The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: a Study of Machine Production

CHAPTER II.

THE STRUCTURE OF INDUSTRY BEFORE MACHINERY 10

1. Dimensions of International Commerce in early Eighteenth Century. 2. Natural Barriers to International Trade. 3. Political, Pseudo-economic, and Economic Barriers-- Protective Theory and Practice. 4. Nature of International Trade. 5. Size, Structure, Relations of the several Industries. 6. Slight Extent of Local Specialisation. 7. Nature and Conditions of Specialised Industry. 8. Structure of the Market. 9. Combined Agriculture and Manufacture. 10. Relations between Processes in a Manufacture. 11. Structure of the Domestic Business: Early Stages of Transition. 12. Beginnings of Concentrated Industry and the Factory. 13. Limitations in Size and Application of Capital--Merchant Capitalism.

CHAPTER III.

THE ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINE INDUSTRY 44

1. A Machine differentiated from a Tool. 2. Machinery in Relation to the Character of Human Labour. 3. Contributions of Machinery to Productive Power. 4. Main Factors in Development of Machine Industry. 5. Importance of Cotton-trade in Machine Development. 6. History refutes the "Heroic" Theory of Invention. 7. Application of Machinery to other Textile Work. 8. Reverse order of Development in Iron Trades. 9. Leading Determinants in the General Application of Machinery and Steam-Motor. 10. Order of Development of modern Industrial Methods in the several Countries--Natural, Racial, Political, Economic.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRUCTURE OF MODERN INDUSTRY 88

1. Growing Size of the Business-Unit. 2. Relative Increase of Capital and Labour in the Business. 3. Increased Complexity and Integration of Business Structure. 4. Structure and Size of the Market for different Commodities. 5. Machinery a direct Agent in expanding Market Areas. 6. Expanded Time-area of the Market. 7. Interdependency of Markets. 8. Sympathetic and Antagonistic Relations between Trades. 9. National and Local Specialisation in Industry. 10. Influences determining Localisation of Industry under World-Competition. 11. Impossibility of Final Settlement of Industry. 12. Specialisation in Districts and Towns. 13. Specialisation within the Town.

CHAPTER V.

THE FORMATION OF MONOPOLIES IN CAPITAL 117

1. Productive Economies of the Large Business. 2. Competitive Economies of the Large Business. 3. Intenser Competition of the few Large Businesses. 4. Restraint of Competition and Limited Monopoly. 5. Facilities for maintaining Price-Lists in different Industries. 6. Logical Outcome of Large-Scale Competition. 7. Different Species of "Combines." 8. Legal and Economic Nature of the "Trust." 9. Origin and Modus Operandi of the Standard Oil Trust. 10. The Economic Strength of other Trusts. 11. Industrial Conditions favourable to "Monopoly"

CHAPTER VI.

ECONOMIC POWERS OF THE TRUST 143

1. Power of a Monopoly over earlier or later Processes in Production of a Commodity. 2. Power over Actual or Potential Competitors. 3. Power over Employees of a Trust. 4. Power over Consumers. 5. Determinants of a Monopoly Price. 6. The Possibility of low Monopoly Prices. 7. Considerations of Elasticity of Demand limiting Prices. 8. Final Summary of Monopoly Prices.

CHAPTER VII.

MACHINERY AND INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION 167

1. The external phenomena of Trade Depression. 2. Correctly described as Under-production and Over-production. 3. Testimony to a general excess of Productive Power over the requirement for Consumption. 4. The connection of modern Machine-production and Depression shown by statistics of price. 5. Changing forms in which Over-supply of Capital is embodied. 6. Summary of economic relation of Machinery to Depression. 7. Under-consumption as the root-evil. 8. Economic analysis of "Saving." 9. Saving requires increased Consumption in the future. 10. Quantitative relation of parts in the organism of Industry. 11. Quantitative relation of Capital and Consumption. 12. Economic limits of Saving for a Community. 13. No limits to the possibility of individual Saving--Clash of individual and social interests in Saving. 14. Objection that excess in forms of Capital would drive interests to zero not valid. 15. Excess is in embodiments of Capital, not in real Capital. 16. Uncontrolled Machinery a source of fluctuation.

CHAPTER VIII.

MACHINERY AND DEMAND FOR LABOUR 220

1. The Influence of Machinery upon the number of Employed, dependent on "elasticity of demand." 2. Measurement of direct effects on Employment in Staple Manufactures. 3. Effects of Machinery in other Employments--The Evidence of French Statistics. 4. Influence of Introduction of Machinery upon Regularity of Employment. 5. Effects of "Unorganised" Machine-industry upon Regularity. 6. Different Ways in which modern Industry causes Unemployment. 7. Summary of General Conclusions.

CHAPTER IX.

MACHINERY AND THE QUALITY OF LABOUR 244

1. Kinds of Labour which Machinery supersedes. 2. Influence of Machine-evolution upon intensity of physical work. 3. Machinery and the length of the working day. 4. The Education of Working with Machinery. 5. The levelling tendency of Machinery--The subordination of individual capacity in work.

CHAPTER X.

THE ECONOMY OF HIGH WAGES 261

1. The Economy of Low Wages. 2. Modifications of the Early Doctrine--Sir T. Brassey's Evidence from Heavy Manual Work. 3. Wages, Hours, and Product in Machine-industry. 4. A General Application of the Economy of High Wages and Short Hours inadmissible. 5. Mutual Determination of Conditions of Employment and Productivity. 6. Compressibility of Labour and Intensification of Effort. 7. Effective Consumption dependent upon Spare Energy of the Worker. 8. Growth of Machinery in relation to Standard of Comfort. 9. Economy of High Wages dependent upon Consumption.

CHAPTER XI.

SOME EFFECTS OF MODERN INDUSTRY UPON THE WORKERS AS CONSUMERS 285

1. How far the different Working Classes gain from the Fall of Prices. 2. Part of the Economy of Machine-production compensated by the growing Work of Distribution. 3. The Lowest Class of Workers gains least from Machine-production.

CHAPTER XII.

WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY 290

1. Growing Employment of Women in Manufacture. 2. Machinery favours Employment of Women. 3. Wages of Women lower than of Men. 4. Causes of Lower Wages for Women. 5. Smaller Productivity or Efficiency of Women's Labour. 6. Factors enlarging the scope of Women's Wage-work. 7. "Minimum Wage" lower for Women--Her Labour often subsidised from other sources. 8. Woman's Contribution to the Family Wages--Effect of Woman's Work upon Man's Wages. 9. Tendency of Woman's Wage to low uniform level. 10. Custom and Competition as determinants of Low Wages. 11. Lack of Organisation among Women--Effect on Wages. 12. Over-supply of Labour in Women's Employments the root-evil. 13. Low Wages the chief cause of alleged Low "Value" of Woman's Work. 14. Industrial Position of Woman analogous to that of Low-skilled Men. 15. Damage to Home-life arising from Women's Wage-work.

CHAPTER XIII.

MACHINERY AND THE MODERN TOWN 324

1. The Modern Industrial Town as a Machine-product. 2. Growth of Town as compared with Rural Population in the Old and New Worlds. 3. Limits imposed upon the Townward Movement by the Economic Conditions of World-industry. 4. Effect of increasing Town-life upon Mortality. 5. The impaired quality of Physical Life in Towns. 6. The Intellectual Education of Town-life. 7. The Moral Education of Town-life. 8. Economic Forces making for Decentralisation. 9. Desirability of Public Control of Transport Services to effect Decentralisation. 10. Long Hours and Insecurity of Work as Obstacles to Reforms. 11. The Principle of Internal Reform of Town-life.

CHAPTER XIV.

CIVILISATION AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 350

1. Imperfect Adjustment of Industrial Structure to its Environment. 2. Reform upon the Basis of Private Enterprise and Free Trade. 3. Freedom and Transparency of Industry powerless to cure the deeper Industrial Maladies. 4. Beginnings of Public Control of Machine-production. 5. Passage of Industries into a public Non-competitive Condition. 6. The raison d'être of Progressive Collectivism. 7. Collectivism follows the line of Monopoly. 8. Cases of "Arrested Development:" the Sweating Trades. 9. Retardation of rate of Progress in Collective Industries. 10. Will Official Machine-work absorb an Increasing Proportion of Energy? 11. Improved Quality of Consumption the Condition of Social Progress. 12. The Highest Division of Labour between Machinery and Art. 13. Qualitative Consumption defeats the Law of Decreasing Returns. 14. Freedom of Art from Limitations of Matter. 15. Machinery and Art in production of Intellectual Wealth. 16. Reformed Consumption abolishes Anti-Social Competition. 17. Life itself must become Qualitative. 18. Organic Relations between Production and Consumption. 19. Summary of Progress towards a Coherent Industrial Organism.

INDEX 385

THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN CAPITALISM.

THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN CAPITALISM.

CHAPTER I.. Introduction.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. Industrial Science, its Standpoint and Methods of Advance. § 2. Capital as Factor in Modern Industrial Changes. § 3. Place of Machinery in Evolution of Capitalism. § 4. The Monetary Aspect of Industry. § 5. The Literary Presentment of Organic Movement.

§ 1. Science is ever becoming more and more historical in the sense that it becomes more studiously anxious to show that the laws or principles with whose exposition it is concerned not merely are rightly derived from observation of phenomena but cover the whole range of these phenomena in the explanation they afford. So likewise History is ever becoming more scientific in the sense that facts or phenomena are so ordered in their setting as to give prominence to the ideas or principles which appear to relate them and of which they are the outward expression. Thus the old sharp line, of distinction has slipped away, and we see there is no ultimate barrier between a study of facts and a study of the laws or principles which dominate these facts. In this way the severance of History and Science becomes less logically justifiable. Yet it is still convenient that we should say of one branch of study that it is historical in the sense that it is directly and consciously engaged in the collection and clear expression of facts or phenomena as they stand objectively in place or time without any conscious reference to the laws which relate or explain them; of another branch of study that it is scientific because it is engaged in the discovery, formulation, and correct expression of the laws according to which facts are related, without affecting to give a full presentment of those facts. The treatment in this book belongs in this sense to economic science rather than to industrial history as being an endeavour to discover and interpret the laws of the movement of industrial forces during the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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