The Economy of Machinery & Manufactures


Book Description

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.













The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815-1848


Book Description

Dr Berg argues that technical change was one of the foremost theoretical concerns of Ricardo and his successors, and the foundation for their distinctly optimistic view of the future. She shows how the Machinery Question fostered the social conditions in which the status of Political Economy as a discipline was established, and concludes that by the 1840s the divisions over machinery were firmly embedded in the great rival creeds of the future, liberalism and socialism.







Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy


Book Description

This interdisciplinary volume provides a critical and multi-disciplinary review of current manufacturing processes, practices, and policies, and broadens our understanding of production and innovation in the world economy. Chapters highlight how firms