Both Rebecca Harding Davis and Frederick Winslow Taylor make poignant arguments about the impact of technological change on human societies and psychologies. In Life in the Iron Mills, Davis critiques technology and the social changes it creates primarily from a Marxist perspective. Her emphasis on class reveals an underlying assumption that Davis makes: that technology is inherently harmful to the working classes. In fact, Davis suggests that technology is almost always the enemy of the working class based on her vivid, horrific descriptions of industrial laborers. Taylor, on the other hand, presents technology from a utilitarian point of view. Technological change, according to Taylor, can evoke enormous opportunities for prosperity across all rungs of the class ladder. Thus, Taylor offers a rich counter-argument to Davis in his book The Principles of Scientific Management. Insufficient checks on corporate enterprise, unequal wealth distribution, and basic human greed are the root causes of income disparity, not technology. Therefore, Taylor's argument more accurately reflects the impact technological change has on human society.
             Davis and Taylor would both agree that technology and technological change can bring about prosperity. In Life in the Iron Mills Mitchell laughs and exclaims, "Money has spoken!" Here, Davis emphasizes the role that technology plays in generating wealth. However, the author stresses the fact that technology has for the most part generated wealth for the upper classes and for the owners of the means of production. Davis' assumption, however grim and alarmist, is absolutely true. Any cursory glance at the ways Third World countries currently undergo their economic development proves that a budding middle and upper class necessitates a mass of underpaid workers who fuel economic progress.
             In The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor claims, "Maximum prosperity can exist only as the...