I've only read some of it but my biggest objections to his ideas is that as you said we can't go back and even if we did, unless the entire world including jews and chinese went back with us we'd just end up getting out competed. There are a lot of problems with industrial society but the only way for us to fix those problems is through intentional governmental policies which try to adapt industrial life to the needs of the people.

Problem is our government doesn't care for our well being one bit and actually sees pur suffering as a positive.