Technics and Civilization

Seminal work by Lewis Me mford.

• Neotechnic times, Mumford presciently notes that a small producer can deliver what is needed when it is needed more efficiently than paleotechnic assembly lines. Combining this with modern technology, this implies economic distribution via localized eco-industry.
• Paleotechnic (1700-1900) - "The invention of coal-fired steam powered factories and the installation of capital-intensive machinery leads to a necessarily gigantic round-the-clock scale of production supported by unskilled machine tenders. Labour becomes a commodity, rather than an inalienable set of skills, the labourer who tended machines, lived in slums, and was paid starvation wages, became physically stunted and socially and spiritually stultified." - Wikipedia
• Monks invented ordnance and gunpowder.
• Leading utopians of eotecnnic period brood upon the machine as the savior. Note that this has not changed with today's technoutopians, such as Kurzweil and Diamandis
• "Robbery is perhaps the oldest labor-saving device"