In a recent a Washington Post article – “Ring and Nest Helped Normalize American Surveillance and Turned Us into a Nation of Voyeurs” – journalist Drew Harwell discusses the social consequences of internet-connected door cameras.Read this article closely and write an essay that responds to the author’s concerns regarding the social significance of this new technology. In writing your essay, you should consider the following questions:What social “problem” are these new technologies designed to “solve,” according to the companies that make them?How was this “problem” addressed before the introduction of these devices? In other words, how did people live without it?How do the people interviewed for the story actually use these technologies? What additional uses do they describe?What new “affordances” does the technology introduce? How does the “design” of the device affect its use?Why is this new technology controversial? What are some examples of the risks?Who supports the use of this technology? Why?How might this new technology change society and social relationships? How do the concepts of technological determinism and social construction of technology apply to this case?What does the development of this technology suggest about the idea of progress? How would we define “progress” in this case?Your essay should incorporate insights and ideas from of the course readings and discussions to date – specifically, issues related to the concept of technological determinism, the idea of progress, and the social construction of technology.In writing your paper, you should refer to the following course readings:Leo Marx, “Does Improved Technology Mean Progress?,” Technology Review (1987): 33-41, 71.David E. Nye, “Does Technology Control Us?,” Technology Matters (2007), 17-31.Philip Brey, “Artifacts as Social Agents,” Inside the Politics of Technology (2005), 61-73.Ian Hutchby, “Technologies, Texts, and Affordances,” Sociology (2001), 441-456.Woodrow Hartzog, “Why Design is Everything,” Privacy’s Blueprint (2019), 21-55.Your paper must include specific, appropriate references to at least three of these readings.When citing specific examples or quotations from these readings, you should use parenthetical references that include the author’s last name and page number(s). For example:Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, believed that self-reliance allowed one to avoid the trickery and fraud of selling (Friedman, 26-27).If using the author’s name in the text of your sentence, then cite the page numbers only. For example:According to Friedman, Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, believed that self-reliance allowed one to avoid the trickery and fraud of selling (26-27).Technology Review v. 90, no. 1 (January 1987)
Woodrow Hartzog, Privacy’s Blueprint, Harvard, 2018
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from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.
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In Inside the Politics of Technology, ed. Hans Harbers
(Amsterdam: U of Amsterdam P, 2005), pp. 61-73.
%BWJE & /ZF 5FDIOPMPHZ .BUUFST .*5 1SFTT
2
Does Technology Control Us?
18
Chapter 2
Japan’s long, successful rejection of guns is revealing. A society
or a group that is able to act without outside interference can abolish a powerful technology. In the United States, the Mennonites
and the Amish do not permit any device to be used before they
have carefully evaluated its potential impact on the community.
For example, they generally resist home telephones and prefer
face-to-face communication, although they permit limited use of
phones to deal with the outside world. They reject both automobiles and gasoline tractors. Instead, they breed horses and build
their own buggies and farm machinery. These choices make the
Are technologies deterministic?1 Many people talk as though they
community far more self-sufficient than it would be if each farmer
are. Students have often told me that the spread of television or
annually spent thousands of dollars on farm machinery, gasoline,
the Internet was “inevitable.” Likewise, most people find the idea
and artificial fertilizer, all of which would necessarily come from
of a modern world without automobiles unimaginable. However,
outside the community. Their leaders decide such matters, rather
history provides some interesting counterexamples to apparently
than leaving each individual to choose in the market. Such prac-
inevitable technologies. The gun would appear to be the classic
tices might seem merely quaint, but they provide a buffer against
case of a weapon that no society could reject once it had been
such things as genetically modified foods or chemical pesticides,
introduced. Yet the Japanese did just that. They adopted guns
and they help to preserve the community. Indeed, the Amish are
from Portuguese traders in 1543, learned how to make them, and
growing and flourishing. Both the Japanese rejection of the gun
gradually gave up the bow and the sword. As early as 1575 guns
and the Amish selective acceptance of modern farming equip-
proved decisive in a major battle (Nagoshino), but then the Japan-
ment show that communities can make self-conscious technolog-
ese abandoned them, for what can only be considered cultural
ical choices and can resist even very powerful technologies.
reasons. The guns they produced worked well, but they had little
Furthermore, these two examples suggest that the belief in
symbolic value to warriors, who preferred traditional weapons.2
determinism paradoxically seems to require a “free market.” The
The government restricted gun production, but this alone would
belief in technological determinism is widely accepted in individ-
not be enough to explain Japan’s reversion to swords and arrows.
ualistic societies that embrace laissez-faire economics. What
Other governments have attempted to restrict gun ownership
many people have in mind when they say that television or the
and use, often with little success. But the Japanese samurai class
Internet was “inevitable” boils down to an assumption that these
rejected the new weapon, and the gun disappeared. It re-entered
technologies are so appealing that most consumers, given the
society only after 1853, when Commodore Perry sailed his war-
chance, will buy them. Historians of technology often reject this
ships into Japanese waters and forced the country to open itself to
view because they are concerned not only with consumers but
the West.
Does Technology Control Us?
19
20
Chapter 2
also with inventors, entrepreneurs, and marketers. They see each
let the wheel fall into disuse after the third century A.D., prefer-
new technology not simply as a product to be purchased, but as a
ring to transport goods by camel. This was a sensible choice. Main-
part of a larger system. Few historians argue that machines deter-
taining roads for wheeled carts and supplying watering sites for
mine history. Instead, they contend that new technologies are
horses and oxen was far more expensive, given the terrain and the
shaped by social conditions, prices, traditions, popular attitudes,
climate, than opting for the camel, which “can carry more, move
interest groups, class differences, and government policy.3
faster, and travel further, on less food and water, than an ox,”
A surprising number of people, however, including many
needs “neither roads nor bridges,” and is able to “traverse rough
scholars, speak and write about technologies as though they were
ground and ford rivers and streams.”6 In short, societies that have
deterministic. According to one widely read book, television has
used the wheel may turn away from it. Other civilizations, not-
“helped change the deferential Negro into the proud Black,” has
ably the Mayans and the Aztecs, knew of the wheel but never
“given women an outside view of their incarceration in the
developed it for practical purposes. They put wheels on toys and
home,” and has “weakened visible authorities by destroying the
ceremonial objects, yet apparently they did not use wheels in
distance and mystery that once enhanced their aura and pres-
construction or transportation. In short, awareness of particular
tige.”4 These examples suggest that technology has an inexorable
tools or machines does not automatically force a society to adopt
logic, that it forces change. But is this the inexorable effect of
them or to keep them.
introducing television into China or the Arab world? In some
In Capitalism and Material Life, Fernand Braudel rejected tech-
cases, one might argue, television is strengthening fundamental-
nological determinism. Reflecting on how slowly some societies
ism. It simply will not do to assume that the peculiar structure of
adopt new methods and techniques, he declared: “Technology is
the American television market is natural. In the United States,
only an instrument and man does not always know how to use
television is secular, not religious; private, not public; funded by
it.”7 Like Braudel, most specialists in the history of technology do
advertising, not taxation; and a conduit primarily of entertain-
not see new machines as coercive agents dictating social change,
ment, not education. These are cultural choices.
and most remain unpersuaded by determinism, though they
Many have made a similar mistake in writing about the Inter-
readily agree that people are often reluctant to give up conven-
net. Nicholas Negroponte declared, in a best-selling book, that
iences. For millennia people lived without electric light or central
“digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into
heating, but during the last 150 years many societies have adopted
greater world harmony.”5 This is nonsense. No technology is, has
these technologies and made them part of their building codes. It
been, or will be a “natural force.” Nor will any technology by itself
is now illegal in many places to build or live in a house without
break down cultural barriers and bring world peace. Consider the
indoor plumbing, heating, and electric lighting. In other words,
wheel, an invention that most people think of as essential to civi-
people become enmeshed in a web of technical choices made for
lization. Surely the wheel must be an irresistible force, even if the
them by their ancestors. This is not determinism, though it does
gun and the automobile are not! Much of North Africa, however,
Does Technology Control Us?
21
22
Chapter 2
suggest why people may come to feel trapped by choices others
suggests that the actual usefulness of a new technology is unpre-
have made.
dictable.
Often, adopting a new technology has unintended consequences. Governments build highways to relieve traffic conges-
The idea that mechanical systems are deterministic remains so
tion, but better roads may attract more traffic and reduce the use
persistent, however, that a brief review of this tradition is neces-
of mass transit as an alternative. Edward Tenner, in his book Why
sary. In the middle of the nineteenth century, most European and
Things Bite Back, examines “the revenge of unintended conse-
American observers saw machines as the motor of change that
quences.”8 Among many examples, he notes that computers are
pushed society toward the future. The phrase “industrial revo-
expected to improve office efficiency, but in practice people spend
lution,” which gradually came into use after c. 1875, likewise
enormous amounts of time adjusting to updated software and
expressed the notion that new technologies were breaking deci-
they suffer eyestrain, back problems, tendonitis, and cumulative
sively with the past. Early socialists and free-market capitalists
trauma disorder.9 Furthermore, to the extent that computers
agreed on little else, but both saw industrialization as an unfold-
replace secretaries, white-collar professionals often find them-
ing of rationality. Even harsh early critics tended to assume that
selves doing routine tasks, such as copying and filing docu-
the machine itself was neutral, and focused their attacks on
ments and stuffing envelopes. Thus, despite many claims made
people who misused it. Not until the twentieth century did many
for greater efficiency through computerization, a study by the
argue that technologies might be out of control or inherently dan-
American Manufacturing Association found that reducing staff
gerous. Technological determinism, which in the nineteenth
raised profits for only 43 percent of the firms that tried it, and 24
century often seemed beneficent, appeared more threatening
percent actually suffered losses, despite the savings on wages. In
thereafter.
some cases computerization reduced the time that highly skilled
Some Victorians worried that machinery seemed to proliferate
employees had available to perform skilled work. “Their jobs
more rapidly than the political means to govern it. Without any
became more diverse in a negative way, including things like
need of the word “technology,” Thomas Carlyle issued a full-scale
10
For some
indictment of industrialization that contained many of the neg-
white-collar workers, the computer had the unintended conse-
ative meanings that later would be poured into the term. His con-
quence of diminishing their specialization.
temporary Karl Marx saw the mechanization of society as part of
printing out letters that their secretaries once did.”
In short, rather than assuming that technologies are deter-
an iron law of inevitable historical development.11 In The Critique
ministic, it appears more reasonable to assume that cultural
of Political Economy, Marx argued that “the mode of production of
choices shape their uses. While salesmen and promoters like to
material life determines the general character of the social, polit-
claim that a new machine is inevitable and urge us to buy it now
ical, and spiritual process of life.”12 (Marx did not use the word
or risk falling behind competitors, historical experience strongly
“technology” in the first edition of Das Kapital,13 though it did
appear in later editions. His collaborator, Engels, took up the term
Does Technology Control Us?
23
24
Chapter 2
“technics” late in life.14) Marx argued that industrialization’s
to stimulate demand, profits fell. If he sought still greater effi-
immediate results were largely negative for the working class. The
ciencies through mergers with rivals, he threw even more work-
skilled artisan who once had the satisfaction of making a finished
ers on the dole, and the imbalance between excessive supply and
product was subjected to the subdivision of labor. The worker,
weak demand became more severe. Marx’s analysis posited the
who once had decided when to work and when to take breaks, lost
inevitable end of capitalism. As greater mechanization produced
control of such choices in the new factories. Capital’s increasing
greater surpluses, it impoverished more workers, causing increas-
control of the means of production went along with de-skilling of
ingly severe economic crises because supplies outran demand.
work and lowering of wages. Industrialization broke the bonds of
Mechanization under capitalism apparently led unavoidably to
communities and widened the gaps between social classes. Marx
worker exploitation, social inequality, class warfare, social col-
argued that capitalism would collapse not only because it was
lapse, and finally revolution.
unjust and immoral, and not only because poverty and inequal-
Marx did not reject technology itself. After the collapse of capi-
ity would goad the workers to revolt, but also because it would cre-
talism, he expected, a succeeding socialist regime would appropri-
ate economic crises of increasing intensity. These crises were not
ate the means of production and build an egalitarian life of plenty
caused by greed or oppression, and they would occur no matter
for all. If Marxism made a powerful critique of industrialization
how well meaning capitalists themselves might be. For Marx,
that included such concepts as class struggle, worker alienation,
the logic of capitalism led to continual investment in better
de-skilling of artisans, false consciousness, and reification, ulti-
machines and factories, which tied up resources in “fixed capi-
mately it was not hostile to the machine as such. Rather, both
tal,” leaving less money available for wages (“variable capital”). As
Marx and Engels expected that industrialization would provide
investments shifted from labor power to machinery, the amount
the basis for a better world. Similarly, Lenin hoped that after the
available for wages and the number of workers employed had to
Russian Revolution the technical elite would rationally direct fur-
decrease; otherwise the capitalist could not make a profit. This
ther industrialization and redistribute the wealth it produced.
made sense for each individual capitalist, but the overall effect on
Lenin argued that revolutionary change “should not be confused
society when many factories cut total wages and substituted
with the question of the scientifically trained staff of engineers,
machines for men was a decrease in demand. At the very time
agronomists and so on.” “These gentlemen,” he continued, “are
when a capitalist had more goods to sell (because he had a new
working today in obedience to the wishes of the capitalists, and
and better production system), fewer people had money to pur-
will work even better tomorrow in obedience to the wishes of the
chase those goods. Thus, Marx argued, efficiency in production
armed workers.”15 After the Revolution, the Soviet Union empha-
flooded the market with goods, but simultaneously the substitu-
sized electrification and mass production. Lenin famously
tion of machines for laborers undermined demand. A crisis was
declared that only when the Soviet Union had been completely
unavoidable. If a capitalist halted production until he had sold
electrified could it attain full socialism. He vigorously pursued a
off surpluses, he reduced demand still further. If he raised wages
ten-year plan of building generating plants and incorporated
them into a national grid, with the goal of extending electrical
Does Technology Control Us?
25
26
Chapter 2
service to every home.16 As this example suggests, Marxists criti-
the failure of cultural and political institutions, and not tech-
cized how capitalists used technical systems but not industrializa-
nological change, accounted for the decline of ancient Rome.
tion itself.
Sombart accorded technology an important role in history, par-
The left generally assumed that a society’s technologies defined
ticularly in modern times, but he also recognized the importance
its economic system and social organization. Thus the primitive
of culture and institutions. The Chicago School of sociology
mill produced feudalism, while the steam engine produced capi-
developed Sombart’s ideas in the United States. For example,
talism. They equated mechanization and industrialization with
when William Ogburn wrote about “the influence of invention
the rational unfolding of history. Evolutionary socialists agreed
and discovery,” he denied that “mechanical invention is the
that technological systems ultimately would become the basis of
source of all change” and pointed to “social inventions” such as
a utopia, without, however, expecting that violent class conflict
“the city manager form of government . . . which have had great
and revolution were necessary to attain it. They believed that
effects upon social customs. While many social inventions are
new technologies would lead to the inevitable decline of capital-
only remotely connected with mechanical inventions, others
ism and the emergence of a better economic system. For example,
appear to be precipitated by” them, such as “the trade union and
German-born Charles Steinmetz, the leading scientist at General
the tourist camp.” Influence could flow in either direction. Social
Electric in its first decades, expected socialism to emerge along
inventions could stimulate technical invention.18 Ogburn admit-
with a national electrical grid, because it was an inherently inter-
ted that mechanization had a powerful effect on society, yet he
dependent basis for economic reorganization. Electricity could
emphasized that “a social change is seldom the result of a single
not be stored efficiently and had to be consumed through large
invention.” Women’s suffrage, for example, was the outcome of a
distribution systems as soon as it was produced. “The relation
great number of converging forces and influences, including mass
between the steam engine as a source of power and the electric
production, urbanization, birth control, the adoption of the type-
motor is thus about the same as the relation between the individ-
writer, improved education, and the theory of natural rights. Most
ualist [capitalist] and the socialist. . . . The one is independent of
historical changes were attributable to such a “piling up process.”
everything else, is self-contained, the other, the electric motor, is
Making the distinction between social invention and technical
dependent on every other user in the system. . . . The electric
invention also suggested to Ogburn the notion of a cultural lag.
power is probably today the most powerful force tending towards
“There is often a delay or lag in the adaptive culture after the
co-ordination, that is cooperation [socialism].”17 Both Marxists
material culture has changed, and sometimes these lags are very
and evolutionary socialists embraced not only the machine but
costly, as was the case with workmen’s compensation for indus-
also a sense of inevitable historical development based on techno-
trial accidents.”19 “The more one studies the relationship between
logical change.
mechanical and social inventions,” Ogburn concluded, “the
In contrast, Werner Sombart rejected such determinism in Tech-
more interrelated they seem. Civilization is a complex of inter-
nik und Kultur, where he argued that cultures often shaped events
connections between social institutions and customs on the one
more than technologies did. For example, Sombart thought that
hand, and technology and science on the other.”20 Because “the
Does Technology Control Us?
27
28
Chapter 2
whole interconnected mass is in motion,”21 it was difficult to estab-
much on invention or technical details. Externalist studies of
lish causation.
“technology transfer” often say little about machines and pro-
The idea that technologies developed more rapidly than society
cesses, such as firearms or textile factories, but a great deal about
remained attractive to some later theorists. During the 1960s,
their “impact” on other countries.23 Externalists usually adopt the
Marshall McLuhan won a large following as he argued that every
point of view of a third-person narrator who stands outside tech-
major form of communication had reshaped the way people saw
nical processes. They seldom dwell on the (often protracted) dif-
their world, causing changes in both public behavior and political
ficulties in defining the technological object at the time of its
institutions. For McLuhan, innovations in communications,
invention and early diffusion. Close analysis—common in the
notably the printing press, radio, and television, had automatic
internalist approach to be described in chapter 4—tends to under-
effects on society. Unlike Ogburn, McLuhan paid little attention
mine determinism, because it reveals the importance of particular
to reciprocal effects or social inventions. For McLuhan, not only
individuals, accidents, chance, and local circumstances.
did the media extend the human sense organs; each new form
Determinism is not limited to optimists. Between 1945 and
of a medium disrupted the relationship between the senses.
1970, many of the most pessimistic critics of technology were also
McLuhan argued that the phonetic alphabet intensified the visual
determinists. Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of
function and that literate cultures devalued the other senses—a
individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Tech-
process that moveable type intensified. Furthermore, McLuhan
nique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the
thought electronic media extended the central nervous system
new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature.
and linked humanity together in a global network. Alvin Toffler
Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society24 were told that
reworked such deterministic ideas into Future Shock, a best-seller
Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of
that argued that technological change had accelerated to the
means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques
point that people scarcely could cope with it. Later, in The Third
had become self-engendering and had accelerated out of human-
Wave, Toffler argued that a new industrial revolution was being
ity’s control: “Technical progress tends to act, not according to an
22
driven by electronics, computers, and the space program. In such
studies, the word “impact” suggests that machines inexorably
impress change on society.
arithmetic, but according to a geometric progression.”25
Writers on the left found technology equally threatening, and
many thought the only possible antidote to be a dramatic shift
Although the details of their analyses varied, both McLuhan’s
in consciousness. In One-Dimensional Man (1964) and other works,
arguments and Toffler’s were externalist, treating new technol-
Herbert Marcuse, a Marxist sociologist whose work emerged from
ogies as autonomous forces that compel society to change. The
the Frankfurt School, attacked the technocratic state in both its
public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies
capitalist and its socialist formations. He called for “revolutionary
have beneficent “natural” effects with little government inter-
consciousness-raising” in preparation for a wholesale rejection of
vention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a
the managed system that everywhere was reducing people to
technology a dominant place within society, without focusing
Does Technology Control Us?
29
30
Chapter 2
unimaginative cogs in the machine of the state. Marcuse, who
cultural discourse at a given historical moment. The epistemes did
became popular with the student movements of the late 1960s,
not evolve from one discursive system to the next but rather were
hoped that the “New Left” would spearhead the rejection of the
separated by ruptures, or breaks in continuity. When a new dis-
technocratic regime. In The Making of a Counter Culture (1969),
course emerged, it did not build upon previous systems. Rather, as
Theodore Roszak was equally critical but less confrontational,
a sympathetic critic summarized, “a new knowledge begins, it is
arguing that reform of the technocratic state was impossible. His
unrelated to previous knowledge.”29 Foucault conceived history as
first chapter, “Technocracy’s Children,” attacked the mystifica-
a series of internally coherent epistemological systems, each built
tion of all decision making as it became clothed in the apparently
upon different premises. The individual author, inventor, or citi-
irrefutable statistics and the terminology of technocrats. Western
zen was not the master of his or her fate but rather was penetrated
society had become a “technocracy,” defined by Roszak as “that
and defined by discourses. Each was caught within, scarcely aware
society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to
of, and ultimately articulated by structures of knowledge and
technical experts who, in turn, justify themselves by appeal to sci-
power that were deployed and naturalized throughout society. In
26
entific forms of knowledge.” Such a technical ideology seemed
the modern episteme, Foucault was concerned with how power
“ideologically invisible” because its assumed ideals—rationality
became anonymous and embedded in bureaucracies, making
and efficiency—were accepted without discussion both in the
hierarchical surveillance a social norm. His determinism was far
communist East and the capitalist West. To resist technocracy,
more comprehensive than that of most previous thinkers.
a de-technologized consciousness was needed, which Roszak
Foucault, and later the postmodernist Francois Lyotard,
sought through a combination of Zen Buddhism, post-Freudian
authored academic best-sellers of the 1970s and the 1980s, but
psychology, and the construction of alternative grassroots institu-
their grand deterministic theories found little favor among histo-
tions, such as those in the emerging hippie movement.27
rians of technology, whose research showed considerable evi-
As student radicalism faded during the 1970s, social revolution
dence of human agency in the creation, dissemination, and use
seemed less probable than technological domination, notably as
of new technologies. Leo Marx declared that postmodern theo-
analyzed in the work of Michel Foucault. He treated technology as
rists in effect ratify “the idea of the domination of life by large
the material expression of an overarching discourse that struc-
technological systems” and promote a “shrunken sense of
tured individual consciousness and shaped institutions, notably
human agency.”30 The most sweeping rejection of technological
hospitals, asylums, and prisons.28 In contrast to Marx, Foucault’s
determinism came from Marx’s student Langdon Winner in
theory did not conceive of an economic or a technical “base” that
Autonomous Technology, a book Winner said he had written in a
drove changes in the social “superstructure.” Rather, Foucault saw
spirit of “epistemological Luddism.”31 In dismantling determinis-
history as the exfoliation of patterns of ideas and structures (“epis-
tic ideologies, Winner made it easier to think of technologies as
temes”), which were expressed in art, in architecture, in classifica-
socially shaped, or constructed. Winner also emphasized Karl
tion systems, in social relations, and in all other aspects of the
Marx’s more flexible views of technology in his earlier works. In
Does Technology Control Us?
31
The German Ideology (1846), Winner comments, “human beings
do not stand at the mercy of a great deterministic punch press that
cranks out precisely tailored persons at a certain rate during a
given historical period. Instead, the situation Marx describes is
one in which individuals are actively involved in the daily creation and recreation, production and reproduction of the world in
which they live.”32 While Marx’s labor theory of value might seem
to suggest rigid determinism, Winner argues that his work as a
whole does not support such a view.
Technological determinism lacks a coherent philosophical tradition, although it remains popular. A variety of thinkers on both
the right and the left have put forward theories of technological
determinism, but the majority of historians of technology have
not found them useful. As the following two chapters will show,
deterministic conceptions of technology seem misguided when
one looks closely at the invention, the development, and the marketing of individual devices.
Notes to pp. 17–26
229
Chapter 2
1. On the rejection of technological determinism, see Winner 1977 and
Smith and Marx 1994.
2. Discussed on pp. 78–79 and 188–189 of Basalla 1988.
3. Since 1985, more than two-thirds of the articles published in Technology
and Culture have employed some form of a contextualist approach. For an
overview, see Staudenmaier 1994.
4. Meyrowitz 1985, p. 309.
5. Negroponte 1995, p. 230.
6. Basalla 1988, p. 11. The classic study is Bulliet 1975.
7. Braudel 1973, p. 274.
8. Tenner 1996.
9. Ibid., pp. 220–223.
10. Ibid., pp. 207–208.
11. For a critical yet sympathetic summary and analysis of Marx, see
pp. 461–482 of Sibley 1970.
12. Marx 1964, p. 64.
230
Notes to pp. 26–36
20. Ogburn 1964, pp. 132–133.
21. Ibid, p. 133.
22. Toffler 1970. These ideas were developed further in Toffler 1980. For a
more academic treatment of similar themes, see p. 309 of Meyrowitz 1985.
23. See Clark 1987.
24. Ellul 1970.
25. Cited on p. 61 of Winner 1977. In his little-read later work The Ethics of
Freedom (1976), Ellul constructed a Christian argument that defied the
technological system, building upon the work of Søren Kierkegaard and
the existentialists.
26. Roszak 1969, pp. 7–8.
27. Ibid., chapters 4, 6, 7.
28. Foucault 1977, 1995.
29. Kurzweil 1980, p. 209.
30. Marx 1995, pp. 24–25.
31. Winner 1977.
32. Winner 1986, pp. 14–15.
13. Marx 1997, p. 975.
Chapter 3
14. See Schatzberg, “Technik Comes to America.”
1. Utterback 1994, p. 193.
15. Cited on p. 51 of Feenberg 1999.
2. There are many examples of machines becoming much more popular
after designers re-create them. See Meikle 1979.
16. On Lenin’s enthusiasm for electrification, see pp. 258–261 of Hughes
1989.
3. CNN Evening News, European edition, October 12, 1998.
17. The Steinmetz citation is from p. 9 of Kline 1985.
4. Barlow 2004, p. 177.
18. Ogburn 1934, p. 124. For an insightful retrospective on Ogburn, see
Volti 2004.
5. On how corporations exhibited themselves at fairs, see pp. 249–311 of
Marchand 1998.
19. Ogburn 1934, p. 125.
6. Wise 1976.
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