Industrial Society and its future.

Introduction Number one.

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

They have greatly increased the life 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 beings 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.

Number two.

The industrial technological system may survive or may break down.

If it survives, it may eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only

after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment, and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms

to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.

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.

Number three, 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 at best break down sooner rather than later.

Number four, we therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not

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