RD"By technology you mean the human ability or propensity to create tools rather than the tools themselves?"
Yes. The word can be used either way, to mean the abstract ability or the material results (and I would include your examples of assembly lines, software and legislatures as "material results"). I meant the former.
This wasn't meant to be about technology, I just wanted to contrast this human process with #capitalism in response to @ChrisMayLA6 saying:
..."I think I'm going to disagree... much like Leiws Mumford argues technology can only be understood when linked to its use, producing broadly either authoritarian or democratic 'technics', I think #capitalism can be shaped & 'tamed' by democracy... the problems we have are because a dysfunctional democracy (as you say corrupted by money) is not regulating capitalism to our general benefit..."
The point I was trying to make is that capitalism is not a neutral thing; it cannot be reformed or "tamed". I used technology (in the abstract sense) because I believe it could be used in benevolent ways if it were not corrupted by capitalism, unlike capitalism which I believe is basically corruption itself; it corrupts everything it touches because that is it's very nature.
Like I said: we *could* have technology (in either sense of the word) without capitalism, and both of you seemed to affirm that it could be benevolent in that context. But you can't have capitalism without coercion. Capitalism is intrinsically malevolent, not merely as a result of the context it's in.
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