“These cybernetic devices first appeared in the workplace shortly after the end of the Second World War, primarily in manufacturing and petro-chemical industries. At first, their components were introduced in a piecemeal fashion, and only gradually connected in increasingly self-regulating complexes. This process was, however, accelerated by the industrial revolts of the 1960s and 1970s. Advanced versions of the new systems, aimed at a maximum reduction of the workforce and seamless, centralised control from managerially-controlled command centers were brought into the car factories, chemical plants, and steel mills where mass worker militancy had been strongest. Even where these experimental systems were so expensive as to be, in strictly economic terms, inefficient, their labour-eliminating capacity was frequently critical in crushing the most advanced elements of working class organisation. Today, however, such systems are being experimented with throughout all sectors of work, from nursing to pizza-making to lighthouse-keeping; while the fully implemented versions are still futuristic islands in a sea of more traditional work methods, their discrete elements are widely disseminated, and the tendency toward integration evident.”

–Nick Dyer-Witheford in Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism