Lewis Mumford on Mechanization

“The incentive to mechanization lay in the greater profits that could be extracted through the multiplied and efficiency of the machine.”

“The mechanization of human labor was, in effect, the first step toward the humanization of the machine humanization in the sense of giving the automaton some of the mechanical equivalents of life-likeness.”

“Mechanization and regimentation are not new phenomena in history: what is new is the fact that these functions have been projected and embodied in organized form which dominate every aspect of our existence.”