Comment by db48x

You might have misunderstood. Automation isn’t wrong, what’s wrong is allowing machines to control or direct humans. So a machine that builds cars is fine, and most worlds have plenty of those, but a machine that decides what the car should look like how how many to build would be anathema.

Of course the book mostly takes place on a world with so little infrastructure that most of the goods are made offworld and imported. The native Freemen population makes plenty of stuff out of local resources, but they want to or have to stay hidden from the rest of society and so they don’t have any factories. The stillsuits they wear are hand made, but are exquisitely high–tech and display an ethos of perfectionism in their construction.

Also you might not have picked up that anyone able to afford a small amount of spice in their diet can live for much longer than anyone does today, and even the average person enjoys a wealth of products from hundreds of planets. House Atreides made their fortune harvesting whale fur and selling the clothes and other products made from it. At some point in history they became a Great House by arming themselves with nuclear weapons. There’s a form of personal wealth that doesn’t quite exist today! :)