Jes Fabricius Møller
Market mechanisms and government machinery
Mechanical metaphors for society.

The body, the ship, the house and the machine are standard metaphors for society. The machine is the youngest and the least successful metaphor. It was used in a positive sense in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, as opposed to organic metaphors it does not agree very well with two major concepts of modern politics: freedom and development. Therefore the 19th and 20th centuries much rather drew their inspiration from biology. Machinery - as in 'apparatus' - is now mainly a critical term connoting cold staleness and automatic brutality, except in some economic theories where market mechanisms are considered the "engine" of modern society. Accordingly, progress is sometimes compared to a railroad: some forward-looking progressive people laid down the tracks and the rest will have to get on board in time if they don't want to be left behind in backwardness. The direction is not up for debate.