Not necessarily. This is because technology can allow us to "do more with less," technological progress can improve standards of living for all people, and technologies can be used to increase personal freedom: medical technology, for instance, can free people from the scourges of pain, illness, and a "naturally" short life span; technology can be used to free labour from mundane chores associated with production; advanced communications technology can enhance our ability to freely associate. The list goes on and on. Therefore, most anarchists agree with Kropotkin when he pointed out that the "development of [the industrial] technique at last gives man [sic!] the opportunity to free himself from slavish toil." [Ethics, p. 2]
For example, increased productivity under capitalism usually leads to further exploitation and domination, displaced workers, economic crisis, etc. But it does not have to in an anarchist world. By way of example, consider a commune in which all resources are distributed equally amongst the members. Let us say that this commune has 5 people who desire to be bakers (or 5 people are needed to work the communal bakery) and, for the sake of argument, 20 hours of production per person, per week is spent on baking bread for the local commune. Now, what happens if the introduction of automation, as desired, planned and organised by the workers themselves, reduces the amount of labour required for bread production to 15 person-hours per week, including the labour cost spent in creating and maintaining the new machinery? Clearly, no one stands to lose — even if someone's work is "displaced", that person will continue to receive the same resource income as before — and they might even gain. This last is due to the fact that 5 person-hours have been freed up from the task of bread production, and those person-hours may now be used elsewhere or converted to leisure, either way increasing each person's standard of living.
Obviously, this happy outcome derives not only from the technology used, but also (and critically) from its use in an equitable economic and social system. Certainly, a wide variety of outcomes would be possible under alternative social systems. Yet, we have managed to prove our point: in the end, there is no reason why the use of technology cannot be used to empower people and increase their freedom!
Of course technology can be used for oppressive ends. Human knowledge, like all things, can be used to increase freedom or to decrease it, to promote inequality or reduce it, to aid the worker or to subjugate them, and so on. Technology, as we argued in section D.10, cannot be considered in isolation from the society it is created and used in. In a hierarchical society, technology will be introduced that serves the interests of the powerful and helps marginalise and disempower the majority ("technology is political," to use David Noble's expression), it does not evolve in isolation from human beings and the social relationships and power structures between them. "Capitalism has created," Cornelius Castoriadais correctly argued, "a capitalist technology, for its own ends, which are by no means neutral. The real essence of capitalist technology is not to develop production for production's sake: it is to subordinate and dominate the producers." This means that in an anarchist society, technology would have to be transformed and/or developed which empowered those who used it, so reducing any oppressive aspects of it. In the words of Cornelius Castoriadais, the "conscious transformation of technology will . . . be a central task of a society of free workers." [Workers' Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed Society, p. 13]
However, as Kropotkin argued, we are (potentially) in a good position, because "[f]or the first time in the history of civilisation, mankind has reached a point where the means of satisfying its needs are in excess of the needs themselves. To impose, therefore, as hitherto been done, the curse of misery and degradation upon vast divisions of mankind, in order to secure well-being and further development for the few, is needed no more: well-being can be secured for all, without placing on anyone the burden of oppressive, degrading toil and humanity can at last build its entire social life on the basis of justice." [Ethics, p. 2] The question is, for most anarchists, how can we humanise and modify this technology and make it socially and individually liberatory, rather than destroying it (where applicable, of course, certain forms of technology will probably be eliminated due to their inherently destructive nature).
For Kropotkin, like most anarchists, the way to humanise technology and industry was for "the workers [to] lay hands on factories, houses and banks" and so "present production would be completely revolutionised by this simple fact." This would be the start of a process which would integrate industry and agriculture, as it was "essential that work-shops, foundries and factories develop within the reach of the fields." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 190] Such a process would obviously involve the transformation of both the structure and technology of capitalism rather than its simple and unthinking application.
There is another reason for anarchists seeking to transform rather then eliminate current technology. As Bakunin pointed out, "to destroy. . . all the instruments of labour [i.e. technology and industry] . . . would be to condemn all humanity — which is infinity too numerous today to exist. . . on the simple gifts of nature . . . — to . . . death by starvation." His solution to the question of technology was, like Kropotkin's, to place it at the service of those who use it, to create "the intimate and complete union of capital and labour" so that it would "not . . . remain concentrated in the hands of a separate, exploiting class." Only this could "smash the tyranny of capital." [The Basic Bakunin, pp. 90-1]
Thus, most anarchists seek to transform technology and industry rather than get rid of it totally.
Most anarchists are aware that "Capital invested in machines that would re-enforce the system of domination [within the capitalist workplace], and this decision to invest, which might in the long run render the chosen technology economical, was not itself an economical decision but a political one, with cultural sanction." [David Noble, Progress Without People, p. 6] But this does not change the fact that we need to be in possession of the means of production before we can decide what to keep, what to change and what to throw away as inhuman. In other words, it is not enough to get rid of the boss, although this is a necessary first step!
It is for these reasons that anarchists have held a wide range of opinions concerning the relationship between human knowledge and anarchism. Some, such as Peter Kropotkin, were themselves scientists and saw great potential for the use of advanced technology to expand human freedom. Others have held technology at arm's length, concerned about its oppressive uses, and a few have rejected science and technology completely. All of these are, of course, possible anarchist positions. But most anarchists support Kropotkin's viewpoint, but with a healthy dose of practical Luddism when viewing how technology is (ab)used in capitalism ("The worker will only respect machinery in the day when it becomes his friend, shortening his work, rather than as today, his enemy, taking away jobs, killing workers." [Emile Pouget quoted by David Noble, Op. Cit., p. 15]).
Anarchists of all types recognise the importance of critically evaluating technology, industry and so on. The first step of any revolution will be the seizing of the means of production. The second immediate step will be the start of their radical transformation by those who use them and are affected by them (i.e. communities, those who use the products they produce and so on). Few, if any, anarchists seek to maintain the current industrial set-up or apply, unchanged, capitalist technology. We doubt that many of the workers who use that technology and work in industry will leave either unchanged. Rather, they will seek to liberate the technology they use from the influences of capitalism, just as they liberated themselves. In Kropotkin's words "if most of the workshops we know are foul and unhealthy, it is because the workers are of no account in the organisation of factories" and "[s]laves can submit to them, but free men will create new conditions, and their will be pleasant and infinitely more productive." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 121 and p. 123]
This will, of course, involve the shutting down (perhaps instantly or over a period of time) of many branches of industry and the abandonment of such technology which cannot be transformed into something more suitable for use by free individuals. And, of course, many workplaces will be transformed to produce new goods required to meet the needs of the revolutionary people or close due to necessity as a social revolution will disrupt the market for their goods — such as producers of luxury export goods or suppliers of repressive equipment for state security forces. Altogether, a social revolution implies the transformation of technology and industry, just as it implies the transformation of society.
This process of transforming work can be seen from the Spanish Revolution. Immediately after taking over the means of production, the Spanish workers started to transform it. They eliminated unsafe and unhygienic working conditions and workplaces and created new workplaces based on safe and hygienic working conditions. Working practices were transformed as those who did the work (and so understood it) managed it. Many workplaces were transformed to create products required by the war effort (such as weapons, ammunition, tanks and so on) and to produce consumer goods to meet the needs of the local population as the normal sources of such goods, as Kropotkin predicted, were unavailable due to economic disruption and isolation. Needless to say, these were only the beginnings of the process but they clearly point the way any libertarian social revolution would progress, namely the total transformation of work, industry and technology. Technological change would develop along new lines, ones which will take into account human and ecological needs rather the power and profits of a minority.
Explicit in anarchism is the believe that capitalist and statist methods cannot be used for socialist and libertarian ends. In our struggle for workers' and community self-management is the awareness that workplaces are not merely sites of production — they are also sites of reproduction, the reproduction of certain social relationships based on specific relations of authority between those who give orders and those who take them. The battle to democratise the workplace, to place the collective initiative of the direct producers at the centre of any productive activity, is clearly a battle to transform the workplace, the nature of work and, by necessity, technology as well.
As Kropotkin argued, a "revolution is more than a mere change of the prevailing political system. It implies the awakening of human intelligence, the increasing of the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold; it is the dawn of a new science . . . It is a revolution in the minds of men, as deep, and deeper still, than in their institutions . . . the sole fact of having laid hands on middle-class property will imply the necessity of completely re-organising the whole of economic life in the workplaces, the dockyards, the factories." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 192] And some think that industry and technology will remain unchanged by such a process and that workers will continue doing the same sort of work, in the same way, using the same methods!
For Kropotkin "all production has taken a wrong direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well-being for all" under capitalism. [Op. Cit., p. 101] Well-being for all obviously includes those who do the producing and so covers the structure of industry and the technological processes used. Similarly, well-being also includes a person's environment and surroundings and so technology and industry must be evaluated on an ecological basis. Thus Kropotkin supported the integration of agriculture and industry, with "the factory and workshop at the gates of your fields and gardens." These factories would be "airy and hygienic, and consequently economical, factories in which human life is of more account than machinery and the making of extra profits." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 197]
Technological progress in an anarchist society, needless to say, will have to take into account these factors as well as others people think are relevant, otherwise the ideal of "well-being for all" is rejected.
Capitalism has developed many technologies, some of them harmful or dangerous, but those technologies do not develop by themselves. The technology of cheap solar power, for example, has scarcely moved at all because the capitalists have not chosen to invest in it. Chainsaws do not cut down rain forests, people do; and they do so because they have irresistible economic incentives to do so (whether they be capitalists who stand to make profits or workers who have no other way to survive). Until the economic system is abolished, these incentives will continue to drive technological progress and change.
So, technology always partakes of and expresses the basic values of the social system in which it is embedded. If you have a system (capitalism) that alienates everything, it will naturally produce alienated forms of technology and it will orient those technologies so as to reinforce itself. As we argued in section D.10, capitalists will select technology which re-enforces their power and profits and skew technological change in that direction rather than in those which empower individuals and make the workplace more egalitarian.
This does not mean that we have to reject all technology and industry because it has been shaped by, or developed within, class society. Certain technologies are, of course, so insanely dangerous that they will no doubt be brought to a prompt halt in any sane society. Similarly, certain forms of technology and industrial process will be impossible to transform as they are inherently designed for oppressive ends. Many other industries which produce absurd, obsolete or superfluous commodities will, of course, cease automatically with the disappearance of their commercial or social rationales. But many technologies, however they may presently be misused, have few if any inherent drawbacks. They could be easily adapted to other uses. When people free themselves from domination, they will have no trouble rejecting those technologies that are harmful while adapting others to beneficial uses.
So if it is true that technology reflects the society which creates it, then technology cannot be inherently bad. A liberated, non-exploitative society will naturally create liberating, non-exploitative technologies, just as the present alienated social system naturally produces alienated forms (or uses) of technology.
Does this argument mean that most anarchists are against the "abolition of work"? No, unless you confuse all kinds of productive activity with work. It always takes some "work" to create a product (even only if it is food) but that work does not necessarily have to be wage labour or otherwise alienated or subject to domination and hierarchy. A life without dead time does not mean a life where you never have to move a muscle or use your head.
And, of course, different communities and different regions would choose different priorities and different lifestyles. As the CNT's Zaragoza resolution on libertarian communism made clear, "those communes which reject industrialisation . . . may agree upon a different model of co-existence." Using the example of "naturists and nudists," it argues that they "will be entitled to an autonomous administration released from the general commitments" agreed by the communes and their federations and "their delegates to congresses of the . . . Confederation of Autonomous Libertarian Communes will be empowered to enter into economic contacts with other agricultural and industrial Communes." [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, p. 106]
(See Ken Knabb's The Poverty of Primitivism for more details — we have extracted some of the above arguments from this excellent text).
All this means, of course, that technological progress is not neutral but dependent on who makes the decisions. As David Noble argues, "[t]echnological determinism, the view that machines make history rather than people, is not correct . . . If social changes now upon us seem necessary, it is because they follow not from any disembodied technological logic, but form a social logic." Technology conforms to "the interests of power" but as "technological process is a social process" then "it is, like all social processes, marked by conflict and struggle, and the outcome, therefore, is always ultimately indeterminate." Viewing technological development "as a social process rather than as an autonomous, transcendent, and deterministic force can be liberating . . . because it opens up a realm of freedom too long denied. It restores people once again to their proper role as subjects of the story, rather than mere pawns of technology . . . And technological development itself, now seen as a social construct, becomes a new variable rather than a first cause, consisting of a range of possibilities and promising a multiplicity of futures." [Forces of Production, pp. 324-5]
Change society and the technology introduced and utilised will likewise change. By viewing technological progress as a new variable, dependent on those who make the decisions and the type of society they live in, allows us to see that technological development is not inherently anti-anarchist. A non-oppressive, non-exploitative, ecological society will develop non-oppressive, non-exploitative, ecological technology just as capitalism has developed technology which facilitates exploitation, oppression and environmental destruction. Thus an anarchist questions technology: The best technology? Best for whom? Best for what? Best according to what criteria, what visions, according to whose criteria and whose visions?
For most anarchists, technological advancement is important in a free society in order to maximise the free time available for everyone and replace mindless toil with meaningful work. The means of doing so is the use of appropriate technology (and not the worship of technology as such). Only by critically evaluating technology and introducing such forms which empower, are understandable and are controllable by individuals and communities as well as minimising ecological distribution (in other words, what is termed appropriate technology) can this be achieved. Only this critical approach to technology can do justice to the power of the human mind and reflect the creative powers which developed the technology in the first place. Unquestioning acceptance of technological progress is just as bad as being unquestioningly anti-technology.
Whether technological advance is a good thing or sustainable depends on the choices we make, and on the social, political, and economic systems we use. We live in a universe that contains effectively infinite resources of matter and energy, yet at the moment we are stuck on a planet whose resources can only be stretched so far. Anarchists (and others) differ as to their assessments of how much development the earth can take, and of the best course for future development, but there's no reason to believe that advanced technological societies per se cannot be sustained into the foreseeable future if they are structured and used properly.