Prescient early industrial capitalists
 

Werner Siemens, Thomas Edison, and George Eastman
are called out by Crary as capitalists whose work "reshaped crucial aspects of social behavior"
 
"Their prescient ambitions were realized through (1) an understanding of human needs as always mutable and expandable, (2) an embryonic conception of the commodity as potentially convertible into abstract flows, whether of images, sounds, or energy, (3) effective measures to decrease circulation time, and (4) in the case of Eastman and Edison, an early but clear vision of the economic reciprocities between 'hardware' and 'software'" (41)

> from Jonathan Crary's 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep (2013)

> tagged with #human_behavior, #information, #capitalism

> created September 26, 2025 at 8:48:44 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

selection, arrangement, and original text available for creative reuse under this licensing arrangement

authors' quoted words are their own.


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