ABSTRACT
Technological determinism, the view that machines make history rather than people, is not correct; it is only a cryptic, mystifying, escapist, and pacifying explanation of a reality perhaps too forbidding confronting directly. If the move beyond technological determinism is liberating, however, it is also replete with false promises. Viewing technological development as a social process rather than as an autonomous, transcendent, and deterministic force can be liberating, because it opens up a realm of freedom too long denied. In the wake of a renewed cultural offensive of scientism and progressivism, the drive for total automation is promoted in the name of patriotism, competitiveness, productivity, and progress. The latest generation of computer-based machining technology, made possible by cheaper computer memory and developed to overcome the problems generated by the earlier generations of numerical control, certainly has enlarged the potential for operator-centered production.
