{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","uuid":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","normalized_title":"laborandmonopolycapitalthedegradationofworkinthetwentiethcentury","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","isbns":["0853459401"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Labor%20and%20Monopoly%20Capital%20The%20Degradation%20of%20Work%20in%20the%20Twentieth%20Century","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/search"},"page":{"printed_page":"130 / 131","pdf_page":78,"physical_index":78,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"071aca5e0a45f1be24e36fd22f4eb75aef461ea7cf6525f3ebb43fd55eb76cd0"},"chapter":"Acknowledgments","content":"It is only when the tool and/or the work are given a fixed motion path by the structure of the machine itself that machinery in the modern sense begins to develop. The drill press, the lathe fitted with a slide rest, and the sewing or knitting machine all move cutting tools or needles along grooves cut into the machine frame or parts. The grindstone turns in a path determined by its axle and bearings; the moving blade of the shears descends, and the head of the trip-hammer or piledriver falls in accord with the structure of each device.\n\nBut this is only the first step in the development of machinery. The laying-down of these fixed motion paths opens the way for further control of the motion of the tool or the work, by internal gearing, cams, etc. At first, as Bright points out, this takes the form of a fixed or single cycle. The cutting tool of a lathe, for instance, or the bit of a drill press, may be connected to the power source in such a way that when the connection is locked the tool will be brought against the work at a fixed rate of approach and to a predetermined depth, after which it will retract to its original position. This single cycle may also be a repeated one, as in the case of the planer which draws the full length of the work against the cutting tool, removes a shaving from the surface, and returns to repeat the process; the cutting tool is meanwhile shifted so that the next shaving may be removed, and this continues without outside intervention until the entire surface has been planed.\n\nOnce this type of cycle has been mastered, it is only a further mechanical step to the construction of multiple function machines in which the mechanism indexes its way, according to a preset pattern, through a sequence ofoperations. This is the principle of the automatic turret lathe, which carries its series of tools in a turret that revolves to the next tool as the previous one completes its cycle. In such machines the sequence of operations is either built once and for all into the mechanism and cannot be altered (this is the case with the home washing machine, for instance, which follows a sequence of operations that may be changed as to duration, or some of which may be skipped, but which can, basically, do only that which it was designed and built to do), or the machine may be adapted to a limited variety of functions by changing its internal (cam or gearing) arrangements. It is characteristic of all machinery, up to this stage in its evolution, that the pattern of its action is fixed within the mechanism and has no links to either external controls or its own working results. Its movements are not so much automatic as predetermined.\\*\n\nBetween the stage represented by machines constructed according to this concept and the next stage of machine development, there is a significant difference: control over the machine in accordance with information coming from outside the direct working mechanism. This may take the form of measurements of the machine output itself. It is a simple step from installing on a printing press a counter to record the number of sheets that have passed through the press, to arranging this counter so that it shuts off the press, or rings a bell, when the selected number has been reached. The classic example of the flyball governor, which uses the motion of the weights, as they are flung outward by increasing speed or fall inward as speed reduces, to control the throttle of the engine is a perfect instance of a machine which regulates its own pace by measuring its own output. In checking the results of its own work, the machine may simply stop, signal, or reject, as in the case of the key punch verifier, which signals and marks any difference between the holes already punched in the card and the keys struck by the operator. $\\mathbf { O r } ,$ in its furthest refinements, the machine may measure the results of its work while that work is in progress, compare these results with an image of the desired product, and make continual adjustments throughout the course of the operation so that the result conforms to the plan.\n\nThis capacity to draw upon information from external sources, or from the progress of its own operation, brings about a certain reversal in the trend of machine development. Prior to this, the evolution of machinery had been from the universal to the special purpose machine. The broad range of earlier machinery had been general purpose equipment, adapted not to a particular product or to a specialized operation, but to a range of operations. Lathes existed for metal-turning, not for the manufacture of a particular size and class of screw or shaft; presses were adaptable to a variety of forming operations, not to a particular part. As machinery underwent its first phase of progress toward increase in control, this took the form of fixed arrangements adapting the machine to a particular product or operation. In an advanced state, such as the machining of an automobile engine block, a single machine drills scores of holes from various angles, mills surfaces to final finish, counterbores, taps threads, etc., performing these operations simultaneously or in rapid sequence.\n\n130\n\nLabor and Monopoly Capital\n\nMachinery\n\n131\n\n\\* Bright includes the possibility of reducing the need for human intervention in such a machine still further by putting the actuation of the machine under remote control, so that many machines may be set in motion or stopped from a single control site; there is also the possibility of doing away with the need to start and stop the machine if the introduction of the workpiece itself actuates the mechanism, and the completion and ejection of the workpiece stops the machine until the next piece is introduced. But this and other such refinements do not change the internally fixed character of the machine cycle.","previous_page":77,"next_page":79}