Lewis on Progress and Planned Societies

. . . the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge . . . . This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientist, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend.
"Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, pp. 314-15

We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness, and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it: omnicompetent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement?
"Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, pp. 315-16

What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny'. All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of all the others.
"Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, p. 316

The real picture is that of one dominant age . . . which resists all previous ages most successfully [by debunking the traditions] and dominates all subsequent ages most irresistibly [by planning society], and thus is the real master of the human species.
The Abolition of Man, 1947, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974, p. 71.

Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man. . . . If the fully planned and conditioned world . . . comes into existence, Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness.
The Abolition of Man, 1947, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974, p. 80.

The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. . . . But as soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has been sacrificed are one and the same.
The Abolition of Man, 1947, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974, p. 83.

. . . Man's conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some unknowingly, nearly all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce.
The Abolition of Man, 1947, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974, p. 86.

The true object [of the modern era as introduced by Bacon] is to extend Man's power to the performance of all things possible. He [Bacon] rejects magic because it does not work, but his goal is that of the magician.
The Abolition of Man, 1947, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974, p. 89.