What do you think?
Rate this book
On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
Short The difficulty of understanding the processes of manufactures has unfortunately been greatly overrated.
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
25 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Charles Babbage
90 books21 followersBritish mathematician Charles Babbage invented an analytical machine, based on similar principles to those that modern computers use.
This English philosopher and mechanical engineer originated the concept of digital programming. Some persons consider Babbage a "father" and credit him with the first that eventually led to more complex electronic designs but find all essential ideas in his engine. His varied work in other fields led to his described "preeminence" of his century.
The science museum in London displays incomplete parts of Babbage. From original plans of Babbage, people in 1991 constructed a functioning difference engine. Built to achievable tolerances in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage worked.
This English philosopher and mechanical engineer originated the concept of digital programming. Some persons consider Babbage a "father" and credit him with the first that eventually led to more complex electronic designs but find all essential ideas in his engine. His varied work in other fields led to his described "preeminence" of his century.
The science museum in London displays incomplete parts of Babbage. From original plans of Babbage, people in 1991 constructed a functioning difference engine. Built to achievable tolerances in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage worked.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 26, 2013
I write steampunk, and if steampunk has a great-grandfather, it's Charles Babbage, so when I saw this book on Project Gutenberg I immediately picked it up.
Babbage invented the Difference Engine, a mechanical computer which was never fully realized. In the course of trying to get it built, he spent a lot of time with manufacturers, and this 1832 book reflects what he learned, with a large helping of his own political and economic philosophy.
It's not particularly well-organized. Not only do the chapters not tell a clear, sequential story about a single subject, but he often goes off on tangents even within a chapter, talking about everything from how annoyed he is that the king's youngest son was made President of the Royal Society to the possibilities for changing over to a decimal currency (which Britain eventually did, a century and a half later) to a suggested reform of the medical system that would give less motivation to overcharge for inferior or ineffective drugs. Along the way he touches on the importance of such topics as branding, statistical analysis, maintenance of machinery and the teaching of technical drawing; the disruptive effect of specific taxes (while he states that taxes themselves are "essential for the security both of liberty and property" - he's no Libertarian); and the trickle-down theory of economics (he believes in it with reservations, but thinks it's not the best possible system). He proposes submarines, speculates on the possible effects of power transmission over long distances, and mentions the importance of light for health. He also speculates what might happen when the coal is gone (though he believes in the capacity of nature to adjust to industrial pollution).
His main theme, though, is the usefulness and importance of division of labour to produce efficiency in manufacturing. He's opposed to unions (or "combinations", as he calls them), not because he doesn't support the rights of workers to fair treatment but because he thinks unions have shown themselves to be a bad method to achieve that end. He proposes what still sounds like an excellent scheme, whereby part of the wages of factory workers come from a share in the profits of the factory. While believing that government ought to interfere as little as possible between workers and employers, he considers it more important that workmen should be paid fairly and not forced to buy from a "company store", and that hours of work for children, and the age at which they start work, should be limited, because in both cases this is protecting the weak from injustice.
Some things are the same 180 years later. Many of his points about what makes manufacturing profitable are still entirely valid. We still don't have a satisfactory patent or copyright law, and authors are still complaining about the division of profits in the publishing industry (though more about what the publishers get than what the booksellers get, which was Babbage's beef). The trustworthiness of reviews is still in question, though in Babbage's day the problem was that publishers owned the review magazines.
Other things may have been true in his time, when improvements were being made so quickly that machines were being replaced with better ones before they had time to wear out and the price of manufactured goods was dropping precipitately (he includes figures), but now that the industrial age has reached more or less its end state they are no longer applicable. They're applicable to the comparable advances in computers, though, and it makes me speculate about an end state there, when the rate of improvement eventually drops through the law of diminishing returns.
There have been social changes since Babbage's time, too, which I think we would all agree are for the better. No longer do 7-year-olds work 10- to 12-hour days in factories and get paid one to three shillings a month for it. (It wasn't a good time to be a child; even if you weren't working in a factory, you probably had lead toys.)
The Project Gutenberg ebook (I read the .mobi version) has some editing and formatting issues. A spellcheck would have caught a number of the editing problems, mainly missing spaces, although there are also commas read as full stops and the like. In formatting, the main problem is the many tables of figures Babbage includes, which are hard to format in an ebook even if you try (and I don't think the Project Gutenberg editor did).
Babbage's style is long-winded, with long sentences that you sometimes have to concentrate to get through, but the effort was worth it to me to gain a fascinating insight into both the early 19th century and the phenomenon of manufacturing as seen by a remarkable mind.
Babbage invented the Difference Engine, a mechanical computer which was never fully realized. In the course of trying to get it built, he spent a lot of time with manufacturers, and this 1832 book reflects what he learned, with a large helping of his own political and economic philosophy.
It's not particularly well-organized. Not only do the chapters not tell a clear, sequential story about a single subject, but he often goes off on tangents even within a chapter, talking about everything from how annoyed he is that the king's youngest son was made President of the Royal Society to the possibilities for changing over to a decimal currency (which Britain eventually did, a century and a half later) to a suggested reform of the medical system that would give less motivation to overcharge for inferior or ineffective drugs. Along the way he touches on the importance of such topics as branding, statistical analysis, maintenance of machinery and the teaching of technical drawing; the disruptive effect of specific taxes (while he states that taxes themselves are "essential for the security both of liberty and property" - he's no Libertarian); and the trickle-down theory of economics (he believes in it with reservations, but thinks it's not the best possible system). He proposes submarines, speculates on the possible effects of power transmission over long distances, and mentions the importance of light for health. He also speculates what might happen when the coal is gone (though he believes in the capacity of nature to adjust to industrial pollution).
His main theme, though, is the usefulness and importance of division of labour to produce efficiency in manufacturing. He's opposed to unions (or "combinations", as he calls them), not because he doesn't support the rights of workers to fair treatment but because he thinks unions have shown themselves to be a bad method to achieve that end. He proposes what still sounds like an excellent scheme, whereby part of the wages of factory workers come from a share in the profits of the factory. While believing that government ought to interfere as little as possible between workers and employers, he considers it more important that workmen should be paid fairly and not forced to buy from a "company store", and that hours of work for children, and the age at which they start work, should be limited, because in both cases this is protecting the weak from injustice.
Some things are the same 180 years later. Many of his points about what makes manufacturing profitable are still entirely valid. We still don't have a satisfactory patent or copyright law, and authors are still complaining about the division of profits in the publishing industry (though more about what the publishers get than what the booksellers get, which was Babbage's beef). The trustworthiness of reviews is still in question, though in Babbage's day the problem was that publishers owned the review magazines.
Other things may have been true in his time, when improvements were being made so quickly that machines were being replaced with better ones before they had time to wear out and the price of manufactured goods was dropping precipitately (he includes figures), but now that the industrial age has reached more or less its end state they are no longer applicable. They're applicable to the comparable advances in computers, though, and it makes me speculate about an end state there, when the rate of improvement eventually drops through the law of diminishing returns.
There have been social changes since Babbage's time, too, which I think we would all agree are for the better. No longer do 7-year-olds work 10- to 12-hour days in factories and get paid one to three shillings a month for it. (It wasn't a good time to be a child; even if you weren't working in a factory, you probably had lead toys.)
The Project Gutenberg ebook (I read the .mobi version) has some editing and formatting issues. A spellcheck would have caught a number of the editing problems, mainly missing spaces, although there are also commas read as full stops and the like. In formatting, the main problem is the many tables of figures Babbage includes, which are hard to format in an ebook even if you try (and I don't think the Project Gutenberg editor did).
Babbage's style is long-winded, with long sentences that you sometimes have to concentrate to get through, but the effort was worth it to me to gain a fascinating insight into both the early 19th century and the phenomenon of manufacturing as seen by a remarkable mind.
June 25, 2018
At this point in history, you can't really give this a low rating b/c it sits as a historical piece about period in the first half of the 1800s. It's as much a primary historical account of the time as a way to think about the effect of machinations on manufacturing.
For Babbage, he was not fully supported despite the fact that the book was really well liked by those that read it. This is b/c he explains concept machine vs. tool, i.e. a complex assortment of multiple tools. That said, the machines of today are merely tools as the complexity of what we do has increased so significantly.
On page 184 of the ebook he writes "The division of labor cannot be successfully practices unless there exists a great demand for its produce." Ok, so that is key as a concept. It would take nearly 150 years for that to be overcome, e.g. the 3d printer and tools that allow for b-spoke production AND distribution at low cost. It's actually freakin amazing. B/c this is one of few quotes that really just spells it all out. Scale isn't good in and of itself, it ONLY makes sense if we're trying to produce a lot for a reason. It REQUIRES a big lot of demand, and hence everything that comes with this sort of thing. Props dude.
P. 284 of the e-book, he's writing about the idea that labor of the time was often paid in goods produced rather than cash money. His deal is that that is super unfair. "It has been so common in our town to pay goods instead of money, that a number of my neighbors have been obliged to pay articles for articles, to pay sugar for drugs out of the druggist's shop; and others have been obliged to pay sugar for drapery goods, and such things, and exchange in that way numbers of times..." His point is that this is a complete mess. Who can go around all day exchanging until they get what is needed to get the thing they need. He writes: "The father of a family perhaps, writhing under the agonies of the toothache, is obliged to make his hasty bargain with the village surgeon before he will remove the cause of his pain; or the disconsolate mother is compelled to sacrifice her depreciated goods in exchange for the last receptacle fo her departed offspring."
Last reason for this book is just to have an accounting for the major technologies of the time. Very cool what they were and how he was thinking about the way they massively scaled productivity in his time.
For Babbage, he was not fully supported despite the fact that the book was really well liked by those that read it. This is b/c he explains concept machine vs. tool, i.e. a complex assortment of multiple tools. That said, the machines of today are merely tools as the complexity of what we do has increased so significantly.
On page 184 of the ebook he writes "The division of labor cannot be successfully practices unless there exists a great demand for its produce." Ok, so that is key as a concept. It would take nearly 150 years for that to be overcome, e.g. the 3d printer and tools that allow for b-spoke production AND distribution at low cost. It's actually freakin amazing. B/c this is one of few quotes that really just spells it all out. Scale isn't good in and of itself, it ONLY makes sense if we're trying to produce a lot for a reason. It REQUIRES a big lot of demand, and hence everything that comes with this sort of thing. Props dude.
P. 284 of the e-book, he's writing about the idea that labor of the time was often paid in goods produced rather than cash money. His deal is that that is super unfair. "It has been so common in our town to pay goods instead of money, that a number of my neighbors have been obliged to pay articles for articles, to pay sugar for drugs out of the druggist's shop; and others have been obliged to pay sugar for drapery goods, and such things, and exchange in that way numbers of times..." His point is that this is a complete mess. Who can go around all day exchanging until they get what is needed to get the thing they need. He writes: "The father of a family perhaps, writhing under the agonies of the toothache, is obliged to make his hasty bargain with the village surgeon before he will remove the cause of his pain; or the disconsolate mother is compelled to sacrifice her depreciated goods in exchange for the last receptacle fo her departed offspring."
Last reason for this book is just to have an accounting for the major technologies of the time. Very cool what they were and how he was thinking about the way they massively scaled productivity in his time.
May 25, 2021
This book includes things about the manufacturing process and its dimensions. Division of labor, mechanization, and their effects are mentioned. On the other hand, it can be a little difficult to read due to the length and complexity of the sentences. Also, the writer gives so much detail about the production process. While these details provide more information about the subject at some points, they may also cause a loss between the lines.
May 12, 2025
An interesting perspective by the father of computing about manufacturing and industry in 19th century England. One of the first authors to seriously emphasize gains from specialization, detail the dynamics of industrial manufacturing, and talk about the economics of factory equipment.
July 18, 2012
This book is a 19th century manual for people who want to be entrepreneurs. This is also an early work dealing with efficiency analysis. The author is a mathematician who applied himself to looking at how things are made. He definitely favors the business owner over workers. He believes not exporting machinery since when that happens the other country can compete against your country.
Overall after reading this I get a sense that Charles Babbage was not a very personable individual.
Overall after reading this I get a sense that Charles Babbage was not a very personable individual.
August 29, 2017
Not so much about machinery, a lot about economics. Not exactly what I was expecting.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews