Editing Charles Babbage (section)

===''On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures''===
[[File:Babbage - On the economy of machinery and manufactures, 1835 - 5864499.tif|thumb|''On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures'', 1835]]
[[File:Babbage sign language.jpg|thumb|Babbage's notation for machine parts, explanation from ''On a method of expressing by signs the action of machinery'' (1827) of his "Mechanical Notation", invented for his own use in understanding the work on the difference engine, and an influence on the conception of the analytical engine<ref>{{cite book|author=Michael Lingren|title=Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann Müller, Charles Babbage and Georg and Edvard Scheutz|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=plgMl2yfVkwC&pg=PA54|year=1990|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-12146-0|page=54}}</ref>]]
Babbage published ''On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures'' (1832), on the organisation of [[industrial production]]. It was an influential early work of [[operational research]].<ref>{{ThoemmesBritish19C|Babbage, Charles|39}}</ref> [[John Rennie the Younger]] in addressing the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] on manufacturing in 1846 mentioned mostly surveys in encyclopaedias, and Babbage's book was first an article in the ''[[Encyclopædia Metropolitana]]'', the form in which Rennie noted it, in the company of related works by [[John Farey Jr.]], [[Peter Barlow (mathematician)|Peter Barlow]] and [[Andrew Ure]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Manby|title=Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zBMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA57|year=1846|page=57|author-link=Charles Manby}}</ref> From ''An essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts'' (1827), which became the ''Encyclopædia Metropolitana'' article of 1829, Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines that, combined with discussion of factories, made up the first part of the book. The second part considered the "domestic and political economy" of manufactures.<ref>{{cite book|author1=M. Lucertini|author2=Ana Millán Gasca|author2-link=Ana Millán Gasca|author3=Fernando Nicolò|title=Technological Concepts and Mathematical Models in the Evolution of Modern Engineering Systems|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YISIUycS4HgC&pg=PA30|year=2004|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-7643-6940-8|page=30}}</ref>

The book sold well, and quickly went to a fourth edition (1836).<ref>{{cite book|author=Mauro F. Guillén|author-link=Mauro F. Guillén|title=Models of Management: Work, Authority, and Organization in a Comparative Perspective|url=https://archive.org/details/modelsofmanageme0000guil|url-access=registration|access-date=18 April 2013|date=15 October 1994|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-31036-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/modelsofmanageme0000guil/page/207 207]}}</ref> Babbage represented his work as largely a result of actual observations in factories, British and abroad. It was not, in its first edition, intended to address deeper questions of political economy; the second (late 1832) did, with three further chapters including one on [[piece rate]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Maxine Berg|title=The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815–1848|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azk7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA181|year=1982|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-28759-3|page=181}}</ref> The book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, and [[profit sharing]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Bruce E. Kaufman|title=The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas and the IIRA|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4zzuwFRwCAC&pg=PA66|year=2004|publisher=Academic Foundation|isbn=978-81-7188-544-2|page=66}}</ref>

===="Babbage principle"====
In ''Economy of Machinery'' was described what is now called the "Babbage principle". It pointed out commercial advantages available with more careful [[division of labour]]. As Babbage himself noted, it had already appeared in the work of [[Melchiorre Gioia]] in 1815.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Julio Segura|author2=Carlos Rodríguez Braun|title=An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics: A Guide To Laws And Theorems Named After Economists|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z6Oy4L-6LSwC&pg=PA13|access-date=18 April 2013|year=2004|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-1-84542-360-5|page=13}}</ref> The term was introduced in 1974 by [[Harry Braverman]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Work|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0332ru3Rx0sC&pg=PA39|year=2011|publisher=Polity|isbn=978-0-7456-4678-7|page=39}}</ref> Related formulations are the "principle of multiples" of [[Philip Sargant Florence]], and the "balance of processes".<ref>{{cite book|author=P. Sargant Florence|title=The Logic of British and American Industry: A Realistic Analysis of Economic Structure and Government|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QLgCocKRIkAC&pg=PA51|year=1953|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-31350-6|page=51}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Theory of the Growth of the Firm [Electronic book]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aigWHVhP5tsC&pg=PA68|year=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-828977-7|page=68}}</ref>

What Babbage remarked is that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Giddens, Anthony|author2=Held, David|title=Classes, Power and Conflict: Classical and Contemporary Debates|url=https://archive.org/details/classespowerconf00ials|url-access=registration|access-date=18 April 2013|year=1982|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-04627-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/classespowerconf00ials/page/155 155]}}</ref> He also pointed out that training or apprenticeship can be taken as fixed costs; but that [[returns to scale]] are available by his approach of standardisation of tasks, therefore again favouring the [[factory system]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Guang-Zhen Sun|title=Readings in the Economics of the Division of Labor: The classical tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y16MEasCqicC&pg=PA10|year=2005|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-270-127-5|page=10}}</ref> His view of [[human capital]] was restricted to minimising the time period for recovery of training costs.<ref name="ArtiguesCalvet2007">{{cite book|author1=Pere Mir Artigues|author2=Josep Gonza ́lez Calvet|title=Funds, Flows and Time: An Alternative Approach to the Microeconomic Analysis of Productive Activities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s1n1LWVyTWoC&pg=PA72|year=2007|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-540-71291-6|page=72 note 15}}</ref>

====Publishing====
Another aspect of the work was its detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing. Babbage took the unpopular line, from the publishers' perspective, of exposing the trade's profitability.<ref>{{cite book|author-link=James A. Secord|author=James A. Secord|title=Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6LL9PGRhlXYC&pg=PA52|year=2000|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-74410-0|page=52}}</ref> He went as far as to name the organisers of the trade's restrictive practices.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mary Poovey|title=Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation, 1830–1864|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NHwVKtTP8G8C&pg=PA193|year=1995|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-67524-4|page=193 note 43}}</ref> Twenty years later he attended a meeting hosted by [[John Chapman (publisher)|John Chapman]] to campaign against the Booksellers Association, still a [[cartel]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Rosemary Ashton |title=G. H. Lewes: An Unconventional Victorian |year=2000 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=978-0-7126-6689-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ghlewesunconvent0000asht/page/128 128] |url=https://archive.org/details/ghlewesunconvent0000asht/page/128 }}</ref>

====Influence====
It has been written that "what [[Arthur Young (writer)|Arthur Young]] was to agriculture, Charles Babbage was to the [[factory visit]] and machinery".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ashworth|first=William J.|year=1996|title=Memory, Efficiency, and Symbolic Analysis: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and the Industrial Mind|journal=Isis|volume=87|issue=4|pages=629–653|jstor=235196|doi=10.1086/357650|s2cid=143404822}}</ref> Babbage's theories are said to have influenced the layout of the [[1851 Great Exhibition]],<ref>{{cite book|author=PeterH Hoffenberg|title=An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ejEwvWvGwVUC&pg=PA178|year=2001|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-21891-8|page=178}}</ref> and his views had a strong effect on his contemporary [[George Julius Poulett Scrope]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Maxine Berg|title=The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815–1848|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azk7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA127|year=1982|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-28759-3|page=127}}</ref> [[Karl Marx]] argued that the source of the [[productivity]] of the factory system was exactly the combination of the division of labour with machinery, building on [[Adam Smith]], Babbage and Ure.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ákos Róna-Tas|title=The Great Surprise of the Small Transformation: The Demise of Communism and the Rise of the Private Sector of Hungary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=npl_KOAojT4C&pg=PA20|year=1997|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=978-0-472-10795-7|page=20}}</ref> Where Marx picked up on Babbage and disagreed with Smith was on the motivation for division of labour by the manufacturer: as Babbage did, he wrote that it was for the sake of [[Profit (accounting)|profitability]], rather than productivity, and identified an impact on the concept of a [[trade (occupation)|trade]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Ben Fine|author2=Alfredo Saad-Filho|author3=Marco Boffo|title=The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xe0VQArHt8sC&pg=PA190|year=2012|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-1-78100-122-6|page=190}}</ref>

[[John Ruskin]] went further, to oppose completely what manufacturing in Babbage's sense stood for.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LPEMLG98mgC&pg=PA52|year=2011|publisher=V2_ publishing|isbn=978-90-5662-827-7|pages=52–53}}</ref> Babbage also affected the economic thinking of [[John Stuart Mill]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Patrice L. R. Higonnet|author2=David Saul Landes|author3=Rosovsky Henry|author-link3=Henry Rosovsky |title=Favorites Or Fortune: Technology, Growth, and Economic Development Since the Industrial Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yizWdomTqesC&pg=PA401|year=1991|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-29520-9|page=401}}</ref> [[George Holyoake]] saw Babbage's detailed discussion of profit sharing as substantive, in the tradition of [[Robert Owen]] and [[Charles Fourier]], if requiring the attentions of a benevolent [[captain of industry]], and ignored at the time.<ref>[[George Jacob Holyoake]], ''The History of Co-operation in England: its literature and its advocates'', vol. 2 (1879) pp. 228–32; [https://archive.org/stream/historycooperat04holygoog#page/n241/mode/2up archive.org.]</ref>

[[Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées]], held from 1828 into the 1840s, were important gathering places for prominent scientists, authors and aristocracy. Babbage is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attended [[Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées|Saturday evening soirées]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> 

Works by Babbage and Ure were published in French translation in 1830;<ref>{{cite book|author1=Thierry Pillon|author2=François Vatin|title=Traité de sociologie du travail|page=164|year=2003|publisher=Octarès}}</ref> ''On the Economy of Machinery'' was translated in 1833 into French by [[Édouard Biot]], and into German the same year by Gottfried Friedenberg.<ref>{{cite book|author=Anthony Hyman|title=[[Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer]]|date=1985|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-0-691-02377-9|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCddaWqWK2cC&pg=PA122 122]}}</ref> The French engineer and writer on industrial organisation [[Léon Lalanne]] was influenced by Babbage, but also by the economist [[Claude Lucien Bergery]], in reducing the issues to "technology".<ref>{{cite book|author=François Vatin|title=Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXème siècle: L'économie industrielle de Claude-Lucien Bergery (1787–1863)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pcJ2lTo97ywC&pg=PA123|date=May 2007|publisher=Editions L'Harmattan|isbn=978-2-296-17103-9|page=123|language=fr}}</ref> [[William Jevons]] connected Babbage's "economy of labour" with his own labour experiments of 1870.<ref>{{cite book|author=Philip Mirowski|title=Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGmdRE3kpnMC&pg=PA206|year=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-47884-7|page=206}}</ref> The Babbage principle is an inherent assumption in [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]]'s [[scientific management]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Yeheskel Hasenfeld|author2=Andrew Delano Abbott|title=Human Services as Complex Organizations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8O2juf0fZkMC&pg=PA211|year=1992|publisher=SAGE Publications|isbn=978-0-8039-4065-9|page=211}}</ref>

[[Mary Everest Boole]] claimed that there was profound influence – via her uncle [[George Everest]] – of Indian thought in general and [[Indian logic]], in particular, on Babbage and on her husband [[George Boole]], as well as on [[Augustus De Morgan]]:

<blockquote>Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan, and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830–65. What share had it in generating the [[Vector Analysis]] and the mathematics by which investigations in physical science are now conducted?<ref name="MaryBoole" /> </blockquote>