"Since invention is almost never the sole work of a single inventor... and since it is the product of the successive labors of innumerable men... it is merely a figure of speech to attribute an invention to a single person: this is a convenient falsehood fostered by a spurious sense of patriotism and by the device of patent monopolies... Any fully developed machine is a composite collective product: the present weaving machinery, according to Hobson, is a compound of about 800 inventions, while the present carding machinery is a compound of about 60 patents. This holds true for countries and generations as well: the joint stock of knowledge and technical skill transcends the boundaries of individual or national egos: and to forget that fact is not merely to enthrone superstition but to undermine the essential planetary basis of technology itself."
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Academics from EnglandEconomists from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandJournalists from EnglandDemocratic socialists
Original Language: English
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Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934) Ch.3 "The Eotechnic Phase"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._A._Hobson
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J. A. Hobson
John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940), or J. A. Hobson, was an English economist, social scientist, lecturer, writer and critic of imperialism.
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