“The Combine’s first instinct was to ask the experts. They wrote to around 180 universities, research institutes and official trade union bodies asking for ideas for socially useful products. They received three replies. The intellectual establishment of a country then still calling itself an industrial nation had, on this question, almost nothing to say.

So they asked themselves. Questionnaires went out across every plant: what machine tools do we have, what skills sit on this floor, what could we make that people actually need? Over fourteen months the workforce produced more than 150 detailed product proposals, with drawings, costings and training requirements attached.

The list reads today less like a period curiosity than a leaked memo from the future.”

Why haven’t you heard more about the Lucas Plan?

Because the idea behind it – human-centred systems, where technology augments the person rather than replacing them – was too threatening to the status quo.

Remind you of anything?

Image is a still from the 1978 Documentary

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-3lZYT3izI&t=285s