Swiss Made by R. James Breiding

Author:R. James Breiding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

There was an outcry in the Swiss press in response to Pfizer’s ill-advised decision, and Canepa went around knocking on doors to see if anyone would be interested in a nice building with a skilled and committed workforce. She found a company in Berlin, Biotronik, a maker of small electronic devices for monitoring people’s health in their homes, and another chapter opened in Switzerland’s medical technology industry.

8

Switzerland’s mighty industrial machines

A new age began in Europe in the 18th century – an age when labour, capital, markets and technology came together to drastically and permanently alter the pattern of human activity from one of rural subsistence to urbanised, organised industry. Many factors contributed to the process of industrialisation in a complex chain of cause and effect. People were increasingly moving into towns, new forms of energy were being tapped, new modes of transport were opening up, and accumulated capital was becoming available for investment. It was the machine that epitomised, and made possible, the new age.

Other European countries first began to develop the machines that would drive industrial change in the early years of the 18th century; Switzerland had little to offer in terms of machine-age skills or inventions. However, it was destined to catch up remarkably quickly, and once it had caught up, it would stay in the vanguard throughout the later phases of the Industrial Revolution – a position it continues to hold in a number of specialised niches.

The story of Swiss engineering, then, is one of struggle, victory, and then adaptation.

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