"Of all forms of wealth, money alone is without assignable limits. The prince who might desire to build 5 palaces might hesitate to build five thousand: but what was to prevent him from seeking by conquest and taxes to multiple by thousands the riches in his treasury?" (p. 24)
"...to think in terms of mere weight and number, to make quantity not alone an indication of value but the criterion of value--that was the contribution of capitalism to the mechanical world-picture. So the abstractions of capitalism preceded the abstractions of modern science and re-enforced at every point its typical lessons and its typical methods of procedure." (p. 25)
"Capitalism utilized the machine, not to further social welfare, but to increase private profit: mechanical instruments were used for the aggrandizement of the ruling classes. It was because of capitalism that the handicraft industries in both Europe and other parts of the world were recklessly destroyed by machine products, even when the latter were inferior to the thing they replaced: for the prestige of improvement and success and power was with the machine, even when it improved nothing, even when technically speaking it was a failure." (p. 27)
Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford
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