Men and machines

About this book

From Chapter 1... Certain philosophers hold that machinery is enslaving us. I am not a machine tender, but first and last I encounter a good many mechanisms in a day's march, particularly when that day is spent in a city so large and so complicated that it could never have been built by human muscle. Before analyzing the extent of serfdom in others, it might be well to determine how far I am myself a slave. The first thing that I hear in the morning is a machine —a patented alarm clock. It calls and I obey. But if I do not feel like obeying, I touch its back, and it relapses humbly into silence. Thus we bully each other, with the clock normally leading by a wide margin. (Once, however, I threw a clock out of the window, and it never bullied anyone again.)