Liberated society still needs centralized technical control over vital goods

Evidence

Here, technological rationality, stripped of its exploitative features, is the sole standard and guide in planning and developing the available resources for all. Self-determination in the production and distribution of vital goods and services would be wasteful. The job is a technical one, and as a truly technical job, it makes for the reduction of physical and mental toil. In this realm, centralized control is rational if it establishes the preconditions for meaningful self-determination. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 872

Categorization

• XREF: Marcuse’s socialistic rationalism connects to the reader’s interest in how planning and critical theory interact; contrasts with libertarian readings of autonomy. — connects to: Technical progress produces a comfortable, democratic unfreedom — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 105; Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 812; Overcoming capitalism alone would not prevent new forms of domination — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1568 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: How far does Marcuse’s defense of central planning under pacification sit with contemporary skepticism of state planning — worth probing.

Broader Connections

• Overcoming capitalism alone would not prevent new forms of domination #complicates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1568