1771 - 1848
Paul begins with the establishment of Arkwright's Mill at Cromford, near Matlock. There had, in fact, been many manufactories before then. Those manufactories, however, were really just buildings in which handicraft producers were brought together under one roof. They continued to use their own tools etc., and in many ways operated as commodity producers. That is why the early economic theories saw workers as still selling commodities to the employer, rather than selling their labour-power itself as a commodity. The difference being that the capitalist provided materials, and appropriated the end product to be sold. But, the handicraft workers in such a factory continued to negotiate prices individually with the capitalist. During this period, labour is formally subordinated to capital, but not yet really subordinated. Each worker could still, theoretically, take their tools, and produce the commodity independently, and sell it on the market.
Paul's description, in the next section, of the situation in Canada, described by Gregory Keeley, is only an indication of the later stage of development of Canada, in that regard. What the Crompton factory signified, however, was the transition from labour that is formally subordinated, to labour that is really subordinated. Paul seems to miss the importance of Marx's analysis of this evolution of the labour process, as meticulously set out in Capital I. The whole point about handicraft in the manufactories is that nearly all of the labour is skilled labour. It is the labour of craftsmen and journeymen. It is the fact that these individual, independent, handicraft producers are brought together by capital, in the manufactory, which then enables the lengthy process of transformation of the labour process to get underway.
First, individual producers are led to focus on one particular type of product; then, for each type of product, the division of labour is introduced, so that individual workers produce this or that component part of it – this process, in fact, has a lot in common with the more recent use of work groups, where each work group assigns these specific tasks to its members – ultimately, each worker becomes a specialist in the production of just one small element of the product.
Machine production completes this transformation of the labour process. No matter how skilled the spinners at the Crompton factory, their labour was now purely “factory labour”; it was not just formally subordinated to capital, but really subordinated to it. Prior to machine production, a handicraft producer of textiles could spin and weave cloth, and send it as a commodity to market. The only thing that prevented them from doing so was that, first, they had, for whatever reason, fallen on hard times, so as to be unable to buy their own material, and later, as capitalist production expanded, they were unable to compete. But, no matter how skilled the machine spinner, they can only ever sell their labour-power as factory labour, to a capitalist who owns the spinning machines. The significant point here is that, no matter how skilled, as machine labour, the spinner is, they are not skilled in the sense that any handicraft producer was skilled, as a producer who could produce a commodity, in its own right, that could be sold. The skilled machine labour can only ever be sold as labour-power, and thereby the ultimate subordination of labour to capital is ensured.
When the Crompton factory was built, much of it was done in secret, because of the extent of the machinery inside it, which would have provoked hostility from other independent producers. Crompton was still powered by water. What brought about the next major transformation was the introduction of steam engines, which meant that factories could be built in towns, and far more powerful machines put into action. It is that qualitative increase in the volume of output that leads to the first ever crisis of overproduction, which breaks out in 1825.
Paul briefly describes the way the workers, in this early period, not only begin to organise to demand better wages etc., but also begin to organise the night schools, friendly societies, and so on, referred to earlier. And, alongside this, they also begin to demand political reforms. But, Paul skips over a further element here that complicates the narrative he is presenting. That is that, whilst, on the one hand, the workers come increasingly into conflict with capital, in the workplace, in the wider society, they find themselves in alliance with capital against the old landed aristocracy, in relation to these political reforms. As I've pointed out elsewhere, it was not just workers protesting at St. Peter's Fields. The industrial bourgeoisie were also represented there, also raising its demands for political reform, which eventually came about with the 1832 Reform Act.
Paul also makes a lot of the case of those male spinners defending their jobs against them being taken over by women. As he says, it's not the last time such a thing could be seen. More recently it is action to protect “British jobs for British workers”. But, again, the situation is more complex than Paul presents. Paul blames Engels for providing Marx with a distorted picture based upon his interviews with male workers, lined up for him by Mary Burns. However, a look through Capital I, in the sections on the role of machinery shows Marx quoting at length from the official reports of the Factory Inspectors, and Parliamentary Commissions etc. Indeed, part of the reason for female employment on the machines declining, was as a result of capitalists sacking women workers, in response to the limitations on female hours of work, brought about by the Factory Acts, and a corresponding increase in the length of the working day of male workers.
But, the more important point, in relation to the introduction of machinery, and of labour-saving technologies, is that they create a relative surplus population, and it is this which increases competition between workers, reduces wages, and undermines the ability of labour to organise to resist.
Unfortunately, Paul still suffers from the miseducation both he and I, received as members of Trotskyist organisations. He says,
“Marx argued that the workers would abolish property because they lacked property; abolish class stratification because they could not benefit from it – and they would do it without the need to build up an alternative economy within the old system.” (p 184)
But, Marx argued no such thing. Marx himself noted all of these independent working-class organisations that Paul noted above. These form part of what Marx calls workers' self-government. A look at what Marx says about cooperatives in his Inaugural Address, in his programme for the First International, and the Critique of the Gotha Programme, as well as in Capital III, Chapter 27, and in Value, Price and Profit, shows that he most certainly did believe that the workers had to build up an alternative economy within the existing system.
What Marx does not say, and what he is quite right in rejecting, is that, having begun to establish such an alternative, it can simply develop peacefully to replace the existing system. The ruling-class would not allow that to happen, which is why the working-class is then led to engage in a political struggle to defend and extend its own forms of property, which must ultimately lead to a revolutionary overturn of the existing society.
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