ABSTRACT
Human efforts to exercise control over the physical and social worlds people inhabit are ancient and intertwined. Means of control include a broad range of technologies from tools, machines and artifacts to processes, legal codes and institutions. In fact, artifacts and institutions are parallel with respect to their control functions. If the former project political power into the design of the physical environment, the latter serve the same function in the intangible social environment. For an historical example we can look to the kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia, whose economies were intertwined with the construction and maintenance of irrigation systems. The belief that it is possible to extend the scale and scope of control to maximize the material and social benefits of human labor for all members of society dates from the Enlightenment, however. In the mid-eighteenth century as industrialization slowly began and capitalism entered a new phase, a significant watershed occurred in the history of efforts at control. The change it engendered was especially marked in France and Great Britain, while in the United States it came a bit later. Most importantly, it generated a culture that is still vital.
