Theodore Kaczynski
5 min
Theodore Kaczynski’s essay examines the impact of the Industrial Revolution on human psychology and society. The central research question asks whether it is possible to maintain a technologically advanced society while preserving human freedom and dignity. The author approaches this by analyzing the psychological needs of humans, specifically the need for the power process—the cycle of setting a goal, exerting effort, and attaining that goal autonomously. He argues that modern society systematically disrupts this process, leading to widespread psychological suffering, and that this disruption is an inevitable consequence of technological development.
The author posits that humans have a biological need to engage in the power process. In primitive societies, this process was satisfied through the pursuit of physical necessities. In modern industrial society, however, physical needs are guaranteed with minimal effort, and individuals are forced to function as cogs in a massive social machine. Consequently, people are deprived of autonomy and forced to pursue surrogate activities—artificial goals that provide a sense of fulfillment but do not satisfy the underlying need for power. The author argues that this deprivation is the root cause of modern social problems, including alienation, depression, and the rise of mass movements.
A key contribution of the paper is the argument that the industrial system cannot be reformed to protect freedom. The author outlines several principles of history, suggesting that societies are complex, interrelated systems where no important part can be changed without altering the whole. Because technology is a unified, self-reinforcing system, attempts to remove its 'bad' parts while keeping the 'good' will fail. Furthermore, technology is a more powerful social force than the desire for freedom; each new technological advance appears beneficial in isolation but, cumulatively, narrows the sphere of human autonomy. The author concludes that the only way to preserve freedom is to destroy the industrial-technological system entirely.
Alex: [leaning in, curious, moderate pace] So how does the system supposedly maintain control without provoking constant revolt, on his account?
Sam: [steady, grounded, matter-of-fact] Through a shift from physical coercion to psychological management — his shorthand is moving from the prison guard to the therapist. Alienation gets reframed as personal pathology rather than a structural consequence, so the symptom gets treated while the underlying cause — the industrial system itself — is preserved.
Alex: [slower, for clarity] Like treating antidepressants as a way to make someone tolerate an environment, rather than fixing the environment. [[RP_SECTION:technological-determinism|Technological Determinism]]
Sam: [nodding in voice, precise] That's his example, yes. It connects to his broader technological determinism: you can't selectively adopt the parts of technology you like. Modern medicine requires the infrastructure underneath it, and once that infrastructure exists, you're committed to its trajectory — every improvement, in his telling, necessitates further control downstream. [[RP_SECTION:reform-versus-revolution|Reform Versus Revolution]]
Alex: [thoughtful, moderate pace] So even ethical guardrails around something like genetic engineering would get absorbed and repurposed by the system's efficiency logic?
Sam: [grounded, direct] That's the claim — ethics becomes a regulatory tool, defining "healthy" as whatever makes a person function better within the machine. And from there he draws the conclusion that reform is a dead end: an effective reform would have to be revolutionary in scope, and the system is structurally built to reject exactly that kind of disruption. He goes so far as to argue revolution is actually easier to organize around than reform, because a total vision inspires commitment that piecemeal change can't.
Alex: [quietly, reflective] So the system is a trap not because of any particular ideology behind it, but because of what he frames as the technical necessity of its own survival. [[RP_SECTION:evaluating-the-argument|Evaluating the Argument]]
Sam: [calm conviction, settling the point] That's the central thesis, and it's worth being clear-eyed about what kind of text this is. It's a closed, self-reinforcing argument — every counterexample can be absorbed as further evidence of the system's adaptability, which is a sign of an unfalsifiable structure, not a validated one. As political philosophy it's coherent and has clearly been influential. As an empirical account of psychology or social causation, it doesn't offer anything a referee could test.
Alex: [thoughtful] That distinction matters — treating it as diagnosis rather than argument is where a reader could go wrong.
Sam: [reflective] If you want to sit with the finer structure of the argument — the Power Process, the oversocialization chapters, the determinism sections — you can generate a deep dive of this essay. The text itself has all of it either way.
Alex: Thanks for listening.