He contrasted the work done in factories with such tasks as lace making, stocking knitting and rural work and felt that factory work was easier by comparison and less tedious or monotonous in nature. The arguments of Marx and Ure are as dissimilar as two could possibly be. While Marx believed that history of technology since 1830 could be described as one of 'weapons against the revolts of the working-class', Andrew Ure felt that machine system was just so perfect that it could destroy any labor unions that ever came into existence. Writing about the dressing machine, he said:

It affords an instructive warning to workmen to beware of strikes, by proving how surely science, at the call of capital, will defeat every unjustifiable union, which labourers may form.

Thomas Carlyle was another important figure of the time. He can be described as the man whose views ran somewhere in...
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