Thorstein Veblen quotes - page 3

One might multiply... examples from many departments: they point to a fact about the machine that has not been generally recognized by those quaint apologists for machine-capitalism who look upon every expenditure of horsepower and every fresh piece of mechanical apparatus as an automatic net gain in efficiency. In the Instinct of Workmanship Veblen has indeed wondered whether the typewriter, the telephone, and the automobile, though creditable technological achievements "have not wasted more effort and substance than they have saved," whether they are not to be credited with an appreciable economic loss, because they have increased the pace and the volume of correspondence and communication and travel out of all proportion to the real need. (Thorstein Veblen)