The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine ProductionHobson, J. A. (John Atkinson)
History
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production
Hobson, J. A. (John Atkinson)
Capitalism; Industries -- History; Machinery in the workplace
It is therefore to the development and influence of machinery upon
industry that we shall chiefly direct our attention, adopting the
following method of study. It is first essential to obtain a clear
understanding of the structure of industry or "the industrial
organism" as a whole, and of its constituent parts, before the new
industrial forces had begun to operate. We must then seek to ascertain
the laws of the development and application of the new forces to the
different departments of industry and the different parts of the
industrial world, examining in certain typical machine industries the
order and pace of the application of the new machinery and motor to
the several processes. Turning our attention again to the industrial
organism, we shall strive to ascertain the chief changes that have
been brought about in the size and structural character of industry,
in the relations of the several parts of the industrial world, of the
several trades which constitute industry, of the processes within
these trades, of the businesses or units which comprise a trade or a
market, and of the units of capital and labour comprising a business.
It will then remain to undertake closer studies of certain important
special outcomes of machinery and factory production. These studies
will fall into three classes. (1) The influences of machine-production
upon the size of the units of capital, the intensification and
limitation of competition; the natural formation of Trusts and other
forms of economic monopoly of capital; trade depressions and grave
industrial disorders due to discrepancies between individual and
social interests in the working of modern methods of production. (2)
Effects of machinery upon labour, the quantity and regularity of
employment, the character and remuneration of work, the place of women
in industry (3) Effects upon the industrial classes in the capacity of
consumers, the growth of the large industrial town and its influences
upon the physical, intellectual, moral life of the community. Lastly,
an attempt will be made to summarise the net influences of modern
capitalist production in their relation to other social progressive
forces, and to indicate the relations between these which seem most
conducive to the welfare of a community measured by generally accepted
standards of character or happiness.
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