The Technological Society

by Jacques Ellul

Further examples of inadequate definition are those supplied by Jean Fourastié and others who pursue the same line of research as he. For Fourastié, technical progress is “the growth of the volume of production obtained through a fixed quantity of raw material or human labor”—that is, technique is uniquely that which promotes this increase in yield. He then goes on to say that it is possible to analyze this theorem under three aspects. In yield in kind, technique is that which enables raw materials to be managed in order to obtain some predetermined product; in financial yield, technique is that which enables the increase in production to take place through the increase of capital investment; in yield of human labor, technique is that which increases the quantity of work produced by a fixed unit of human labor. In this connection we must thank Fourastié for correcting Jünger’s error—Jünger opposes technical progress to economic progress because they would be, in his opinion, contradictory; Fourastié shows that, on the contrary, the two coincide. However, we must nevertheless challenge his definition of technique on the ground that it is completely arbitrary. It is arbitrary, first of all, because it is purely economic and contemplates only economic yield. There are innumerable traditional techniques which are not based on a quest for economic yield and which have no economic character. It is precisely these which Mauss alludes to in his definition; and they still exist. Am...