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 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.
**
Contents 8
Preface to the Transaction Edition 10
Preface 12
Acknowledgments 18
Part One: COMMAND AND CONTROL 20
1. The Setting: The War Abroad 22
2. The Setting: The War at Home 40
3. Power and the Power of Ideas 61
4. Toward the Automatic Factory 76
Part Two: SOCIAL CHOICE IN MACHINE DESIGN 96
5. By the Numbers I 98
6. By the Numbers II 125
7. The Road Not Taken 171
Part Three: A NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGE 220
8. Development: A Free Lunch 222
9. Diffusion: A Glimpse of Reality 239
10. Deployment: Power in Numbers 257
11. Who's Running the Shop? 300
Epilogue: Another Look at Progress 359
APPENDICES 390
Appendix I 392
Appendix II 394
Appendix III 396
Appendix IV 398
Appendix V 399
Notes 402
PART ONE: COMMAND AND CONTROL 402
Chapter One: The War Abroad 402
Chapter Two: The War at Home 404
Chapter Three: Power and the Power of Ideas 406
Chapter Four: Toward the Automatic Factory 407
PART TWO: SOCIAL CHOICE IN MACHINE DESIGN 409
Chapter Five: By the Numbers I 409
Chapter Six: By the Numbers II 411
Chapter Seven: The Road Not Taken 415
PART THREE: A NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 419
Chapter Eight: Development: A Free Lunch 419
Chapter Nine: Diffusion: A Glimpse of Reality 421
Chapter Ten: Deployment: Power in Numbers 423
Chapter Eleven: Who's Running the Shop? 426
Epilogue 430
Index 434
RulingClassStudies,TracingConcepts

upload/motw_shc_2025_10/shc/Forces of Production_ A Social History of - David F Noble.pdf

motw/Forces of Production_ A Social History of - David F Noble.pdf

motw/Forces of Production_ A Social History of - David F Noble.pdf

David Franklin Noble

Noble, David

Transaction Publishers

First issued in hardback, New York ; London, 2017

United States, United States of America

New Brunswick, N.J, New Jersey, 2011

1, 2011

producers:
Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.0.0 Paper Capture Plug-in with ClearScan

Memory of the World Librarian: marcell mars

Memory of the World Librarian: George Luis Bataille

Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-397) and index.

<p><P>Focusing on the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry&#151;the heart of the modern industrial economy&#151;this is a provocative study of how automation has assumed a critical role in America. David Noble argues that industrial automation&#151;more than merely a technological advance&#151;is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.</p>

2025-10-27