What began modern industry?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I'll be honest in that, while I'm knowledgable of it's effects and propagation, I don't know much about how the Industrial revolution started.

Was it gradual, with small machinery-owners slowly overtaking handicraftspeople? Or was it a rapid transition?

Sorry if these questions are a little bit vague. I'm trying to learn about pre-capitalist modes of production at the moment (e.g. judging from what I've read about outer-European societies, particularly pre-European American ones, I don't think 'feudalism' as a single mode of production really applied itself universally).

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

it's a long story - such things are. As far as I know there's no definitive version of events, either. In the UK at least, we traditionally place the beginning of "modern" industry in the 1750's as people like Richard Arkwright (and the people he stole the ideas off) began to mechanise production of certain goods - predominantly cloth. It was around this time that you start getting what we'd call factories - purpose-built for the production of particular goods and so on. This probably isn't entirely right but it's not awful as a starting point. That said, large-scale industries certainly pre-date that. I believe that the Dutch had large and very efficiently organised shipyards as early as the late 16th century - production wasn't mechanised but it certainly took place on a large and highly organised scale.

As far as I know (which is not very far) the process of industrialisation was reasonably rapid as far as things went in those days - there are big cotton mills and metal-works which date to the 1760's and 70's, so in terms of those industries I think the progression was very rapid indeed, at least in the UK. As far as I know, the growth of the factory system in the UK also coincided with an increasing trend of enclosure of land in the countryside, forcing a lot of rural labourers to seek unskilled work in factories.

Bear in mind that my knowledge of this is all pretty sketchy, I haven't really studied this period in any great depth, although I have visited a lot of the remaining mills and so on dotted across the country. I hope I've been at least a bit helpful.

[ckaihatsu]

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In 1771 a former barber and wig maker, Richard Arkwright, opened the world’s first water powered spinning mill at Cromford in Derbyshire. He employed 600 workers, mainly children, who could do the work of ten times that number of hand spinners. In 1775 a Scottish mathematical instrument maker, James Watt, joined forces with the Birmingham engineer Matthew Boulton to produce steam engines which could turn machinery, haul enormous loads and, eventually, propel ships and land vehicles at speeds previously undreamed of. In 1783-84 Henry Cort devised a superior ‘puddling’ method of smelting iron and a rolling mill for processing it.

The way was open, through integrating these inventions and others, to develop a whole new way of producing, based upon steam powered factories employing hundreds or even thousands of people. By the end of the century there were 50 such factories in the Manchester area alone. It was not long before entrepreneurs elsewhere in Europe and across the Atlantic were trying to imitate the new methods. The world of the urban artisans and the rural putting-out system was giving birth to the industrial city.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 257

[Paul Cockshott]

It was rapid, the key was the application of self acting powered machinery which parallelised production in textiles. This is what gave rise to machine industry. Initially it was largely water powered, Watt engines were a subsidiary element until the early 19th Century.

[Alexios]

Silver brought over by the Spanish from the New World and sold to England, among other things

[Gambino]

I believe it was Steam power.
The Mechanization of the textile industry preceded the steam power, but its effects were somehow limited.
Steam power was the catalyst of the industrial revolution, bringing huge transformations to every single aspect of economy.

[RedMaterialist]

Here's another theory:

In the 14th century after the Plague, farming on a large scale became less profitable due to fewer farm workers with the resulting increased wages. The landowners, to recover their former levels of profit, began to remove the peasants from the land replacing farming with sheep growing (clearancing.) In the 15th and 16th centuries the English export of wool cloth skyrocketed. English merchants began to purchase wool directly from landlords and "farm" out the wool to peasant families to manufacture the cloth.

As the production of wool increased it would have been easy for the merchants to centralize production by moving peasant girls into dormitories for the production of cloth. (This was copied in North America in New England.
The same thing is happening in China in large factories where young people from the country are housed in dormitories.) Later, cotton and linen production began to increase.

So, you had large houses, essentially factories, with hundreds of girls producing cloth. This would have led directly to intensive division of labor with individual girls doing a small part of the work, etc. This was a perfect condition for the introduction of mechanized looms each doing the work of dozens of individuals. The spinning jenny was invented, supposedly, by James Hargreaves realizing that a machine could reproduce the function of the fingers and hands. The resulting unemployed peasant girls and families would have flooded the local towns providing cheap, unskilled labor for further mechanized production.

Thus, in my view, it was not the machinery or ingenuity of inventors which led to modern industry, but rather, a change in the mode of production, large numbers of people working in a central place in accord with a rational plan, which led to use of machinery and modern industry. What is more rational than a machine?

From Capital, Ch. 14

" The manufacturing period simplifies, improves, and multiplies the implements of labour, by adapting them to the exclusively special functions of each detail labourer. [6] It thus creates at the same time one of the material conditions for the existence of machinery, which consists of a combination of simple instruments.

[ckaihatsu]

Thus, in my view, it was not the machinery or ingenuity of inventors which led to modern industry, but rather, a change in the mode of production, large numbers of people working in a central place in accord with a rational plan, which led to use of machinery and modern industry. What is more rational than a machine?

From Capital, Ch. 14

" The manufacturing period simplifies, improves, and multiplies the implements of labour, by adapting them to the exclusively special functions of each detail labourer. [6] It thus creates at the same time one of the material conditions for the existence of machinery, which consists of a combination of simple instruments.


[LaborTech] Amazon Workers Face 'Increased Risk of Mental Illness'


Amazon Workers Face 'Increased Risk of Mental Illness'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36969.htm


[ I don't patronize Amazon. I wonder if Amazon will begin to provide free psychotropic drugs to its workers. - Howard ]


Amazon: The Truth Behind the Click

Amazon Workers Face 'Increased Risk of Mental Illness'

A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause "mental and physical illness".

By The BBC

November 26, 2013 "Information Clearing House - A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause "mental and physical illness".

Prof Michael Marmot was shown secret filming of night shifts involving up to 11 miles of walking - where an undercover worker was expected to collect orders every 33 seconds.

It comes as the company employs 15,000 extra staff to cater for Christmas.

Amazon said the safety of its workers was its "number one priority."

Undercover reporter Adam Littler, 23, got an agency job at Amazon's Swansea warehouse. He took a hidden camera inside for BBC Panorama to record what happened on his shifts.

He was employed as a "picker", collecting orders from 800,000 sq ft of storage.

A handset told him what to collect and put on his trolley. It allotted him a set number of seconds to find each product and counted down. If he made a mistake the scanner beeped.

"We are machines, we are robots, we plug our scanner in, we're holding it, but we might as well be plugging it into ourselves", he said.

"We don't think for ourselves, maybe they don't trust us to think for ourselves as human beings, I don't know."

Prof Marmot, one of Britain's leading experts on stress at work, said the working conditions at the warehouse are "all the bad stuff at once".

He said: "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness."

"There are always going to be menial jobs, but we can make them better or worse. And it seems to me the demands of efficiency at the cost of individual's health and wellbeing - it's got to be balanced."

Amazon said that official safety inspections had not raised any concerns and that an independent expert appointed by the company advised that the picking job is "similar to jobs in many other industries and does not increase the risk of mental and physical illness".

The scanner tracked Mr Littler's picking rate and sent his performance to managers. If it was too low, he was told he could face disciplinary action.

When Mr Littler worked night shifts his pay rose from the daily rate of £6.50 per hour to £8.25 per hour.

After experiencing a ten-and-a-half-hour night shift, he said: "I managed to walk or hobble nearly 11 miles, just short of 11 miles last night. I'm absolutely shattered. My feet are the thing that are bothering me the most to be honest."

Amazon said new recruits are warned some positions are physically demanding and that some workers seek these positions as they enjoy the active nature of the work. The company said productivity targets are set objectively, based on previous performance levels achieved by the workforce.
Those on the night shift work a four-day week with an hour's break per shift.

Experts have told Panorama these ten-and-a-half-hour night shifts could breach the working time regulations because of the long hours and the strenuous nature of the work.

Barrister Giles Bedloe said: "If the work involves heavy physical and, or, mental strain then that night worker should not work more than eight hours in any 24-hour period.

But Amazon said its night shift is lawful. They said they sought expert advice to ensure the shifts "comply with all relevant legal requirements".

Amazon said it had invested £1bn in the UK and created 5,000 permanent jobs.

It added that it relied on the good judgement of thousands of employees. The company said: "Together we're working hard to make sure we're better tomorrow than we are today."

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[piet11111]

Perhaps a spin-off but i always wondered why the ancient greeks never had an industrial revolution they did have a steam engine but that was more a toy. Did they lack the insight into what it could do or lack an economic drive to make use for it.