[384] who make the same decisions, who have the same ideals, the same conventions, the same criticisms and rejections, etc. Now I leave the realm of intellectual influences which work DIRECTLY, and come to others which INdirectly, namely the industrial^a society qua industrial society. There are different forms. The first is industry itself, namely using men as cogs in a machine. Here you see an example that we never should say "Never!", that this kind of work which is done in the assembly line is most dehumanizing for man--it certainly is. But on the other hand, it can be taken over, and automation means it WILL be taken over. Then at least some of this form of

making man into cogs of a machine is reduced. But there is still more left than we can even imagine in our fantasy: work which tends to dehumanize man because it makes him do things which in principle should be done by the machine. One of the implications of this is that the worker--and this is even true if automation is fully developed--doesn’t know what he works. Now that has been very often noticed. The craftsman who makes a table or shoe, sees everything from the material he buys to the finished shoe which he sells, and he knows all the processes and all the irrationalities and all the tricks of the

trade. This gives creative joy, because an element of freedom^b and creativity^c is left. If you only push one place all the time with your hammer, or if you work even more than this, but don’t see what the result is and are not responsible for it, then the creative element is almost destroyed. This was one of the things which made the difference between the old crafts, where people worked usually fourteen to sixteen and more hours, and the laborer today who works perhaps only eight hours