edit: I was wrong, see below.<p>- - - -<p>I have since misplaced it, but there's a book on the history of the computer wherein a conversation with Babbage was quoted. He was asked something like, "So the engine is the perfection of the executive?", and he agreed.
That phrase, "the perfection of the executive", has stayed with me.<p>The "executive" in this sense means the "part of government that enforces law, and has responsibility for the governance of a state." ~<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_(government)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_(government)</a>
In other words <i>control</i>. Babbage and his interlocutor saw the computer as the perfection of control in the political sense, and I think we're seeing that unfold today before our eyes.