technical-rationality

This chapter explores the fundamental conflict between technological rationality and economic rationality, highlighting how technical thinking pursues absolute perfection regardless of profitability. It argues that technology operates independently of economic concerns, often advancing even at financial loss, thereby subordinating economic life to technological imperatives. The technician's drive for technical perfection challenges and ultimately dominates the profit-driven motives of economic actors.

This chapter critically examines the consequences of technical rationality and organization on human life and society. It argues that while technology is not to be rejected outright, its advanced mechanization reduces individuals to mere cogs within a vast apparatus, undermining spiritual resistance and promoting blind, elemental mass behavior. The chapter warns that technical progress, by enforcing strict functionalism and rationalization, accelerates the erosion of individuality and freedom, leading to destructive social dynamics.