ABSTRACT
The issue of how the future of mankind would look through a period of indefinitely increasing production, was maybe the most poignant at the beginning of modern times in Germany. Modern productivism or, capitalist development, which would be named as such only about a century later (if one cites Werner Sombart as the real introducer of the notion within the social sciences – Sozialwissenschaften or Geisteswissenschaften in German – with his Der moderne Kapitalismus, published in 1902), was already not devoid of criticisms as the previous chapters have shown. Doubts and worries were cast upon the new orientation of human ability to master nature and ‘manufacture’ the world. True, machines were to provide individuals with ultimate power over natural forces and resources, but they would also bring endless stress, absurd routines, waste of natural resources and a somehow more painful life than existed before. Hence the nostalgia that pervaded the Romantic movement in the arts and literature, which was perhaps best illustrated in Germany.
