“The establishment of "The Times" newspaper is an example, on a large scale, of a manufactory in which the division of labour, both mental and bodily, is admirably illustrated, and in which also the effect of domestic economy is well exemplified. It is scarcely imagined, by the thousands who read that paper in various quarters of the globe, what a scene of organized activity the factory presents during the whole night, or what a quantity of talent and mechanical skill is put in action for their amusement and information.”

—  Charles Babbage , On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

Source: On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 1832/1841, p. 270; Ch. 28 "Proper circumstances for the application of machinery."

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The establishment of "The Times" newspaper is an example, on a large scale, of a manufactory in which the division of l…" by Charles Babbage?
Charles Babbage photo
Charles Babbage 40
mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical enginee… 1791–1871

Related quotes

Charles Babbage photo

“We have already mentioned what may, perhaps, appear paradoxical to some of our readers, — that the division of labour can be applied with equal success to mental as to mechanical operations, and that it ensures in both the same economy of time.”

Charles Babbage On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

Source: On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 1832/1841, p. 191; Ch. 20. "On the division of mental labour"

John Buchan photo

“Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Augustus (1937)

Adam Smith photo

“The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter I, p. 7

“The partial absorption of art by domestic industry and by domestic female crafts, that is to say, the fusion of artistic activity with other activities, is a retrogression from the standpoint of the division of labour and professional differentiation.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter I. Prehistoric Times

John Stuart Mill photo

“Experience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 7: General View of the Remainder of My Life (p. 184)

“I merge what I call the organic with what I call the abstract, which is what you are calling the geometric. As I see both scales, I need to merge these two in the ever-present. What they symbolize I have never stopped to decide. You might want to read it as matter and spirit and the need to merge as against the need to separate. Or it can be read as male and female.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 78.

“Consider, for example, the mechanical precision with which many of our institutions are expected to operate. Organizational life is often routinized with the precision demanded of clockwork. People are frequently expected to arrive at work at a given time, perform a predetermined set of activities, rest at appointed hours, and then resume their tasks until work is over. In many organizations, one shift of workers replaces another in methodical fashion so that work can continue uninterrupted twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. Often, the work is very mechanical and repetitive. Anyone who has observed work in the mass-production factory or in any of the large “office factories” processing paper forms such as insurance claims, tax returns, or bank checks will have noticed the machine-like way in which such organizations operate. They are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of machines.”

Gareth Morgan book Images of Organization

Source: Images of Organization (1986), p. 20; As cited in as Vivien Martin -(2003) Leading change in health and social care. p. 157: About the organization as machine:

“Mechanism… provides us with no grasp of the specific characteristics of organisms, of the organization of organic processes among one another, of organic 'wholeness', of the problem of the origin of organic 'teleology', or of the historical character of organisms… We must therefore try to establish a new standpoint which — as opposed to mechanism — takes account of organic wholeness, but… treats it in a manner which admits of scientific investigation.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Source: 1930s, Modern Theory of Development, 1933, 1962, p. 46

Rudolf Clausius photo

“The careful experiments of Joule, who developed heat in various ways by the application of mechanical force, establish almost to a certainty, not only the possibility of increasing the quantity of heat, but also the fact that the newly-produced heat is proportional to the work expended in its production.”

Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) German mathematical physicist

First Memoir.
The Mechanical Theory of Heat (1867)

Geoffrey Hodgson photo

“We shall here define the market as a set of social institutions in which a large number of commodity exchanges of a specific type regularly take place, and to some extent are facilitated and structured by those institutions. Exchange as defined above, involves contractual agreement and the exchange of property rights, and the market consists in part of mechanisms to structure, organize and legitimate these activities. Markets, in short, are organized and institutionalized exchange. Stress is placed on those market institutions, which help to both regulate and establish a consensus over prices and, more generally, to communicate information regarding products, prices, quantities, potential buyers and potential sellers.”

Geoffrey Hodgson (1946) British economist

Source: Economics and Institutions, 1988, p. 174

Related topics