The coming of a tool, then, is not just a cultural event; it is also an historical crossroad – a point at which people must choose between two possibilities: to become more intensive or more extensive; to use the tool for quality or for quantity, for care or for speed. In speaking of this as a choice, I am obviously assuming that the evolution of technology is not unquestionable or uncontrollable; that ‘progress’ and the ‘labor market’ do not represent anything so unyielding as natural law, but are aspects of an economy; and that any economy is in some sense a ‘managed’ economy, managed by an
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