"[3] Cooley held several leadership positions in the field of computer-aided design (CAD) and was an advisor on numerous public and private sector projects.

Michael Joseph Edward Cooley was born on 23 March 1934 in Tuam, Ireland, where he attended the Christian Brothers School and was classmates with the playwright Tom Murphy and the trade unionist Mick Brennan.

He began learning German in his spare time under the auspices of a Viennese colleague's wife, and in the mid-1950s moved to Germany to study mechanical engineering at the University of Bremen.

[11] The plan's aim was to replace weapons manufacture with the development of socially useful goods, like solar heating equipment, artificial kidneys, and systems for intermodal transportation.

[12] The proposals of the alternative plan were not accepted by Lucas management and Cooley was 'effectively' dismissed in 1981,[13] allegedly for spending excessive time upon union business[14] and "concerns of society as a whole".

[16][13] Ken Livingstone and Mike Cooley[16] founded the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB) in 1982, which was an industrial development and job creation agency set up by the GLC to create employment by investing in the industrial regeneration of London, with the funds provided by the council, its workers' pension fund and the financial markets.

In a capitalist system in which the maximization of profit is the sole objective and people are regarded as units of labour-power, the division of labour and fragmentation of skills is absolutely rational and scientific.

In Architect or Bee?, Cooley coined the term "human-centred systems" in the context of the transition in his profession from traditional drafting at a drawing board to computer-aided design.

[26][better source needed] The book analyses the social impact of technology and the dangers of accepting the "one best" scientific idea of progress.

According to the film, technology would "virtually eliminate the manual working class by the end of the century" and displace jobs permanently.

Gorz proposes working towards a future in which free time is sustained by a guaranteed minimum income and that production should be confined to essential goods and that people should pursue satisfying and autonomous activities.

[30] Cooley appears in German filmmaker Harun Farocki's film Wie Man Sieht (As You See, 1983), which examines the emergence of computerization and its effects on military and managerial uses of innovative technology.

[35] The book is a set of interviews with educationalists discussing their own education and include s Mike Cooley, Noam Chomsky, Seamus Heaney and Charles Handy among others.