Instrumental reason escapes its instrumental role to dominate society outright.

Evidence

In the process that Weber calls “rationalization,” rational action comes to displace all other forms, those springing from faith, tradition, affect, fealty to a leader, or any other prerational or nonrational source. But this displacement is only the beginning of rationalization, which does not really get underway until instrumental rationality takes over everything, displacing even value-rational action. Initially only a means, instrumental reason becomes a force of its own in the world and dissolves other values with that force. For Weber, capitalism and bureaucracy are each examples of this. Each system begins as a means—for wealth generation and for administration—but both break out of harness to become unprecedented systems of domination and automatic reproduction, placing humanity in “an iron cage.” Both become formations of power and rationality that cease to be instruments of our existence and instead become forces of history unto themselves — governing, dominating, fashioning human beings and worlds in every way. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 227

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The account of how means-outgrows-ends and becomes self-reproducing domination is Brown’s theoretical engine for how economic rationality erodes democratic politics.
• XREF: Directly feeds the ADDENDUM connection to ‘On Sacrifice’ themes of systems becoming forces of history; also connects to Parkinson’s law of bureaucracy. — connects to: Instrumental reason’s refinement is what destroys rational civilization — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1307; People forget their purpose while being carried by societal pressures. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 179; Instrumentarian society reduces individuals to collective herd-like existence with no exit — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1699 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Instrumental rationality’s dominance results from system-lifeworld uncoupling, not from reason’s inherent dialectic. #contradicts (0.90) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 395
• Instrumental rationality cannot prevent mass atrocities and normalizes social engineering. #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 83
• Instrumentarian society reduces individuals to collective herd-like existence with no exit #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1699
• Instrumental rationality carried to its extreme leads to totalitarian barbarism. #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 797
• People forget their purpose while being carried by societal pressures. #exemplifies (0.75) — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 179
• Individuality cannot escape the social system because its inner essence already embodies that system #corroborates (0.75)
• Modern society’s dominant reason is subjective and instrumental #expands (0.70) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1456