Our economic and political system is at the heart of a cultural crisis. This crisis is best understood as a slow retreat into an anti-institutionalist individualism. We see a steady decline of social trust and less investment in the institutions that have provided a structure for social life. The result is an increased reliance on the state and on commerce to pattern social life and meet human needs. I argue that this crisis is partially the result of a pattern of economic trends toward greater prosperity, greater specialization, and concentrated economic power. In this environment, our private and public life is increasingly subject to technocratic control, either by government or by private enterprise. C. S. Lewis warned of the dehumanizing tendencies of the technocrats of his era. Similarly, Solzhenitsyn warned of a kind of corruption he saw in the public retreat from morality. I argue that this technocratic move is not entirely bad, but following a Kuyperian line, that a less technocratic order would have to include a public commitment to limiting the exercise of power both by the state and by firms.
Steven McMullen, "A Christian Humanist Critique of Our Post-Pandemic, Technocratic Economy," Journal of Markets & Morality 25, no. 2 (2022): 301-314