displacement-of-labor

This chapter critiques the widespread belief that machines save human labor and thereby grant leisure and free activity. Jünger argues that leisure is not simply freed time but requires a cultivated spiritual and mental life, which most people lack, leading to harm rather than benefit when work is lost. Furthermore, he contends that technical progress has not reduced the total amount of work but rather increased it, as machine labor depends on an extensive technical organization that demands more manual labor overall, often shifting burdens to less privileged populations.