The Human Use of Human Beings - Wikipedia

“We were here in the presence of another social potentiality of unheard-of importance for good and for evil…. It [technology] gives the human race a new and most effective collection of mechanical slaves to perform its labor…. However, any labor that accepts the conditions of competition with slave labor accepts the conditions of slave labor, and is essentially slave labor…. However, taking the second [industrial] revolution as accomplished, the average human being of mediocre attainments or less has nothing to sell that is worth anyone’s money to buy. The answer, of course, is to have a society based on human values other than buying or selling.”