Unabomber’s Letter toThe New York Times

[[The Washington Post, September 19, 1995, Separate
Pullout. Note: single brackets [ ] are in the Post
document.]]

*This text was sent last June to The New York Times and
The Washington Post by the person who calls himself "FC,"
identified by the FBI as the Unabomber, whom authorities
have implicated in three murders and 16 bombings. The
author threatened to send a bomb to an unspecified
destination "with intent to kill " unless one of the
newspapers published this manuscript. The Attorney
General and the Director of the FBI recommended
publication. An article about the decision to publish the
document appears on the front page of today’s paper.*

INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE

INTRODUCTION

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have
been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly
increased the Iffe-expectancy of those of us who live in
"advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society,
have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings
to indignities, have led to widespread psychological
suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as
well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural
world. The continued development of technology will
worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human
being to greater indignities and inflict greater damage
on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater
social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may
lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced"
countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it
may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve
a low level of physical and psychological sutfering, but
only after passing through a long and very painful period
of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently
reducing human beings and many other living organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.
Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences
will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or
modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving
people of dignity and autonomy.

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

4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the
industrial system. This revolution may or may not make
use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a
relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We
can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very
general way the measures that those who hate the
industrial system should take in order to prepare the way
for a revolution against that form of society. This is
not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to
overthrow not governments but the economic and
technological basis of the present society.

5. In this article we give attention to only some of the
negative developments that have grown out of the
industrial-technological system. Other such developments
we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does
not mean that we regard these other developments as
unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our
discussion to areas that have received insufficient
public attention or in which we have something new to
say. For example, since there are well-developed
environmental and wilderness movements, we have written
very little about environmental degradation or the
destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these
to be highly important.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply
troubled society. One of the most widespread
manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism,
so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as
an introduction to the discussion of the problems of
modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th
century leftism could have been practically identified
with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it
is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When
we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind
mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct"
types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal
rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is
associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What
we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so
much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or
rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean
by "leftism" will emerge more clearly in the course of
our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also, see
paragraphs 227-230.)

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good
deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t
seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do
here is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two
psychological tendencies that we believe are the main
driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to
be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology.
Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism
only. We leave open the question of the extent to which
our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the
19th and early 20th centuries.

9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern
leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and
"oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are
characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while
oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain
segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly
influential.

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only
inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole
spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of
powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt,
self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to
have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed)
and that these feelings are decisive in determining the
direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything
that is said about him (or about groups with whom he
identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings
or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among
minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to
the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are
hypersensitive about the words used to designate
minorities and about anything that is said concerning
minorities. The terms "negro," "oriental," "handicapped"
or "chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or
a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. "Broad"
and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of
"guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have
been attached to these terms by the activists themselves.
Some animal rights activists have gone so far as to
reject the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by
"animal companion." Leftish anthropologists go to great
lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples
that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They
want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate."
They may seem almost paranoid about anything that might
suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to ours.
(We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE
inferior to ours. We merely point out the hyper
sensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically
incorrect" terminology are not the average black
ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled
person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not
even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from
privileged strata of society. Political correctness has
its stronghold among university professors, who have
secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the
majority of whom are heterosexual white males from
middle- to upper-middle-class families.

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the
problems of groups that have an image of being weak
(women), defeated (American Indians), repellent
(homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists
themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They
would never admit to themselves that they have such
feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these
groups as inferior that they identify with their
problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians,
etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about
leftist psychology.)

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women
are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are
nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as
capable as men.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of
being strong, good and successful. They hate America,
they hate Western civilization, they hate white males,
they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for
hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with
their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because
it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so
forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist
countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds
excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that
they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and
often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear
in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these
faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating
America and the West. He hates America and the West
because they are strong and successful.

16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance,"
"initiative," "enterprise," "optimism," etc., play little
role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist
is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants
society to solve every one’s problems for them, satisfy
everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not
the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence
in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his
own needs. The leftist is antagohistic to the concept of
competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals
tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else
they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational
control as if there were no hope of accomplishing
anything through rational calculation and all that was
left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the
moment.

18. Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason,
science, objective reality and to insist that everything
is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask
serious questions about the foundations of scientific
knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of
objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that
modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed
logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of
knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their
attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts
because of their own psychological needs. For one thing,
their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the
extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for
power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and
rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true
(i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false
(i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of
inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any
classification of some things as successful or superior
and other things as failed or inferior. This also
underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept
of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests.
Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of
human abilities or behavior because such explanations
tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to
others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or
blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if
a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but
society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose
feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist,
a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This
kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He
has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but
he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity
to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong
produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is
too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so
ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as
individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism
of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a
large organization or a mass movement with which he
identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics.
Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they
intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them,
etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many
leftists use them not as a means to an end but because
they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist
trait.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated
by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle
does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized
type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the
main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too
prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the
drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not
rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom
the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if
one believes that affirmative action is good for black
people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action
in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more
productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach
that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions
to white people who think that affirmative action
discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not
take such an approach because it would not satisfy their
emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real
goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them
to express their own hostility and frustrated need for
power. In doing so they actually harm black people,
because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white
majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the
leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to
provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to
be an accurate description of everyone who might be
considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a
general tendency of leftism.

OVERSOCIALIZATION

24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to
designate the process by which children are trained to
think and act as society demands. A person is said to be
well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral
code of his society and fits in well as a functioning
part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that
many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is
perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be
defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no
one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way.
For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet
almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other,
whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are
so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and
act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to
avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive
themselves about their own motives and find moral
explanations for feelings and actions that in reality
have a nonmoral origin. We use the term "oversocialized"
to describe such people. [2]

26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a
sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the
most important means by which our society socializes
children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or
speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If
this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially
susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed
of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the
oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s
expectations than are those of the lightly socialized
person. The majority of people engage in a significant
amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty
thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work,
they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use
some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The
oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he
does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and
self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even
experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are
contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think
"unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a
matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many
norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of
morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a
psychological leash and spends his life running on rails
that society has laid down for him. In many
oversocialized people this results in a sense of
constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe
hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the
more serious cruelties that human being inflict on one
another.

27. We argue that a very important and influential
segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that
their oversocialization is of great importance in
determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of
the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or
members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university
intellectuals [3] constitute the most highly socialized
segment of our society and also the most leftwing
segment.

28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get
off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by
rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel
against the most basic values of society. Generally
speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in
conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the
left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its
own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating
that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of
the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war,
nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to
animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual
to serve society and the duty of society to take care of
the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values
of our society (or at least of its middle and upper
classes [4] for a long time. These values are explicitly
or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the
material presented to us by the mainstream communications
media and the educational system. Leftists, especially
those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel
against these principles but justify their hostility to
society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that
society is not living up to these principles.

29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the
oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the
conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to
be in rebellion aginst it. Many leftists push for
affirmative action, for moving black people into
high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black
schools and more money for such schools; the way of life
of the black "underclass" they regard as a social
disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the
system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a
scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The
leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to
make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead,
they want to preserve African American culture. But in
what does this preservation of African American culture
consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than
eating black-style food, listening to black-style music,
wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style
church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself
only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects
most leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the
black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They
want to make him study technical subjects, become an
executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the
status ladder to prove that black people are as good as
white. They want to make black fathers "responsible,"
they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But
these are exactly the values of the industrial-
technological system. The system couldn’t care less what
kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he
wears or what religion he believes in as long as he
studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the
status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent
and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the
oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man
into the system and make him adopt its values.

30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the
oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental
values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some
oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel
against one of modern society’s most important principles
by engaging in physical violence. By their own account,
violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other
words, by committing violence they break through the
psychological restraints that have been trained into
them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints
have been more confining for them than for others; hence
their need to break free of them. But they usually
justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If
they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against
racism or the like.

31. We realize that many objections could be raised to
the foregoing thumbnail sketch of leftist psychology. The
real situation is complex, and anything like a complete
description of it would take several volumes even if the
necessary data were available. We claim only to have
indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies
in the psychology of modern leftism.

32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the
problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem,
depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to
the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the
left, they are widespread in our society. And today’s
society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than
any previous society. We are even told by experts how to
eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our
kids and so forth.

THE POWER PROCESS

33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology)
for something that we will call the "power process." This
is closely related to the need for power (which is widely
recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power
process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of
these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal.
(Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires
effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some
of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to
define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it
autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).

34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have
anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has
power, but he will develop serious psychological
problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and
by he will become acutely bored and demoralized.
Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History
shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become
decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that
have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured,
secure aristocracies that have no need to exert
themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and
demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that
power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to
exercise one’s power.

35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the
physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever
clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate.
But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without
effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.

36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if
the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if
nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival.
Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life
results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological
problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment
requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of
success in attaining his goals.

SURROGATE ACTIVITIES

38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and
demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead
of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to
marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished.
When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy
their physical needs they often set up artificial goals
for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these
goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that
they otherwise would have put into the search for
physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman
Empire had their literary pretensions; many European
aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time
and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn’t need
the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status
through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few
aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.

39. We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an
activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that
people set up for themselves merely in order to have some
goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the qake
of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the
goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of
surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much
time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself
this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to
satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort
required him to use his physical and mental faculties in
a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously
deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer
is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate
activity. Hirohito’s studies in marine biology clearly
constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty
certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time
working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to
obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt
deprived because he didn’t know all about the anatomy and
life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the
pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate
activity, because most people, even if their existence
were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they
passed their lives without ever having a relationship
with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an
excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can
be a surrogate activity.)

40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is
necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough
to go through a training program to acquire some petty
technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the
very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only
requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and,
most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society
takes care of one from cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an
underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for
granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.)
Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of
surrogate activities. These include scientific work,
athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and
literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder,
acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the
point at which they cease to give any additional physical
satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses
issues that are not important for the activist
personally, as in the case of white activists who work
for the rights of nonwhite minorities. These are not
always PURE surrogate activities, since for many people
they may be motivated in part by needs other than the
need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be
motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic
creation by a need to express feelings, militant social
activism by hostility. But for most people who pursue
them, these activities are in large part surrogate
activities. For example, the majority of scientists will
probably agree that the "fulfillment" they get from their
work is more important than the money and prestige they
earn.

41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are
less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is,
goals that people would want to attain even if their need
for the power process were already fulfilled). One
indication of this is the fact that, in many or most
cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate
activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the
money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth.
The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves
on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself
to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue
surrogate activities will say that they get far more
fulfillment from these activities than they do from the
"mundane" business of satisfying their biological needs,
but that is because in our society the effort needed to
satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to
triviality. More importantly, in our society people do
not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by
functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In
contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy
in pursuing their surrogate activities.

AUTONOMY

42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be
necessary for every individual. But most people need a
greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward
their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their
own initiative and must be under their own direction and
control. Yet most people do not have to exert this
initiative, direction and control as single individuals.
It is usually enough to act as a member of a SMALL group.
Thus if half a dozen people discuss a goal among
themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain
that goal, their need for the power process will be
served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down
from above that leave them no room for autonomous
decision and initiative, then their need for the power
process will not be served. The same is true when
decisions are made on a collective basis if the group
making the collective decision is so large that the role
of each individual is insignificant. [5]

43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little
need for autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak
or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some
powerful organization to which they belong. And then
there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be
satisfied with a purely physical sense of power (the good
combat soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing
fighting skills that he is quite content to use in blind
obedience to his superiors).

44. But for most people it is through the power process
having a goal, making an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining
the goal — that self-esteem, self-confidence and a sense
of power are acquired. When one does not have adequate
opportunity to go through the power process the
consequences are (depending on the individual and on the
way the power process is disrupted) boredom,
demoralization, low self-esteem, inferiority feelings,
defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration,
hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism,
abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating
disorders. etc. [6]

SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any
society, but in modern industrial society they are
present on a massive scale. We aren’t the first to
mention that the world today seems to be going crazy.
This sort of thing is not normal for human societies.
There is good reason to believe that primitive man
suffered from less stress and frustration and was better
satisfied with his way of life than modern man is. It is
true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive
societies. Abuse of women was common among the Australian
aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of
the American Indian tribes. But it does appear that
GENERALLY SPEAKING the kinds of problems that we have
listed in the preceding paragraph were far less common
among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.

46. We attribute the social and psychological problems of
modern society to the fact that that society requires
people to live under conditions radically different from
those under which the human race evolved and to behave in
ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the
human race developed while living under the earlier
conditions. It is clear from what we have already written
that we consider lack of opportunity to properly
experience the power process as the most important of the
abnormal conditions to which modern society subjects
people. But it is not the only one. Before dealing with
disruption of the power process as a source of social
problems we will discuss some of the other sources.

47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern
industrial society are excessive density of population,
isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of
social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale
communities such as the extended family, the village or
the tribe.

48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and
aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and
the isolation of man from nature are consequences of
technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were
predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly
increased the size of cities and the proportion of the
population that lives in them, and modern agricultural
technology has made it possible for the Earth to support
a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also,
technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it
puts increased disruptive powers in people’s hands. For
example, a variety of noise-making devices: power mowers,
radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is
unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are
frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted,
people who use the devices are frustrated by the
regulations. But if these machines had never been
invented there would have been no conflict and no
frustration generated by them.)

49. For primitive societies the natural world (which
usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework
and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it
is human society that dominates nature rather than the
other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly
owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable
framework.

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

51. The breakdown of traditional values to some extent
implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together
traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration
of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact
that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals
to move to new locations, separating themselves from
their communities. Beyond that, a technological society
HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is
to function efficiently. In modern society an
individual’s loyalty must be first to the system and only
secondarily to a smallscale community, because if the
internal loyalties of small-scale communities were
stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities
would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the
system.

52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation
executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his
co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the
person best qualified for the job. He has permitted
personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system,
and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which
are terrible sins in modern society. Would-be industrial
societies that have done a poor job of subordinating
personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are
usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus
an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those
small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and
made into tools of the system. [7]

53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of
communities have been widely recognized as sources of
social problems. But we do not believe tbey are enough to
account for the extent of the problems that are seen
today.

54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and
crowded, yet their inhabitants do not seem to have
suffered from psychological problems to the same extent
as modern man. In America today there still are uncrowded
rural areas, and we find there the same problems as in
urban areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in
the rural areas. Thus crowding does not seem to be the
decisive factor.

55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during
the 19th century, the mobility of the population probably
broke down extended families and small-scale social
groups to at least the same extent as these are broken
down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by
choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within
several miles, that they belonged to no community at all,
yet they do not seem to have developed problems as a
result.

56. Furthermore, change in American frontier society was
very rapid and deep. A man might be born and raised in a
log cabin, outside the reach of law and order and fed
largely on wild meat; and by the time he arrived at old
age he might be working at a regular job and living in an
ordered community with effective law enforcement. This
was a deeper change than that which typically occurs in
the life of a modern individual, yet it does not seem to
have led to psychological problems. In fact, 19th century
American society had an optimistic and self-confident
tone, quite unlike that of today’s society. [8]

57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the
sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him,
whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also
largely justified) that he created change himself, by his
own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of
his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own
effort. In those days an entire county might have only a
couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated
and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the
pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively
small group in the creation of a new, ordered community.
One may well question whether the creation of this
community was an improvement, but at any rate it
satisfied the pioneer’s need for the power process.

58. It would be possible to give other examples of
societies in which there has been rapid change and/or
lack of close community ties without the kind of massive
behavioral aberration that is seen in today’s industrial
society. We contend that the most important cause of
social and psychological problems in modern society is
the fact that people have insufficient opportunity to go
through the power process in a normal way. We don’t mean
to say that modern society is the only one in which the
power process has been disrupted. Probably most if not
all civilized societies have interfered with the power
process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern
industrial society the problem has become particularly
acute. Leftism, at least in its recent (mid- to late-20th
century) form, is in part a symptom of deprivation with
respect to the power process.

DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY

59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those
drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2)
those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of
serious effort; (3) those that cannot be adequately
satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power
process is the process of satisfying the drives of the
second group. The more drives there are in the third
group, the more there is frustration, anger, eventually
defeatism, depression, etc.

60. In modern industrial society natural human drives
tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and
the second group tends to consist increasingly of
artificially created drives.

61. In primitive societies, physical necessities
generally fall into group 2: They can be obtained, but
only at the cost of serious effort. But modern society
tends to guaranty the physical necessities to everyone
[9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical
needs are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement
about whether the effort needed to hold a job is
"minimal"; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs,
whatever effort is required is merely that of OBEDIENCE.
You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and
do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do
it. Seldom do you have to exert yourself seriously, and
in any case you have hardly any autonomy in work, so that
the need for the power process is not well served.)

62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often
remain in group 2 in modern society, depending on the
situation of the individual. [10] But, except for people
who have a particularly strong drive for status, the
effort required to fulfill the social drives is
insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power
process.

63. So certain artificial needs have been created that
fall into group 2, hence serve the need for the power
process. Advertising and marketing techniques have been
developed that make many people feel they need things
that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of.
It requires serious effort to earn enough money to
satisfy these artificial needs, hence they fall into
group 2. (But see paragraphs 80-82.) Modern man must
satisfy his need for the power process largely through
pursuit of the artificial needs created by the
advertising and marketing industry [11], and through
surrogate activities.

64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority,
these artificial forms of the power process are
insufficient. A theme that appears repeatediy in the
writings of the social critics of the second half of the
20th century is the sense of purposelessness that
afflicts many people in modern society. (This
purposelessness is often called by other names such as
"anomic" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest that the
so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a
sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable
surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in
large part a response to the purposelessness of modern
life. [12] Very widespread in modern society is the
search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the
majority of people an activity whose main goal is
fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not
bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other
words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power
process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully
satisfied only through activities that have some external
goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status,
revenge, etc.

65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning
money, climbing the status ladder or functioning as part
of the system in some other way, most people are not in
a position to pursue their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most
workers are someone else’s employee and, as we pointed
out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what
they are told to do in the way they are told to do it.
Even people who are in business for themselves have only
limited autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of
small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands
are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of
these regulations are doubtless unnecessary, but for the
most part government regulations are essential and
inevitable parts of our extremely complex society. A
large portion of small business today operates on the
franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street
Journal a few years ago that many of the
franchise-granting companies require applicants for
franchises to take a personality test that is designed to
EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because
such persons are not sufficiently docile to go along
obediently with the franchise system. This excludes from
small business many of the people who most need autonomy.

66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system
does FOR them or TO them than by virtue of what they do
for themselves. And what they do for themselves is done
more and more along channels laid down by the system.
Opportunities tend to be those that the system provides,
the opportunities must be exploited in accord with rules
and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by
experts must be followed if there is to be a chance of
success.

67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society
through a deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of
autonomy in the pursuit of goals. But it is also
disrupted because of those human drives that fall into
group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no
matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is
the need for security. Our lives depend on decisions made
by other people; we have no control over these decisions
and usually we do not even know the people who make them.
("We live in a world in which relatively few people –
maybe 500 or 1,000 make the important decisions" –
Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by
Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 21,1995.) Our lives
depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power
plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is
allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into
our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is;
whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made
by government economists or corporation executives; and
so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to
secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a
very limited extent. The individual’s search for security
is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of
powerlessness.

68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically
less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter
life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not
more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for
human beings. But psychological security does not closely
correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL
secure is not so much objective security as a sense of
confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves.
Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by
hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of
food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts,
but he is by no means helpless against the things that
threaten him. The modern individual on the other hand is
threatened by many things against which he is helpless:
nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental
pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy
by large organizations, nationwide social or economic
phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.

69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against
some of the things that threaten him; disease for
example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically.
It is part of the nature of things, it is no one’s fault,
unless it is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal
demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be
MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are
IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an
individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels
frustrated, humiliated and angry.

70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security
in his own hands (either as an individual or as a member
of a SMALL group) whereas the security of modern man is
in the hands of persons or organizations that are too
remote or too large for him to be able personally to
influence them. So modern man’s drive for security tends
to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter
etc.) his security is assured at the cost of only trivial
effort, whereas in other areas he CANNOT attain security.
(The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but
it does indicate in a rough, general way how the
condition of modern man differs from that of primitive
man.)

71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that
are necessarily frustrated in modern life, hence fall
into group 3. One may become angry, but modern society
cannot permit fighting. In many situations it does not
even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one
may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel
slowly, but one generally has no choice but to move with
the flow of traffic and obey the traffic signals. One may
want to do one’s work in a different way, but usually one
can work only according to the rules laid down by one’s
employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is
strapped down by a network of rules and regulations
(explicit or implicit) that frustrate many of his
impulses and thus interfere with the power process. Most
of these regulations cannot be dispensed with, because
they are necessary for the functioning of industrial
society.

72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely
permissive. In matters that are irrelevant to the
functioning of the system we can generally do what we
please. We can believe in any religion (as long as it
does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the
system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as
we practice "safe sex"). We can do anything we like as
long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters
the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.

73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules
and not only by the government. Control is often
exercised through indirect coercion or through
psychological pressure or manipulation, and by
organizations other than the government, or by the system
as a whole. Most large organizations use some form of
propaganda [14] to manipulate public attitudes or
behavior. Propaganda is not limited to "commercials" and
advertisements, and sometimes it is not even consciously
intended as propaganda by the people who make it. For
instance, the content of entertainment programming is a
powerful form of propaganda. An example of indirect
coercion: There is no law that says we have to go to work
every day and follow our employer’s orders. Legally there
is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild
like primitive people or from going into business for
ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild
country left, and there is room in the economy for only
a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of
us can survive only as someone else’s employee.

74. We suggest that modern man’s obsession with
longevity, and with maintaining physical vigor and sexual
attractiveness to an advanced age, is a symptom of
unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to
the power process. The "mid-lffe crisis" also is such a
symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children
that is fairly common in modern society but almost
unheard-of in primitive societies.

75. In primitive societies life is a succession of
stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been
fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about
passing on to the next stage. A young man goes through
the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for
sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is
necessary for food. (In young women the process is more
complex, with greater emphasis on social power; we won’t
discuss that here.) This phase having been successfully
passed through, the young man has no reluctance about
settling down to the responsibilities of raising a
family. (In contrast, some modern people indefinitely
postpone having children because they are too busy
seeking some kind of "fulfillment." We suggest that the
fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power
process — with real goals instead of the artificial
goals of surrogate activities.) Again, having
successfully raised his children, going through the power
process by providing them with the physical necessities,
the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is
prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and
death. any modern people, on the other hand, are
disturbed by the prospect of physical deterioration and
death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend
trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance
and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment
resulting from the fact that they have never put their
physical powers to any practical use, have never gone
through the power process using their bodies in a serious
way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body
daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration
of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical
use for his body beyond walking from his car to his
house. It is the man whose need for the power process has
been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to
accept the end of that life.

76. In response to the arguments of this section someone
will say, "Society must find a way to give people the
opportunity to go through the power process." For such
people the value of the opportunity is destroyed by the
very fact that society gives it to them. What they need
is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as
the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has
them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off
that leash.

HOW SOME PEOPLE ADJUST

77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society
suffers from psychological problems. Some people even
profess to be quite satisfied with society as it is. We
now discuss some of the reasons why people differ so
greatly in their response to modern society.

78. First, there doubtless are differences in the
strength of the drive for power. Individuals with a weak
drive for power may have relatively little need to go
through the power process, or at least relatively little
need for autonomy in the power process. These are docile
types who would have been happy as plantation darkies in
the Old South. (We don’t mean to sneer at the "plantation
darkies" of the Old South. To their credit, most of the
slaves were NOT content with their servitude. We do sneer
at people who ARE content with servitude.)

79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in
pursuing which they satisfy their need for the power
process. For example, those who have an unusually strong
drive for social status may spend their whole lives
climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored
with that game.

80. People vary in their susceptibility to advertising
and marketing techniques. Some are so susceptible that,
even if they make a great deal of money, they cannot
satisfy their constant craving for the the shiny new toys
that the marketing industry dangles before their eyes. So
they always feel hard-pressed financially even if their
income is large, and their cravings are frustrated.

81. Some people have low susceptibility to advertising
and marketing techniques. These are the people who aren’t
interested in money. Material acquisition does not serve
their need for the power process.

82. People who have medium susceptibility to advertising
and marketing techniques are able to earn enough money to
satisfy their craving for goods and services, but only at
the cost of serious effort (putting in overtime, taking
a second job, earning promotions, etc.). Thus material
acquisition serves their need for the power process. But
it does not necessarily follow that their need is fully
satisfied. They may have insufficient autonomy in the
power process (their work may consist of following
orders) and some of their drives may be frustrated (e.g.,
security, aggression). (We are guilty of
oversimplification in paragraphs 80-82 because we have
assumed that the desire for material acquisition is
entirely a creation of the advertising and marketing
industry. Of course it’s not that simple. [11]

83. Some people partly satisfy their need for power by
identifying themselves with a powerful organization or
mass movement. An individual lacking goals or power joins
a movement or an organization, adopts its goals as his
own, then works toward those goals. When some of the
goals are attained, the individual, even though his
personal efforts have played only an insignificant part
in the attainment of the goals, feels (through his
identification with the movement or organization) as if
he had gone through the power process. This phenomenon
was exploited by the fascists, nazis and communists. Our
society uses it too, though less crudely. Example: Manuel
Noriega was an irritant to the U.S. (goal: punish
Noriega). The U.S. invaded Panama (effort) and punished
Noriega (attainment of goal). Thus the U.S. went through
the power process and many Americans, because of their
identification with the U.S., experienced the power
process vicariously. Hence the widespread public approval
of the Panama invasion; it gave people a sense of power.
[15] We see the same phenomenon in armies, corporations,
political parties, humanitarian organizations, religious
or ideological movements. In particular, leftist
movements tend to attract people who are seeking to
satisfy their need for power. But for most people
identification with a large organization or a mass
movement does not fully satisfy the need for power.

84. Another way in which people satisfy their need for
the power process is through surrogate activities. As we
explained in paragraphs 38-40, a surrogate activity is an
activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that
the individual pursues for the sake of the "fulfillment"
that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs
to attain the goal itself. For instance, there is no
practical motive for building enormous muscles, hitting
a little ball into a hole or acquiring a complete series
of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society devote
themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or
stamp-collecting. Some people are more "other-directed"
than others, and therefore will more readily attach
importance to a surrogate activity simply because the
people around them treat it as important or because
society tells them it is important. That is why some
people get very serious about essentially trivial
activities such as sports, or bridge, or chess, or arcane
scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are more
clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the
surrogate activities that they are, and consequently
never attach enough importance to them to satisfy their
need for the power process in that way. It only remains
to point out that in many cases a person’s way of earning
a living is also a surrogate activity. Not a PURE
surrogate activity, since part of the motive for the
activity is to gain the physical necessities and (for
some people) social status and the luxuries that
advertising makes them want. But many people put into
their work far more effort than is necessary to earn
whatever money and status they require, and this extra
effort constitutes a surrogate activity. This extra
effort, together with the emotional investment that
accompanies it, is one of the most potent forces acting
toward the continual development and perfecting of the
system, with negative consequences for individual freedom
(see paragraph 131). Especially, for the most creative
scientists and engineers, work tends to be largely a
surrogate activity. This point is so important that it
deserves a separate discussion, which we shall give in a
moment (paragraphs 87-92).

85. In this section we have explained how many people in
modern society do satisfy their need for the power
process to a greater or lesser extent. But we think that
for the majority of people the need for the power process
is not fully satisfied. In the first place, those who
have an insatiable drive for status, or who get firmly
"hooked" on a surrogate activity, or who identify
strongly enough with a movement or organization to
satisfy their need for power in that way, are exceptional
personalities. Others are not fully satisfied with
surrogate activities or by identification with an
organization (see paragraphs 41, 64). In the second
place, too much control is imposed by the system through
explicit regulation or through socialization, which
results in a deficiency of autonomy, and in frustration
due to the impossibility of attaining certain goals and
the necessity of restraining too many impulses.

86. But even if most people in industrial-technological
society were well satisfied, we (FC) would still be
opposed to that form of society, because (among other
reasons) we consider it demeaning to fulfill one’s need
for the power process through surrogate activities or
through identification with an organization, rather than
through pursuit of real goals.

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS

87. Science and technology provide the most important
examples of surrogate activities. Some scientists claim
that they are motivated by "curiosity" or by a desire to
"benefit humanity." But it is easy to see that neither of
these can be the principal motive of most scientists. As
for "curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most
scientists work on highly specialized problems that are
not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is
an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious
about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of
course not. Only a chemist is curious about such a thing,
and he is curious about it only because chemistry is his
surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the
appropriate classification of a new species of beetle?
No. That question is of interest only to the
entomologist, and he is interested in it only because
entomology is his surrogate activity. If the chemist and
the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to
obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort
exercised their abilities in an interesting way but in
some nonscientific pursuit, then they wouldn’t give a
damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the
classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds for
postgraduate education had led the chemist to become an
insurance broker instead of a chemist. In that case he
would have been very interested in insurance matters but
would have cared nothing about isopropyltrimethylmethane.
In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction
of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that
scientists put into their work. The "curiosity"
explanation for the scientists’ motive just doesn’t stand
up.

88. The "benefit of humanity" explanation doesn’t work
any better. Some scientific work has no conceivable
relation to the welfare of the human race most of
archaeology or comparative linguistics for example. Some
other areas of science present obviously dangerous
possibilities. Yet scientists in these areas are just as
enthusiastic about their work as those who develop
vaccines or study air pollution. Consider the case of Dr.
Edward Teller, who had an obvious emotional involvement
in promoting nuclear power plants. Did this involvement
stem from a desire to benefit humanity? If so, then why
didn’t Dr. Teller get emotional about other
"humanitarian" causes? If he was such a humanitarian then
why did he help to develop the H-bomb? As with many other
scientific achievements, it is very much open to question
whether nuclear power plants actually do benefit
humanity. Does the cheap electricity outweigh the
accumulating waste and the risk of accidents? Dr. Teller
saw only one side of the question. Clearly his emotional
involvement with nuclear power arose not from a desire to
"benefit humanity" but from a personal fulfillment he got
from his work and from seeing it put to practical use.

89. The same is true of scientists generally. With
possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither
curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need
to go through the power process: to have a goal (a
scientific problem to solve), to make an effort
(research) and to attain the goal (solution of the
problem.) Science is a surrogate activity because
scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out
of the work itself.

90. Of course, it’s not that simple. Other motives do
play a role for many scientists. Money and status for
example. Some scientists may be persons of the type who
have an insatiable drive for status (see paragraph 79)
and this may provide much of the motivation for their
work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the
majority of the general population, are more or less
susceptible to advertising and marketing techniques and
need money to satisfy their craving for goods and
services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity.
But it is in large part a surrogate activity.

91. Also, science and technology constitute a power mass
movement, and many scientists gratify their need for
power through identification with this mass movement (see
paragraph 83).

92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to
the real welfare of the human race or to any other
standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the
scientists and of the government of ficials and
corporation executives who provide the funds for
research.

THE NATURE OF FREEDOM

93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological
society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it
from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom.
But, because "freedom" is a word that can be interpreted
in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of
freedom we are concerned with.

94. By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through
the power process, with real goals not the artificial
goals of surrogate activities, and without interference,
manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from
any large organization. Freedom means being in control
(either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group)
of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence; food,
clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats
there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having
power; not the power to control other people but the
power to control the circumstances of one’s own life. One
does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large
organization) has power over one, no matter how
benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may
be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with
mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).

95. It is said that we live in a free society because we
have a certain number of constitutionally guaranteed
rights. But these are not as important as they seem. The
degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is
determined more by the economic and technological
structure of the society than by its laws or its form of
government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New
England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the
Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in
reading about these societies one gets the impression
that they allowed far more personal freedom than our
society does. In part this was because they lacked
efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler’s will:
There were no modern, well-organized police forces, no
rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance
cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of
average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade
control.

96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for
example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don’t
mean to knock that right; it is very important tool for
limiting concentration of political power and for keeping
those who do have political power in line by publicly
exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of
the press is of very little use to the average citizen as
an individual. The mass media are mostly under the
control of large organizations that are integrated into
the system. Anyone who has a little money can have
something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet
or in some such way, but what he has to say will be
swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the
media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an
impression on society with words is therefore almost
impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us
(FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent
and had submitted the present writings to a publisher,
they probably would not have been accepted. If they had
been been accepted and published, they probably would not
have attracted many readers, because it’s more fun to
watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read
a sober essay. Even ff these writings had had many
readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten
what they had read as their minds were flooded by the
mass of material to which the media expose them. In order
to get our message before the public with some chance of
making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people.

97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but
they do not serve to guarantee much more than what might
be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According
to the bourgeois conception, a "free" man is essentially
an element of a social machine and has only a certain set
of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are
designed to serve the needs of the social machine more
than those of the individual. Thus the bourgeois’s "free"
man has economic freedom because that promotes growth and
progress; he has freedom of the press because public
criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders; he
has a right to a fair trial because imprisonment at the
whim of the powerful would be bad for the system. This
was clearly the attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people
deserved liberty only if they used it to promote progress
(progress as conceived by the bourgeois). Other bourgeois
thinkers have taken a similar view of freedom as a mere
means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, "Chinese
Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 202,
explains the philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu
Han-min: "An individual is granted rights because he is
a member of society and his community life requires such
rights. By community Hu meant the whole society of the
nation." And on page 259 Tan states that according to
Carsum Chang (Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist
Party in China) freedom had to be used in the interest of
the state and of the people as a whole. But what kind of
freedom does one have if one can use it only as someone
else prescribes? FC’s conception of freedom is not that
of Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The
trouble with such theorists is that they have made the
development and application of social theories their
surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are
designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than
the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live
in a society on which the theories are imposed.

98. One more point to be made in this section: It should
not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just
because he SAYS he has enough. Freedom is restricted in
part by psychological controls of which people are
unconscious, and moreover many people’s ideas of what
constitutes freedom are governed more by social
convention than by their real needs. For example, it’s
likely that many leftists of the oversocialized type
would say that most people, including themselves, are
socialized too little rather than too much, yet the
oversocialized leftist pays a heavy psychological price
for his high level of socialization.

SOME PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY

99. Think of history as being the sum of two components:
an erratic component that consists of unpredictable
events that follow no discernible pattern, and a regular
component that consists of long-term historical trends.
Here we are concerned with the long-term trends.

100. FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that
affects a long-term historical trend, then the effect of
that change will almost always be transitory — the trend
will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A
reform movement designed to clean up political corruption
in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect;
sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps
back in. The level of political corruption in a given
society tends to remain constant, or to change only
slowly with the evolution of the society. Normally, a
political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied
by widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the
society won’t be enough.) If a small change in a
long-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is
only because the change acts in the direction in which
the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not
altered by only pushed a step ahead.

101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a
trend were not stable with respect to small changes, it
would wander at random rather than following a definite
direction; in other words it would not be a long-term
trend at all.

102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is
sufficiently large to alter permanently a long-term
historical trend, then it will alter the society as a
whole. In other words, a society is a system in which all
parts are interrelated, and you can’t permanently change
any important part without changing all other parts as
well.

103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large
enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the
consequences for the society as a whole cannot be
predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies
have passed through the same change and have all
experienced the same consequences, in which case one can
predict on empirical grounds that another society that
passes through the same change will be like to experience
similar consequences.)

104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be
designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new
form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it
to function as it was designed to do.

105. The third and fourth principles result from the
complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior
will affect the economy of a society and its physical
environment; the economy will affect the environment and
vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the
environment will affect human behavior in complex,
unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes
and effects is far too complex to be untangled and
understood.

106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and
rationally choose the form of their society. Societies
develop through processes of social evolution that are
not under rational human control.

107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other
four.

108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally
speaking an attempt at social reform either acts in the
direction in which the society is developing anyway (so
that it merely accelerates a change that would have
occurred in any case) or else it has only a transitory
effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old
groove. To make a lasting change in the direction of
development of any important aspect of a society, reform
is insufficient and revolution is required. (A revolution
does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or the
overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a
revolution never changes only one aspect of a society, it
changes the whole society; and by the third principle
changes occur that were never expected or desired by the
revolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when
revolutionaries or utopians set up a new kind of society,
it never works out as planned.

109. The American Revolution does not provide a
counterexample. The American "Revolution" was not a
revolution in our sense of the word, but a war of
independence followed by a rather far-reaching political
reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the
direction of development of American society, nor did
they aspire to do so. They only freed the development of
American society from the retarding effect of British
rule. Their political reform did not change any basic
trend, but only pushed American political culture along
its natural direction of development. British society, of
which American society was an offshoot, had been moving
for a long time in the direction of representative
democracy. And prior to the War of Independence the
Americans were already practicing a significant degree of
representative democracy in the colonial assemblies. The
political system established by the Constitution was
modeled on the British system and on the colonial
assemblies. With major alteration, to be sure — there is
no doubt that the Founding Fathers took a very important
step. But it was a step along the road that
English-speaking world was already traveling. The proof
is that Britain and all of its colonies that were
populated predominantly by people of British descent
ended up with systems of representative democracy
essentially similar to that of the United States. If the
Founding Fathers had lost their nerve and declined to
sign the Declaration of Independence, our way of lffe
today would not have been significantly different. Maybe
we would have had somewhat closer ties to Britain, and
would have had a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of
a Congress and President. No big deal. Thus the American
Revolution provides not a counterexample to our
principles but a good illustration of them.

110. Still, one has to use common sense in applying the
principles. They are expressed in imprecise language that
allows latitude for interpretation, and exceptions to
them can be found. So we present these principles not as
inviolable laws but as rules of thumb, or guides to
thinking, that may provide a partial antidote to naive
ideas about the future of society. The principles should
be borne constantly in mind, and whenever one reaches a
conciusion that conflicts with them one should carefully
reexamine one’s thinking and retain the conclusion only
if one has good, solid reasons for doing so.

INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED

111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly
difficult it would be to reform the industrial system in
such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing
our sphere of freedom. There has been a consistent
tendency, going back at least to the Industrial
Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at a
high cost in individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence
any change designed to protect freedom from technology
would be contrary to a fundamental trend in the
development of our society. Consequently, such a change
either would be a transitory one — soon swamped by the
tide of history — or, if large enough to be permanent
would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the
first and second principles. Moreover, since society
would be altered in a way that could not be predicted in
advance (third principle) there would be great risk.
Changes large enough to make a lasting difference in
favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would
be realized that they would gravely disrupt the system.
So any attempts at reform would be too timid to be
effective. Even if changes large enough to make a lasting
difference were initiated, they would be retracted when
their disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent
changes in favor of freedom could be brought about only
by persons prepared to accept radical, dangerous and
unpredictable alteration of the entire system. In other
words by revolutionaries, not reformers.

112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing
the supposed benefits of technology will suggest naive
schemes for some new form of society that would reconcile
freedom with technology. Apart from the fact that people
who make such suggestions seldom propose any practical
means by which the new form of society could be set up in
the first place, it follows from the fourth principle
that even if the new form of society could be once
established, it either would collapse or would give
results very different from those expected.

113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly
improbable that any way of changing society could be
found that would reconcile freedom with modern
technology. In the next few sections we will give more
specific reasons for concluding that freedom and
technological progress are incompatible.

RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM IS UNAVOIDABLE IN INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETY

114. As explained in paragraphs 65-67, 70-73, modern man
is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations,
and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote
from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not
accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant
bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any
technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO
regulate human behavior closely in order to function. At
work people have to do what they are told to do,
otherwise production would be thrown into chaos.
Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To
allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level
bureaucrats would disrupt the system and lead to charges
of unfairness due to differences in the way individual
bureaucrats exercised their discretion. It is true that
some restrictions on our freedom could be eliminated, but
GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by large
organizations is necessary for the functioning of
industrial-technological society. The result is a sense
of powerlessness on the part of the average person. It
may be, however, that formal regulations will tend
increasingly to be replaced by psychological tools that
make us want to do what the system requires of us.
(Propaganda [14], educational techniques, "mental health"
programs, etc.)

115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways
that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of
human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists,
mathematicians and engineers. It can’t function without
them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in
these fields. It isn’t natural for an adolescent human
being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk
absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his
time in active contact with the real world. Among
primitive peoples the things that children are trained to
do tend to be in reasonable harmony with natural human
impulses. Among the American Indians, for example, boys
were trained in active outdoor pursuits — just the sort
of thing that boys like. But in our society children are
pushed into studying technical subjects, which most do
grudgingly.

[[116 not used.]]

117. In any technologically advanced society the
individual’s fate MUST depend on decisions that he
personally cannot influence to any great extent. A
technological society cannot be broken down into small,
autonomous communities, because production depends on the
cooperation of very large numbers of people. When a
decision affects, say, a million people, then each of the
affected individuals has, on the average, only a
one-millionth share in making the decision. What usually
happens in practice is that decisions are made by public
officials or corporation executives, or by technical
specialists, but even when the public votes on a decision
the number of voters ordinarily is too large for the vote
of any one individual to be significant. [17] Thus most
individuals are unable to influence measurably the major
decisions that affect their lives. There is no
conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically
advanced society. The system tries to "solve" this
problem by using propaganda to make people WANT the
decisions that have been made for them, but even if this
"solution" were completely successful in making people
feel better, it would be demeaning.

118. Conservatives and some others advocate more "local
autonomy." Local communities once did have autonomy, but
such autonomy becomes less and less possible as local
communities become more enmeshed with and dependent on
large-scale systems like public utilities, computer
networks, highway systems, the mass communications media,
the modern health care system. Also operating against
autonomy is the fact that technology applied in one
location often affects people at other locations far way.
Thus pesticide or chemical use near a creek may
contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles
downstream, and the greenhouse effect affects the whole
world.

119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy
human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be
modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing
to do with the political or social ideology that may
pretend to guide the technological system. It is the
fault of technology, because the system is guided not by
ideology but by technical necessity. [18] Of course the
system does satisfy many human needs, but generally
speaking it does this only to the extend that it is to
the advantage of the system to do it. It is the needs of
the system that are paramount, not those of the human
being. For example, the system provides people with food
because the system couldn’t function if everyone starved;
it attends to people’s psychological needs whenever it
can CONVENIENTLY do so, because it couldn’t function if
too many people became depressed or rebellious. But the
system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must exert
constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to the
needs of the system. To much waste accumulating? The
government, the media, the educational system,
environmentalists, everyone inundates us with a mass of
propaganda about recycling. Need more technical
personnel? A chorus of voices exhorts kids to study
science. No one stops to ask whether it is inhumane to
force adolescents to spend the bulk of their time
studying subjects most of them hate. When skilled workers
are put out of a job by technical advances and have to
undergo "retraining," no one asks whether it is
humiliating for them to be pushed around in this way. It
is simply taken for granted that everyone must bow to
technical necessity. and for good reason: If human needs
were put before technical necessity there would be
economic problems, unemployment, shortages or worse. The
concept of "mental health" in our society is defined
largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in
accord with the needs of the system and does so without
showing signs of stress.

120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for
autonomy within the system are no better than a joke. For
example, one company, instead of having each of its
employees assemble only one section of a catalogue, had
each assemble a whole catalogue, and this was supposed to
give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some
companies have tried to give their employees more
autonomy in their work, but for practical reasons this
usually can be done only to a very limited extent, and in
any case employees are never given autonomy as to
ultimate goals — their "autonomous" efforts can never be
directed toward goals that they select personally, but
only toward their employer’s goals, such as the survival
and growth of the company. Any company would soon go out
of business if it permitted its employees to act
otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a
socialist system, workers must direct their efforts
toward the goals of the enterprise, otherwise the
enterprise will not serve its purpose as part of the
system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is
not possible for most individuals or small groups to have
much autonomy in industrial society. Even the
small-business owner commonly has only limited autonomy.
Apart from the necessity of government regulation, he is
restricted by the fact that he must fit into the economic
system and conform to its requirements. For instance,
when someone develops a new technology, the small-
business person often has to use that technology whether
he wants to or not, in order to remain competitive.

THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM
THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS

121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be
reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is
a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one
another. You can’t get rid of the "bad" parts of
technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern
medicine, for example. Progress in medical science
depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology,
computer science and other fields. Advanced medical
treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that
can be made available only by a technologically
progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can’t
have much Progress in medicine without the whole
technological system and everything that goes with it.

122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without
the rest of the technological system, it would by itself
bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for
diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to
diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as
well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for
diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout
the population. (This may be occurring to some extent
already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be
controlled through use of insulin.) The same thing will
happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which
is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The
only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or
extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that
man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature,
or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or
philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.

123. If you think that big government interferes in your
life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts
regulating the genetic constitution of your children.
Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction
of genetic engineering of human beings, because the
consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be
disastrous. [19]

124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about
"medical ethics." But a code of ethics would not serve to
protect freedom in the face of medical progress; it would
only make matters worse. A code of ethics applicable to
genetic engineering would be in effect a means of
regulating the genetic constitution of human beings.
Somebody (probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would
decide that such and such applications of genetic
engineering were "ethical". and others were not, so that
in effect they would be imposing their own values on the
genetic constitution of the population at large. Even if
a code of ethics were chosen on a completely democratic
basis, the majority would be imposing their own values on
any minorities who might have a different idea of what
constituted an "ethical" use of genetic engineering. The
only code of ethics that would truly protect freedom
would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of
human beings, and you can be sure that no such code will
ever be applied in a technological society. No code that
reduced genetic engineering to a minor role could stand
up for long, because the temptation presented by the
immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible,
especially since to the majority of people many of its
applications will seem obviously and unequivocally good
(eliminating physical and mental diseases, giving people
the abilities they need to get along in today’s world).
Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used extensively,
but only in ways consistent with the needs of the
industrial-technological system. [20]

TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE
ASPIRATION FOR FREEDOOM

125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise
between technology and freedom, because technology is by
far the more powerful social force and continually
encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises.
Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the
outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is
more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a
piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The
powerful one says, "OK, let’s compromise. Give me half of
what I asked." The weak one has little choice but to give
in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another
piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth.
By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker
man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So
it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.

126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful
social force than the aspiration for freedom.

127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten
freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously
later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A
walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his
own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and
was independent of technological support-systems. When
motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase
man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking
man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want
one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could
travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But
the introduction of motorized transport soon changed
society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s
freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous,
it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In
a car, especially im densely populated areas, one cannot
just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement
is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic
laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license
requirements, driver test, renewing registration,
insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly
payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of
motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the
introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of
our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of
people no longer live within walking distance of their
place of employment, shopping areas and recreational
opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the
automobile for transportation. Or else they must use
public transportation, in which case they have even less
control over their own movement than when driving a car.
Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In
the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic
lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In
the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and
unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this
important point that we have just illustrated with the
case of motorized transport: When a new item of
technology is introduced as an option that an individual
can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily
REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes
society in such a way that people eventually find
themselves FORCED to use it.)

128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually
narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance
CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable.
Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance
communications … how could one argue against any of
these things, or against any other of the innumerable
technical advances that have made modern society? It
would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the
telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no
disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76,
all these technical advances taken together have created
a world in which the average man’s fate is no longer in
his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and
friends, but in those of politicians, corporation
executives and remote, anonymous technicians and
bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to
influence. [21] The same process will continue in the
future. Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people
will resist the introduction of a genetic technique that
eliminates a hereditary disease. It does no apparent harm
and prevents.much suffering. Yet a large number of
genetic improvements taken together will make the human
being into an engineered product rather than a free
creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on
your religious beliefs).

129. Another reason why technology is such a powerful
social force is that, within the context of a given
society, technological progress marches in only one
direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical
innovation has been introduced, people usually become
dependent on it, so that they can never again do without
it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced
innovation. Not only do people become dependent as
individuals on a new item of technology, but, even more,
the system as a whole becomes dependent on it. (Imagine
what would happen to the system today if computers, for
example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can move in
only one direction, toward greater technologization.
Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back,
but technology can never take a step back — short of the
overthrow of the whole technological system.

130. TechnoIogy advances with great rapidity and
threatens freedom at many different points at the same
time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing
dependence of individuals on large organizations,
propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic
engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance
devices and computers, etc.). To hold back any ONE of the
threats to freedom would require a long and difficult
social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are
overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the
rapidity with which they develop, hence they become
apathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the
threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped
for only by fighting the technological system as a whole;
but that is revolution, not reform.

131. Technicians (we use this term in its broad sense to
describe all those who perform a specialized task that
requires training) tend to be so involved in their work
(their surrogate activity) that when a conflict arises
between their technical work and freedom, they almost
always decide in favor of their technical work. This is
obvious in the case of scientists, but it also appears
elsewhere: Educators humanitarian groups, conservation
organizations do not hesitate to use propaganda or other
psychological techniques to help them achieve their
laudable ends. Corporations and government agencies, when
they find it useful, do not hesitate to collect
information about individuals without regard to their
privacy. Law enforcement agencies are frequently
inconvenienced by the constitutional rights of suspects
and often of completely innocent persons, and they do
whatever they can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to
restrict or circumvent those rights. Most of these
educators, government officials and law officers believe
in freedom, privacy and constitutional rights, but when
these conflict with their work, they usually feel that
their work is more important.

132. It is well known that people generally work better
and more persistently when striving for a reward than
when attempting to avoid a punishment or negative
outcome. Scientists and other technicians are motivated
mainly by the rewards they get through their work. But
those who oppose technological invasions of freedom are
working to avoid a negative outcome, consequently there
are few who work persistently and well at this
discouraging task. If reformers ever achieved a signal
victory that seemed to set up a solid barrier against
further erosion of freedom through technical progress,
most would tend to relax and turn their attention to more
agreeable pursuits. But the scientists would remain busy
in their laboratories, and technology as it progresses
would find ways, in spite of any barriers, to exert more
and more control over individuals and make them always
more dependent on the system.

133. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions,
customs or ethical codes, can provide permanent
protection against technology. History shows that all
social arrangements are transitory; they all change or
break down eventually. But technological advances are
permanent within the context of a given civilization.
Suppose for example that it were possible to arrive at
some social arrangements that would prevent genetic
engineering from being applied to human beings, or
prevent it from being applied in such a way as to
threaten freedom and dignity. Still, the technology would
remain waiting. Sooner or later the social arrangement
would break down. Probably sooner, given the pace of
change in our society. Then genetic engineering would
begin to invade our sphere of freedom. and this invasion
would be irreversible (short of a breakdown of
technological civilization itself). Any illusions about
achieving anything permanent through social arrangements
should be dispelled by what is currently happening with
environmental legislation. A few years ago its seemed
that there were secure legal barriers preventing at least
SOME of the worst forms of environmental degradation. A
change in the political wind, and those barriers begin to
crumble.

134. For all of the foregoing reasons, technology is a
more powerful social force than the aspiration for
freedom. But this statement requires an important
qualification. It appears that during the next several
decades the industrial-technological system will be
undergoing severe stresses due to economic and
environmental problems, and especially due to problems of
human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a
variety of social and psychological difficulties). We
hope that the stresses through which the system is likely
to pass will cause it to break down, or at least will
weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution against it
becomes possible. If such a revolution occurs and is
successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration
for freedom will have proved more powerful than
technology.

135. In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak
neighbor who is left destitute by a strong neighbor who
takes all his land by forcing on him a series of
compromises. But suppose now that the strong neighbor
gets sick, so tha he is unable to defend himself. The
weak neighbor can force the strong one to give him his
land back, or he can kill him. If he lets the strong man
survive and only forces him to give the land back, he is
a fool, because when the strong man gets well he will
again take all the land for himself. The only sensible
alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one
while he has the chance. In the same way, while the
industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we
compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness,
it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.

SIMPLER SOCIAL PROBLEMS HAVE PROVED INTRACTABLE

136. If anyone still imagines that it would be possible
to reform the system in such a way as to protect freedom
from technology, let him consider how clumsily and for
the most part unsuccessfully our society has dealt with
other social problems that are far more simple and
straighfforward. Among other things, the system has
failed to stop environmental degradation, political
corruption, drug trafficking or domestic abuse.

137. Take our environmental problems, for example. Here
the conflict of values is straightforward: economic
expedience now versus saving some of our natural
resources for our grandchildren. [22] But on this subject
we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from the
people who have power, and nothing like a clear,
consistent line of action, and we keep on piling up
environmental problems that our grandchildren will have
to live with. Attempts to resolve the environmental issue
consist of struggles and compromises between different
factions, some of which are ascendant at one moment,
others at another moment. The line of struggle changes
with the shifting currents of public opinion. This is not
a rational process, nor is it one that is likely to lead
to a timely and successful solution to the problem. Major
social problems, if they get "solved" at all, are rarely
or never solved through any rational, comprehensive plan.
They just work themselves out through a process in which
various competing groups pursuing their own (usually
short-term) self-interest [23] arrive (mainly by luck) at
some more or less stable modus vivendi. In fact, the
principles we formulated in paragraphs 100-106 make it
seem doubtful that rational long-term social planning can
EVER be successful.

138. Thus it is clear that the human race has at best a
very limited capacity for solving even relatively
straightforward social problems. How then is it going to
solve the far more difficult and subtle problem of
reconciling freedom with technology? Technology presents
clear-cut material advantages, whereas freedom is an
abstraction that means different things to different
people. and its loss is easily obscured by propaganda and
fancy talk.

139. And note this important difference: It is
conceivable that our environmental problems (for example)
may some day be settled through a rational, comprehensive
plan, but if this happens it will be only because it is
in the longterm interest of the system to solve these
problems. But it is NOT in the interest of the system to
preserve freedom or small-group autonomy. On the
contrary, it is in the interest of the system to bring
human behavior under control to the greatest possible
extent. [24] Thus, while practical considerations may
eventually force the system to take a rational, prudent
approach to environmental problems, equally practical
considerations will force the system to regulate human
behavior ever more closely (preferably by indirect means
that will disguise the encroachment on freedom). This
isn’t just our opinion. Eminent social scientists (e.g.
James Q. Wilson) have stressed the importance of
"socializing" people more effectively.

REVOLUTION IS EASIER THAN REFORM

140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system
cannot be reformed in such a way as to reconcile freedom
with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the
industrialtechnological system altogether. This implies
revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but
certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature
of society. 141. People tend to assume that because a
revolution involves a much greater change than reform
does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is.
Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much
easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary
movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a
reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely
offers to solve a particular social problem. A
revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at
one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the
kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and
make great sacrifices. For this reasons it would be much
easier to overthrow the whole technological system than
to put effective, permanent restraints on the development
or application of any one segment of technology, such as
genetic engineering, for example. Not many people will
devote themselves with single-minded passion to imposing
and maintaining restraints on genetic engineering, but
under suitable conditions large numbers of people may
devote themselves passionately to a revolution against
the industrial-technological system. As we noted in
paragraph 132, reformers seeking to limit certain aspects
of technology would be working to avoid a negative
outcome. But revolutionaries work to gain a powerful
reward — fulfillment of their revolutionary vision and
therefore work harder and more persistently than
reformers do.

142. Reform is always restrained by the fear of painful
consequences if changes go too far. But once a
revolutionary fever has taken hold of a society, people
are willing to undergo unlimited hardships for the sake
of their revolution. This was clearly shown in the French
and Russian Revolutions. It may be that in such cases
only a minority of the population is really committed to
the revolution, but this minority is sufficiently large
and active so that it becomes the dominant force in
society. We will have more to say about revolution in
paragraphs 180-205.

CONTROL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

143. Since the beginning of civilization, organized
societies have had to put pressures on human beings of
the sake of the functioning of the social organism. The
kinds of pressures vary greatly from one society to
another. Some of the pressures are physical (poor diet,
excessive labor, environmental pollution), some are
psychological (noise, crowding, forcing human behavior
into the mold that society requires). In the past, human
nature has been approximately constant, or at any rate
has varied only within certain bounds. Consequently,
societies have been able to push people only up to
certain limits. When the limit of human endurance has
been passed, things start going wrong: rebellion, or
crime, or corruption, or evasion of work, or depression
and other mental problems, or an elevated death rate, or
a declining birth rate or something else, so that either
the society breaks down, or its functioning becomes too
inefficient and it is (quickly or gradually, through
conquest, attrition or evolution) replaced by some more
efficient form of society. [25]

144. Thus human nature has in the past put certain limits
on the development of societies. People could be pushed
only so far and no farther. But today this may be
changing, because modern technology is developing ways of
modifying human beings.

145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions
that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them drugs to
take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is
already happening to some extent in our own society. It
is well known that the rate of clinical depression has
been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe
that this is due to disruption of the power process, as
explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong,
the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result
of S