New Technology and Craftsmen's Skills in Great Britain and West Germany

Those who believe that the effects of micro‐electronics are due to the working of technical imperatives, or to the mechanisms of the capitalist system, are prone to neglect national differences. Our suggestion is that micro‐electronics, and specifically CNC, may have different con‐sequences and be used to different ends, according to the prevailing traditions within society. We expressly include, under such traditions, technical, organisational, and labour variables. We then conjecture that the stability of work traditions will not be changed by the incidence of micro‐electronics; it will only be expressed in new ways. We thus see the development and application of supposed‐ly “high technology” as constrained by an unchanging socio‐technical tradition.