orge Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier

Daniel Bower

What we have lost in food we have gained in electricity… in cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life.

I would love to find a source for this gramophone claim. An early example of a "killer acquisition" as it gets called in economics parlance.

Given a mechanical civilization the process of invention and improvement will always continue, but the tendency of capitalism is to slow it down, because under capitalism any invention which does not promise fairly immediate profits is neglected; some, indeed, which threaten to reduce profits are suppressed almost as ruthlessly as the flexible glass mentioned by Petronius.

For example: Some years ago someone invented a gramophone needle that would last for decades. One of the big gramophone companies bought up the patent rights, and that was the last that was ever heard of it.

The Road to Wigan Pier quotes

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