Overview

Chasing Automation tells the story of how a group of reform-minded politicians during the heyday of America's industrial prowess (1921-1966) 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 scientific community and his ultimate success-the Manhattan Project-is emblematic of the technological hubris of the era. Chasing Automation shows that as American industrial productivity dramatically increased, the political system was at the mercy of the steady advance of job replacing technology. It was the sheer unpredictability of technological progress that ultimately posed the most formidable challenge. Reformers did not succeed in creating a federal planning agency, but they did create a enduring safety net of laws that workers continue to benefit from today as we face a new wave of automation and artificial intelligence.

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9781501763991

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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 *

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 *

Author Information

Jerry Prout is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Marquette University. He is the author of Coxey's Crusade for Jobs.

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