii) duction of yam necessary. But production was impossible without a suitable machine. The response to this dilemma was the invention of the spinning jenny by James Hargreaves. But then yam was product in much greater quantities than could possibly be used by the weavers. To solve this new problem, Cartwright manu- factured his celebrated loom. In this series of events we see in its simplest form the interaction that accelerates the development of machines. Each new machine disturbs the equilibrium of pro- duction; the restoration of equilibrium entails the creation of one or more additional machines in other areas of operation. Production becomes more and more complex. The combination of machines within the same enterprisers a notable characteristic of the nineteenth century. It is impossible, in effect, to have an isolated machine. There must be adjunct machines, if not preparatory ones. This need, which is not clearly evident in the textile industry (a loom is relatively self-sufficient), is singularly well defined in the metallurgical industry. Fabrication in this area consists of multiple inseparable operations. For each of these operations, one or more machines are needed. This gives rise to a complex enterprise which demands the application of the organization of production. The need for organization of machines is found even in the textile industry. A large number of looms must be grouped together in order to utilize the prime mover most effectively, since no indi- vidual loom consumes very much energy. To obtain maximum yield, machines cannot be disposed in a haphazard wav. Nor can produc- tion take place irregularly. A plan must be followed in all technical domains. And this plan, which becomes more and more inflexible in proportion to increasing production, is the product of a technique of organization and of operation. Organizational technique was still very sketchy at the beginning of the nineteenth century. But with the increase in the number of manufactured products, new commercial methods had to be created. Capital, labor, producers, and consumers had to be found. Three new kinds of technique emerged: commercial, industrial, and transportational. Commercial techniques developed at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the same velocity as industrial techniques. These commercial techniques exploited all the old systems which had previously existed sporadically and The Technological Society ( 113 without much vigor. Bills of exchange, banks, clearing houses, double-entry bookkeeping, and the like, were further developed. The need to distribute manufactured goods thus acted to produce a powerful commercial technique, which, however, proved to be incapable of assuring proper distribution. The accumulation of capital (produced by the machine and also necessitated by it) be- came the source of an international financial organization, with its systems of great firms, insurance, credit, and the corporation with limited liabilities. The corporation was indispensable in view of die magnitude of the commercial traffic generated by sheer concentration. But the two systems, commercial and financial, were only able to function at full capacity if they were in a position to dispose of their merchandise at the most favorable point, as determined by commercial techniques. This implied the rapid, regular, and certain transport of merchandise. Hence, systems of transport had to be assured if financial and commercial techniques were to be able to operate. A new technique came into being, transport, which was not a direct result of the machine. It was a separate branch; and organization played a greater role in it than the machine itself (in railway routes and timetables, problems of eminent domain, etc.). At the period this technical torrent was emerging from industrial enterprise, a crowd of human beings began to gather about the machine. A great number of individuals were necessary to service it; an equally great number were required to collect about it to com- sume its products. The first great change consisted in forcing the consumer to come to the machine, inasmuch as adequate means of transportation were to come fifty years too late. With this develop- ment came the hitherto unknown phenomenon of the big city. At the beginning, the big city engendered no particular technique; people were merely unhappy in it. But it soon appeared that mega- lopolis represented a new and special kind of environment, calling for special treatment. The technique of city planning made its ap- pearance. At first, urban planning was only a clumsy kind of adap- tation which was little concerned, for example, with slums (despite the efforts of the utopian planners of the middle of the century). Somewhat later, as big city life became for the most part intolera- ble, techniques of amusement were developed. It became indis- THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE pensable to make urban suffering acceptable by furnishing amuse- ments, a necessity which was to assure the rise, for example, of a monstrous motion-picture industry. This phase of development was still dominated by the machine, and corresponded to what Mumford has called the paleotechnical period. During this period the instruments of the power mentality developed. It became apparent that mechanical improvements alone do not suffice to yield socially valuable results. This was clearly a period of transition in which inventions had not yet com- pletely overthrown the older institutions. And they had not yet touched human life, except indirectly. It was a period of disorder. And the most glaring manifestation of this disorder was man's ex- ploitation of man. This disorder, however, led to a strenuous search for order, which developed first in the economic field. For some time it had been possible to believe that the increasing flow of merchandise would be absorbed automatically. But the illusions of liberalism collapsed very quickly. Little by little, the liberal system broke down before the profusion of goods which the ma- chine blindly poured forth. It was inescapable that only technical methods of distribution would be able to cope with the problems created by technical methods of production. There was no way around it. A mechanism of distribution and consumption was nec- essary, as precise as the mechanism of production, which itself was not yet sufficiently precise, merely because it was mechanical. It was imperative that the different parts of the productive mecha- nism be adjusted and that the goods produced correspond exactly to the need, in quantity as well as in quality. It was no longer suffi- cient to organize enterprise. The entire production had to be organized in all its details. And if production were completely or- ganized, there could be no question of allowing consumption (which had, in the meantime, become mechanized) to operate without its own world-wide organization. These logical interac- tions, which emerged first on the national level, were soon found on the international level as well. The development of this mechanism inevitably implied the most perfect possible economic technique. This economic technique in turn would permit the utilization of new machines. Reciprocally, certain other instruments would facilitate the improvement of the economic technique. Moreover, nothing could be left to chance. The Technological Society (115 in this kind of organization; the labor supply in particular could not be entrusted to the whim of the individual. Economic organization presupposes a technique of labor. (The precise form of this tech- nique is of little consequence to us here. We are interested only in the principle.) Labor had to be systematized; it had to become scientific. Thus, of necessity a new technique was added to the pre- ceding ones. But at the same time it became mandatory to com- pensate the workers for the fatigue generated by technical labor. Here we meet again the necessity for additional mass amusement —a necessity which the existence of the big city had already pro- voked. The cycle was inevitable. The whole edifice was constructed little by little, and all its indi- vidual techniques were improved by mutual interaction. Before long, however, the need for still another instrument appeared. Who was to co-ordinate this multiplicity of techniques? Who was to build the mechanism necessary to the new economic technique? Who was to make binding the decisions necessary to service the machines? The individual is not by himself rational enough to ac- cept what is necessary to the machines. He rebels too easily. He requires an agency to constrain him, and the state had to play this role—but the state now could not be the incoherent, powerless, and arbitrary state of tradition. It had to be an effective state, equal to the functioning of the economic regime and in control of every- thing, to the end that machines which had developed at random should become “coherent.” To this end, the state itself must be coherent. Thus, the techniques of the state—military, police, ad- ministrative, and political—made their appearance. Without them, all the rest would have been no more than faint hopes unable to at- tain maximum development. They intermingled, necessitating one another, and all of them necessitated by the economy. It soon became evident that such external action was insufficient. A great effort was required of the individual, and this effort he could not make unless he was genuinely convinced, not merely constrained. He must be made to yield his heart and will, as he had yielded his body and brain. And so the techniques of propaganda, education, and psychic manipulation came to reinforce the others. Without them, man could scarcely have been equal to his organiza- tions and his machines. Without them, technique could not have been completely certain of its operation. To the degree that material THE CHARACTEROLOCY OP TECHNIQUE 116) techniques became more precise, intellectual and psychic tech- niques became more necessary. By these means man acquired the conviction and strength needed to make possible the maximum utilization of the others. So the edifice was completed. It is impossible to amputate a part of the system or to modify it in any way without modifying the whole. The system was not built through whim or personal ambition. Its factors were all reciprocally engendered. In this description we have constantly encountered the term necessity; it is necessity which characterizes the technical uni- verse. Everything must accommodate itself to it with mathematical certainty. Every successive technique has appeared because the ones which preceded it rendered necessary the ones which fol- lowed. Otherwise they would have been inefficacious and would not have been able to deliver their maximum yield. It is useless to hope for modification of a system like this—so com- plex and precisely adjusted that no single part can be modified by itself. Moreover, the system perfects and completes itself unremit- tingly. And, except in print, I see no sign of any modification of the technical edifice, no principle of a different social organization that would not be founded on technical necessity. Technical Universalisnu This characteristic of the technical phe- nomenon manifests itself under two aspects, the first geographic and the second qualitative. From the geographic point of view, it is easy to see that tech- nique is constantly gaining ground, country by country, and that its area of action is the whole world. In all countries, whatever their degree of “civilization,” there is a tendency to apply the same technical procedures. Even when the population of a given country is not completely assimilated technically, it is nevertheless able to use the instruments which technique puts into its hands. The peo- ple of these countries have no need to be Westernized. Technique, to be used, does not require a “civilized” man. Technique, what- ever hand uses it, produces its effect more or less totally in propor- tion to the individual's more or less total absorption in it. Vogt emphasizes this fact, for example, when he shows that in the domain of agriculture the most up-to-date techniques have be- come universal. Never before, says Vogt, has man destroyed his natural environment “with the inexorableness of an armored divi- The Technological Society (117 sion. These ‘civilized' forces of destruction, which have been de- veloped under our influence, have conquered the entire globe to such a degree that Malays, Hottentots and Ainos are spreading the plague." In the course of history there have always been different princi- ples of civilization according to regions, nations, and continents. But today everything tends to align itself on technical principles. In the past, different civilizations took different “paths”; today all peoples follow the same road and the same impulse. This does not mean that they have all reached the same point, but they are situ- ated at different points along the same trajectory. The United States represents the type that France will represent in thirty years, and China in possibly eighty. All the business of life, from work and amusement to love and death, is seen from the technical point of view. The number of “technical slaves" is growing rapidly, and the ideal of all governments is to push as fast as possible toward industrialization and technical enslavement. I am well acquainted with the perfectly valid arguments which turn on economic necessity and the misery of the so-called “back- ward" peoples. But the problem is not the process involved; it is simply to note that different societies are adopting Western tech- nique. The Vevey Congress of i960 forcefully emphasized this point. Although, understandably, the primary problem of the un- derdeveloped peoples is undernourishment, obsession with tech- nique has befuddled them to such a point that what they are de- manding, and what we are offering, is the very industrialization that will aggravate the evil. Technique is the same in all latitudes and hence acts to make different civilizations uniform. This tend- ency arises directly from technique itselfThe Oriental, Russian, and South American societies were by no means historically pre- pared, as was ours, to favor technical development The best sociologists have noted that technique involves the same effects everywhere. R. P. Lynton writes; “The industrializa- tion of a community of Europe or America, on the one hand; or of Siam, Nigeria, Turkey, or Uruguay, on the other, poses the same problems." If the technical movement had had its inception in one of these “backward” countries, it would have aborted. But these societies are presented with a technical movement in full vigor and in all its expansive power. No longer is there any question as to 1 l8) THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE whether circumstances favorable to its flowering exist. The tech- nical movement is strong enough to impose itself and to break down all barriers to its progress. But why does this expansion exist at all? Until now it was gen- erally accepted that very similar social environments were neces- sary if propagation of techniques were to occur. This is no longer true. Today technique imposes itself, whatever the environment. This expansive force can be explained by a whole ensemble of historical reasons (more or less superficial, though true), and by one profound reason (to be examined later on). The historical reasons are bound up with two great currents which have occasioned the technical invasion: commerce and war. Colonial war opened the door to those European nations that possessed the whole complex of technical means. The conquering nations exported their machines and their organization through their armies. The vanquished peoples, in a state of mind com- pounded of admiration and fear, adopted the machines, which came to replace their gods. Not only were the machines the means their conquerors had used to subdue them, but the machines repre- sented the possible means for liberation from these conquerors. In these colonies traffic in arms and in all the instruments of power began to flourish as a means of provoking insurrection. At first, rebellion was incoherent, but to the degree that these peoples be- came better organized and technicized, rebellion became a national affair. War also involved the backward peoples globally. I have in mind not so much the direct effects of colonial war as the effects of wars among so-called civilized nations. The colonies of Germany and France became involved in the war between these nations. Later on, China and Siberia came in. Yakuts rode in tanks in the front line of the Red Army. War provokes the sudden and stupefy- ing adaptation of the “savage” to machinery and discipline. The second factor governing technical invasion is commerce. It was mandatory for the Western powers to conquer the markets necessary for Western industry and technical life. No barrier could oppose this necessity; and primitive peoples were literally swamped by the products of modem technique. In 1945 the Ameri- cans sent tons of individual military rations to the Bulgarians, who had no desire at all to adapt themselves to a new kind of butter and The Technological Society (119 to other substitutes. But their resistance necessarily yielded to tech- nical adaptation and, very rapidly, to plain abundance. The exces- siveness of the means broke down all traditional and individual desires. After consumer goods came an invasion of productive tech- niques. Technical invasion is a question not only of colonialism but also, for the less powerful countries, of simple technical subordina- tion. This, and this only, explains the formation of the two blocs today. All political or economic explanations are superficial and ridiculous. There are two great technical powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Every other country must subordinate itself to one or the other of the two simply because of their technical superiority. Technical invasion is not exclusively colonial in- vasion but assumes other forms as well. The phenomenon of present-day decolonialization is closely re- lated to the possibilities of the technical development of peoples who, up to now, have lived in symbiosis with colonial powers. From the very moment of “independence,” these peoples are constrained to appeal for assistance to the two major powers; after all, they can- not possibly be self-sufficient on the technical plane. The major powers then equip them in a “disinterested” way. In fact, of course, the major powers have no choice if they cherish any hope at all that the poverty of these new “free” nations will not make them theatres of endemic war (not to mention the fact that the major powers are themselves in competition). Thus, the best and most moral inten- tions (as, for example, Harry S. Truman’s Point Four aid to colonial lands) lead to a rapid technicization of the world; and every polit- ical phenomenon accelerates this technicization, which necessarily assumes a Western look. The expensive factors are clearly favored by the elementary technical facts. Consider, for example, the speed and thoroughness of the means of communication, which permit technical products to be transported anywhere in the world soon after their appear- ance in the country of origin. The result of this must be speedy unification. The very means of communication presuppose such unification. Great ocean-going vessels necessitate continually improved port installations everywhere. Railroads demand identical roadbeds in all countries. Aviation requires a whole technical substructure. THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 120) which is becoming more important day by day and which must be- come ever more uniform as tonnage and speed increase. The creation of the port of Lavera, near Port-de-Bouc, is a case in point. To construct a harbor for oil tankers to meet the de- mands of the French market, it was necessary to conform exactly to the international requirements of petroleum shipping. These de- mands are wholly technical: depth of channel for modem tank- ers of more than 30,000 tons, special docks, relay reservoirs fitted with technical improvements exactly adapted to the tankers, and so on. It was clearly impossible to continue to do without these facilities. In French home ports today, the petroleum brought in by the large tankers must first be discharged by small lighters to plants which are either floating installations or of insufficient pump- ing capacity. This results in loss of time and excessive handling. Every ton of crude oil bears an extra burden of approximately three dollars. These factors are clear and are leading to the accept- ance of the most modern procedures—which reciprocally contrib- utes to world-wide technical unification. There is still another element in the mechanism of technical expansion: the export of technicians. This is not only a question of German technicians going, for example, to the United States or to Russia. (This exodus, incidentally, was accompanied by a certain technical flowering which rendered German technique truly in- ternational. ) There is the same diffusion of American technique to underdeveloped countries by the application of President Truman's Point Four Program. Academicians are supplied who are charged with blueprinting the future of underdeveloped peoples. (This form of technical assistance assimilates intellectually the inhabi- tants of the countries in question.) In addition, the United States directly supplies the necessary technicians for exploiting the natu- ral resources of these countries. The immediate purpose is to raise the standard of living of the population, beginning with a realistic appraisal of the possibilities of the given country, and the final ob- jective is a perfectly humanitarian one; we can refrain from passing judgment on whether American imperialism is involved. Neverthe- less, this leads to a diffusion of techniques throughout the world in an accelerated tempo, and at the same time it leads to technical identity in all countries. A certain educational unity is also involved here. Every citizen The Technological Society (121 of an underdeveloped country must become adept in the use of the new techniques. This leads to the extension of European-style education, allows the colored peoples to participate actively in scientific progress, and provokes as a consequence a kind of a priori adhesion to technical diffusion. Since 1956 we have been witnessing the sante diffusion of technicians from the Soviet Union, and more recently from China, to Syria, Guinea, Ghana, and Cuba. Without entertaining political suspicions of these acts, let us bear in mind only that these factors, among others, are an active aid to technical invasion. Technical invasion does not involve the simple addition of new values to old ones. It does not put new wine into old bottles; it does not introduce new content into old forms. The old bottles are all being broken. The old civilizations collapse on contact with the new. And the same phenomenon appears under every possible cul- tural form. Take, for example, religion. We have seen one religion disappear under our very eyes as a result of a technical fact: Mi- kado worship vanished after the bomb was dropped at Hiroshima. We are witnessing the collapse of Buddhism under Communist pressure in Tibet and China. And, according to recent studies, Buddhism is vanishing for technical reasons, not because of the ideological effect of Communism. The phenomenon is due, on the one hand, to a brutal and massive infusion of industrial techniques and, on the other, to the use of propaganda techniques which en- tail the abandonment of religion by the ever growing population. In a certain sense these religious people are not left without reli- gion. To their transcendental religion a “social” religion is opposed, a religion which is but an expression of technical progress. Even the most classically oriented sociologists today recognize that the impact of techniques is producing a collapse of the non* Western civilizations. This involves the collapse of cultural as well as of economic forms, and of the traditional psychological and sociological structures. UNESCO has been greatly preoccupied with these questions, and both the Bulletin of the Social Sciences and the reports of Dr. Margaret Mead strike an alarming note. Investigators find, in effect, that it is easy to transfer technical procedures, but that the elabora- tion of sociological and psychological methods of controlling them is slow, difficult, and laborious. 12 2) THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE One is always running up against the simple-minded tendency to say, as Charles F. Frankel puts it, that “it is sufficient to give technical procedures and their accumulated blessings to the back- ward peoples in order to put them on their feet, as one might give an injection to a sick man.” This kind of injection may conceivably help. But in giving it, we destroy the traditional ways of life. Tech- nique does not, of itself, carry its own equilibrium. The opposite is nearer the truth. We have seen in the West how technique des- troyed communities and brought the relevance of the human being into question, even though technique was bom in the Western milieu and grew only slowly. How much more formidable are its effects when it is suddenly implanted in a foreign environment, ap- pearing in all its power at a single stroke. In Africa the worker is separated from his family and, as S. Herbert Frankel says, “his social ego remains attached to the rural group while he himself has been transplanted into an industrial milieu. When his family comes to the city they are completely unprepared for urban life and are destroyed in that environment morally and sociologically.” In Australia we find the same collapse of the traditional way of life. A. P. Elkin says: “In the tribe, authority belonged to the eld- ers .. . but it is now in process of passing to the corral boss, or to the ranch owner. . . . The mysterious rites, which are asso- ciated with the succession of the seasons and with the search for food, and which in the past occupied a great deal of time, are tend- ing to lose their meaning.” It would bp easy enough to give many more examples. Every culture must be considered as a whole. The transformation of a given element through the effect of technique produces shocks in all areas. All the peonies of the world today live in a cultural JL JL J breakdown provoked by the conflicts and the internal strife re- sulting from technique. Over and above this—as Margaret Mead points out—since every human being incorporates in his own per- son the cultural environment in which he lives, its disagreements and incoherences are to be met with again in each individual personality. Moreover, we are poorly equipped to respond to this cultural collapse. We have few studies of the mentality and the needs of these peoples, and even fewer studies of their psychological reac- tions to technique. We have no studies of the social and adminis- The Technological Society (123 trative measures that might meet their needs, or of their changes in aptitudes. We never send along with our technique any civilized environment or adaptable value capable of replacing what is being destroyed. This, at any rate, is the diagnosis of UNESCO, an agency generally characterized by optimism. The situation is being studied now, but for the most part we are too late. All the instruments ought long since to have been pre- pared, for no natural adaptation or spontaneous reorganization can be counted upon. No hope of this exists. We have no instruments ready. And while the problem is being studied, the ravages of technique are making steady inroads. We are in a veritable race, but it is evident that we are beaten before we begin. The effects of technique are already too far advanced for us to begin again at the beginning. There is no doubt that all the traditional cultures and sociological structures will be destroyed by technique before we can discover or invent social, economic, and psychological forms of adaptation which might possibly have preserved the equilibrium of these peoples and societies. In the political sphere the phenomenon takes the form of the brutal transition from elementary forms of society to the fully developed modern dictatorship. A major part of the world’s popu- lation has passed in a few years from serfdom or feudalism to the most punctilious dictatorial state, by virtue and necessity of pro- ductive and administrative techniques. The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Japan are well-known examples. The problem of dictatorship is likewise posed by decolonializa- tion. Either one succeeds in organizing the country and in estab- lishing a centralized authoritarian state (as has occurred in Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Sudan) or anarchy reigns (as in the Belgian Congo, Cameroon)^ Halfway liberal successes (as, for example, Tunisia) are infinitely rare and fragile. As to economics, it seems scarcely necessary to discuss these problems. All the traditional economic structures of production and distribution in Africa and Asia are exploding in the presence of the new technical means. Up to the time of Western intervention, life on the Asiatic continent was highly stable; populations and envi- ronments were in equilibrium. Of course, things were far from be- ing perfect; undernourishment, for example, was always a danger. But certain civilizations were harmonious enough; some of them THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE endured much longer than our own. Everyone, I believe, agrees that the tribulations of modem Asia stem in part from the com- plexity that the West has imposed on it, the complexity and density of structure provoked by the indispensable application of tech- niques. In all areas, then, technique is producing the rapid collapse of all other civilizations. When we speak of the collapse of these civili- zations, we are speaking only of sociological forms. Even the weak- est civilizations preserve certain values which, in Roger Bastide’s words, permit them to “maintain a mental equilibrium which cul- tural shock might shatter. . . . The social situation allows the old complexes to remain alive which, not being fulfilled any longer through ancestral customs, create for themselves new defense mechanisms.” But it is very probable that this situation is only temporary; even these psychological reserves will be attacked and absorbed by technique when the so-called human techniques (those which have man for their object) are applied to them. Obviously, the effect of technique on these groups will not be the same everywhere. Detailed sociological studies have been made of the various phenomena of assimilation, regrouping, func- tioning, and marasmus or progressive dissolution. According to these studies, there has not been comparable and identical pro- gression in every case. However, behind this diversity is to be noted an absolute incompatibility between the technical type of civilization and all the others. Technicians have not willed this outcome; no one seeks consciously to destroy a civilization. This is simply the proverbial collision between the earthenware pot and the iron pot. What happens, happens, despite the best possible intentions of the iron pot. It might be said: This is not necessary. Why should the simple fact of bringing more well-being to India ruin the Hindu civiliza- tion?” I do not know if it is necessary, but nevertheless it is so. A civilization which is collapsing cannot be re-created abstractly. It is too late to turn back and enable these worlds to live. What has been given them is not simply well-being. This well-being pre- supposes a transformation of all of life: work where there had been only laziness; machines and their accessories, organs of co-ordina- tion and rational administration, and internal adherence to the regime. The Technological Society (115 Technique cannot be otherwise than totalitarian. It can be truly efficient and scientific only if it absorbs an enormous number of phenomena and brings into play the maximum of data. In order to co-ordinate and exploit synthetically, technique must be brought to bear on the great masses in every area. But the existence of tech- nique in every area leads to monopoly. This is noted by Jacques Driencourt when he declares that the technique of propaganda is totalitarian by its very nature. It is totalitarian in message, meth- ods, field of action, and means. What more could be required? One could require more. Totalitarianism extends to whatever touches it, even things which seem, at first sight, very remote from it. When technique has fastened upon a method, everything must be subordinated to it. There are no longer any neutral objects or situations. Claude Munson forcefully demonstrates that psychologi- cal technique, as it operates in the army or in a great industrial plant, entails a direct action on the family. It involves psycholog- ical adaptation of family life to military or industrial methods, supervision of family life, and training family life for military or industrial service. Technique can leave nothing untouched in a civilization. Everything is its concern. It will be objected: “If these transformations do take place, tech- nique alone is not responsible. Many other factors have contrib- uted; for example, the intellectual superiority of the white race, the corruption of these other civilizations, and the population growth.* In fact, all these factors refer back to the problems of techniques. Indeed, Western intellectual superiority is only manifested in the technical domain. And the alleged corruption of the Chinese and Islamic civilizations depends solely on the criteria by which they are judged. In making die objection, we are in effect judging solely on the basis of technical criteria. Again, it will be objected: “Granting all this, is it not the case that coexistence, and even synthesis, has been possible between these two kinds of life? After all, when the Barbarians invaded the Roman Empire, a successful synthesis eventually took place." But the historical situation was clearly not the same then as it is to- day. In fact, it was the Roman civilization which, being technical, endured. The civilizations threatened today by our own can offer no effective resistance because they are nontechnical. The decisive factor which leads me to reject the three objections THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 126) just stated is that our technique, which is destroying all other civili- zations, is more than a simple mechanism: it is a whole civilization in itself. We have analyzed the combination of circumstances that favored technical development in the West and guaranteed its easy diffusion. Since technique has engulfed civilization, a very remarkable effect has been observed—in fact, a complete reversal. When technique penetrates a new milieu, it tends to reproduce in this milieu the circumstances which, in a fortuitous way, it found favorable to itself in the nineteenth century in France and Eng- land. At least, it reproduces those features which it is possible and necessary to reproduce. It is of small importance for technique to hit upon a long cultural experience or a favorable demographic situation. On the contrary, social plasticity and a clear technical consciousness are the general terms which it forcibly imposes in every area of the world. It dissociates the sociological forms, des- troys the moral framework, desacralizes men and things, explodes social and religious taboos, and reduces the body social to a collec- tion of individuals. The most recent sociological studies (even those made by optimists) hold that technique is the destroyer of social groups, of communities (whatever their kind), and of human relations. Technical progress causes the disappearance, as Jerome Scott and R. P. Lynton put it, of that “amalgam of attitudes, customs and social institutions which constitute a community!* Communities break up into their component parts But no new communities form. The individual in contact with technique loses his social and community sense as the frameworks in which he op- erated disintegrate under the influence of techniques. This fact is established beyond question by the disappearance of responsibili- ties, functional autonomies, and social spontaneities, the absence of contact between the technical and the human environment, and so forth. In the area of industrial labor, for example, sociologists point out the physical separation between the industrial plant and the social group in which the plant is situated (the city, say). In tra- ditional societies, the social and the economic aspects of life were inextricably meshed into a social whole. But in a technical society the two aspects are strictly separated; this in itself brings about the dissolution of the entire group. Related activities such as pro- duction and social relations cannot be separated without ruining The Technological Society (127 the whole society. However, to the degree that production is tech- nique and social relations is not, the two are of necessity dissociated. This is the conclusion reached by innumerable detailed studies of social groups at the point at which technique begins to function. The conclusion is equally true of the industrialized milieus of Eu- rope, America, Asia, and Africa. The situation cannot be otherwise. The technicians themselves are very clear on this point. For exam- ple, an official report of 1958 on the perspectives of economic devel- opment in Algeria indicated that this development can only be brought about by changing the Algerians* whole way of life, in particular, by putting the still seminomad masses to work. Develop- ment involves economic planning, displacement of populations, mobilization of the local economy, acceptance of authoritarian po- litical power, modification of local moral habits and traditional mentalities; in short, a New Deal of the Emotions! These are the conditions proposed and (and considered normal) for technical progress in the 'Third World.”* Technique makes its sociological compost pile where it does not find one already made. And it pos- sesses sufficient power and efficiency today to succeed. Before long, it will produce everywhere that clear technical consciousness which is the easiest of its creations to bring about, and which man falls in with so willingly. The world that technique creates cannot be any other than that which was favorable to it from the very beginning. In spite of all the men of good will, all the optimists, all the doers of history, the civilizations of the world are being ringed about with a band of steel. We in the West became familiar with this iron constraint in the nineteenth century. Now technique is me- chanically reproducing it everywhere as necessary to its existence. What force could prevent technique from so acting, or make it be otherwise than it is? Technique has progressively mastered dll the elements of civiliza- tion. We have already pointed this out with regard to mans eco- nomic and intellectual activities. But man himself is overpowered by technique and becomes its object. The technique which takes man for its object thus becomes the center of society; this extraordi- nary event (which seems to surprise no one) is often designated as technical civilization. The terminology is exact and we must fully Sauvy, Balandier, et al.: Le Tiers Monde. THE C 128 ) OIjOCY or TECHNIQUE grasp its importance. Technical civilization means that our civili- zation is constructed by technique (makes a part of civilization only what belongs to technique), for technique (in that everything in this civilization must serve a technical end), and is exclusively technique (in that it excludes whatever is not technique or reduces it to technical form). We can see that this is actually the case in certain phenomena considered essential to a civilization, for example, art and litera- ture. These activities in modem society are tightly subordinated in different ways to technical necessities by the direct interference of technique. Take, for example, the motion pictures, radio, and tele- vision. These media require great capital investments. As a result, artistic expression is subordinated to a censorship of money or of the state. This censorship most often takes the form of indirect in- fluences, which, again, may assume different guises. Personal music is supplanted by the radio; and painting, threatened by photogra- phy, is obliged to modify itself by becoming abstract so as not to be a mere substitute for reproduction. Modem art and literature manifest in all points their subordination to the technique which has extended its power over all activity, and hence over all culture. Herein lies the inversion we are witnessing. Without exception in the course of history, technique belonged to a civilization and was merely a single element among a host of nontechnical activities. Today technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Certainly, technique is no longer the simple machine substitute for human la- bor. It has come to be the “intervention into the very substance not only of the inorganic but also of the organic.” This intervention into the inorganic world is represented, for ex- ample, by the exploration of the atom and its use for purposes as yet unknown. But the world which is most clearly taking on a tech- nical form is the organic. In this realm the necessity of production penetrates to the very sources of life. It controls procreation, influ- ences growth, and alters the individual and the species. Death, procreation, birth, habitat; all must submit to technical efficiency and systematization, the end point of the industrial assembly line. \yhat seems to be most personal in the life of man is now techni- cized. The manner in which he rests and relaxes becomes the object of techniques of relaxation. The way in which he makes a deci- sion is no longer the domain of the personal and voluntary; it has The Technological Society (129 become the object of the techniques of “operations research." As Giedion says, all this represents experimentation at the very roots of being. How is it possible, then, not to believe that all of civilization is affected and engulfed when the very substance of man is ques- tioned? The essence of civilization is thus absorbed. Concerning art, Giedion goes on to say: “What happened to art in this period gives us the most intimate vision possible of the pene- tration in depth of the human being by mechanization. Ban's re- vealing selections in his Cubism and Abstract Art show us how the artist, who reacts like a seismograph, expresses the influence of full mechanization . . . Mechanization has penetrated into the sub- conscious of the artist. Chirico expresses it in a remarkable way in the mixture he makes of man and machine . . . The anxiety, the solitude of man forms a melancholy architecture of the preced- ing epoch and its mechanical dolls, painted in the smallest details with a tragic expression." We have the large-scale frescoes of Leger which construct the image of cities out of signs, traffic signals, and machine parts. Even the Russians and Hungarians, who in 1920 were far from mechani- zation, were inspired by his creative power. In the hands of Du- chanu and others, the machine, marvel of efficiency, was trans- formed into an irrational object, charged with irony. At the same time, a new aesthetic language was introduced. To free themselves from a corrupt art and the prevailing taste, artists have recourse to objects such as machines and mechanisms because these objects contain an objective truth. What is true of the plastic arts is likewise true of music. Preoccupation with “ob- jectivity" is prevalent there, too. Igor Stravinsky writes: “My work is architectonic and not anecdotal; objective construction and not descriptive." These are the words of a man unconsciously steeped in the technical milieu. Since Stravinsky wrote this, music has been still further transformed by means of techniques which were not originally musical techniques, that is, neither musical methodology nor instrument construction. I have in mind Schaeffer s “concrete music," Ussachewsky’s “music for tape," and Eimert's electronic music, all of which make use of technical means that are not a priori musical. In none of these types of music is there any longer the need for a performer. The ancestral musical structures disin- THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 130) tegrate and are atomized and we have a phenomenon that is funda- mentally new. We shall doubtless see ever more refined and ex- acting research into musical technique, and the dominant musical structure and rhythm will undoubtedly correspond en- tirely to the technical environment. The external structures imposed by technique can no longer, by themselves, modify the components of a society; here the internal influence of technique on the human being becomes decisive. Henceforth, every component of civilization is subject to the law that technique is itself civilization. Civilization no longer exists of itself. Every activity—intellectual, artistic, moral—is only a part of technique. This fact is so enormous and unpredictable that we are simply unable to foresee its consequences. Most of us, blinded by traditional and well-established situations, are unable to grasp its meaning. Henceforth, there will be no conflict between contend- ing forces among which technique is only one. The victory of tech- nique has already been secured. It is too late to set limits to it or to put it in doubt. The fatal flaw in all systems designed to counterbalance the power of technique is that they come too late. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that technique, in all the lands it has penetrated, has exploded the local, national cultures. Two cultures, of which technique is one, cannot coexist. This does not mean, of course, that uniformity prevails. There are still great differences from region to region. But for the most part these differences are due to the fact that the vestiges of a civiliza- tion lake a long time to disappear completely. Technique has al- ready gained its victory over Buddhism. It is clear, however, that it will take two or three generations to modify the mode of life and thought engendered by Buddhism. A certain diversity will per- sist while this mode or life is weakening. Technique does not lead to general uniformity. In fact, it creates a certain diversity. Its ob- jectives are always the same, and so is its influence on man. But though it is axiomatic that the one best way will prevail, this one best way will vary with climate, country, and population. The more technique is refined, the more it varies its means of action. There- fore, we shall continue to have the appearance of different civili- zations in India and in Greenland. They will indeed be different in certain aspects. But their essence will be identical; they will be techniques. And what differences there are will result from the cold The Technological Society (131 calculation of some technician, instead of being the result of the profound spiritual and material effort of generations of human be- ings, Instead of being the expression of man’s essence, they will be the accidents of what is essential: technique. The differences which exist today are therefore without impor- tance in relation to the fact of technical identity. The differences to come will bear upon the most diverse activities and give the illusion of liberty. But they will nevertheless be no more than the expression of the monism of technique. Geographically and quali- tatively, technique is universal in its manifestations. It is devoted, by nature and necessity, to the universal. It could not be otherwise. It depends upon a science itself devoted to the universal, and it is becoming the universal language understood by all men. We need not belabor the fact, which everyone recognizes, that science is uni- versal. And this fact in turn leads of necessity to the technical uni- versalism which stems from it. The second of the two elements we referred to (production and social relations) requires more explication. In his relation to the world, man has always made use of multiple means, none of which were universal because none were objective. Technique is a means of apprehending reality, of acting on the world, which allows us to neglect all individual differences, all subjectivity. Technique alone is rigorously objective. It blots out all personal opinions. It effaces all individual, and even all collective, modes of expression. Today man lives by virtue of his participation in a truth become objective. Technique is no more than a neutral bridge between reality and the abstract man. Technique, moreover, creates a bond between men. All those who follow the same technique are bound together in a tacit fraternity and all of them take the same attitude toward reality. There is no need for them to converse together or to understand one another. A team of surgeons and assistants who know the tech- nique of a given operation have no need to address one another in order that the necessary motions be correctly performed at the right moment. Industrial labor likewise tends more and more to dispense with orders and personal contact. This was pushed to an extreme in the concentration camps, where men of different nations were mixed together so that they should have no contacts and yet be able to THE or TECHNIQUE perform collective work. It was hasty and superficial work, to be sure, but a little more rigor could easily make this labor really pro- ductive (as seems to be the case in the Soviet Union). One cannot speak merely of isolation. These men work in teams, but there is no need for them to know or understand one another. They need only understand the technique involved and know in advance what their teammate will do. It is not necessary for the crew to under- stand one another in order to run an aircraft. The indicator panel controls the actions to be performed; and every crew member, sub- mitting by necessity and conscience to the automatic indications, obeys for the safety of all. Each man's actions are dictated by the conditions of life and its preservation. This is clear in the case of flying an aircraft. But it is equally clear in every other situation in- volving technique—and this encompasses the most important areas of life. Men do not need to understand each other in order to carry out the most important endeavors of our times. Technique is of necessity, and as compensation, our universal language. It is the fruit of specialization. But this very specializa- tion prevents mutual understanding. Everyone today has his own professional jargon, modes of thought, and peculiar perception of the world. There was a time when the distortion of overspecializa- tion was the butt of jokes and a subject for vaudeville. Today the sharp knife of specialization has passed like a razor into the living flesh. It has cut the umbilical cord which linked men with each other and with nature. The man of today is no longer able to under- stand his neighbor because his profession is his whole life, and the technical specialization of this life has forced him to live in a closed universe. He no longer understands the vocabulary of the others. Nor does he comprehend the underlying motivations of the others. Yet technique, having ruptured the relations between man and man, proceeds to rebuild the bridge which links them. It bridges the specializations because it produces a new type of man always and everywhere like his duplicate, who develops along technical lines. He listens to himself and speaks to himself, but he obeys the slightest indications of the apparatus, confident that his neigh- bor will do the same. Technique has become the bond between men. By its agency they communicate, whatever their languages, beliefs, or race. It has become, for life or death, the universal lan- guage which compensates for all the deficiencies and separations it The Technological Society (133 has itself produced. This is the major reason for the great impetus of technique toward the universal. The Autonomy of Technique* The primary aspect of autonomy is perfectly expressed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a leading tech- nician. He takes, as his point of departure, the view that the in- dustrial plant is a whole in itself, a "closed organism,” an end in itself. Giedion adds*. "What is fabricated in this plant and what is the goal of its labor—these are questions outside its design.” The complete separation of the goal from the mechanism, the limita- tion of the problem to the means, and the refusal to interfere in any way with efficiency; all this is clearly expressed by Taylor and lies at the basis of technical autonomy. Autonomy is the essential condition for the development of tech- nique, as Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt’s study of the police clearly indicates. The police must be independent if they are to become ef- ficient. They must form a closed, autonomous organization in or- der to operate by the most direct and efficient means and not be shackled by subsidiary considerations. And in this autonomy, they must be self-confident in respect to the law. It matters little whether police action is legal, if it is efficient. The rules obeyed by a techni- cal organization are no longer rules of justice or injustice. They are “laws” in a purely technical sense. As far as the police are con- cerned, the highest stage is reached when the legislature legalizes their independence of the legislature itself and recognizes the pri- macy of technical laws. This is the opinion of Best, a leading Ger- man specialist in police matters. The autonomy of technique must be examined in different per- spectives on the basis of the different spheres in relation to which it has this characteristic. First, technique is autonomous with re- spect to economics and politics. We have already seen that, at the present, neither economic nor political evolution conditions tech- nical progress. Its progress is likewise independent of the social situation. The converse is actually the case, a point I shall develop at length. Technique elicits and conditions social, political, and eco- nomic change. It is the prime mover of all the rest, in spite of any appearance to the contrary and in spite of human pride, which pre- tends that man’s philosophical theories are still determining influ- ences and man’s political regimes decisive factors in technical evolution. External necessities no longer determine technique. THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE 134) Technique's own internal necessities are determinative. Technique has become a reality in itself, self-sufficient, with its special laws and its own determinations. Let us not deceive ourselves on this point. Suppose that the state, for example, intervenes in a technical domain. Either it inter- venes for sentimental, theoretical, or intellectual reasons, and the effect of its intervention will be negative or nil; or it intervenes for reasons of political technique, and we have the combined effect of two techniques. There is no other possiblity. The historical experi- ence of the last years shows this fully. To go one step further, technical autonomy is apparent in respect to morality and spiritual values. Technique tolerates no judgment from without and accepts no limitation. It is by virtue of technique rather than science that the great principle has become established: chacun chez soi. Morality judges moral problems; as far as techni- cal problems are concerned, it has nothing to say. Only technical criteria are relevant. Technique, in sitting in judgment on itself, is clearly freed from this principal obstacle to human action. (Whether the obstacle is valid is not the question here. For the moment we merely record that it is an obstacle.) Thus, technique theoretically and systematically assures to itself that liberty which it has been able to win practically. Since it has put itself beyond good and evil, it need fear no limitation whatever. It was long claimed that technique was neutral. Today this is no longer a use- ful distinction. The power and autonomy of technique are so well secured that it, in its turn, has become the judge of what is moral, the creator of a new morality. Thus, it plays the role of creator of a new civilization as well. This morality—internal to technique—is assured of not having to suffer from technique. In any case, in re- spect to traditional morality, technique affirms itself as an inde- pendent power. Man alone is subject, it would seem, to moral judg- ment. We no longer live in that primitive epoch in which things were good or bad in themselves. Technique in itself is neither, and can therefore do what it will. It is truly autonomous. However, technique cannot assert its autonomy in respect to physical or biological laws. Instead, it puts them to work; it seeks to dominate them. Giedion, in his probing study of mechanization and the manu- facture of bread, shows that “wherever mechanization encounters The Technological Society (135 a living substance, bacterial or animal, the organic substance deter- mines the laws.” For this reason, the mechanization of bakeries was a failure. More subdivisions, intervals, and precautions of various kinds were required in the mechanized bakery than in the non- mechanized bakery. The size of the machines did not save time; it merely gave work to larger numbers of people. Giedion shows how the attempt was made to change the nature of the bread in order to adapt it to mechanical manipulations. In the last resort, the ultimate success of mechanization turned on the transformation of human taste. Whenever technique collides with a natural obsta- cle, it tends to get around it either by replacing the living organism by a machine, or by modifying the organism so that it no longer presents any specifically organic reaction. The same phenomenon is evident in yet another area in which technical autonomy asserts itself: the relations between techniques and man. We have already seen, in connection with technical self- augmentation, that technique pursues its own course more and more independently of man. This means that man participates less and less actively in technical creation, which, by the automatic combination of prior elements, becomes a kind of fate. Man is re- duced to the level of a catalyst. Better still, he resembles a slug in- serted into a slot machine: he starts the operation without partici- pating in it. But this autonomy with respect to man goes much further. To the degree that technique must attain its result with mathematical pre- cision, it has for its object the elimination of all human variability and elasticity. It is a commonplace to say that the machine replaces the human being. But it replaces him to a greater degree than has been believed. Industrial technique will soon succeed in completely replacing the effort of the worker, and it would do so even sooner if capital- ism were not an obstacle. The worker, no longer needed to guide or move the machine to action, will be required merely to watch it and to repair it when it breaks down. He will not participate in the work any more than a boxers manager participates in a prize fight. This is no dream. The automated factory has already been realized for a great number of operations, and it is realizable for a far greater number. Examples multiply from day to day in all areas. Man indi- cates how this automation and its attendant exclusion of men op- THE CHARACTEROLOGY OF TECHNIQUE *3«) erates in business offices; for example, in the case of the so-called tabulating machine. The machine itself interprets the data, the ele- mentary bits of information fed into it. It arranges them in texts and distinct numbers. It adds them together and classifies the re- sults in groups and subgroups, and so on. We have here an ad- ministrative circuit accomplished by a single, self-controlled ma- chine. It is scarcely necessary to dwell on the astounding growth of automation in the last ten years. The multiple applications of the automatic assembly line, of automatic control of production opera- tions (so-called cybernetics) are well known. Another case in point is the automatic pilot. Until recently the automatic pilot was used only in rectilinear flight; the finer operations were carried out by the living pilot. As early as 1952 the automatic pilot effected the operations of take-off and landing for certain supersonic aircraft The same kind of feat is performed by automatic direction finders in anti-aircraft defense, Man's role is limited to inspection. This automation results from the development servomechanisms which act as substitutes for human beings in more and more subtle opera- tions by virtue of their "feedback" capacity. This progressive elimination of man from the circuit must Inexo- rably continue. Is the elimination of man so unavoidably necessary? Certainly 1 Freeing man from toil is in itself an ideal. Beyond this, every intervention of man, however educated or used to ma- chinery he may be, is a source of error and unpredictability. The combination of man and technique is a happy one only if man has no responsibility. Otherwise, he is ceaselessly tempted to make un- predictable choices and is susceptible to emotional motivations which invalidate the mathematical precision of the machinery. He is also susceptible to fatigue and discouragement. All this disturbs the forward thrust of technique. Man must have nothing decisive to perform in the course of technical operations; after all, he is the source of error. Political technique is still troubled by certain unpredictable phenomena, in spite of all the precision of the apparatus and the skill of those in- volved. (But this technique is still in its childhood.) In human re- actions, howsoever well calculated they may be, a "coefficient of elasticity" causes imprecision, and imprecision is intolerable to technique. As far as possible, this source of error must be elimi- nated. Eliminate the individual, and excellent results ensue. Any The Technological Society (13 7 technical man who is aware of this fact is forced to support the opinions voiced by Robert Jungk, which can be summed up thus: “The individual is a brake on progress.” Or: “Considered from the modem technical point of view, man is a useless appendage.” For instance, ten per cent of all telephone calls are wrong numbers, due to human error. An excellent use by man of so perfect an apparatus! Now that statistical operations are carried out by perforated- card machines instead of human beings, they have become exact. Machines no longer perform merely gross operations. They perform a whole complex of subtle ones as well. And before long—what with the electronic brain—they will attain an intellectual power of which man is incapable. Thus, the “great changing of the guard” is occurring much more extensively than Jacques Duboin envisaged some decades ago. Gaston Bouthoul, a leading sociologist of the phenomena of war, concludes that war breaks out in a social group when there is a “plethora of young men surpassing the indispensable tasks of the economy.” When for one reason or another these men are not employed, they become ready for war. It is the multiplication of men who are excluded from working which provokes war. We ought at least to bear this in mind when we boast of the continual decrease in human participation in technical operations. However, there are spheres in which it is impossible to eliminate human influence. The autonomy of technique then develops in an- other direction. Technique is not, for example, autonomous in re- spect to clock time. Machines, like abstract technical laws, are subject to the law of speed, and co-ordination presupposes time adjustment. In his description of the assembly line, Giedion writes: “Extremely precise time tables guide the automatic cooperation of the instruments, which, like the atoms in a planetary system, consist of separate units but gravitate with respect to each other in obedi- ence to their inherent laws.” This image shows in a remarkable way how technique became simultaneously independent of man and obedient to the chronometer. Technique obeys its own specific laws, as every machine obeys laws. Each element of the technical complex follows certain laws determined by its relations with the other elements, and these laws are internal to the system and in no way influenced by external factors. It is not a question of causing the human being to disappear, but of making him capitulate, of in- THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 138) during him to accommodate himself to techniques and not to ex- perience personal feelings and reactions. No technique is possible when men are free. When technique enters into the realm of social life, it collides ceaselessly with the human being to the degree that the combination of man and tech- nique is unavoidable, and that technical action necessarily results in a determined result. Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being. For technique, this is a matter of life or death. Technique must reduce man to a technical animal, the king of the slaves of technique. Human caprice crumbles before this necessity; there can be no human autonomy in the face of tech- nical autonomy. The individual must be fashioned by techniques, either negatively (by the techniques of understanding man) or positively (by the adaptation of man to the technical framework), in order to wipe out the blots his personal determination introduces into the perfect design of the organization. But it is requisite that man have certain precise inner charac- teristics. An extreme example is the atomic worker or the jet pilot. He must be of calm temperament, and even temper, he must be phlegmatic, he must not have too much initiative, and he must be devoid of egotism. The ideal jet pilot is already along in years (perhaps thirty-five) and has a settled direction in life. He flies his jet in the way a good civil servant goes to his office. Human joys and sorrows are fetters on technical aptitude. Jungk cites the case of a test pilot who had to abandon his profession because “his wife behaved in such a way as to lessen his capacity to fly. Every day, when he returned home, he found her shedding tears of joy. Having become in this way accident conscious, he dreaded catastrophe when he had to face a delicate situation/' The individ- ual who is a servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself. Without this quality, his reflexes and his inclinations are not properly adapted to technique. Moreover, the physiological condition of the individual must an- swer to technical demands. Jungk gives an impressive picture of the experiments in training and control that jet pilots have to undergo. The pilot is whilred on centrifuges until he “blacks out” (in order to measure his toleration of acceleration). There are cata- pults, ultrasonic chambers, etc., in which the candidate is forced The Technological Society (139 to undergo unheard-of tortures in order to determine whether he has adequate resistance and whether he is capable of piloting the new machines. That the human organism is, technically speaking, an imperfect one is demonstrated by the experiments. The suffer- ings the individual endures in these “laboratories” are considered to be due to “biological weaknesses,” which must be eliminated. New experiments have pushed even further to determine the re- actions of “space pilots” and to prepare these heroes for their roles of tomorrow. This has given birth to new sciences, biometry for example; their one aim is to create the new man, the man adapted to technical functions. It will be objected that these examples are extreme. This is cer- tainly the case, but to a greater or lesser degree the same prob- lem exists everywhere. And the more technique evolves, the more extreme its character becomes. The object of all the modern “hu- man sciences” (which I will examine later on) is to find answers to these problems. The enormous effort required to put this technical civilization into motion supposes that all individual effort is directed toward this goal alone and that all social forces are mobilized to attain the mathematically perfect structure of the edifice. (“Mathematically” does not mean “rigidly.” The perfect technique is the most adapta- ble and, consequently, the most plastic one. True technique will know how to maintain the illusion of liberty, choice, and individ- uality; but these will have been carefully calculated so that they will be integrated into the mathematical reality merely as appear- ances!) Henceforth it will be wrong for a man to escape this universal effort. It will be inadmissible for any part of the individ- ual not to be integrated in the drive toward technicization; it will be inadmissible that any man even aspire to escape this necessity of the whole society. The individual will no longer be able, materially or spiritually, to disengage himself from society. Materially, he will not be able to release himself because the technical means are so numerous that they invade his whole life and make it impossible for him to escape the collective phenomena. There is no longer an uninhabited place, or any other geographical locale, for the would-be solitary. It is no longer possible to refuse entrance into a community to a highway, a high-tension line, or a dam. It is vain to aspire to live alone when one is obliged to participate in all col- THE CHARACTEBOLOCT OF TECHNIQUE 140) lective phenomena and to use all the collective’s tools, without which it is impossible to earn a bare subsistence. Nothing is gratis any longer in our society; and to live on charity is less and less possible. “Social advantages" are for the workers alone, not for “use- less mouths." The solitary is a useless mouth and will have no ration card—up to the day he is transported to a penal colony. (An at- tempt was made to institute this procedure during the French Rev- olution, with deportations to Cayenne.) Spiritually, it will be impossible for the individual to disassociate himself from society. This is due not to the existence of spiritual techniques which have increasing force in our society, but rather to our situation. We are constrained to be “engaged," as the existen- tialists say, with technique. Positively or negatively, our spiritual attitude is constantly urged, if not determined, by this situation. Only bestiality, because it is unconscious, would seem to escape this situation, and it is itself only a product of the machine. Every conscious being today is walking the narrow ridge of a decision with regard to technique. He who maintains that he can escape it is either a hypocrite or unconscious. The autonomy of technique forbids the man of today to choose his destiny. Doubt- less, someone will ask if it has not always been the case that social conditions, environment, manorial oppression, and the family con- ditioned man’s fate. The answer is, of course, yes. But there is no common denominator between the suppression of ration cards in an authoritarian state and the family pressure of two centuries ago. In the past, when an individual entered into conflict with society, he led a harsh and miserable life that required a vigor which ei- ther hardened or broke him. Today the concentration camp and death await him; technique cannot tolerate aberrant activities. Because of the autonomy of technique, modern man cannot choose his means any more than his ends. In spite of variability and flexibility according to place and circumstance (which are charac- teristic of technique) there is still only a single employable tech- nique in the given place and time in which an individual is situ- ated. We have already examined the reasons for this. At this point, we must consider the major consequences of the autonomy of technique. This will bring us to the climax of this analysis. Technical autonomy explains the “specific weight" with which The Technological Society (141 technique is endowed. It is not a kind of neutral matter, with do direction, quality, or structure. It is a power endowed with its own peculiar force. It refracts in its own specific sense the wills which make use of it and the ends porposed for it. Indeed, independently of the objectives that man pretends to assign to any given technical means, that means always conceals in itself a finality which cannot be evaded. And if there is a competition between this intrinsic final- ity and an extrinsic end proposed by man, it is always the intrinsic finality which carries the day. If the technique in question is not exactly adapted to a proposed human end, and if an individual pre- tends that he is adapting the technique to this end, it is generally quickly evident that it is the end which is being modified, not the technique. Of course, this statement must be qualified by what has already been said concerning the endless refinement of techniques and their adaptation. But this adaptation is effected with reference to the techniques concerned and to the conditions of their applica- bility. It does not depend on external ends. Perrot has demon- strated this in the case of judicial techniques, and Giedion in the case of mechanical techniques. Concerning the over-all problem of the relation between the ends and the means, I take the liberty of referring to my own work, Presence au monde modeme. Once again we are faced with a choice of “all or nothing.'* If we make use of technique, we must accept the specificity and autonomy of its ends, and the totality of its rules. Our own desires and aspirations can change nothing. The second consequence of technical autonomy is that it renders technique at once sacrilegious and sacred. (Sacrilegious is not used here in the theological but in the sociological sense.) Sociologists have recognized that the world in which man lives is for him not only a material but also a spiritual world; that forces act in it which are unknown and perhaps unknowable; that there are phenomena in it which man interprets as magical; that there are relations and correspondences between things and beings in which material con- nections are of little consequence. This whole area is mysterious. Mystery (but not in the Catholic sense) is an element of man’s life. Jung has shown that it is catastrophic to make superficially clear what is hidden in man’s innermost depths. Man must make allow- ance for a background, a great deep above which lie his reason and his clear consciousness. The mystery of man perhaps creates the THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 14a) mystery of the world he inhabits. Or perhaps this mystery is a real- ity in itself. There is no way to decide between these two alterna- tives. But, one way or the other, mystery is a necessity of human life. Man cannot live without a sense of the secret The psychoana- lysts agree on this point But the invasion of technique desacralizes the world in which man is called upon to live. For technique noth- ing is sacred, there is no mystery, no taboo. Autonomy makes this so. Technique does not accept the existence of rules outside itself, or of any norm. Still less will it accept any judgment upon it. As a consequence, no matter where it penetrates, what it does is per- mitted, lawful, justified. To a great extent, mystery is desired by man. It is not that he cannot understand, or enter into, or grasp mystery, but that he does not desire to do so. The sacred is what man decides unconsciously to respect. The taboo becomes compelling from a social standpoint, but there is always a factor of adoration and respect which does not derive from compulsion and fear. Technique worships nothing, respects nothing. It has a single role: to strip off externals, to bring everything to light, and by ra- tional use to transform everything into means. More than science, which limits itself to explaining the “how,” technique desacralizes because it demonstrates (by evidence and not by reason, through use and not through books) that mystery does not exist. Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it. The sacred cannot resist. Science penetrates to the great depths of the sea to photo- graph the unknown fish of the deep. Technique captures them, hauls them up to see if they are edible—but before they arrive on deck they burst. And why should technique not act thus? It is au- tonomous and recognizes as barriers only the temporary limits of its action. In its eyes, this terrain, which is for the moment unknown but not mysterious, must be attacked. Far from being restrained by any scruples before the sacred, technique constantly assails it. Everything which is not yet technique becomes so. It is driven on- ward by itself, by its character of self-augmentation. Technique denies mystery a priori. The mysterious is merely that which has not yet been technicized. Technique advocates the entire remaking of life and its frame- The Technological Society (i4 3 work because they have been badly made. Since heredity is full of chance, technique proposes to suppress it so as to engender the kind of men necessary for its ideal of service. The creation of the ideal man will soon be a simple technical operation. It is no longer neces- sary to rely on the chances of the family or on the personal vigor which is called virtue. Applied biogenetics is an obvious point at which technique desacralizes;6 but we must not forget psycho- analysis, which holds that dreams, visions, and the psychic life in general are nothing more than objects. Nor must we forget the pene- tration and exploitation of the earth’s secrets. Crash programs, par- ticularly in the United States, are attempting to reconstruct the soil which massive exploitation and the use of chemical fertilizers have impaired. We shall soon discover the functions of chlorophyll and thus entirely transform the conditions of life. Recent investigations in electronic techniques applied to biology have emphasized the importance of DNA and will possibly result in the discovery of the link between the living and the nonliving. Nothing belongs any longer to the realm of the gods or the super- natural. The individual who lives in the technical milieu knows very well that there is nothing spiritual anywhere. But man cannot live without the sacred. He therefore transfers his sense of the sacred to the very thing which has destroyed its former object: to tech- nique itself. In the world in which we live, technique has become the essential mystery, taking widely diverse forms according to place and race. Those who have preserved some of the notions of magic both admire and fear technique. Radio presents an inex- plicable mystery, an obvious and recurrent miracle. It is no less astonishing than the highest manifestations of magic once were, and it is worshipped as an idol would have been worshipped, with the same simplicity and fear. But custom and the recurrence of the miracle eventually wear out this primitive adoration. It is scarcely found today in European countries; the proletariat, workers and peasants alike, with their motorcycles, radios, and electrical appliances, have an attitude of condescending pride toward the jinn who is their slave. Their ideal is incarnated in certain things which serve them. Yet they retain some feeling of the sacred, in the sense that life is not worth the 8 See, in this connection, the previous note. THE CHARACTEROLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 144) trouble of living unless a man has these jinns in his home. This attitude goes much further in the case of the conscious segment of the proletariat, among whom technique is seen as a whole and not merely in its occasional aspects. For them, technique is the instru- ment of liberation for the proletariat. All that is needed is for tech- nique to make a little more headway, and they will be freed pro- portionately from their chains. Stalin pointed to industrialization as the sole condition for the realization of Communism. Every gain made by technique is a gain for the proletariat. This represents indeed a belief in the sacred. Technique is the god which brings salvation. It is good in its essence. Capitalism is an abomination because on occasion it opposes technique. Technique is the hope of the proletarians; they can have faith in it because its miracles are visible and progressive. A great part of their sense of the mysterious remains attached to it. Karl Marx may have been able to explain rationally how technique would free the proletariat, but the prole- tariat itself is scarcely equal to a full understanding of this “how.” It remains mysterious for them. They retain merely the formula of faith. But their faith addresses itself with enthusiasm to the mysterious agent of their liberation. The nonintellectual classes of the bourgeoisie are perhaps less caught up in this worship of technique. But the technicians of the bourgeoisie are without doubt the ones most powerfully taken with it. For them, technique is sacred, since they have no reason to feel a passion for it. Technical men are always disconcerted when one asks them the motives for their faith. No, they do not expect to be liberated; they expect nothing, yet they sacrifice themselves and devote their lives with frenzy to the development of industrial plants and the organization of banks. The happiness of the human race and Suchlike nonsense are the commonplaces they allege. But these are no longer of any service even as justifications, and they certainly have nothing at all to do with man's passion for technique. The technician uses technique perhaps because it is his profes- sion, but he does so with adoration because for him technique is the locus of the sacred. There is neither reason nor explanation in his attitude. The power of technique, mysterious though scientific, which covers the whole earth with its networks of waves, wires, and paper, is to the technician an abstract idol which gives him a The Technological Society i145 reason for living and even for joy. One sign, among many, of the feeling of the sacred that man experiences in the face of technique is the care he takes to treat it with familiarity. Laughter and humor are common human reactions in the presence of the sacred. This is true for primitive peoples; and for the same reason the first atomic bomb was called “Gilda,” the giant cyclotron of Los Alamos '‘Clementine,” the atomic piles “water pots,” and radioactive con- tamination “scalding.” The technicians of Los Alamos have banned the word atom from their vocabulary. These things are significant. In view of the very different forms of technique, there is no question of a technical religion. But there is associated with it the feeling of the sacred, which expresses itself in different ways. The way differs from man to man, but for all men the feeling of the sacred is expressed in this marvelous instrument of the power in- stinct which is always joined to mystery and magic. The worker brags about his job because it offers him joyous confirmation of his superiority. The young snob speeds along at 100 m.p.h. in his Porsche. The technician contemplates with satisfaction the gradi- ents of his charts, no matter what their reference is. For these men, technique is in every way sacred: it is the common expression of human power without which they would find themselves poor, alone, naked, and stripped of all pretentions. They would no longer be the heroes, geniuses, or archangels which a motor permits them to be at little expense. What shall we say of the outburst of frenzy when the Sputnik went into orbit? What of the poems of the Soviets, the metaphysical affirmations of the French, the speculations on the conquest of the universe? What of the identification of this artificial satellite with the sun, or of its invention with the creation of the earth? And, on the other side of the Atlantic, what was the real meaning of the ex- cessive consternation of the Americans? All these bore witness to a marked social attitude with regard to a simple technical fact. Even people put out of work or ruined by technique, even those who criticize or attack it (without daring to go so far as to turn worshippers against them) have the bad conscience of all icono- clasts. They find neither within nor without themselves a compen- sating force for the one they call into question. They do not even live in despair, which would be a sign of their freedom. This bad THE CHARACTEnOLOCY OF TECHNIQUE 146) conscience appears to me to be perhaps the most revealing fact about the new sacralization of modern technique. The characteristics we have examined permit me to assert with confidence that there is no common denominator between the tech- nique of today and that of yesterday. Today we are dealing with an utterly different phenomenon. Those who claim to deduce from man’s technical situation in past centuries his situation in this one show that they have grasped nothing of the technical phenomenon. These deductions prove that all their reasonings are without foundation and all their analogies are astigmatic. The celebrated formula of Alain has been invalidated: “Tools, instruments of necessity, instruments that neither lie nor cheat, tools with which necessity can be subjugated by obeying her, without the help of false laws; tools that make it possible to conquer by obey- ing.” This formula is true of the tool which puts man squarely in contact with a reality that will bear no excuses, in contact with mat- ter to be mastered, and the only way to use it is to obey it. Obedi- ence to the plow and the plane was indeed the only means of domi- nating earth and wood. But the formula is not true for our techniques. He who serves these techniques enters another realm of necessity. This new necessity is not natural necessity; natural necessity, in fact, no longer exists. It is technique’s necessity, which becomes the more constraining the more nature’s necessity fades and disappears. It cannot be escaped or mastered. The tool was not false. But technique causes us to penetrate into the innermost realm of falsehood, showing us all the while the noble face of ob- jectivity of result. In this innermost recess, man is no longer able to recognize himself because of the instruments he employs. The tool enables man to conquer. But, man, dost thou not know there is no more victory which is thy victory? The victory of our days belongs to the tool. The tool alone has the power and carries off the victory. Man bestows on himself the laurel crown, after the example of Napoleon III, who stayed in Paris to plan the strategy of the Crimean War and claimed the bay leaves of the victor. But this delusion cannot last much longer. The individual obeys and no longer has victory which is his own. He cannot have ac- cess even to his apparent triumphs except by becoming himself the object of technique and the offspring of the mating of man and The Technological Society (147 machine. AH his accounts are falsified. Alain’s definition no longer corresponds to anything in the modem world. In writing this, I have, of course, omitted innumerable facets of our world. There are still artisans, petty tradesmen, butchers, domestics, and small agri- cultural landowners. But theirs are the faces of yesterday, the more or less hardy survivals of our past. Our world is not made of these static residues of history, and I have attempted to consider only moving forces. In the complexity of the present world, residues do exist, but they have no future and are consequently disappearing. Only the things which have a future interest us. But how are we to discern them? By making a comparison of three planes of civili- zation which coexist today: India, Western Europe, and the United States. And by considering the line of historical progression from one to the other—all of this powerfully reinforced by the evolution of the Soviet Union, which is causing history to boil. In this chapter we have sketched the psychology of the tyrant. Now we must study his biology: the circulatory apparatus, the state; the digestive apparatus, the economy; the cellular tissue, man. CHAPTER pa TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY There is a certain na*ivet6 in wishing to treat the problem of eco- nomic technique in a few pages, and it seems completely useless to take up once again a question so frequently studied. But, as in the book as a whole, I do not mean to address myself exclusively to those aspects of the problem which are traditionally considered, that is, to the facts. The facts, figures, statistics (well or little known) form the background and foundation of my inquiry. It seems unnecessary to reiterate them. They can be found in many books, so 1 shall continue with the “cursive” method I have hitherto employed. By encircling the facts, I shall emphasize their impor- tance; and on the basis of the data given, I shall seek to derive new aspects and “lines of force” for new studies. It might be asked whether, this has not already been done and is hence unnecesary. But this inquiry presupposes that we have escaped not only from sole preoccupation with brute facts but from formal logic as well. Neither gives an account of reality. The point is to let oneself be guided by a kind of logic internal to facts and things. It is useless to speak of “laws.” I am opposed to the attitude, represented for ex- The Technological Society (149 ample by the works of Fourasti6, which combines elements on the basis of pure logic, yielding a terribly linear and inhuman result. I am likewise opposed to the attitude, characteristic of the majority of Western intellectuals, which, having taken account of the facts, denies them forthwith by avowals of hope and assertions of the cer- tainty of human freedom—which is anything but scientific. This attitude can be reduced to the conviction that the reality of things is simply too frightful to behold. Instead of guiding themselves by reality, most investigators of the problem adopt an attitude flatly contradicted by all the events of modern times. This attitude might be summarized as follows: '‘The facts are the elements of a game of patience which is amorphous and has no form of its own. The individual is perfectly at liberty among these facts to arrange the pieces of the game as he will and to elaborate a voluntary and hu- mane economy/* I take an extreme view but one that I believe is closer to reality. I see that the facts have their form and their specific weight. They respect neither freedom of the individual nor formal logic. I am striving in this essay to find their special consistency and their com- mon tendencies, and to discover whether man still has a place in this tangle; whether he still has any authority among these colossal masses in movement; whether he still can exert any force whatever on the statistics which are slipping from his hands into the abstract and the unreal. Can he have a place, authority, and the pos- sibility of action oil a better basis than ill-founded declarations of hope or blind acts of unreasonable faith? The Best and the Worst The Influence of Technique on the Economy. Let us consider first the aspect of the relation between technique and economy which is traditionally studied, particularly by Marx. Technique, or rather techniques, appears as the motive force and the foundation of the economy. Without them, there is no economy. For this reason, a distinction can be made in economics between dynamic force, which is technical invention, and static force, the organization of the economy, Marx distinguishes between the system of production and the system of distribution: the former revolutionary, the latter TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 15°) necessarily conservative. It is self-deception to put economics at the base of the Marxist system. It is technique upon which all the rest depends. But the distinction made by Marx must be revised, for it is no longer true that technique plays its role in the realm of pro- duction alone. Distribution, too, is to a great degree modified by techniques. Indeed, no area of economic life is today independent of technical development. It is to Fourastie’s credit that he pointed out that technical development controls all contemporary economic evolution, from production operations to demography. (There is no doubt that world population growth is related to the increase in consumption.) Even more abstract spheres are shown by Four- astie to be dominated by technical progress; for example, the price mechanism, capital evolution, foreign trade, population displace- ment, unemployment, and so on. This invasion of all economic activity by technique seems today indisputable. Of course the problem had been raised by economists before Fourastie, if not in full, at least to a certain degree. In an ef- fort to explain crises, Gottfried Haberler, in Prosperity and De- pression, ascribed their existence to inequality of technical develop- ment in different branches of economic activity. The success of a technique leads to its full development; technique will tend to reach the limits of its possible development in a given area. The result is, first, an inequality of power in the various areas of the economy, which provokes an unblancing of the whole system; and second, a diminution of plasticity of the economic milieu. Technical prog- ress entails stasis in one part or other of the system; the economy is strained to the full and loses all possibility of adaptation, bar- ring, of course, a complete breakdown. The crisis then results from the fact that the system cannot progress, economically, at the same tempo in all its parts. Henri Guitton returns to this idea when he notes that the adap- tive mechanisms which were active during the nineteenth century have become more and more hampered. This disturbance seems to be attributable to the loss of structural elasticity. A structure suita- ble to simplified mechanisms, lighter, so to speak (the old world had not accumulated as many innovations as the new), is no longer adapted to the exigencies of growth of a world no longer young. In an altogether different field, John Maynard Keynes has also shown in his work, General Theory, that technical progress is an The Technological Society (151 indispensable factor in the economy. The economic world cannot remain stationary. It is unceasingly called on to evolve. In particu- lar, the importance of technical progress is central to the theory of investment. All the possibilities of labor must be utilized at any price. It is necessary constantly to uncover new possibilities of in- vestment. For, says Keynes, the more numerous the consumers’ goods—the production of which has been provided for in advance —the more difficult it is to find corresponding new needs—which must likewise be anticipated and which call for new investments. What Keynes in fact fears is that there will not be sufficient new possibilities of investment. There is only one way to ensure limit- less possibilities. These possibilities have nothing to do with spon- taneous human needs, but involve technical discovery and applica- tion, which create new products to replace the old, and also stimu- late the need for these products. Technical progress is therefore a decisive factor in the progression of investment. The epicentric po- sition of the theory of investment in Keynes’s system is well known. If a Byzantine phase of technical arrest were to occur in the eco- nomic realm, it would represent not only an arrest of economic evolution but a regression as well, with a resultant series of deep crises. In a closely related sense, a great importance is attached to tech- nique both by those who hold and by those who reject the theory of economic maturity. According to this theory, only ceaseless tech- nical progress can compensate for the causes of depression which become manifest in an economy that has arrived at maturity. These causes of depression are decline in the rate of population growth and limitation of geographic expansion—two factors which entail a decrease in the rate of investment. Technical progress could remedy this but, according to the initiator of the theory, technique shares in the decrease, not absolutely, but relatively. Technical progress no longer occurs rapidly enough to compensate for the other factors. Not even the opponents of this theory repudiate the importance of the technical factor, and that is what interests us here. Yet another element of economic life ought not to be neglected: agricultural production. In this case, too, the upheaval brought about by techniques is a radical one. We have already noted the danger to the earth itself. As to the benefits and the penetration of Z 5* ) TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY technique into farm labor, it suffices to refer the interested reader to Giedion’s work. But I must insist on one point: as a result of the influence of techniques, the modem world is faced with a kind of “unblocking of peasant life and mentality.” For a long time peasant tradition resisted innovation, and the old agricultural systems pre- served their stability. Today technical transformation is an estab- lished fact; the peasant revolution is in process or already com- pleted, and everywhere in the same direction. The actual extent of the progress of this revolution is of small importance; what counts is the first step, which permits the barriers of tradition to be hur- dled. The peasant becomes conscious of the inferiority of his tradi- tions; the usual justifications are held in contempt and the peasant world passes from the irrational to the rational. Once again we en- counter the notion that technique destroys traditional forms of civi- lization and introduces instead a global unity. What does this un- blocking mean for the future? In the years to come we shall witness an acceleration of technical progress in rural life, and an accelera- tion of already perceptible phenomena: peasant emigration, agri- cultural specialization, deforestation, and the growth of agricultu- ral production in general. These events are of major importance in view of the fact that agricultural production still remains the basis of economic life; and that the countries of the world most depend- ent on industry, Great Britain and Japan, have not reached as high a standard of living as the United States because of the lack of suf- ficient cultivable lands. The economic repercussions of this type of technical progress ai e easily grasped. These examples, chosen arbitrarily from different social areas, show that the influence of technique on economic life is much more widespread and profound than classical manuals of economics w culd have \is beiieve. Moreover, all this is implied in the elementary observation that the progress of production closely depends on technical progress. It is at the present a truism to say that a new, general economic organization corresponds to certain new forms of production. This dependence of the economy on techniques and primarily on machines has come about in an irrational way. It is not the ac- tion of clear and certain causes which have produced this interde- pendence. Veblen asks whether machines do not squander more The Technological Society (153 effort and material than they save; whether they do not cause grave economic losses by the developments they bring about in means of transport, etc. The same questions are put by Bertrand Russell and still more emphatically by Gaston Bardet, who points to the enor- mous waste of human forces, of time, work, and capital, occa- sioned by the social structures conditioned by the machine. These are indeed simple questions, but important ones. We see, then, that the influence of technique on the economy does not arise from an indisputable economic superiority of the ma- chine. Ideas and theories no longer dominate, but rather the power of production. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century resulted immediately from the technical advances of that time; this relation has not changed. Marx was unquestionably right with re- spect to the period from about 1830 to the present; the motive force of all economic evolution has indeed been technical development. However, Marx was not necessarily right with respect to other pe- riods of history. Technical progress has not always been the basic principle. We have already shown the contrary. Moreover, this does not mean that the consequences Marx draws from his contention are true. All we need do is note that Marx's observation is correct: the more we advance into the new world, the more is economic life dependent on technical development. Economic Consequences. As Jean Marchal says, “the accumula- tion of machines transforms the economy." We know that technique is not equivalent to the machine, and Marchal’s statement is even truer when technique is considered in my more general sense. Furthermore, his formula, which historically is more or less exact, tends to appear all the more exact in view of the economic dis- turbances caused, for example, by automation. A simplistic view of the automated economy proclaims ease and abundance for all men, thanks to technique. But, unfortunately, this is not so sim- ple. We are, in fact, confronted with a phenomenon which will produce a veritable economic mutation. None of the economic modalities (salaries, distribution, reduction of the work week, trans- fer of the labor force from one area to another, disturbance of the balance of production in the various areas) seems capable of reso- lution in the present state of affairs. Even the socialist economic structure is not adapted to receive the massive effects of automa- TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY iS4) tion. This has been avowed by the Soviet economists themselves in their research into the effects of automation in the light of Marxism. Returning to Marchal’s formula, we might ask in what direction this transformation acts. If we consider certain traits of technical progress of concern to the economy, we note that they all move in the same direction. Let us recall that technical means are becom- ing more and more enormous and costly. Consider, for example, (a) the ever more numerous machines that are necessary to pro- duction, which act more rapidly, are always being improved upon, and are subject to frequent replacement because of constant inven- tive progress; (b) the organization of labor, which implies more and more numerous and costly personnel, which, although indis- pensable, is not always immediately forthcoming; (c) publicity techniques. In all these economic means the same fact is to be noted, the investment of enormous amounts of nonproductive capi- tal. Capital in such amounts can no longer be owned by a single per- son and economic activity is beyond the range of individual possi- bilities. But technical progress cannot do without the concentration of capital. An economy based on individual enterprise is not con- ceivable, barring an extraordinary technical regression. The neces- sary concentration of capital thus gives rise either to an economy of corporations or to a state economy. A concentration of enterprise corresponds to this concentration of capital. This fact can hardly be denied today, especially in view of the power of these enterprises. Two examples from the United States: In 1939, 52 per cent of all industrial capital was held by 0.1 per cent of the total number of enterprises; and in 1944, 62 per cent of all workers were employed in 2 per cent of American enter- prises. A similar concentration of banking facilities exists. Of 30.000 banks in the United States in 1920, only 15,000 were left in 1956. There were 350 mergers in 1955 alone. The situation became so evi- dent that in 1956 the Federal Reserve Board undertook a campaign against this concentration. This tendency toward concentration is confirmed daily, as Joseph Lajugie shows. The important thing is to recognize the real motive force behind it. The human and social effects of this concentration are, on the whole, evil. In a great corporation, the workers are more than ever enslaved and scarcely in a position to act in a dis- tinctively human way. Even the consumer is frequently imposed The Technological Society (155 upon. The integration of the individual into the technical complex is more complete than ever before. From the purely economic point of view, the value of the results is highly debatable. It would seem, from the point of view of the market economy, that concentration should be a markedly favora- ble factor. It involves, for example, suppression of competition and a tendency to raise prices. But, more striking still, concentration does not result in growth of profits. In many branches of production, profit growth is arrested or even declines when the transition is made from the medium-size enterprise to the large corporation. What, then, is the motive force behind this concentration? Tech- nique alone. A number of elements in technique demand concen- tration. Mechanical technique requires it because only a very large corporation is in a position at the present to take advantage of the most recent inventions. Only the large corporation is able to apply normalization, to recover waste products profitably, and to manu- facture byproducts. Technique applied to problems of labor effi- ciency requires concentration because only through concentration is it possible to apply up-to-date methods which have gone far be- yond the techniques of the former efficiency and time-study experts (for instance, the application of techniques of industrial relations). Finally, economic technique demands both vertical and horizontal concentration, which permits stockpiling at more favorable prices, accelerated capital turnover, reduction of fixed charges, assurance of markets, and so on. Technical progress thus entails concentration. But this concen- tration represents real advantages only in the technical domain. The impulse to concentrate is so strong that it takes place even contrary to the decisions of the state. In the United States and in France, the state has often opposed concentration, but ultimately it has always been forced to capitulate and to stand by impotently while the undesired development occurs. This confirms my judgment con- cerning the decisive action of technique on the modern economy. What is more, the technique of organization renders the inter- vention of the state indispensable. The necessity of normalizing products is no longer debated today. It is one of the conditions of economic progress. This normalization is based on technical research. But here, as everywhere else in a capitalist or semiliberal economy, the technical result is in conflict TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 15*) with certain interests. In order to apply it, the good will of the pub- lie cannot be counted on. It then becomes indispensable to sanction normalization in some other way. And only the state can apply this sanction. The result is the creation of arbitration commissions armed with public powers to deal with normalization. Technical necessity calls for state intervention in order to organ- ize the electric power network. Later on I shall discuss the inter- relation of the network and the purely technical motives which prompt it. It is not the regulation of opposed interests, but the ne- cessity of a higher organization embracing the local organizations, which, in this case, brings about the appeal to state power. The technical organism called a combine is of the same order. Whether it be the TVA or a Soviet Kombinat, it is perfectly illusory to claim that such combines represent autonomous organisms. In fact, the technical necessity which brought them into being gains force and value only through state intervention. Doubtless, when the organ- ism is constituted, it may receive a certain independence from the state. But we must not forget who the real parent is. Nor must we overlook the fact that this parentage represents a profound inter- vention in the economy on the part of the state, an intervention, moreover, not dictated by a theory or a will to power, but by the technical manifest. The necessity of utilizing certain goods also tends in the same direction. It has long been recognized that technical progress is effected more rapidly in the creation of the means of production. From this fact comes a kind of hypertrophy of machine-producing industries. The well-known Hoover Committee for the elimination of waste found, for example, that the production of the American clothing industry was 45 per cent greater than necessary. The ca pacity ot the shoe industry was double its real production; and the printing industry was overequipped by 100 per cent. The excess production of home appliances and automobiles is well known. None of this overproduction would represent a waste, if one were judging on the basis of world needs. But, in the present situation, overproduction produces disequilibrium with respect to revenues, investment, and consumption possibilities, and so on. There is no absolute need to halt technical growth in any given area (say, in heavy industry). But there is a need to find markets for this over- production. At present, only the state is in a position to sustain the The Technological Society ( 15 7 tempo of technical progress in this direction, a heavy burden in- deed. Economics even intervenes in politics—consider the expansion of systematic “planning," which proceeds by waves, so to speak. Here there is a transition from the microeconomy to the macro- economy which it would be interesting to study in a detailed way. I shall simply point out that the application of planning on the scale of the enterprise leads to a nationwide application of planning in which all enterprises obey a like rule. The establishment of production norms or of a plan becomes rational and technically necessary when the method is already ex- tended to the national field. I could easily give additional examples; for instance, in the development of financial and banking tech- niques. Let us bear in mind that atomic energy, say, when put to work will suppose state control of all sources of energy. It is incon- ceivable that an individual could have at his disposal the sources of atomic power. Not doctrinal but technical reasons today render economic life inseparable from the state. This does not mean that the economy necessarily becomes collectivist or totalitarian. For the moment let us simply note the indissoluble relation. This relation is admitted by many economists. Is it the resuk of chance or of choice? Of neither exclusively. Nor is it the result of a managed economy. As Robert Moss6 writes: “With the develop- ment of the managed economy, it has become very difficult to trace a boundary between politics and economics ..." In reality, it is a necessity resulting from the advance of technique. Technique plays an important role in economic life; but it has the same effect with reference to economic science. A relation is being established be- tween technical progress in economic life and technical progress in science or method. The two converge and end in identical results. Before examining this transformation of method, we must briefly recall that political economy has changed its object, and almost its nature, as a consequence of the enormous accumulation of eco- mic facts. Economic facts have been rendered more numerous and more enormous—and this is not the least effect of technique in economic life. The definition of economic science has hence be- come more and more complex and comprehensive. Without seek- ing to note all the points of the curve, let two definitions suffice for TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 15*) comparing the distance between the extremes. The first was given in 1850, the second in 1950. In the first, economic science was de- fined as the “science of wealth/’ Its object was primarily acquiring wealth and disposing of it. It was therefore an individual and pri- vate matter. The objective of political economy is conceived in such a way today that it is virtually impossible to encompass it in a formula. As Marchal shows, we have the problem of satisfying the needs of humanity, co-ordinating the available means of produc- tion, modifying existent institutions, and even transforming human needs. These problems must all be studied not on the plane of the individual but on the plane of the social group, and an effort made to disengage the laws of these social groups. There is no need to go to the extreme and substitute for the or- ganization of production the organization of distribution alone, as Robert Mosse appears to be doing when he writes: “From the mo- ment production becomes sufficient, the essential thing is to dis- tribute goods and leisure.” Without going that far, it is easy, as Lange has done, to see the difference between a science of the pro- duction of wealth and a science of administration of scarce goods. More and more, the economic fact covers all human activity. Every- thing has become function and object of the economy, and this has been effected by the intermediacy of technique. To the extent that technique has demanded complete devotion of man or brought to light a growing number of measurable facts, or rendered economic life richer and more complex, or enveloped the human being in a network of material possibilities that are being gradually realized, it has transformed the object of the economy. The economy now becomes obliged to take into account all human problems. The development of techniques is responsible for the staggering phe- nomenon of the absorption by economics of all social activities. The Secret Way But another relation between technique and economy exists: the formation of an economic technique. Not only has economic science changed its object and its nature, but it has produced a technique which is simultaneously a method of knowledge and a method of The Technological Society (15 9 action. Political economy has not renounced its claim to being normative. It seeks not only to grasp reality but also to modify it. But the real relation of these two aspects of economic technique is obvious. The method of scientific knowledge as such reacts on the economic milieu and tends to shape it; but this technique is not “neutral.” It does not merely stand ready to do the bidding of any random doctrine or ideology. It behaves rather with its own specific weight and direction. It is not a mere instrument, but possesses its own force, which urges it into determined paths, some- times contrary to human wishes. Economists, not understanding this, want to disengage their technique from its “neutrality” and to bring it into the service of their ends. They reject the definition; “Economics is the science [technique!] of efficient choices.” But when they seek to humanize the economy, they learn quickly enough that such attempts lead directly to the subjugation of the ends to techniques. Those who pose the problem of ends and propose a humane economy as their goal are the very persons who develop techniques further and en- hance their specific weights, as Jacques Aventur has shown. But whereas the overpowering phenomenon of the machine strikes home to everyone and makes plain its influence on economic life, the ways of economic technique are secret and everyone remains convinced of its innocuousness and docility. In order to grasp the nature of economic technique, it is first of all necessary to grasp the reasons for its rise. One of its causes is so simple that I shall mention it only in passing. This is the evolution of the sciences in general. The sciences in general, in the twentieth century, have passed through a crisis of growth characterized by the appearance of cer- tain problems of methodology and technique. Economic science is likewise abandoning dogmatic positions and deductive methods in order to establish exact procedures. This may have taken place before the first gropings of the infant science had borne definitive results. Many economists believe that the ideal science, which must serve all others as model, is physics, and that economic method must approximate the method of physics taken as general type but not as specific means. At the same time economists feel, as a kind of challenge, the in- 16 O ) TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY effectiveness of their system. Nothing has exposed the vanity of political economy better than their contradictory diagnoses and therapies for economic crises. For some the cause of crisis is an un- saleable surplus of goods; for others, insufficiency of production. For some it is an excess of savings; for others, a lack of them. And as far as the proposed remedies are concerned, some economists would raise the discount rate and others would lower it. Some hold that wages must be stabilized and others demonstrate that they must be lowered. Such contradictions can only arise from a defect of method. And the economists bitterly resent the ironical attitude the public has toward them. One of them recently wrote: "The public believes in the physicist, but it has no confidence in the economist.** Policymakers absolutely cannot rely on what the econo- mists say, nor follow their contradictory counsels with respect to action. All this, then, made it mandatory to replace the regime of theories, which gave birth to nothing but opinion, with a rigorous method which "sticks’* to facts. The need to stick to the facts became more imperative as the facts themselves became more complex. Here again the effect of tech- niques made itself felt. The facts of economic life could be grasped directly when economic life was still relatively simple, when eco- nomic phenomena (for example, at the end of the eighteenth cen- tury) presented a picture which, in magnitudes and elements, was compatible with direct experience. But the enormous growth of the economic milieu has made direct apprehension impossible and brought about the decline of corresponding modes of reasoning. Everyday logic cannot embrace more than a very limited number of data. It was therefore necessary to invent a method correspond- ing to the increasing complexity and amplitude of economic phe- nomena. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a "technical state of mind” appeared which developed mightily toward mid- century. This state of mind was characterized, first of all, by an effort to make a hard and fast separation between what is and what should be. The doctrinal character of economics was com- pletely repudiated. The sole interest was in matters of fact. The goal was simply to know scientifically, to accumulate facts, to put them in mutual relation, and, if possible, to explain them by means of one another. The Technological Society (161 Political economy is no longer a moral science in the traditional sense. It has become technique and has entered into a new ethical framework, which I shall define later on. This represents a de- cisive step for the creation of a technique. The technical state of mind is likewise evident in the creation of a precise method (which more and more consists in the application of mathematics to eco- nomics) and in the precise delimitation of a sphere of action. In effect, in order for technique to exist, method must be applied to a fixed order of phenomena. In the transition of doctrine to technique, the central idea was the distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics, as in the work of Francis Perroux, a leader in this inquiry in France. We have here a decisive situation. Microeconomics studies economic phenomena at the human level where the relatively hu- mane traditional methods can be applied, where individual de- cision is respected, but where the complete application of the tech- nical apparatus is not permitted, either with respect to method or with respect to action. The observation of facts on the microeco- nomic level does not ipso facto entail action, and to promote action is one of the principal characteristics of techniques. Even if microeconomic inquiry is useful and congenial, it nevertheless ap- pears to have no future because it pertains to the limited world of the individual Macroeconomics, on the other hand, opens all roads to technical research and application. Technical application presupposes, as we have already noted, measurable magnitudes, elimination of errors of judgment, and amplitudes of movement wide enough for tech- nique to have an understandable object. These are precisely the characteristics of macroeconomic inquiry. There is no doubt that the methods of macroeconomics are still somewhat uncertain, and many phenomena are recalcitrant to it (for example, scientific tech- niques applicable to revenues). Nevertheless, this is the domain a priori of technique and we can be assured, as a consequence, that this is where the really effective forces will be concentrated. We are likewise assured that microeconomics, far from being an element in the foundation of macroeconomics, or a complementary element to it, will be absorbed. It will lose its reason for existence to the extent that macroeconomics develops surer techniques. We are heading TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMt 1 62 ) toward a society in which knowledge of microeconomic phenomena will be the result of simple deduction from knowledge of macro- economic phenomena. The technicians in these new disciplines all have one trait in common: the joy of constituting a closed group in which the lay- man has no part at all. This represents an unconscious tendency; but we observe it among many modern economists in the form of a se- cret technique, an esotericism, a certain contempt for whatever does not belong to its new world of means. This “pride of youth” always appears among technicians when they are convinced that their new method is unassailable and that their discoveries are becoming the center of things. The authority in which they clothe themselves takes the form of a secret vocabu- lary which is incomprehensible to the outsider even when it is em- ployed, as often happens, to enunciate the most obvious facts. Technique always creates a kind of secret society, a closed frater- nity of its practitioners. It is a new thing in the milieu of economics to note a kind of studied incommunicability. Up to now, every man with a little education was able to follow the works and theories of the economists. To be able to follow them today, one would have to be both a specialist and a technician. The technique itself is difficult and the necessary instruments cannot be managed without previ- ous education. And there is that caprice of many economists to constitute themselves a closed society. These two factors coincide, indicating the grave consequence of excluding the public from the technical life. Yet it can scarcely be otherwise. Technique as a general phenomenon (as we shall see when we study the political milieu) always gives rise to an aristocracy of technicians who guard secrets to which no outsider has access. De- cisions which have a serious basis take on the appearance of arbi- trary and incomprehensible decrees. A cleavage like this, which is inevitable in the advance of technique, is decisive for the future of the democracies. Economic life, not in its content but in its direc- tion, will henceforth entirely elude popular control. No democracy is possible in the face of a perfected economic technique. The de- cisions of the voters, and even of the elected, are oversimplified, in- coherent, and technically inadmissible. It is a grave illusion to be- lieve that democratic control or decision-making can be reconciled with economic technique. Little by little the elements necessary to The Technological Society (16 3 the creation of this technique are taking shape; and soon they will be perfected. The Economic Techniques of Observation. I do not intend to describe these instrumentalities; I am concerned here solely with exhibiting them as an ensemble. The principal instruments which have been developed are: statis- tics, accounting procedures, the application of mathematics to eco- nomics, the method of models, and techniques of research into public opinion. It is evident that these elements reciprocally con- dition one another. At the base of the structure lies statistics, the instrumentality for determining the raw facts of economics. At one time statistical data were ridiculed on the ground that they were misleading. But this stage lies behind us, and nowadays a large measure of confidence rests in the precision of such data. This change has resulted, in part, from a change in the state of mind of the statisticians themselves. They are immersed in a “statistical atmosphere” and comply with the quantitative and numerical practices of the modern world. To statisticians, statistics is no longer a mere game; it is an essential operation of society. This represents a change not only in perspec- tive and in seriousness, but also in basic position. For a long time statistics was the work of amateurs; today it is a complex organiza- tion of specialists. It has become a profession and, as a conse- quence, is practiced much more earnestly. Moreover, the statisti- cians have at their disposal increasingly precise instruments. Among these instruments (which have transformed administrative as well as statistical technique) are the calculating machine, the punched- card machine, and microfilm. Not only has the speed of operation been prodigiously accelerated, but also its precision and its dimen- sions. By means of microfilm, hitherto uncombinable elements can be combined; and by means of the electronic brain, operations can be effected which the human brain could never perform. The statistician is, materially speaking, in a position to perform convincingly. This is even more evident in the utilization of statisti- cal data. As we shall see, the combination of the elements is essen- tial, and this combination becomes feasible largely through the intermediacy of the machine. A final element increases the professional seriousness of the statis- ticians: their responsibility. In democratic countries, it lies in the 164) TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY realm of private enterprise; the various organs concerned with sta- tistical data in effect sell their studies to the great corporations which must know precisely, for example, the course of a market. If the information proves inexact, the statistician can be sued in civil court, at least in the United States. In countries under authori- tarian rule, responsibility is a public matter; in the Soviet Union the statistician who gives false information is regarded as a saboteur. These elements together make modern statistical data more and more precise. The great scope of statistical operations and of the organs involved generally escapes the nonspecialist. To give a sin- gle example, there are in the United States fifty-six federal agencies, each of which specializes in one or several statistical categories. Al- together, twelve categories of weekly statistics are published. One of these, the category of price, takes in four elements. One of these (gross price) comprehends 1,690 weekly quotations combined in 890 series. This indicates the extreme complexity of the opera- tion. It must become even more complex when interpretation is undertaken. All this work is not motivated by pure scientific interest. It is oriented toward action. Permanent inquiry of this sort is no longer instituted to construct or support doctrines but rather to relate in- formation to action. In order to succeed in effecting this connection, interpretation is necessary, and this is the principal task of the tech- nical discipline called econometrics. Econometrics is distinct from mathematical economics. It is much more theoretical. Its principal operations on statistical data are two- fold: (1) analysis, comprising operations such as simplification or dissociation of statistical data; and {%) comparison, which can be applied to different kinds of elements. Magnitudes can be com- pared by establishing what are called equations of regression, which express a constant relation between two magnitudes of the economic domain. Variations can also be compared; here a correla- tion index is established, according to which two economic phe- nomena vary in direct or in inverse proportion but with the same velocity. Within the same realm, the econometrician tries to estab- lish certain relations: no fact in the economic domain can be re- garded as due to chance; and not satisfied with simply noting and giving the correlation formula, the econometrician goes further and The Technological Society (165 establishes the causal relation between two phenomena, a proce- dure which leads into the future. Until recently, economists operated on concrete data alone. But, for the purposes of action, they must make predictions. A distinction must be drawn between predictions which are made according to the system of covariations, and causal explanations of phenomena. Here the economist leaves the purely technical realm. An equation no longer provides the solution; there is a certain subjectivity, a cer- tain personal judgment. To be sure, it is present in the various other operations, but to a lesser degree. Economic technique has taken over a variety of other means; for example, stochastics, the application of the calculus of probabilities to economic phenomena. This technique is extraordinarily difficult to handle. It does not operate on raw figures but on statistical data, on data furnished by econometrics (as, for example, the coefficients of elasticity), and on the data furnished by public-opinion research institutes. In connection with the third element, it is evident that economic phenomena are not mechanical; opinion plays a role. In a very simplified way, it might be said that stochastics seeks to es- tablish a law of probability, or of the frequency, of a given event, starting with a very large number of observations. Stochastics, therefore, represents an instrument of prediction which gives the direction of the most probable evolution of the situation. This stochastic calculus is limited only by the nature of the eco- nomic and social milieu. For example, if a given law is exact, the public which is informed of it tends to react in the inverse sense. But sometimes it reacts by conforming to the law. The act of predic- tion is thus in a sense self-falsifying. But the public, by so reacting, falls under the influence of a new prediction which is completely determinable. The economist is able to establish laws of probability for all deviations of opinion. It must be assumed, however, that one remains in the framework of rational behavior. The system works all the better when it deals with men who are better inte- grated into the mass, men whose consciousness is partially para- lyzed, who lend themselves willingly to statistical observations and systematization. The results obtained by this technique are impres- sive, even though the technique is still immature. Much more classical, and of a different order, is the whole com- TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 166) plex of accounting techniques. These techniques have been much modified and no longer belong merely to the realm of enterprise but rather to that of economics. The accountant is no longer a mere agent for registering the movement of funds in an enterprise. Ac- cording to the Lutfalla report published by the Conseil Economique, 1948, he has become a veritable “profits engineer.” His operations encompass not only money but all the elements of production. He is oriented toward the past and also toward the future. The more complex manufacturing operations become, the more necessary it is to take adequate precautions and to use foresight. It is not possi- ble to launch modern industrial processes lightly. They involve too much capital, labor, and social and political modifications. De- tailed forecasting is necessary. We shall meet this question again when we discuss planning, but it is appropriate here to call atten- tion to the so-called “input-output” techniques Leontieff has pointed out. These represent a method designed to establish in a precise, numerical way the interconnections among all sectors of production techniques. They determine for each sector what is bought from and sold to the others. This method makes it possible to establish in detail what raw materials, instruments, tools, and machines are required to produce a given product. Under present conditions, one can no longer fix magnitudes approximately or be content with mastering certain key subjects. For even a very ordi- nary commodity, two or three hundred basic elements must be taken into account. Exact quantities, weights, and times must be fixed. The necessary calculations can only be performed with the help of computing machines. With this method the well-known and hackneyed formula—that everything is reciprocally dependent— becomes a rigorous reality. But it is the technical elements which are reciprocally dependent, welded together by a common neces- sity and expressed in certain new techniques. What holds for the private accountant is even more true for the public accountant who works on a nationwide scale. There are certain differences between the two insofar as enterprise has pri- vate profit as its end. As a consequence of the profit motive, the pri- vate accountant must comply with the rules of capitalist manage- ment. The public accountant (who becomes an accountant of initiative) draws up balance sheets and future revenue potentials for a complex organism whose reactions are slow and of great am- The Technological Society (16 7 plitude when referred to the impulses at their origin. If public en- terprise behaves in any way like capitalist enterprise, its internal dynamism complies with certain laws. The role of the accountant is to discover these laws. The effects of this new revenue-calculating economic technique, which relates economic effects to their causes, are easily seen in fields such as the liquor industry, housing, trans- portation, and so on. It is clear that this calculated revenue poten- tial bears not merely on money but also on human capital. France does not yet have a central accounting service which could com- pletely exploit this technique and establish a measurement of social needs, means of production, movement of capital, national income, and demographic change, etc. Returning to the methods of pure economic technique, we find the method of models. It is extremely difficult to experiment in eco- nomic matters. But experimentation is indispensable in all sciences and even more so in techniques. As Vincent puts it, a model is a “simplified but complete representation in its numerical aspect of the economic evolution of a society; for example, a nation during a given period.” A model is a reproduction in miniature of a certain economic ensemble in the form of mathematical equations. It is im- possible, obviously, to put all economic phenomena into a model; a certain arbitrariness is called for. The primary act is therefore a choice, founded on some theoretical decision, of the constants and variables to be put into the model. This theoretical decision, how- ever, is not arbitrary. It is guided by certain principles, in particular the necessity of linking observation to action. Once the constants and the variables of the system have been selected (and they may be numerous), the relations between them are established. Some of these relations are evident in the sense that they are purely quantitative; others are more unstable and subjective and must be established by the economic technician himself. They are empirical relations, verified or proven false by experiment. Finally, the en- semble of these relations must be put in the form of equations by insertion of the time factor. Then, by solving the equations, it is possible to study the evolution of the system and its incidences. This facilitates the study of the evolution of certain mechanisms determined by a social group, or of the incidence of some ex- terior intervention into an economic system, or of the influence and importance to the whole of every element in an ensemble. TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 168) Models can be purely theoretical or historical, as when the data arise from statistics (in which case they must be tested against the actual evolution of society). Or they can be predictive, as when the attempt is made to forecast the future. These predictive models are the object of great interest in the study of economic complexes. The last of these new economic techniques which I wish to de- scribe in this brief review is public-opinion analysis. Everyone is ac- quainted with the Gallup Institute, which has branches in almost every country of the world. Various systems (soundings, sam- plings, inquiries) are used to establish periodically the feelings of a given class or category of the population*, about any important question. Certainly, there is strong skepticism about these methods. No one believes that he thinks and acts like his neighbor. No one is sympathetic to the notion that he is a mere number in some list or series; and this unconscious rejection makes for skepticism. None- theless, the results of such samplings must be deemed valid, in spite of the seeming (but easily explainable) setbacks they suffer, as, for example, in the well-known case of the American presiden- tial elections of 1948. The results reflect various phenomena: soci- ological currents, ethical preferences, and political opinions with which we here are not concerned. But other results reflect eco- nomic currents: opinions concerning prices and wages, commer- cial choices, urgent economic needs (to the extent that they are measurable), and so on. In sum, anything in the nature of an opin- ion which can be grasped by a good observer or reporter will hence- forth be numerically measured and followed scientifically during all stages of its development. This method represents a great revo- lution; it permits the integration of opinion in the technical world in general and in economic technique in particular. This system brings into the statistical realm measures of things hitherto unmeas- urable. It effects a separation of what is measurable from what is not. Whatever cannot be expressed numerically is to be eliminated from the ensemble, either because it eludes numeration or because it is quantitatively negligible. We have, therefore, a procedure for the elimination of aberrant opinions which is essential to the understanding of the development of this technique. The elimi- nation does not originate in the technique itself. But the investi- gators who utilize its results are led to it of necessity. No activity can embrace the whole complexity of reality except as a given The Technological Society (169 method permits. For this reason, this elimination procedure is found whenever the results of opinion probings are employed in political economy. The economist is thus provided with an arsenal of technical means which enable him to observe and sometimes to predict eco- nomic reality in detail. Then the following question is unavoidable: Will these techniques remain simple techniques of observation, of pure knowledge? We grant that their creators had no ulterior mo- tives. The means are there simply to be of assistance to economic science. But will this motive be adhered to? Let us consider the position of the economist as J. U. Nef has described it. The econo- mist, more or less stricken with an inferiority complex in regard to the public, “abandoning the hope of affecting policy by objective thinking, seeks refuge by becoming an expert and counselor on questions of technology or practical politics/' Economists cherish the hope of influencing reality. The technique of knowledge the economist is now acquiring allows him, through the state, to exer- cise this influence. We note this in all countries, no matter what their type of economy or form of government. It has been called the reign of the experts, but it is in actual fact the reign of the techni- cians. Economists today have the means of being technicians near the seat of state power. But even without wishing to take account of this tendency, we know that these means of observation of reality will not remain inert. Like all techniques, they possess specific weights and direction. The reasons are very simple. An organization for establishing statistical data is extremely costly and cannot continue without profits. One way of making a profit is to sell statistical products to a capitalist clientele, which will utilize them to guide its business into certain channels. A statistical bureau then becomes a counseling bureau. But the use of statistical data in a semiliberal capitalist economy is re- stricted and cannot be developed to its full effectiveness. This incapacity of capitalism correctly to employ techniques appears time and again. Mumford says: “One of the most flagrant faults of capitalism is not to have known how to make use of existing lab- oratories, for example, the Bureau of Standards, to determine norms from which the whole body of consumers would have bene- fited/’ The tendency of technological society is to determine the movements of the macroeconomy; yet it is striking to note that sta- TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 170 ) tistics, once established, tend to revert to the level of the micro- economy and individual decision, and to find employment only on this level. This is obviously insufficient; the economists are in a position to lay claim to something better than a clientele which, in any case, seldom enables them to cover their costs. They must address themselves to the state. Certain semipublic corporations finance the operations, but it is clear that the state demands its quid pro quo. If the state is to pay for statistical research, it must get something in return: assistance in directing national affairs. The state requires the economist, on the basis of statistics, to seek out methods of intervention either directly or by subtle means such as those advocated by John Maynard Keynes. When the great private corporations or the state ask the economist for a method to influence reality, they are addressing the economist's own invincible longing, which in the beginning engendered the improvement of these scientific means. Suppose that we have ac- cumulated enormous quantities of facts, have encompassed the whole of reality, and possess the means to follow the mechanism of economic phenomena and even to a certain degree to predict them. Shall this accumulated force, then, serve no purpose? The 1952 report of the American Bureau of Labor Statistics shows clearly that this ensemble of means leads inevitably to planning. We confess that we are unable to follow Closon’s reasoning when he declares that the operations of the Compabilite Nationale are not a threat to freedom because, in fact, they are not applied. Once the trends of the economy have been recognized and re- duced to numerical form, will it be tolerated that no intervention be undertaken when the catastrophic consequences of some de- cision or other have been clearly perceived? On a more modest but still significant plane, what meaning has a detailed accounting of all the needs of a thoughtless worker (in- cluding the number of springs in his mattress and the number of razor blades he uses annually), undertaken in order to establish a minimum wage, if he can spend his money haphazardly? Mere pre- diction would plainly be absurd. The irrationality of the individual keeps him from living on the amount he could live on according to calculations. He would die of hunger on a subsistence minimum, unless an authoritarian education made him conform. Let us grant that this represents no more than a temptation to The Technological Society (171 the economist. But it would require superhuman strength not to yield to this temptation once action becomes possible; the more so because the informational techniques described are closely con- nected to techniques of action, as are the establishment of norms or of accounting plans. We have distinguished somewhat arbitrarily between knowledge and action in order to present in the most ob- jective way possible the normal development of economics pro- duced by the creation of these techniques. Even when they serve solely for the purposes of knowledge, it is clear by how many routes they end in intervention. Econometrics is only to be understood if it issues in its normal end, the establishment of economic plan- ning. Without this, econometrics is inefficient, and efficiency is the very law of technique. Like a horse chafing at the bit, the tech- niques of economic science await the signal to intervene more com- pletely than ever before in the reality they have come to under- stand. The Economic Techniques of Action. At the same time that the economist has created a technique for knowing, he has created a technique for acting. A new world is awakening, an economic mu- tation is being effected. Among these techniques of intervention we shall consider only two: plan and norms. The establishment of norms by the economist has become neces- sary, Dieterlen tells us, simply in order to follow and understand economic development. (A good example of the transition from techniques of understanding to techniques of action.) It is not sufficient merely to follow the course of statistical data. It is neces- sary to erect in advance a system of norms of progression of the elements of a given economic system which will permit us at any moment to estimate the divergence of a given element of the sys- tem from the norm. Even in a nondirected economy, it is possible to determine (a) a certain relation among the different economic components; (b) a “normal” tendency for the evolution of each of these elements; and, consequently, (c) a “normal” evolution of their relation. When such a scheme has been established, it is then possible to say whether one of the elements is progressing too rap- idly or too slowly, a fact which, in Dieterlen’s opinion, should serve to reveal the causes of an economic crisis. But if we thus establish certain norms of progression, we are con- fronted with two facts. First, the necessity of intervention: once TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 17*) the norm has been set and a condition which diverges from it has been observed, it would be folly to permit a dangerously abnormal phenomenon to develop. Second, the possibility of extending such an establishment of norms. Why should inquiry be limited to a given system? Once a calculus of norms is possible, it ought to be extended throughout the economy. This legislative tendency will operate not merely in the area of the organization of labor. A bureau for setting standards, or a service of industrial analysis, is no longer limited to the co-ordination, say, of wages and of the scien- tific organization of labor. These operations transcend the level of private enterprise and attain the level of the general. They har- monize the complementary activities of wide economic sectors. We are then completely within the technique of intervention; the tran- sition from the one to the other has been imperceptible. If the term norm is taken in its exact meaning, it is evident that the application of the system of norms orients us in a unique direc- tion. Under capitalism, norms are fundamental to the planning of enterprise, but the tempo of production remains a function of mar- ket conditions. In a planned economy, norms are fundamental to all economic calculations. They determine the quantities to be pro- duced and measure the degree to which the plan is realized in the market (Fedotov). The technique of normalization can only have full scope in a planned economy. It tends, in proportion to its devel- opment, to imply a planned economy, simply because it tends to pass from private planning and an atomized economy to a global economy and general planning (the fundamental condition of its application). A global economy is more exact to the degree that both these aspects of planning are subject to the law and control of the machine, as Mas indicates. Ail this represents a tendency rather than an accomplished fact As soon as industrial normalization intervenes, it brings with it this tendency which inevitably devalues the older economic types and the older industrial organizations. Norms mutually entail each other and presuppose certain syn- chronizations. It is almost impossible to conceive of localized norms. If it is asked what the motive force behind this tendency is, once again we must answer: efficiency. The logic of norms was clearly evident in the application in Britain in 1940 of the National Research Project. Research on the measure of production and its The Technological Society (17 3 practical consequences spread like a slick of oil and brought the whole of industry into line. It has been praised as “political econ- omy entering into action,* This “chain reaction* is also only a tendency at the moment. It is claimed that counteracting factors, economic and human, will pre- vent it from becoming a reality. But these other factors are not tech- nical. The competition is between divergent forces, the one techni- cal, the others not. And in our society the technical factor must pre- vail over the others. I therefore believe that in this area, too, the logic of norms will impose itself everywhere. And if in my analysis of this development I seem to have isolated the technical factor, this is not because I choose to neglect or fail to recognize the others. But, as I have already demonstrated, the technical factor is at pres- ent the decisive one. In addition, most of the other developmental factors are well known and almost universally studied, whereas the technical factor remains, in general, obscure. As soon as norms become essential because of their obvious util- ity, they appear to complement the plan. There is no better means of co-ordinating them or permitting them their full efficiency than to integrate them into a plan. This is what I mean by the logic of norms. Another technique of intervention which has recently become essential (and which I shall only mention) is so-called operational research. Its basic characteristics, its objectives, and its meaning are identical with those of norms. But the problem here is a problem of decision. Norms and operational research are today the two means by which the plan is executed. Planning represents a second aspect of the economic technique of intervention. Everyone has an approximate idea of what plan- ning means: the state decides everything and regulates everything in advance. We must analyze at least the characteristics of the plan- ning operation, if not its details. Economic planning is a variety of technique, not a form or a system or an economic theory. Not a single economy of any type whatsoever has been constructed by means of planning. We think otherwise because the Russian ad- venture has always appeared to us in such a guise. “It was desired to build an economy of the collective type and to succeed in this a plan was elaborated.* But the Russian plan assumed its own mean- TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 174) ing independently of all theoretical ideas. In reality, the plan is a technique and ipso facto indifferent to doctrines and opinions; it is least of all concerned with principles of action. In Germany no one had any very clear concept of the economic form that should be adopted, but planning was accepted as an efficient means. In our own day, it is even more true that plans develop in all countries without any foundation of economic doctrine. This, in one sense, is very reassuring. People constantly say: “If we remain true to our old doctrine and the plan is only an instrument, we remain what we were. If planning has sometimes functioned as a socialist in- strument, it was only because it was in the service of socialist doc- trines." This is, as consolation, illusory. But it is at least founded on the truth that planning is not connected with any particular doc- trine. System or not, however, it perhaps implies a certain definite form of economy. A second observation leads us to insist on the importance of “ways and means” in the establishment of the plan. The plan is not merely a set of commands or some general orientation. There are two focuses in the plan. There is the choice of objectives, the direc- tion to give to an economic system in its ensemble. There is also the most concrete possible anticipation of the means needed to reach these objectives. Economic choice of objectives and the establish- ment of corresponding means—such is the plan. But this choice and these means are elaborated in the most rational possible way, and a whole complex of techniques of application enables the user to avoid arbitrariness. With regard to the techniques of the forma- tion of a plan, we refer the reader to the works of Charles Bettel- heim. Now let us consider a great difficulty which is an important point of discussion in modern planning: prices and wages. Until now, the plan has been more or less tied to “real” prices and wages. Plan- ning, if not actually established by the market, was at least fixed in temporal or spatial relation to market prices and wages. But this situation could not last long. The intention of the third Soviet plan was precisely to fix prices and wages in a purely abstract, but not arbitrary, way by certain econometric methods, independently of the laws of the market. It would seem from the various wage manipulations which took place in 1949, and the repudiation of Vosnessenski, that this attempt was not a success. However, we The Technological Society (175 must consider it a s the only logical way i n which planning could then have been undertaken. And this approach may vevy well be eliminated by new improvements in economic technique. This would set to rest the objections of Francois Perroux, for whom the plan was thereby deprived of all “economic rationality.” A plan is executed in accordance with two constant principles: efficiency and social need. The plan first answers the constant search for the most efficient use of mechanical means, natural riches, and disposable forces. The problem is to organize, co-ordi- nate, and normalize these elements in such a way that each instru- ment produces its maximum yield. Planning has been criticized on all fronts, from the philosophic to the economic. But no one has yet questioned the fundamental efficiency of planning, except at the beginning. This criticism had its origin in two things, the gropings of the planners and the ignorance of the critics. Everyone has since become convinced that the mechanism is efficient—with allowances for a certain bluff that up to now has accompanied planning experi- ments. As far as technique is concerned, judgment is based solely on efficiency, and planning appears fully justified in this respect. The second of the two principal criteria of planning is the satis- faction of social needs. The initial difficulty is to determine just what these needs are at a given moment. How shall we effect the balance between social needs and production? Theoretically these are insoluble questions (I say theoretically advisedly). The pro- posed means (opinion polls, ration cards, obligatory absorption by the buyer of whatever is produced) indicate that the question as it is usually posed is abstract. If one says: “In planning, the consumer is in command,” one is making abstraction from the fact that the plan, a sociological phenomenon, answers to social need and not to individual need. At the same time one is thinking of an abstract man (a kind of fixed image of man), and this, too, renders the pro- posed question inoperative. The social man envisaged by the plan is a man integrated more and more into modern technical society. His needs are more and more collectivized, not indeed by direct pressure, but by publicity, standardization of goods, intellectual uniformity, and so on. It is well-known that “to the standardization of production corresponds a standardization of taste which gives to social life its collective character.” Moreover, mass consumption corresponds spontaneously to mass production. There is no need TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 176) for repressive measures. The adaptation of the public occurs of it- self. The average man becomes the norm in the most liberal system in the world because only the products necessary to the average man are offered on the market In fact, the problem of understand- ing social needs is complicated only if planning technique is sepa- rated from all the other techniques. These other techniques spon- taneously lead men to feel certain social needs conformable to certain data. When the plan is reinserted into its true framework, it is evident that there is no need of forcing social needs. They are prepared in advance, so that the plan is in a position to correspond exactly to them, after a more or less difficult period of adaption. The whole evolution of human needs, in their “sociologism," tends toward the plan. There is almost no necessity any longer to exert pressure on these needs. They are already what they should be, provided that we abandon human misfits to their miserable lot, a procedure which is, in any case, the course of all techniques. When it is a question of dominating the world, one cannot stop to consider Kirgiz shepherds or Bantu huntsmen who will not accept th#4aws of the determining forces. Planning does not pretend to produce an immediate response to all social needs. As I have said, there is choice. It is choice which can render certain persons unhappy but not hopeless, because the plan is inserted into a dynamic conception of the economy. The equilibrium between production and consumption is neither static nor does it exist at present It is to come, and will constantly re- new itself. The choice effected at a given moment is placed in a general perspective which makes this choice relative, and at the same time subordinate, to subsequent foreseeable development. It is necessary therefore to consider both the future of realization and the mechanism of uniformization of needs (which I have al- ready mentioned). This leads the two lines to come together con- stantly. This is an element of the dialectical view of the economy, which is the only one admissible today. During the realization of a plan, a constant readaptation of means and ends is simultaneously effected, assuring a greater cohesion of the ensemble, if not a greater certainty of realization. Finally, it seems to me important, in connection with the plan itself, to emphasize the need for utilizing the labor force efficiently. It would appear that full employment is an internal necessity, not The Technological Society (17 7 merely a momentary circumstance, of the plan. Charles Bettelheim has demonstrated that without full employment there is no possi- ble satisfaction of the totality of social needs. In this connection, wages change their character and become a part of the social product. The plan ought, therefore, to provide for both full employ- ment and the assignment of the labor force in accordance with the requirements of the production plan. It becomes indispensable to extend the plan to the whole labor force. Without this, the mecha- nism cannot function. And this then poses the question of the place, of the limitation, of the characteristics of planning. One need not yield to the puerile enthusiasm that considers plan- ning a panacea, a polyvalent remedy like penicillin. But it is nec- essary to put the plan into a different perspective. Whatever the remedies or proposed reforms for resolving injustice and incoher- ence in the modern economy, everything occurs through the agency of the plan. The plan in itself is no solution. But it is the indispensa- ble instrument of all solutions. Even if one starts with Knut Wicksell or John Maynard Keynes, one meets again and again the urgency of planning. In Mumford’s proposals to release man from the clutches of tech- nique, there is an interesting project for an economic regionalism on a world-wide plane. But this regionalism can, in fact, only be based on the exceedingly complete and rigid planning of produc- tion and distribution. Planning and Liberty. Everybody, or almost everybody, is con- vinced today of the effectiveness of the two techniques of interven- tion, norm and plan. And, in fact, in view of the challenges which not only nations but political and social systems hurl at one another, and even more, in view of the challenge that man is making to misery, distress, and hunger, it is difficult to see how the use of the means provided by planning could be avoided. In the complexity of economic phenomena arising from techniques, how could one justify refusal to employ a trenchant weapon that simplifies and re- solves all contradictions, orders incoherences, and rationalizes the excesses of production and consumption? And since the techniques of economic observation, if they are to have their full scope, issue directly in the technique of planning, and since there can be no question of renouncing the youthful vigor of these mathematical methods, how is it possible not to see them through to the end? TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 178 ) Yet a certain disquiet has appeared among those who cherish human freedom and democracy. They ask if planning is not an all- consuming force. They seek to set three kinds of limits to its power, represented by: (a) flexible planning, (b) the system of limited planning, and (c) the separation of the planning agency from the state (in short, what is usually called the reconciliation of liberty and socialism). No one accepts Friedrich August von Hayek’s proposition (in his Road to Serfdom) that planning is essentially evil. Conscientious economists are unable to renounce technical discovery. They seek a middle term.1 Is it to be a limited plan? But 1 See a compendium of ideological illusions concerning planning and liberty con- tained in a recent special number devoted to this question in the Indian Journal of Political Science. Ten or so articles attempt to demonstrate that planning is indeed indispensable but that it presents no danger at all to freedom. A complete unreality characterizes these articles. The position of the authors can be summarized as follows. First, they express the hope of saving freedom through liberal and partial plan- ning. (However, other authors in the same volume show that this hope is absurd and ineffective.) Second, the articles contain other formulas, equally absurd and without content. “Planning should have as its object the realization of freedom’'; “The more rational planning becomes, the greater the freedom of the people." These are mere affirmations, and one would seek in vain for corresponding realities or for a possible content. Some of these authors rely for proof of their propositions on a series of simple syllogisms. For example: “(1) Planning increases production, (a) Production allows the satisfaction of more needs. (3) The satisfaction of needs is the condition of freedom. Hence, planning is the condition of freedom.” This reasoning is faulty for two reasons. It is linear and takes no account of the complexity of the facts (for example, put a man in prison, give him everything he needs: he is nonetheless free). It derives its conclusion partly from an economic premise (the first) and partly from an ethical premise (the third), without attempting to distinguish the logical planes on which these premises lie. The third premise is, in any case, wholly questionable from a spiritual or ethical point of view. (I shall return later to a discussion of this.) But for these authors the principal hope of saving freedom, in this amazing theory, in the claim that an enlightened public opinion has the Dower to direct the decision of the planners toward the satisfaction of its real needs. In this case, one would indeed have democratic planning, collectivism on a voluntary base. But to reason like this is surely to move in a world of dreams. The good faith of these intellectuals compels one to think seriously of pathology. Can anyone really believe that, if public opinion wanted pastry shops, planning could be oriented toward these institutions, if, in addition, the other uses of flour had to be sacrificed? Can anyone really believe that public opinion would receive any satisfaction if it demanded footgear when tractors were needed? Such beliefs are simple nonsense. It will be maintained that public opinion does not really know what it needs . . . But then the technician makes the decision. We are familiar enough with the mechanism: first producer goods, then consumer goods. Of course, public opinion will be “consulted” after the technician has made his decision: “You would have preferred woolen goods? Technically impossible; we had to make them of cotton. Green? Unfortunately, there is no aniline. But you can choose between The Technological Society (179 then the problem is posed: where lies the limit? For some econo- mists, planning is a purely economic question bearing on key in- dustries. But the debate has lasted a century and no decision has been reached as to which industries are key industries. The deci- sion becomes even more difficult as categories change with time (the extraction of uranium, for example, was not a key industry twenty years ago) and as the interpenetration of economic activi- ties becomes greater and greater. It is becoming extremely diffi- cult to analyze the factors involved in production. Every part of the system is, directly or indirectly, dependent on all the others through financial repercussions or through the structure of labor. How, then, is it possible to set up a planned sector of the economy along- side an unplanned sector? When one rereads what was published on this problem only ten years ago, it is clear that these studies are completely out of date and have been rendered null and void by subsequent technical improvements. Let us assume that a plan has been made for a five-year period. If now the attempt is made to limit it to economics by allowing the greatest possible freedom outside this area (for example, by having no planning in the social domain), how can this economic plan possibly be viable? The problem of financing is necessarily raised even by a flexible and limited plan. It was clear, at the time of the discussion of the new phase of the Monnet plan (September, 1950), that bank credit, the appeal to private financing, was insufficient. It was necessary to turn to public financing. But this represented an enormous un- dertaking, even for the state. The state was obliged to concern it- self with the planning of its finances according to the more or less light red and dark red. See what freedom you have!” In effect, these authors seek to baptize obedience to technical necessity with the name freedom. They attempt to hide the real compulsions and write either out of blindness or hypocrisy. Only one of these articles is valid. Suda declares: "So much the worse for freedom. We can sacrifice it. In any case, on the plane of values, dedication to the common good is a higher ideal than freedom.” I cannot agree with this, but at least it allows us honestly to assess our situation. We encounter the same attempt at justification (in general, better supported but as unconvincing) in Entre la planification et la liberty, in which Dutch, French, Norwegian, and American authors study the prob- lem from very varied viewpoints (Revue Economique, March, 1953). These illusions are contradicted by Tibor Mende himself (India After 12 Years, 1959)- He shows that Indian agricultural planning (the communal projects of the villages) collapsed because it was not comprehensive and authoritarian. His com- arison of India with China is a clear demonstration that, in accordance with the criteria of yield and efficiency (the sole justified criteria of any planning), the most authoritarian methods are the most profitable. TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY l80 ) new totalitarian financial conception, which assumes control of the whole national revenue and affects every citizen. In order for the plan to be realized, the use of the labor force must also be integrated into it This is recognized by Great Britain, for example, in its conception of full employment. The application of the plan likewise presupposes planning of housing and of voca- tional guidance, apprenticeships, and schools. Moreover, it quickly becomes clear that there is a need too for social security (a neces- sary psychological and sociological element if full employment is to function without too violent a shock to human nature). This in- terrelation is not imaginary and gratuitous. Internal necessity con- nects the elements of the plan, and it is folly to think of breaking its links. Thus the plan, once adopted as method, tends perpetually to extend to new domains. To limit it would be to put the method in a position in which it cannot function—exactly as though one were to construct efficient automobiles but refuse to build adequate roads. The car could indeed run on narrow, rutted, and sandy roads, but it would not give the results for which it had been designed. Certain complementary given elements become proportionately more numerous as planning improves and modern society becomes more complicated. These mutual relationships render limited plan- ning impossible. The plan engenders itself, unless technique itself is renounced. The same situation holds if the planner aspires to adopt a flexi- ble plan or one independent of the state. In such a case the fun- damentals of the plan are not obligatory. The plan appears as mere advice concerning what would be desirable; the producers remain independent, the consumers have free choice, and the attitude of the individual prevails over the social. The flexible plan is subject to constant revisions and readjustments demanded by universal per- sonal freedom. The same holds true if the attempt is made to refer the organization of the plan to agencies other than the state: to narrower organisms, such as administrative divisions of specialized economic; organizations; or to organizations of wider scope, as, for example, international organizations. The appeal to international bodies is designed to vitiate the criticism of such writers as Hayek concerning the dangers of totalitarianism which arise when the state is in charge of the plan. The Technological Society (181 These different proposals are extremely deceptive. The flexible plan has only one defect; but that defect is crucial: the plan cannot be realized. The reason is simple. If the plan corresponds to the real nature of planning, it ought to fix objectives, which normally would not be attained by the play of self-interest and a modicum of effort. It must stretch productive forces to the maximum, arouse energies, and exploit existing means with the maximum of effi- ciency. (That planners do not always succeed, that administrative errors occur, and that not all planning invariably acts with the maxi- mum efficiency is no more a criticism of the system than errors of calculation are a criticism of mathematics.) But if the individual is allowed freedom of decision and there is no plan, he will not make the maximum effort required of him. If the industrialist is allowed to retain full independence, he will seek out other arrangements and not arrive at the objectives proposed. Hence, the plan, in or- der to be realized, must be paired with an apparatus of sanctions. This appears to be a veritable law of economics; planning is in- separably bound up with coercion. The individual does not realize spontaneously what is most ef- ficient. Nor do the workers conform spontaneously to Gilbreth’s '‘movements.*' The following alternative presents itself. Either the plan is flexible but is not realized, as experience shows: in spite of the propaganda about the Monnet plan, its objectives were only 70 per cent realized. The flexible plan of the Bulgarians (1947) was 37 per cent realized. The Monnet plan, which ought to have been completed in 1950, was actually completed in 1953, having taken twice the proposed time. In Vaction psychologique (1959), Mai- gret restudies the effect on the breakdown of the plan of the ab- sence of propaganda (which would have rendered the plan psy- chologically compulsory). It is useless to expend the great amount of labor which goes into a plan only to reach a stalemate. Or the plan must be realized, but at the cost of loading it with sanctions so that it becomes more rigid. Those who count on the good will of mankind display a delirious, idealistic optimism. Centuries of his- tory, despite the facts, have not been able to convince them of the contrary; reason certainly will not change them. But they are so far removed from reality that their opinion is negligible. The problem of sanctions brings planning into relation with the state. Anyone who claims that planning and the state are separable. TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY 182 ) or that local plans can be carried out (the TVA is always cited), has forgotten that local plans must be guaranteed by the state or they come to nothing. And this suffices to give back to the state all its prerogatives. It is evident (and Russia and Germany were no ex- ceptions) that it is not the state itself which creates the plan, but rather some specialized organism more or less dependent on it. As to the TVA, the source of this enterprise was the Roosevelt government, which performed operations of expropriation, made means available, and assured sanctions. How, then, is it possible to retain a belief in the independence of the plan? The bond between planning and the state is organic and not due to chance. At the minimum, the power of the state is required for a general examination of available resources and to put all the national forces to work. I do not use the word planning in the technical sense, as when one points to school-construction pro- grams or traffic-signal installations. Local entities are of course able to execute such programs. But they do not represent planning any more than does dike construction in the Netherlands. If they did, the "planning” of a house by an architect would have to fall under this category. As to international decisions (which might be cited as a proof of the separation of the plan from the state), these do not represent plans in the proper sense of the term (for instance, the Bretton Woods agreements). The sole hope of realization of international plans—for example, in Europe—rests, as we clearly see today, on the existence of a European state. This kind of plan- ning acquires substance only to the degree that such a state is con- stituted. This fact corroborates our thesis. Only a supranational state would be able to convince both the national states and the trusts to co-operate in a common economic operation. The Dawes and Young plans ended in failure because they had no means for genu- ine sanctions and no political power to support them. Conversely, we note that the Marshall Plan (which became the EC A) is im- perceptibly producing a political system. The Atlantic Pact is a cor- relative to the Marshall Plan, and Europe will begin to organize itself only in the event that the ECA is seen to be completely use- less unless it is applied to a politically ordered world. The Americans understood perfectly that the only alternative to a useless expenditure of money in the ECA was a European politi- cal organization. Unification, or even economic co-ordination, can- The Technological Society (18 3 not be conceived of independently. Mere understanding or good in- tentions can scarcely result in real planning. Again we are back at the necessary conditions for the realization of a planned economy. That in an ideal society the connection between plan and state is unnecessary, just as the need for penalties disappears in the case of the individual as he exists in himself, I am willing to admit. But that does not make me believe in such an ideal and take it as a reality. In fact, I note that techniques of knowledge engender and necessitate techniques of action, and techniques of action presup- pose certain conditions and developments in accordance with a true law which might be called the law of the extension of planning. This extension of planning does not necessarily bring about a so- cialist society. Private ownership of the means of production need not be modified in order to have a planned economy. Likewise, planning does not necessarily bring about a dictatorial state. The use of sanctions and propaganda can be accommodated to forms other than dictatorships. But when a technique invades a certain domain, in connection with planning, the technique effects its whole operation with completeness. It is useless to try to set limits to it or to seek some other mode of procedure. The Great Hopes Economic Systems Confronted by Technique. Jean Marchal is right in reducing to three systems the economic solutions presently recommended. Marchal’s three systems are; corporatism, planning, and liberal interventionism. But after having correctly observed that the system of planned economy is at bottom no more rational than the system of the market economy, he is wrong in adding that “the choice between the two systems follows more from philosophic preferences than from truly scientific considerations”; and that “nei- ther of these systems can pretend to a total rationality.” It is not philosophical preferences which weigh one system against the other, or which lead to the choice between them. If I ask myself which of the two ought logically to prevail, I am not referring to the “philosophical” choice of the masses. It is efficiency and success that lead history to adopt a certain direction—not man who in some sense makes a decision. The problem does not concern TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY l84) personal decision or preference; it is a question of discerning what seems most probable. At the present moment, what system is most efficient? I insist on the phrase at the present moment. It means nothing to explain that liberal capitalism was extraordinarily effi- cient a century ago. The statement is true and we do not wish to deny it. But what of the present moment? If we accept the idea that different human systems of action ought to correspond to different social, political, and economic circumstances, can we uphold the thesis that the past efficiency of liberal capitalism is a pledge of present efficiency? Let us remember that from the point of view of efficiency the Russian and German planned economies were successes. And the United States adopted a planned regime when it was challenged by war—it may be added, with all the care and precaution presupposed by the critical democratic sensibility of the Anglo-Saxons. Shortly after reconversion, in 1950, however, the Americans were obliged to embark on a new program. It was not merely an arma- ments program (which had certain advantages in connection with full employment), but a sound program encompassing a group of countries, as indicated by Truman’s Point Four. These programs presupposed a planned economy. It would seem that we are today unable to escape the facts. And the facts direct us toward the planned economy, regardless of our theoretical judgments in the matter. It is also often asked whether, after long periods of planned economy, the trend could be reversed. But this is another problem. We must ask why these fixed and rigid programs (which emerge in a planned economy) are adopted on a wider and wider scale, irrespective of doctrines and intentions. The only reply is that plan- ning permits us to do more quickly and more completely wliaievei appears desirable. Planning in modem society is the technical method. It does not necessarily represent the best economic solu- tion, but it does represent the best technical solution. We must de- mand of planning what it is able to do, and nothing else. Marchal, therefore, is right in saying that the planned economy is not more rational than the market economy. It is not at all certain that it will result in any greater savings. I understand that one of the pre- occupations of economic science is whether a result has been at- tained in the most economical manner possible. But this is possibly The Technological Society (185 only an abstract point of view and, in any case, is secondary. The same problem arises in war between one general who hesitates to sacrifice human life and another general who desires victory at any cost and is willing to sacrifice everything to gain it Unfortunately, our experience since the eighteenth century has been that the gen- eral who hesitates to make the sacrifice is always defeated. The same problem is posed by “dumping.” In speed, intensity, and co- herence, the technique of the plan proves superior. There may be waste. This is not completely certain. But it ought not to be for- gotten that the charge of waste was one of the keenest criticisms leveled against liberalism. It is possible that waste will be mitigated through an improvement of the technique. We are not presently in a position to say one way or the other. These observations might be summed up in the statement that in one case technique exists and in the other it does not. But things are not so simple. It is standard practice to set up in opposition the possible solutions; for example, corporatism and planning. But we should guard against the possibility that the contrast is com- pletely artificial. We should guard against abandoning ourselves to the judgment of the specialists. The important question is one of perspective. Every system is composed of different elements. We can put these elements in different perspectives and thereby arrive at different judgments. The specialist will fasten on certain specific elements. Either he will envisage a given system sub specie aeter- nitatis, in which case his judgment will be that the planned econ- omy and the corporate economy are clearly not identical. Or he will envisage the system from the viewpoint of practical realization in all the facets of its achievements. In this case the structure of a corporation (or the systems of corporative production) will again be judged not to be the same as the structure of the planned econ- omy in genuinely concrete details. These elements of a given system, which are important in their specificity, lose importance, however, if, instead of isolating the system, we try to reintegrate it into the complex of society and into the general course of history. What then takes on importance are the elements in their relation. Relations are of the highest im- portance, not mere internal consistency. It is the connections be- tween the economic system and the state (with its technical means, different classes, and structures in national form) which be- l86) TECHNIQUE AND ECONOMY come characteristic. And we do not mean here theoretical connec- tions, but real ones resulting from the internal necessity of the re- gime. From this point of view, the corporate economy and the planned economy come singularly close together, to the degree that both systems (a) take a firm hold on the economy, (b) man- age it on the basis of exact mathematical methods, (c) integrate it into a Promethean society which excludes all chance, (d) centralize it in the frameworks of nation and state (the corporate economy to- day has no chance of success except as a state system), (e) cause it to assume an aspect of formal democracy to the total exclusion of real democracy, and (/) exploit all possible techniques for con- trolling men. The kinship of the two systems is obvious in spite of differences in material structure. The end pursued by both the corporate economy and the planned economy, and the means adopted to reach this end, are identical. Only the outward forms change. It is useless to compare these forms. History will decide which form is best—best adapted to the common end. It does not seem to me to be exact, therefore, to hold that there are three possible economic pathways. There are only two. And only one of them entails the exploitation of these techniques; the other one ascribes the chief place to nature. (Here again is the old opposition between the natural and the artificial, the artificial repre- senting the expression of art: technS.) The complete identity, rather than the resemblance, between corporatism and planning ought to be noted. Corporatism is adapted to a traditional, culti- vated, bourgeois mentality; planning, to an innovating, proletarian, pseudo-scientific mentality. But the attitude of the two is funda- mentally the same. And, speaking objectively, the result, insofar as the real structure of human society is concerned, will be identical. As to the choice between the two, the system that can best utilize the techniques proposed by the economists will prevail. Up to now, there is no doubt that the planned society seems better able than the corporate society to utilize these techniques. The cor- porate society brings to bear a whole complex of nontechnical considerations (sentimental or doctrinaire) which the planned society rejects. It may be objected that in the planned society politics intervene on a major scale and that this is not technique. I would then ask The Technological Society (18 7 what kind of politics is meant. As we shall see, politics have tended to become technical in the countries that have adopted planning. The serious study of the opposition between politics and eco- nomics, and of the relations between them, dates back perhaps twenty years. This opposition has tended to bec