Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation
by David F. Noble
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Focusing on the design and implementation of computer-based automatic machine tools, David F. Noble challenges the idea that technology has a life of its own. Technology has been both a convenient scapegoat and a universal solution, serving to disarm critics, divert attention, depoliticize debate, and dismiss discussion of the fundamental antagonisms and inequalities that continue to beset America. This provocative study of the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry--the show more heart of a modern industrial economy--explains how dominant institutions like the great corporations, the universities, and the military, along with the ideology of modern engineering shape, the development of technology. Noble shows how the system of "numerical control," perfected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and put into general industrial use, was chosen over competing systems for reasons other than the technical and economic superiority typically advanced by its promoters. Numerical control took shape at an MIT laboratory rather than in a manufacturing setting, and a market for the new technology was created, not by cost-minded producers, but instead by the U. S. Air Force. Competing methods, equally promising, were rejected because they left control of production in the hands of skilled workers, rather than in those of management or programmers. Noble demonstrates that engineering design is influenced by political, economic, managerial, and sociological considerations, while the deployment of equipment--illustrated by a detailed case history of a large General Electric plant in Massachusetts--can become entangled with such matters as labor classification, shop organization, managerial responsibility, and patterns of authority. In its examination of technology as a human, social process, Forces of Production is a path-breaking contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon in American society. show lessTags
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" This is not a book about American technology, but about American technology" so Noble began this important book in 1984 when computerization had truly taken hold of American life, and when unemployment was high in the United States. Now, in 2012 Noble's predictions have come to fruition. Management is not interested in preserving meaningful jobs, but in continuing Taylor's techniues of subdividing tasks and ultimately when machines can take over, eliminating the human element altogether, much as has happened in agriculture.
There is much valuable material here. Noble emphasizes the role the military industrial complex played in achieving these ends. His conclusion is that as early as the middle eighties the U.S., in fact the world, was show more already faced with structual unemployment, with no solution to unemployment in sight.
An excellent book. show less
There is much valuable material here. Noble emphasizes the role the military industrial complex played in achieving these ends. His conclusion is that as early as the middle eighties the U.S., in fact the world, was show more already faced with structual unemployment, with no solution to unemployment in sight.
An excellent book. show less
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52 works; 2 members
Author Information
10 Works 776 Members
David F. Noble has been a Professor of the History of Technology at MIT and Curator of Automation at the Smithsonian Institution. He is currently Professor of History at York University in Toronto. He was a co-founder of The National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Technology, General Nonfiction, Business, Science & Nature
- DDC/MDS
- 303.483 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social processes Social change Causes of change Development of science and technology
- LCC
- TJ1189 .N63 — Technology Mechanical engineering and machinery Mechanical engineering and machinery Machine shops and machine shop practice
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 126
- Popularity
- 258,311
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.40)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 1
