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Another place to get a sense of the interactions between engineering and 
political economy (economics) would be to see Theodore Porter's chapter 
called "Rigor and Practicality: Rival Ideals of Quantification in 
Nineteenth-Century Economics," in Philip Mirowski, ed., Natural Images in 
Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw, (New York: Cambridge UP, 
1994), 128-172. 
 
Porter discusses the intense debate in nineteenth century economics on 
‘rigor’ and ‘practicality’ as rival ideals of quantification.  
 
In line with Humberto Barreto's post (and my interest in this for the way 
in which it constructs the 'economy' as a 'machine' and a 'system', and 
this itself is an important aspect of the work of the machine metaphor in 
enlightenment epistemology) the following observations based on Porter may 
be of interest: 
 
1.  The economics of engineers and physicists (first in France, and then 
Britain) who were more interested in quantifying economic magnitudes in 
practical terms, drawing upon scientific vocabularies of the effectiveness 
of engines.  Drawing upon Norton Wise, Porter writes (142-3), 
"Here was a form of economic reasoning and, more crucially, a system of 
economic practice that would permit scientists to judge the productivity of 
machines and labour, as well as to improve them. In this economics, 
statistics of factories, workers, and production meant something. 
Quantification could aid administration, could guide the improving 
activities of engineers and reformers.... this formulation permitted a 
clear distinction between useful work and waste, and indeed give a 
quantitative expression of efficiency". 
 
2.  
Typical examples of such practical calculation are provided by attempts to 
determine the “optimal mix of machine labour with human labour”. Porter 
(143) cites some examples of James Thomson (engineer and brother of 
physicist William Thomson) -– one interesting instance is Thomson 
calculating to decide whether it was energetically advantageous to boil 
urine as fertiliser, thereby producing an increase in food for human 
workers, or to employ the coal fire directly for productive work. 
 
 
Nitasha Kaul 
 
University of the West of EnglandUK 
 
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