The Economy of Machinery & Manufactures

The Economy of Machinery & Manufactures
Author: Charles Babbage
Publisher: Gottfried & Fritz
Total Pages: 342
Release: 1832
Genre: Industrialists
ISBN:

The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures a three-volume book on, as the name suggests, the manufacture of goods, the machines that manufacture those goods and, of course, the organization of those who operate the machines themselves. It was an early influential work of operational research and is today best remembered, at best, as a seminal work on the organization of factories and production – the one in which the famous “Babbage principle” was first set forth – or, at worst, as a curio of the Industrial Revolution. Author Charles Babbage is perhaps better known for his creation of the analytical engine, his association with Ada Lovelace and his modern title as the “father of the computer,” but he was also an astute economist theorist and, in his The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, he convincingly displays his acumen for economics and the organization of industrial production.

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
Author: Charles Babbage
Publisher:
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1832
Genre: Industrialists
ISBN:

In this famous book, first published in 1832, Charles Babbage (1791-1871), the mathematician, philosopher, engineer and inventor who originated the concept of a programmable computer, surveys manufacturing practices and discusses the political, moral and economic factors affecting them. The book met with hostility from the publishing industry on account of Babbage's analysis of the manufacture and sale of books. Babbage describes the many different printing processes of the time, analyses the costs of book production and explains the publication process, before discussing the 'too large' profit margins of booksellers. Babbage succeeded in his aim 'to avoid all technical terms, and to describe in concise language', making this an eminently readable historical account. His analysis and promotion of mechanisation and efficient 'division of labour' (still known as the 'Babbage principle') continue to resonate strongly for modern industrial engineering.

Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson
Author: Henry Hazlitt
Publisher: Crown Currency
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2010-08-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0307760626

With over a million copies sold, Economics in One Lesson is an essential guide to the basics of economic theory. A fundamental influence on modern libertarianism, Hazlitt defends capitalism and the free market from economic myths that persist to this day. Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of The Freeman magazine, an influential libertarian publication. Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy. Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.

In Praise of Hard Industries

In Praise of Hard Industries
Author: Eamonn Fingleton
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1999
Genre: Industries
ISBN: 9780395899687

"In Praise of Hard Industries offers an authoritative and deeply disturbing counterargument to the many unexamined assumptions and glibly misstated facts that are driving our embrace of postindustrialism."--BOOK JACKET.

The Essential Zizek

The Essential Zizek
Author: Slavoj Zizek
Publisher: Verso
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-01-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781844673278

The essential texts for understanding Zizek’s thought.

Breaking Things at Work

Breaking Things at Work
Author: Gavin Mueller
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786636751

In the Nineteenth-century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and manoeuvres that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The luddites weren't primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world. Breaking Things at Work is an innovative rethinking of labour and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance-evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working-class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is intimidating, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage
Author: Anthony Hyman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1985
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780691023779

A biography of inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage.