TY - BOOK ID - 1922257 TI - The machinery question and the making of political economy, 1815-1848 PY - 1980 SN - 0521227828 0521287596 0511560338 0511866070 9780521227827 9780511560330 9780521287593 PB - Cambridge Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - History of Europe KW - anno 1800-1899 KW - Economics KW - Machinery in the workplace KW - Technological innovations KW - History KW - Arts and Humanities KW - automatisering KW - industrialisatie KW - sociale veranderingen KW - Groot-Brittannië KW - Economics - History - 19th century KW - Machinery in the workplace - History - 19th century KW - Technological innovations - History - 19th century KW - AA / International- internationaal KW - 331.12 KW - Geschiedenis van de industrie KW - Breakthroughs, Technological KW - Innovations, Industrial KW - Innovations, Technological KW - Technical innovations KW - Technological breakthroughs KW - Technological change KW - Creative ability in technology KW - Inventions KW - Domestication of technology KW - Innovation relay centers KW - Research, Industrial KW - Technology transfer KW - Machinery in industry KW - Work environment KW - Groot-Brittannië. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:1922257 AB - For those who lived through it, Britain's Industrial Revolution was experienced as the Machinery Question. It was far from clear to contemporaries whether the first forms of mechanized factory production heralded an inevitable economic revolution, or were but one course among several which might be modified or eventually rejected altogether, Opinion about the necessity or beneficence of machines was profoundly divided at all levels of society; the often acrimonious debate that arose reverberated through economic, political, cultural and intellectual life. Crucially important for the development of this debate, because it was the source of the very terms of discussion, was the new discipline of Political Economy. The major contention of this book is that the Machinery Question was also the making of Political Economy. 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. The book will interest teachers and students of British social and economic history, the history of economic thought and the history of science and technology. ER -