PART 1 · CHAPTER 03 · Where We Actually Are

What Early Looked Like Before

Electricity took forty years to change the factory. The lessons of that lag are written all over the present.

Preview map · Updated July 16, 2026

WHAT THIS PAGE CONTAINS

A title, the published opening thesis and the chapter's section headings. The argument, evidence, examples and full prose remain in the book.

The chapter's route

  1. 01The Dynamo Arrives Early
  2. 02The Factory Before Electricity
  3. 03Why the Obvious Was Not Obvious
  4. 04The Productivity Paradox
  5. 05General-Purpose Technologies Do Not Arrive Alone
  6. 06Steam, Rail, and the Shape of Rewiring
  7. 07The Cost of Keeping the Old Layout
  8. 08AI and the Temptation of the Central Motor
  9. 09The Thirty-Year Misreading
  10. 10What the Analogy Predicts
  11. 11Living in the Lag
  12. 12The Best Possible News
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