Technical progress becomes a liberating force only beyond automated material necessity

Evidence

“Progress” is not a neutral term; it moves toward specific ends, and these ends are defined by the possibilities of ameliorating the human condition. Advanced industrial society is approaching the stage where continued progress would demand the radical subversion of the prevailing direction and organization of progress. This stage would be reached when material production (including the necessary services) becomes automated to the extent that all vital needs can be satisfied while necessary labor time is reduced to marginal time. From this point on, technical progress would transcend the realm of necessity, where it served as the instrument of domination and exploitation which thereby limited its rationality; technology would become subject to the free play of faculties in the struggle for the pacification of nature and of society. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 142

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Marcuse’s crucial normative move — domination is not inherent to technology but limited to its service within the realm of necessity.
• XREF: Echoes the Frankfurt School’s recurring domination-of-nature theme and anticipates later debates on automation and post-work (Pollock on organized capitalism). — connects to: Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 812; Automation that ends scarcity would force progress to change direction entirely; Technical civilisation’s new hero is restrained mastery, not liberation (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base #expands (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 812
• Automation that ends scarcity would force progress to change direction entirely #exemplifies (0.80)
• Technical civilisation’s new hero is restrained mastery, not liberation #complicates (0.75)
• Liberated society still needs centralized technical control over vital goods #qualifies (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 872