Technology In Ayn Rand's Anthem

In the novel Anthem, the society lacks technology in comparison to other places. The people are still using candles, when electricity has already been discovered in the past. This must mean that they had technology before, but they got rid of it for some reason. My theory is that they had technology before, but they were starting to get lazy and corrupt from it, so they got rid of technology. With the use of technology today, humans are getting more and more lazy. For example, in the past, people had to push a lawnmower that didn’t have a motor to cut grass. Now, all people have to do is turn on a key and push a gas pedal while sitting down. In Anthem society could of had technology that was advanced enough where humans weren’t hardly ever
For example, when Equality discovers electricity, in what we can infer of a subway tunnel,”But terror struck the men of the council. They leapt to their feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed against the wall, huddled together.”(70), this must mean that technology has existed before and they got rid of it. The World Council of Scholars were afraid of the light bulb and they argued that the candles were a better method. This shows that long ago, technology existed, but was destroyed or hidden or otherwise, the scholars wouldn’t have been afraid because they are scholars and they should know what electricity
There has to be some reason behind the removal of almost all technology. The only technology that they have now is candles. They have had candles for 100 years. You would think that within a hundred years, that they could have discovered or invented some other method of providing lighting. Considering that in the past, society had already invented electricity that could power subway stations, you would think that someone in the one-hundred plus years could have invented or discovered the existing electricity and actually convinced the World Council of Scholars to accept it. Something really bad must have happened to convince society to remove technology that greatly improves people’s