Stages of Technical Advance, Industrial Segmentation and Employment: Computer-based Automation in Historical Perspective

David R. Howell

Chapter 4 in Economics as Worldly Philosophy, 1993, pp 75-103 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract At the height of a national debate over automation almost three decades ago, Robert Heilbroner (1962) reviewed some 200 years of debate over the economic and social impact of industrial technology. With his usual ability to identify the most important questions. Heilbroner found in this literature little examination of what he termed their ‘historical aspect’ and stressed the need to investigate ‘whether there is visible a progressive change in the employment-granting possibilities of successive stages of technical advance’ (ibid., p. 23). Heilbroner defined these stages as shifts in the pattern of economic development, from agriculture to manufacturing and from the latter to services; he was particularly concerned about the implications of labour-saving technological advances in the service sectors of a service economy (1966, pp. 11–15).

Keywords: Technical Advance; Industrial Robot; Employment Effect; Technological Regime; Steam Power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-22572-9_4

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