The Evolution of Modern Capitalism

The Evolution of Modern Capitalism

John A. Hobson

_THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES._ EDITED BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.

EVOLUTION OF MODERN CAPITALISM.

THE EVOLUTION

OF

MODERN CAPITALISM

A STUDY OF MACHINE PRODUCTION.

BY JOHN A. HOBSON, M.A., AUTHOR OF "PROBLEMS OF POVERTY."

THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 1902.

PREFACE.

In seeking to express and illustrate some of the laws of the structural changes in modern industry, I have chosen a focus of study between the wider philosophic survey of treatises on Social Evolution and the special studies of modern machine-industry contained in such works as Babbage's _Economy of Manufactures_ and Ure's _Philosophy of Manufactures_, or more recently in Professor Schulze-Gaevernitz's careful study of the cotton industry. By using the term "evolution" I have designed to mark the study as one of a subject-matter in process of organic change, and I have sought to trace in it some of those large movements which are characteristic of all natural growth.

The sub-title, _A Study of Machine-Production_, indicates a further narrowing of the investigation. Selecting the operation of modern machinery and motors for special attention, I have sought to enforce a clearer recognition of organic unity, by dwelling upon the more material aspects of industrial change which mark off the last century and a half from all former industrial epochs. The position of central importance thus assigned to machinery as a factor in industrial evolution may be--to some extent must be--deceptive, but in bringing scientific analysis to bear upon phenomena so complex and so imperfectly explored, it is essential to select some single clearly appreciable standpoint, even at the risk of failing to present the full complexity of forces in their just but bewildering interaction.

In tracing through the Business, the Trade, and the Industrial Organism the chief structural and functional changes which accompany machine-development, I have not attempted to follow out the numerous branches of social investigation which diverge from the main line of inquiry. Two studies, however, of "the competitive system" in its modern working are presented; one examining the process of restriction, by which competition of capitals gives way to different forms of combination; the other tracing in periodic Trade Depressions the natural outcome of unrestricted competition in private capitalist production.

In some final chapters I have sought to indicate the chief bearings of the changes of industrial structure upon a few of the deeper issues of social life, in particular upon the problem of the Industrial Town, and the position of woman as an industrial competitor.

A portion of Chapters VIII., IX., and X. have already appeared in the _Contemporary Review_ and in the _Political Science Quarterly Review_, and I am indebted to the courtesy of the editors for permission to use them.

I have also to acknowledge most gratefully the valuable assistance rendered by Dr. William Smart of Glasgow University, who was kind enough to read through the proofs of a large portion of this book, and to make many serviceable corrections and suggestions.

JOHN A. HOBSON.

Section. 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.

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.

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.