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The emergence of the factory system in 18th century England: Did transportation improvements really matter?
Journal
of Economic
Behavior
and Organization
19 (1992) 389-394.
The emergence of the factory 18th century England Did transportation
improvements
North-Holland
system in
really matter?
S.R.H. Jones University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Received April 1991, final version
received November
1991
Rick Szostak has recently suggested that a reduction in transport costs during the second half of the eighteenth century benefitted the factory system more than putting-out. The resulting change in relative costs, he argues, was primarily responsible for the emergence of the factory system in this period. We maintain that Szostak offers no substantive evidence to support his contention that the factory system was the main beneficiary of a reduction in transport costs and that the method he uses to assess changes in relative costs fails to include differences in the cost of a labour, a major input. Other evidence that casts doubt upon his thesis is also ignored.
1. Introduction
The view that the emergence of the factories in eighteenth century England was ‘the necessary outcome of the rise of machinery’ has been widely accepted by economic historians since Mantoux (1961, p. 246) first wrote his seminal work on the beginnings of the modern factory system.’ More recently, however, doubts have been cast upon this interpretation of events, with both Marglin (1974) and Williamson (1980, 1983) observing that a number of factories came into being in the 18th century that relied on hand technology and not machinery. The rationale for the adoption of the factory system, they suggested, ought to be sought elsewhere, with Marglin arguing that factories were introduced for the purposes of worker exploitation whilst Williamson offered an efficiency explanation based on the superior organizational properties of the factory. ‘Traditional’ economic historians were far from convinced by this reinterpretation of events. Thus Landes (1986), whilst agreeing with Marglin that factory discipline enabled ‘bosses’ to exercise greater control over the work process, was not persuaded that the efficiency gains of the hand or protoCorrespondence to: Professor S.R.H. Jones, Department of Economics, The University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand. ‘Mantoux’s account has been broadly endorsed by many subsequent scholars, including Heaton (1965, pp. 352-357), Usher (1920, pp. l&17), Ashton (1962, pp. 109-118) and Landes (1969, p. 2, 41 and 81). 0167~2681/92/$05.00
0
1992-Elsevier
Science Publishers
B.V. All rights reserved
390
S.R.H. Jones, The factory
system in 18th century England
factory were sufficient to offset the lower labour costs of putting-out. In similar vein, I challenged the work of Williamson [Jones (1982, 1983)] arguing that the methodology he employed to measure the efficiency properties of comparative organizational modes was flawed, that his empirical assessments were questionable, and that his assumption that putting-out and the factory enjoyed identical labour costs was simply untenable. I concluded that the hand factory was atypical, usually the product of particular circumstances, and that as a rule factories were adopted that incorporated new and superior technology. In the 1989 edition of this journal, Rick Szostak sought to reconcile the views of both Williamson and myself [Szostak (1989)]. The essence of his argument is that a reduction in transport costs during the second half of the eighteenth century benelitted the factory system more than putting-out. As the cost of operating factories fell relative to putting-out, an increasing number of master manufacturers abandoned outwork and moved their enterprises into the factory. The rise of the factory system during the early stages of the industrial revolution was therefore due to the impact of transportation improvements and not organizational efficiencies or the introduction of new technology. Technology only became important later on. By examining the wider impact of transportation improvements on the costs of production, Szostak is undoubtedly focussing on an issue that has hitherto only received cursory attention. Indeed, the discussion to date has only really been concerned with the increase in transport costs incurred through putting out work to an ever more dispersed rural labour force. Moreover, his suggestion that a reduction in transport costs may have affected the cost structures of one organizational mode more than another seems eminently sensible. Logically, therefore, it seems quite possible that transportation improvements may have been responsible for the emergence of the factory system in the late eighteenth century. But is this what actually happened? There are a number of aspects of Szostak’s thesis that give rise to misgivings. Firstly, he uses a methodology very similar to that of Williamson and has adopted the latter’s eleven efficiency criteria as the sole basis for evaluating changes in relative costs; secondly, he provides no quantitative evidence to support his claim that hand factories became more cost effective than putting-out; and thirdly, he does not address a mass of circumstantial evidence that tends to run counter to his case. 2. Methodology
and the use of efficiency
criteria
Szostak takes as his starting point the eleven efficiency criteria devised by Williamson to evaluate the performance of the putting-out and factory systems. Williamson’s failure to weight each of the criteria according to their
S.R.H. Jones, Thelactory
system in 18th century
England
391
importance in the productive process or assign appropriate scores is of little concern to Szostak. This lack of concern flows from the fact that Szostak believes that he is able to establish that ‘In terms of ten of the eleven criteria, transport improvements served either to make factories look more advantageous or less disadvantageous’ [Szostak (1989, p. 345)]. Given that the balance of advantage lay so clearly with the factory, we apparently ‘need not worry’ about weighting or measurement. Having determined, via the yardstick of efficiency criteria, that late eighteenth century transport improvements benefitted factories far more than putting-out, Szostak feels able to conclude that transport improvements were responsible for the emergence of the factory system. There would seem to be several objections to this approach. Firstly, the failure to weight each of the efficiency criteria or assign appropriate scores means that Szostak has no way of knowing whether the savings in costs due to transport improvements were significant or not. The fact that the factory system benefitted more from transport improvements than putting-out is of little practical consequence if the latter was still absolutely more cost effective in one or two key areas. A reduction of cost differentials was, by itself, not sufficient to ensure the triumph of the factory system! More seriously, Szostak’s willingness to adopt the eleven efficiency criteria as the sole basis upon which to judge changes in the cost effectiveness of the two systems means that he, like Williamson, assumes that the costs of all other inputs, including that of labour, were equal. This was simply not the case. Outwork labour could be and indeed was employed at a fraction of the cost of factory labour and it was from the employment of cheap outwork labour that the putting-out system derived its competitive advantage. This point has been repeatedly stressed by a number of economic historians, including Landes and myself. The omission of differences in the cost of labour, in my view, seriously undermines the whole basis of his thesis. Any attempt to evaluate what happens to relative cost structures has to consider what each system paid for its labour and how the wage rates of outworkers and factory workers changed over time. If changes in wage differentials are ignored, the exercise becomes meaningless.2
3. Empirical questions One of the criticisms that I originally levelled at Williamson was that the empirical basis for his conclusion was slight, to say the least. Szostak has gone rather further, providing significantly more historical detail when assessing the impact of transportation improvements in terms of each of the *There reduction
is ample evidence to show that piece rates paid to outworkers experienced a real in a number of trades. See, for example, Bythell (1977, p. 279 and more generally).
392
S.R.H. Jones, Thefactory
system in 18th century England
efficiency criteria. Nevertheless, there is no quantitative evidence to support any of his assessments which are based on a mixture of a priori reasoning and impressionistic judgements. Indeed, Szostak is forced to admit that ‘To “prove” that the net effect of transport improvements [on transportation expenses] during this period was in favour of factories would require extensive data on the costs of both putting-out and early factories, and such data does not exist’ [Szostak (1989, footnote p. 351)]. The trouble with such impressionistic judgements, based as they are on a few scraps of data and some broad assumptions with respect to behavior and probable outcomes, is that they require the reader to accompany Szostak on a number of giant leaps of faith. Thus one is required to accept, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, that transportation improvements reduced ‘transport expenses’ more for the factory than putting-out. The reasoning lying behind this somewhat controversial claim is that the savings that the factory colonies were able to achieve in food supply probably outweighed the savings that domestic capitalists were able to obtain from cheaper distribution and collection of product. One presumes that some of these savings may have been reflected in changes in relative wage rates but, as we have seen, Szostak remains strangely silent on such matters. Of course, even if one had adequate data, it would be very difficult to translate changes in relative costs under each of the eleven efficiency criteria into changes in overall cost functions. Thus, whilst in principle it would appear relatively easy to calculate how smaller inventories due to transportation improvements might lower unit costs of factory production, it is far more difficult to work out how the factory system’s greater ability to respond to changes in fashion can be incorporated in a cost function. I commented on these computational difficulties and the non-additive nature of Williamson’s efficiency criteria in 1982: Szostak fails to address these issues. Yet even if precise measurement is not possible, it behoves Szostak to provide some broad estimates of the extent by which the factory system benelitted more from transportation improvements than putting-out, how these benefits actually translated into cost savings, and how these savings stacked up against the cost advantages enjoyed by putters-out through their employment of cheap labour. It is simply not good enough to claim, on the basis of some highly impressionistic judgements and very little else, that the factory was the principal beneficiary of transportation improvements and that changes in relative costs accounts for the emergence of the factory system in later eighteenth century England. 4. Some contrary evidence The principal objection that Szostak has to technological explanations for the growth of the factory system after 1780 is that ‘(. ..) many factories
S.R.H. Jones, The factory system in 18th century England
393
emerge in this period, over a wide range of industries, which use the same technology previously employed in cottages’ [Szostak (1989, p. 345)]. Yet whilst it is true that a number of hand factories did appear between 1780 and 1800, there is little to suggest that hand factories came to dominate production in any particular sector of industry. Indeed, what evidence there is would seem to indicate that, until the early nineteenth century, increases in output were met either by the introduction of machino-facture or by an extension of the putting-out system. Thus pins, nails, needles and stockings continued to be made in vast quantities by domestic outworkers, each trade largely unaffected by transportation improvements that, according to Szostak, should have led to the centralisation of production. Technology rather than transportation sounded the death knell of outwork in these trades.3 There is rather greater evidence of the spread of hand factories in cotton and woollen textiles. Yet even in these leading industries it is clear that hand factories were adopted relatively slowly and only accounted for a very small percentage of production by 1800. Thus the Parliamentary Committee convened in 1806 to investigate woollen manufactures found that, in the West Riding, factories only accounted for about 5% of the increase in production between 1791 and 1805 [S.C. on Woollen Manufactures (1806)J If factories were the most cost effective mode of production by the end of the eighteenth century, then this was something that escaped the attention of an awful lot of Yorkshiremen! Similar evidence can be produced for Gloucestershire where looms were not gathered together into loomshops on any scale until the late twenties. Even then, the principal motive for doing so was to break the power of weavers combinations, not to realise organisational efficiencies or save on transportation costs. In Norwich, outworkers still dominated the weaving trade as late as 1840. [Handloom Weavers Commission ( 1840); Hammond ( 19 19)]. The failure of the hand factory to make much progress in a number of geographically dispersed industries in late eighteenth century England raises substantial doubts about the validity of Szostak’s thesis. If improvements in transportation in the second half of the eighteenth conferred such a significant advantage on the hand factory, why did so many technologically simple trades continue to expand via putting-out? Conversely, if the connection between factories and technology was unimportant before 1800, as Szostak suggests, why was most silk machine-thrown as early as 1770, and the bulk of wool machine-carded and scribbled and cotton machine-spun by the end of the century [Jones (1987); Jenkins and Ponting (1982); Chapman (1972)-j. ‘See Dutton and Jones (1983, Nelson (1929-1930, pp. 484487).
pp. 1755193); Guise (1933, pp. 26-27); Allen (1929, pp. 74-76);
394
S.R.H. Jones,
The/actor-y
system in 18th cmtury England
4. Conclusion The notion that the emergence of the factory system between 1780 and 1800 was brought about by transportation improvements undoubtedly has a certain appeal. The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed both a reduction in the cost of transportation and a growth in hand factories and it is tempting to assume that the two phenomena were related. Yet whilst Szostak claims to be able to demonstrate cause and effect, his argument fails both on methodological and empirical grounds. Transportation improvements may have led to an increase in the number of hand factories but there is little reason to suppose that this occurred for the reasons that Szostak suggests.
References Allen, G.C., 1966, The industrial development of Birmingham and the Black Country (Cass, London). Ashton, T.S., 1962, The industrial revolution; 176C-1830 (Oxford University Press, London). Bythell, Duncan, 1977, The handloom weavers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Chapman, S.D., 1972, The cotton industry in the industrial revolution (Macmillan, London). Dutton, H.I. and S.R.H. Jones, 1983, Invention and innovation in the British pin industry, 179& 1850, Business History Review 57, 175-193. Guise, W., 1933, Needles, the history and romance of an industry (Indicator Press, Redditch). Hammond, J.L. and Barabara, 1919, The skilled labourer (Longmans, London). Heaton, Herbert, 1965, The Yorkshire woollen and worsted industries (Clarendon Press, Oxford). Jenkins, D.T. and K.G. Ponting, 1982, The British wool textile industry (Heineman, London). Jones, S.R.H., 1982, The organization of work: A historical dimension, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 3, 117-137. Jones, S.R.H., 1983, Technology and the organization of work: A reply, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 4, 63366. Jones, S.R.H., 1987, Technology, transaction costs, and the transition to factory production in the British silk industry, 170&l 870, Journal of Economic History 47, 71-96. Landes, David S., 1969, The unbound Prometheus: Technical change and industrial development in western Europe from 1750 to the present day (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Landes, David S., 1986, What do bosses really do?, Journal of Economic History 46, 585-623. Mantoux, Paul, 1961, The industrial revolution in the eighteenth century (Cape, London). Marglin, Stephen, 1974, What do bosses do?, The Review of Radical Political Economy 6, 6@112. Nelson, Evelyn Gibson, 192991930, The putting-out system in the English framework-knitting industry, Journal of Economic and Business History 2, 4677494. Reports from Assistant Commissioners, Handloom Weavers Commission, 1840, British Parliamentary Papers 24. Report from the Select Committee Woollen Manufactures, 1806, British Parliamentary Papers 3. Szostak, Rick, 1989, The organization of work: The emergence of the factory revisited, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1I, 343-358. Usher, Abbot P., 1920, An introduction to the industrial history of England (Harrap, London). Williamson, Oliver E., 1980, The organization of work: A comparative institutional assessment, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization I, 5538. Williamson, Oliver E., 1983, Technology and the organization of work; A reply to Jones; A rejoinder, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 4, 67-68.
of Economic
Behavior
and Organization
19 (1992) 389-394.
The emergence of the factory 18th century England Did transportation
improvements
North-Holland
system in
really matter?
S.R.H. Jones University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Received April 1991, final version
received November
1991
Rick Szostak has recently suggested that a reduction in transport costs during the second half of the eighteenth century benefitted the factory system more than putting-out. The resulting change in relative costs, he argues, was primarily responsible for the emergence of the factory system in this period. We maintain that Szostak offers no substantive evidence to support his contention that the factory system was the main beneficiary of a reduction in transport costs and that the method he uses to assess changes in relative costs fails to include differences in the cost of a labour, a major input. Other evidence that casts doubt upon his thesis is also ignored.
1. Introduction
The view that the emergence of the factories in eighteenth century England was ‘the necessary outcome of the rise of machinery’ has been widely accepted by economic historians since Mantoux (1961, p. 246) first wrote his seminal work on the beginnings of the modern factory system.’ More recently, however, doubts have been cast upon this interpretation of events, with both Marglin (1974) and Williamson (1980, 1983) observing that a number of factories came into being in the 18th century that relied on hand technology and not machinery. The rationale for the adoption of the factory system, they suggested, ought to be sought elsewhere, with Marglin arguing that factories were introduced for the purposes of worker exploitation whilst Williamson offered an efficiency explanation based on the superior organizational properties of the factory. ‘Traditional’ economic historians were far from convinced by this reinterpretation of events. Thus Landes (1986), whilst agreeing with Marglin that factory discipline enabled ‘bosses’ to exercise greater control over the work process, was not persuaded that the efficiency gains of the hand or protoCorrespondence to: Professor S.R.H. Jones, Department of Economics, The University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand. ‘Mantoux’s account has been broadly endorsed by many subsequent scholars, including Heaton (1965, pp. 352-357), Usher (1920, pp. l&17), Ashton (1962, pp. 109-118) and Landes (1969, p. 2, 41 and 81). 0167~2681/92/$05.00
0
1992-Elsevier
Science Publishers
B.V. All rights reserved
390
S.R.H. Jones, The factory
system in 18th century England
factory were sufficient to offset the lower labour costs of putting-out. In similar vein, I challenged the work of Williamson [Jones (1982, 1983)] arguing that the methodology he employed to measure the efficiency properties of comparative organizational modes was flawed, that his empirical assessments were questionable, and that his assumption that putting-out and the factory enjoyed identical labour costs was simply untenable. I concluded that the hand factory was atypical, usually the product of particular circumstances, and that as a rule factories were adopted that incorporated new and superior technology. In the 1989 edition of this journal, Rick Szostak sought to reconcile the views of both Williamson and myself [Szostak (1989)]. The essence of his argument is that a reduction in transport costs during the second half of the eighteenth century benelitted the factory system more than putting-out. As the cost of operating factories fell relative to putting-out, an increasing number of master manufacturers abandoned outwork and moved their enterprises into the factory. The rise of the factory system during the early stages of the industrial revolution was therefore due to the impact of transportation improvements and not organizational efficiencies or the introduction of new technology. Technology only became important later on. By examining the wider impact of transportation improvements on the costs of production, Szostak is undoubtedly focussing on an issue that has hitherto only received cursory attention. Indeed, the discussion to date has only really been concerned with the increase in transport costs incurred through putting out work to an ever more dispersed rural labour force. Moreover, his suggestion that a reduction in transport costs may have affected the cost structures of one organizational mode more than another seems eminently sensible. Logically, therefore, it seems quite possible that transportation improvements may have been responsible for the emergence of the factory system in the late eighteenth century. But is this what actually happened? There are a number of aspects of Szostak’s thesis that give rise to misgivings. Firstly, he uses a methodology very similar to that of Williamson and has adopted the latter’s eleven efficiency criteria as the sole basis for evaluating changes in relative costs; secondly, he provides no quantitative evidence to support his claim that hand factories became more cost effective than putting-out; and thirdly, he does not address a mass of circumstantial evidence that tends to run counter to his case. 2. Methodology
and the use of efficiency
criteria
Szostak takes as his starting point the eleven efficiency criteria devised by Williamson to evaluate the performance of the putting-out and factory systems. Williamson’s failure to weight each of the criteria according to their
S.R.H. Jones, Thelactory
system in 18th century
England
391
importance in the productive process or assign appropriate scores is of little concern to Szostak. This lack of concern flows from the fact that Szostak believes that he is able to establish that ‘In terms of ten of the eleven criteria, transport improvements served either to make factories look more advantageous or less disadvantageous’ [Szostak (1989, p. 345)]. Given that the balance of advantage lay so clearly with the factory, we apparently ‘need not worry’ about weighting or measurement. Having determined, via the yardstick of efficiency criteria, that late eighteenth century transport improvements benefitted factories far more than putting-out, Szostak feels able to conclude that transport improvements were responsible for the emergence of the factory system. There would seem to be several objections to this approach. Firstly, the failure to weight each of the efficiency criteria or assign appropriate scores means that Szostak has no way of knowing whether the savings in costs due to transport improvements were significant or not. The fact that the factory system benefitted more from transport improvements than putting-out is of little practical consequence if the latter was still absolutely more cost effective in one or two key areas. A reduction of cost differentials was, by itself, not sufficient to ensure the triumph of the factory system! More seriously, Szostak’s willingness to adopt the eleven efficiency criteria as the sole basis upon which to judge changes in the cost effectiveness of the two systems means that he, like Williamson, assumes that the costs of all other inputs, including that of labour, were equal. This was simply not the case. Outwork labour could be and indeed was employed at a fraction of the cost of factory labour and it was from the employment of cheap outwork labour that the putting-out system derived its competitive advantage. This point has been repeatedly stressed by a number of economic historians, including Landes and myself. The omission of differences in the cost of labour, in my view, seriously undermines the whole basis of his thesis. Any attempt to evaluate what happens to relative cost structures has to consider what each system paid for its labour and how the wage rates of outworkers and factory workers changed over time. If changes in wage differentials are ignored, the exercise becomes meaningless.2
3. Empirical questions One of the criticisms that I originally levelled at Williamson was that the empirical basis for his conclusion was slight, to say the least. Szostak has gone rather further, providing significantly more historical detail when assessing the impact of transportation improvements in terms of each of the *There reduction
is ample evidence to show that piece rates paid to outworkers experienced a real in a number of trades. See, for example, Bythell (1977, p. 279 and more generally).
392
S.R.H. Jones, Thefactory
system in 18th century England
efficiency criteria. Nevertheless, there is no quantitative evidence to support any of his assessments which are based on a mixture of a priori reasoning and impressionistic judgements. Indeed, Szostak is forced to admit that ‘To “prove” that the net effect of transport improvements [on transportation expenses] during this period was in favour of factories would require extensive data on the costs of both putting-out and early factories, and such data does not exist’ [Szostak (1989, footnote p. 351)]. The trouble with such impressionistic judgements, based as they are on a few scraps of data and some broad assumptions with respect to behavior and probable outcomes, is that they require the reader to accompany Szostak on a number of giant leaps of faith. Thus one is required to accept, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, that transportation improvements reduced ‘transport expenses’ more for the factory than putting-out. The reasoning lying behind this somewhat controversial claim is that the savings that the factory colonies were able to achieve in food supply probably outweighed the savings that domestic capitalists were able to obtain from cheaper distribution and collection of product. One presumes that some of these savings may have been reflected in changes in relative wage rates but, as we have seen, Szostak remains strangely silent on such matters. Of course, even if one had adequate data, it would be very difficult to translate changes in relative costs under each of the eleven efficiency criteria into changes in overall cost functions. Thus, whilst in principle it would appear relatively easy to calculate how smaller inventories due to transportation improvements might lower unit costs of factory production, it is far more difficult to work out how the factory system’s greater ability to respond to changes in fashion can be incorporated in a cost function. I commented on these computational difficulties and the non-additive nature of Williamson’s efficiency criteria in 1982: Szostak fails to address these issues. Yet even if precise measurement is not possible, it behoves Szostak to provide some broad estimates of the extent by which the factory system benelitted more from transportation improvements than putting-out, how these benefits actually translated into cost savings, and how these savings stacked up against the cost advantages enjoyed by putters-out through their employment of cheap labour. It is simply not good enough to claim, on the basis of some highly impressionistic judgements and very little else, that the factory was the principal beneficiary of transportation improvements and that changes in relative costs accounts for the emergence of the factory system in later eighteenth century England. 4. Some contrary evidence The principal objection that Szostak has to technological explanations for the growth of the factory system after 1780 is that ‘(. ..) many factories
S.R.H. Jones, The factory system in 18th century England
393
emerge in this period, over a wide range of industries, which use the same technology previously employed in cottages’ [Szostak (1989, p. 345)]. Yet whilst it is true that a number of hand factories did appear between 1780 and 1800, there is little to suggest that hand factories came to dominate production in any particular sector of industry. Indeed, what evidence there is would seem to indicate that, until the early nineteenth century, increases in output were met either by the introduction of machino-facture or by an extension of the putting-out system. Thus pins, nails, needles and stockings continued to be made in vast quantities by domestic outworkers, each trade largely unaffected by transportation improvements that, according to Szostak, should have led to the centralisation of production. Technology rather than transportation sounded the death knell of outwork in these trades.3 There is rather greater evidence of the spread of hand factories in cotton and woollen textiles. Yet even in these leading industries it is clear that hand factories were adopted relatively slowly and only accounted for a very small percentage of production by 1800. Thus the Parliamentary Committee convened in 1806 to investigate woollen manufactures found that, in the West Riding, factories only accounted for about 5% of the increase in production between 1791 and 1805 [S.C. on Woollen Manufactures (1806)J If factories were the most cost effective mode of production by the end of the eighteenth century, then this was something that escaped the attention of an awful lot of Yorkshiremen! Similar evidence can be produced for Gloucestershire where looms were not gathered together into loomshops on any scale until the late twenties. Even then, the principal motive for doing so was to break the power of weavers combinations, not to realise organisational efficiencies or save on transportation costs. In Norwich, outworkers still dominated the weaving trade as late as 1840. [Handloom Weavers Commission ( 1840); Hammond ( 19 19)]. The failure of the hand factory to make much progress in a number of geographically dispersed industries in late eighteenth century England raises substantial doubts about the validity of Szostak’s thesis. If improvements in transportation in the second half of the eighteenth conferred such a significant advantage on the hand factory, why did so many technologically simple trades continue to expand via putting-out? Conversely, if the connection between factories and technology was unimportant before 1800, as Szostak suggests, why was most silk machine-thrown as early as 1770, and the bulk of wool machine-carded and scribbled and cotton machine-spun by the end of the century [Jones (1987); Jenkins and Ponting (1982); Chapman (1972)-j. ‘See Dutton and Jones (1983, Nelson (1929-1930, pp. 484487).
pp. 1755193); Guise (1933, pp. 26-27); Allen (1929, pp. 74-76);
394
S.R.H. Jones,
The/actor-y
system in 18th cmtury England
4. Conclusion The notion that the emergence of the factory system between 1780 and 1800 was brought about by transportation improvements undoubtedly has a certain appeal. The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed both a reduction in the cost of transportation and a growth in hand factories and it is tempting to assume that the two phenomena were related. Yet whilst Szostak claims to be able to demonstrate cause and effect, his argument fails both on methodological and empirical grounds. Transportation improvements may have led to an increase in the number of hand factories but there is little reason to suppose that this occurred for the reasons that Szostak suggests.
References Allen, G.C., 1966, The industrial development of Birmingham and the Black Country (Cass, London). Ashton, T.S., 1962, The industrial revolution; 176C-1830 (Oxford University Press, London). Bythell, Duncan, 1977, The handloom weavers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Chapman, S.D., 1972, The cotton industry in the industrial revolution (Macmillan, London). Dutton, H.I. and S.R.H. Jones, 1983, Invention and innovation in the British pin industry, 179& 1850, Business History Review 57, 175-193. Guise, W., 1933, Needles, the history and romance of an industry (Indicator Press, Redditch). Hammond, J.L. and Barabara, 1919, The skilled labourer (Longmans, London). Heaton, Herbert, 1965, The Yorkshire woollen and worsted industries (Clarendon Press, Oxford). Jenkins, D.T. and K.G. Ponting, 1982, The British wool textile industry (Heineman, London). Jones, S.R.H., 1982, The organization of work: A historical dimension, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 3, 117-137. Jones, S.R.H., 1983, Technology and the organization of work: A reply, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 4, 63366. Jones, S.R.H., 1987, Technology, transaction costs, and the transition to factory production in the British silk industry, 170&l 870, Journal of Economic History 47, 71-96. Landes, David S., 1969, The unbound Prometheus: Technical change and industrial development in western Europe from 1750 to the present day (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Landes, David S., 1986, What do bosses really do?, Journal of Economic History 46, 585-623. Mantoux, Paul, 1961, The industrial revolution in the eighteenth century (Cape, London). Marglin, Stephen, 1974, What do bosses do?, The Review of Radical Political Economy 6, 6@112. Nelson, Evelyn Gibson, 192991930, The putting-out system in the English framework-knitting industry, Journal of Economic and Business History 2, 4677494. Reports from Assistant Commissioners, Handloom Weavers Commission, 1840, British Parliamentary Papers 24. Report from the Select Committee Woollen Manufactures, 1806, British Parliamentary Papers 3. Szostak, Rick, 1989, The organization of work: The emergence of the factory revisited, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1I, 343-358. Usher, Abbot P., 1920, An introduction to the industrial history of England (Harrap, London). Williamson, Oliver E., 1980, The organization of work: A comparative institutional assessment, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization I, 5538. Williamson, Oliver E., 1983, Technology and the organization of work; A reply to Jones; A rejoinder, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 4, 67-68.