Key Arguments

• Marx states that 'All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism and finally the tool or working machine.'
• He defines the motor mechanism as the driving force, which 'either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric-engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel… the windmill…'.
• He defines the transmitting mechanism as 'composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pulleys, straps, ropes, bands, pinions and gearing of the most varied kinds', whose function is to regulate, transform, and distribute motion 'among the working machines.'
• He defines the working machine as the part which, 'using this motion… seizes on the object of labour and modifies it as desired.'
• He emphasizes that 'It is this last part of the machinery, the tool or working machine, with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century began. And to this day it constantly serves as the starting-point whenever a handicraft or a manufacture is turned into an industry carried on by machinery.'

Source Quotes

In his programme it was called a machine ‘to spin without fingers’. All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism and finally the tool or working machine. The motor mechanism acts as the driving force of the mechanism as a whole.

All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism and finally the tool or working machine. The motor mechanism acts as the driving force of the mechanism as a whole. It either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric-engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from the descent of water down an incline, the windmill from the wind, and so on.

It either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric-engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from the descent of water down an incline, the windmill from the wind, and so on. The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pulleys, straps, ropes, bands, pinions and gearing of the most varied kinds, regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as for instance from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among the working machines. These two parts of the whole mechanism are there solely to impart motion to the working machine; using this motion the working machine then seizes on the object of labour and modifies it as desired.

The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pulleys, straps, ropes, bands, pinions and gearing of the most varied kinds, regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as for instance from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among the working machines. These two parts of the whole mechanism are there solely to impart motion to the working machine; using this motion the working machine then seizes on the object of labour and modifies it as desired. It is this last part of the machinery, the tool or working machine, with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century began.

These two parts of the whole mechanism are there solely to impart motion to the working machine; using this motion the working machine then seizes on the object of labour and modifies it as desired. It is this last part of the machinery, the tool or working machine, with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century began. And to this day it constantly serves as the starting-point whenever a handicraft or a manufacture is turned into an industry carried on by machinery. On a closer examination of the working machine proper we rediscover in it as a general rule, though often in highly modified forms, the very apparatus and tools used by the handicraftsman or the manufacturing worker ; but there is the difference that instead of being the tools of a man they are the implements of a mechanism, mechanical implements.

Key Concepts

• All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism and finally the tool or working machine.
• The motor mechanism acts as the driving force of the mechanism as a whole.
• The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pulleys, straps, ropes, bands, pinions and gearing of the most varied kinds, regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as for instance from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among the working machines.
• These two parts of the whole mechanism are there solely to impart motion to the working machine; using this motion the working machine then seizes on the object of labour and modifies it as desired.
• It is this last part of the machinery, the tool or working machine, with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century began. And to this day it constantly serves as the starting-point whenever a handicraft or a manufacture is turned into an industry carried on by machinery.

Context

Marx gives a general, structural definition of machinery, stressing that the historically decisive innovation was the conversion of tools into mechanical working machines.