malcolmquinn.com

De Prony, who in 1791 had been given the task of constructing mathematical tables . . . De Prony divided the massive task of calculation among three classes of people; in the first group were four of five top mathematicians, in the second group seven or eight calculators with experience of converting formulae into numbers, and in the third group 70 or 80 unemployed labourers, whose only required skill was the ability to add and subtract a thousand times daily . . De Prony’s address to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1824 makes it clear that he had hit on the idea of his human computing machine after reading a first edition of Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776 . . What de Prony realised was that Smith’s analysis could apply to mental as well as physical labour: ‘I conceived all of a sudden the idea of applying the same method to the immense job with which I had been burdened, to manufacture my logarithms as one manufactures pins.” The important point to note is neither Smith or de Prony were interested in better pins, or better logarithms, if such a thing were possible . . It is also clear that the mechanisation of labour depends on a change in consciousness which inaugurates the division of labour - it is not wrong to call this consciousness “technological” even though, in the case of de Prony’s computer, no instrumental or tangible “technology” is involved.