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Invention as a Factor in Economic History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

S. C. Gilfillan
S. C. Gilfillan
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

The great inventions of the past and their effect on history form a subject that everyone talks about, and no one thinks about, or precious few ever think hard about. So I consider this a good subject for economic historians to do some hard thinking about now. It is not enough just to schematize the subject philosophically; we should replace and improve some ideas of history that are very popular. Particularly in need of examination is the idea of materialistic Karl Marx, which has spread to such respectable professors and other well-heeled gentlemen that Marx would shudder at his associates—the idea that invention, technologic change, determines economic life and hence all history.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 5 , supplement S1 , December 1945 , pp. 66 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1945

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References

1 United States National Resources Committee, Technological Trends and National Policy, Including the Social Implications of New Inventions (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 22.Google Scholar

2 Calculated from Carr, L. J., “Patenting Performance of 1000 Inventors During Ten Years,” The American Journal of Sociology, XXXVII (1932), 568–80.Google Scholar

3 Technique of Social Progress (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931).Google Scholar

4 Noëttes, R. Lefebvre des, L'Attelage, le cheval it selle à travers les âges (Paris, 1931), with volume of illustrations.Google Scholar

5 Gilfillan, S. C., The Sociology of Invention (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1935), p. 142. On the mythology of invention, see the author's companion volume, Inventing the Ship.Google Scholar