What concerned Ellul most, I believe, isn't productivity gains per se but the tendency of technological advance to promote a system of all-encompassing social control. Ellul noted, for instance, that the classic police state affords a very crude, expensive means of control -- namely, *external* control. Through advances in mass communications, it is no longer necessary to impose control from the outside; thoroughly indoctrinated people police themselves.
(BTW, as a daily commuter on the Long Island Rail Road for over 15 years, I can assure you that Lord somebody-or-other didn't know the half of it [insert smiley face].)
Carl Remick