Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T04:53:29.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Factory Discipline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Gregory Clark
Gregory Clark
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Davis, CA 95616.
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Before the Industrial Revolution in Britain most workers controlled their pace, timing, and conduct at work. Factory discipline radically changed this. Employers now dictated how, when, and in what manner work was done. Why did discipline triumph? Was it required by the need to tightly coordinate workers with new technologies? Or was it successful because it coerced more effort from workers than they would freely give? The empirical evidence shows that discipline succeeded mainly by increasing work effort. Workers effectively hired capitalists to make them work harder. They lacked the self-control to achieve higher earnings on their own.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1994, pp. 128 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Bensman, David, The Practice of Solidarity: American Hat Finishers in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana, IL, 1985).Google Scholar
Black, Clementina, Sweated Industry (London, 1907).Google Scholar
Booth, Charles, Life and Labour of the People in London, Vol. IV: The Trades of East London (London, 1893).Google Scholar
Burnett, Isabel, An Experimental Investigation into Repetitive Work, Medical Research Council, Industrial Fatigue Research Board, Report No. 30 (London, 1925).Google Scholar
Church, Roy A., Economic and Social Change in a Midland Town: Victorian Nottingham, 1815–1900 (London, 1966).Google Scholar
Church, Roy, The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory, “Why Isn≈t the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills,” this Journal, 47 (03. 1987), 134–67.Google Scholar
Cooper, Patricia, Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900–1919 (Urbana, IL, 1987).Google Scholar
Coyne, Franklin E., The Development of the Cooperage Industry (Chicago, 1940).Google Scholar
Drakard, David, and Holdway, Paul, Spode Printed Ware (London, 1983).Google Scholar
Fitton, R. S., and Wadsworth, A. P., The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830: A Study of the Early Factory System (Manchester, 1958).Google Scholar
Kay, James Philip, Moral and Physical Conditions of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester (London, 1832).Google Scholar
Lambert, W. R., “Drink and Work-Discipline in Industrial South Wales, c. 1800–1870,” Welsh History Review, 7 (1975).Google Scholar
Landes, David, “What Do Bosses Really Do?” this Journal, 46 (09. 1986), pp. 585–624.Google Scholar
Lardner, Dionysius, The Steam Engine (7th edn., London, 1860).Google Scholar
Leach, James, Stubborn Facts from the Factories (London, 1844).Google Scholar
Lipson, E., A Short History of Wool and its Manufacture (London, 1953).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Julia de Lacy, The Cloth Industry in the West of England from 1640 to 1880 (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar
Mantoux, Paul, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1928).Google Scholar
Marglin, Stephen, “What Do Bosses Do? The Origins and Function of Capitalist Hierarchy,” Review of Radical Political Economy, 6 (Summer 1974), pp. 60–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Karl, Capital, Volume 1, Fowkes, Ben, trans. (New York, 1977).Google Scholar
Montgomery, James, The Cotton Manufacture of the United States Contrasted and Compared with that of Great Britain (Glasgow, 1840).Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney, “Factory Discipline in the Industrial Revolution,” Economic History Review, 16 (12. 1963), pp. 254–71.Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney, The Genesis of Modern Management (Cambridge, MA., 1965).Google Scholar
Prest, John, The Industrial Revolution in Coventry (Oxford, 1960).Google Scholar
Reid, Douglas, “The Decline of St. Monday,” Past and Present, 71 (05, 1976), pp. 76–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royle, Edward, Modern Britain: A Social History, 1750–1985 (London, 1987).Google Scholar
Smith, Richard Mudie, Sweated Industries (London, 1906).Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., and Shefrin, H. M., “An Economic Theory of Self-Control,” Journal of Political Economy, 89 (04. 1981), pp. 392–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, John, The Rise of the Staffordshire Potteries (Bath, 1971).Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P., “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” Past and Present, 38 (12 1963).Google Scholar
Ure, Andrew, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain (London, 1836).Google Scholar
Ure, Andrew, Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines (11th American edn., New York, 1848).Google Scholar
Usher, Abbott Payson, An Introduction to the Industrial History of England (Boston, 1920).Google Scholar
Whipp, Richard, Patterns of Labour: Work and Social Change in the Pottery Industry (London, 1990).Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E., “The Organization of Work: A Comparative Institutional Assessment,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1 (03. 1980), pp. 5–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wyatt, S., Variations in Efficiency in Cotton Weaving. Medical Research Council, Industrial Fatigue Research Board, Report No. 23 (London, 1923).Google Scholar
Wyatt, S. et al. , The Effects of Monotony in Work. Medical Research Council, Industrial Fatigue Research Board, Report No. 56 (London, 1929).Google Scholar
Wyatt, S. et al. , Incentives in Repetitive Work: A Practical Experiment in a Factory. Medical Research Council, Industrial Fatigue Research Board, Report No. 69 (London, 1934).Google Scholar