Quotes On Economy, Wealth, and Freedom

 "The secret which conceals itself here is of a simple nature: It consists, on the one hand, in the fact that the economy is not a power which can bestow freedom, and, on the other, that an economic sense is not able to access the elements of freedom – and yet it requires the eyes of a new breed to work out this secret."

Third part of introduction before getting into the actual work. What is wealth? This question helps situate the worker in time, and just what it is the figure inherits.

"Such claims however and many others, of which we will speak, in particular the claim to bestow meaning, are the hallmarks of a growing class of rulers. The question of yesterday read: How does the worker share in the economy, in wealth, art, education, the metropolis, or in science? Tomorrow however it will read: How must all these things look in the space of power of the worker and what meaning shall be ascribed to them?

Every claim to freedom within the world of work is therefore possible only if it appears as a claim to work. That means that the degree of freedom of the individual corresponds exactly to the degree to which he is a worker. To be a worker, the representative of a great Form entering history, means to take part in a new humanity determined by its destiny to rule. Is it possible that this consciousness of a new freedom, the consciousness of standing in the place of decision, can be felt in the space of thought as much as behind the whirring of machines and in the mechanical throng of the cities? We do not only have evidence that this is possible, but we also believe that this is the condition of every genuine intervention and that exactly here lies the pivotal point of transformations no redeemer ever dreamt of."

"The inability to really build, just as the inadequacy for a real economy, is thus closely connected with the variability of means. One must, however, be clear about the fact that this variability does not exist [194] in itself, but that it represents nothing other than a sign of the fact that technology has not yet been brought to stand in an unambiguous relationship of service – or, in other words, that dominion has not yet been realised. However, we called this realisation the final task upon which the technological process is based."