Thanks for the responses so far, especially to Richard Lipsey who got them  
   started. Richard's opening comments are so similar to those I have written  
   on this topic it is uncanny.  
  
   Why did my question regarding the origins of a concept so fundamental to our  
   'science' elicit no (initial) response? I began to wonder if it was because  
   of that very fundamentality. Technology has been broadly taken for granted  
   within society. Economists are no different in that regard.  
  
   Go to any undergraduate microeconomics textbook. What I am exploring is the  
   standard definition of technology: technology as the isoquant, the current  
   state of knowledge as to how to combine factor resources to produce goods  
   and  services, with one particular combination considered a technique,  
   technical  efficiency being how to optimise within the feasible set of  
   techniques,  and  technical  change  being  an  augmentation  of these  
   possibilities over time.  
  
   The  question  I have now is: would anyone disagree that this standard  
   definition of technology, which we seem to take for granted (given its  
   textbook universality), is a Hicksian concept?  
  
   Im thinking 1932 here.  
  
   Cheers...  
  
   Adam McHugh