Neither Fuller, Hass, McLuhan nor Weizenbaum make any distinctions between tools and machines.
The substantial chapter on "Machinery and Large-Scale Industry" in Marx (1867) suggests that,
"the machine... is a mechanism that, after being set in motion, performs with its tools the same operations as the worker formerly did with similar tools. Whether the motive power is derived from man, or in turn from a machine, makes no difference here. From the moment that the tool proper is taken from man and fitted into a mechanism, a machine takes the place of a mere implement." (p.495)
Without such a distinction no serious account of the development of machinery and industrialization is possible.
Marx goes on to examine how "the individual machine... sinks to a mere element in production by machinery." (ibid., p.499)
Mumford (1933, p.10) notes that there is an intermediate form, the machine tool, combining the machine's accuracy and the worker's skill.
© Paul Taylor 2001