Description
Book SynopsisChasing Automation tells the story of how a group of reform-minded politicians during the heyday of America''s industrial prowess (19211966) sought to plan for the technological future. Beginning with Warren G. Harding and the Conference he convened in 1921, Jerry Prout looks at how the US political system confronted the unemployment caused by automation. Both liberals and conservatives spoke to the crucial role of technology in economic growth and the need to find work for the unemployed, and Prout shows how their disputes turned on the means of achieving these shared goals and the barriers that stood in the way.
This political history highlights the trajectories of two premier scientists of the period, Norbert Wiener and Vannevar Bush, who walked very different paths. Wiener began quietly developing his language of cybernetics in the 1920s though its effect would not be realized until the late 1940s. The more pragmatic Bush was tapped by FDR to organize the sc
Trade Review
Chasing Automation will be compelling to a specialized niche of readers interested in labor history, information technology, and political history and those interested in the early history of the information economy.
* Choice *
Jerry Prout's detailed and nuanced study fills a gap in the literature about the politics and policy of labor, the workplace, and technological change in the twentieth century. Because Americans are almost certain to face another automation wave in the future, perhaps from artificial intelligence and driverless cars and trucks, Prout's well-documented study will be essential reading.
* TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Seeing Forward
1. Voices for the Unemployed
2. Taming Technology
3. Technology's Triumph
4. Full Employment
5. Automation Arrives
6. Creating a Commission
7. The Automation Commission
8. Bold Solutions
Epilogue: Back to the Future
