Marco Ng
His 1000
Professor Griffin
One historical event that stood out to me in the Fulcher’s Capitalism is the capitalist productions. This event stood out to me because of how much the idea correlate with the current time period. In one way you can see that the way we think about how production and cost affect the overall growth of individuals. In the text one evidence that helps this claim is “Gaining experience and making some money in the manufacture of cotton machinery, they set up their own firm in 1795”. (Fulcher,7) In this quote, this means that when you see a success of one thing, privatized firms will start to monopolize on the ideas. With the competitiveness of the industries, many people will soon to hop on to the ideas causing a mass production of a certain product. However, for the growth of a company/ the individuals, there has a to be either a uniqueness or a bigger growth than others. This allows them to either have a monopoly or their product has a uniqueness that allows it to succeed. Also in this article, the profit is shown tto be the workers who turn the cotton into yarn. This also correlates with the modern times because of how much, the workers really impact the growth and success of the company. Without the workers, the production and the company itself, will not be able to sustain and make profits. Another good from this that really shows how much the industry has not changed from back the early 1800s to now, is “by requiring long continuous work during work hours and ruling out non- work activity, employers had separated leisure and work.” I thought this quote was interesting because of the truth behind it. In today’s world, most people changed how much work should be different from work life and this really allows us to enjoy time we have off.
There are some interesting insights and ideas here, but I’m having some difficulty untangling the various thoughts here. I think you’re right to emphasize the changes in production that gave rise to Industrial Capitalism, but what were some of the innovations and developments that allowed this transformation to take place? Can you connect the themes of competition, monopoly, and the exploitation of labor that you identify—did the intensity of competition lead manufacturers to try to form monopolies, or did the imperative to make a profit drive them to treat workers poorly?
I’m also unclear about the last few sentences—first you suggest that industry has not really changed since the 19th century, then in the next sentence you point out how it has changed, i.e., that many people enjoy more leisure time and a separation of home and work life than before. It may be worth thinking about how that historic transformation took place, and whether we are perhaps again in the midst of another transformation.