Under a biotechnic economy, consumption is directed toward the conservation and enhancement of life: a matter where qualitative standards are imperative. One uses the word life in no vague sense: one means the birth and nurture of children, the preservation of human health and well being, the culture of the human personality, and the perfection of the natural and civic environment as the theater of all these activities. Here are substantial goals for consumption not envisaged in the abstract doctrine of increasing wants, operating within an ever-expanding circle of new inventions and multiplying productive mechanisms.

quote from Lewis Mumford, his book The Myth of the Machine