The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production

by J. A. Hobson

§ 11. We must now descend from the consideration of the Industry and the Market, or group of related businesses, to examine the character and structure of the unit of industry—the Business.

In a study of the composition or co-operation of labour and capital in a Business before the era of machine-production there are five points of dominant importance—(1) The ownership of the material; (2) the ownership of the tools; (3) the ownership of the productive power; (4) the relations subsisting between the individual units of labour; (5) the work-place.

English manufacturing industry in the first half of the eighteenth century furnishes a variety of different forms of business of widely different nature and complexity. The simplest form of manufacturing industry is that in which an industrial family owning the raw material and the requisite tools, and working with the power of their own bodies in their own homes, produce commodities for their own consumption. This private production for private consumption survived largely in the eighteenth century, not merely in the case of agriculturists who produced the more necessary articles of food for themselves as well as for the market, but also in the case of farmers and cottagers in the remotest parts of the country who produced their own wool and flax, and spun and wove it for their own use.[42]

From this primitive form which required no commerce and no industrial organisation we may trace the growth of various forms of higher industrial development, many of which co-existed in eighteenth century England.

The simplest structure of "domestic" manufacture is that in which the farmer-manufacturer is found purchasing his own material, the raw wool or flax if he is a spinner, the warp and weft if he is a weaver, and, working with his family, produces yarn or cloth which he sells himself, either in the local market or to regular master-clothiers or merchants. The mixed cotton weaving trade was in this condition in the earlier years of the eighteenth century. "The workshop of the weaver was a rural cottage, from which, when he was tired of sedentary labour, he could sally forth into his little garden, and with the spade or the hoe tend its culinary productions. The cotton-wool which was to form his weft was picked clean by the fingers of his younger children, and was carded and spun by the older girls assisted by his wife, and the yarn was woven by himself assisted by his sons."[43]

Following as the central point the ownership of the requisites of production, we find in the next stage that the ownership of the material has passed from the workman into the hands of the organising merchant or middleman, who usurps the title "manufacturer." The workman, however, still retains the ownership of the implements of his craft and works in his own house. The condition of the worsted trade later in the century, about 1770, well illustrates this industrial form.

"The work was entirely domestic, and its different branches widely scattered over the country. First, the manufacturer had to travel on horseback to purchase his raw material among the farmers, or at the great fairs held in those old towns that had formerly been the exclusive markets, or, as they were called, 'staples' of wool. The wool, safely received, was handed over to the sorters, who rigorously applied their gauge of required length of staple and mercilessly chopped off by shears or hatchet what did not reach the standard as wool fit for the clothing trade. The long wool thus passed into the hands of the combers, and, having been brought back to them into the combed state, was again carefully packed and strapped on the back of the sturdy horse, to be taken into the country to be spun.... Here, at each village, he had his agents, who received the wool, distributed it amongst the peasantry and received it back as yarn. The machine employed was still the old one-thread wheel, and in summer weather on many a village green might be seen the housewives plying their busy trade, and furnishing to the poet the vision of contentment spinning at the cottage door. Returning in safety with his yarn, the manufacturer had now to seek out his weavers, who ultimately delivered to him his camblets or russels, or tammies or calimancoes (such were the leading names of the fibres) ready for sale to the merchant or delivery to the dyer."[44]

The condition of the cotton-trade in Lancashire about 1750 illustrates most clearly the transition from the independent weaver to the dependent weaver. So far as the linen warp of his fabric was concerned he had long been in the habit of receiving it from the larger "manufacturer" in Bolton or in Manchester, but the cotton yarn he had hitherto supplied himself, using the yarn spun by his own family or purchased by himself in the neighbourhood. The difficulty of obtaining a steady, adequate supply, and the waste of time involved in trudging about in search of this necessary material, operated more strongly as the market for cotton goods expanded and the pressure of work made itself felt.[45] It was this pressure which we shall see acting as chief stimulus to the application of new inventions in the spinning[46] trade. In the interim, however, the habit grew of receiving not only linen warp but cotton weft from the merchant or middleman. Thus the ownership of the raw material entirely passed out of the weaver's hands, though he continued to ply his domestic craft as formerly.[47] This had grown into the normal condition of the trade by 1750. The stocking-trade illustrates one further encroachment of the capitalist system upon domestic industry. In this trade not only was the material given out by merchants, but the "frames" used for weaving were likewise owned by them, and were rented out to the workers, who continued, however, to work in their own homes.[48]

§ 12. Two further steps remained to be taken in the transition from the "domestic" to the "factory" system, the one relating to the ownership of "power," the other to the work-place, (a) The substitution of extra-human power owned by the employer for the physical power of the worker; (b) the withdrawal of the workers from their homes, and the concentration of them in factories and work-places owned by the capitalists.

Although these steps were not completely taken until the age of steam had well set in, before the middle of the eighteenth century there were found examples of the factory, complete in its essential character, side by side and in actual competition with the earlier shapes of domestic industry.