Factory System and Cottage Industry
HISTORY 100
WORLD HISTORY
SPRING 1998
23
FEBRUARY
FACTORY SYSTEM AND COTTAGE INDUSTRY
DICTIONARY TIME-LINES
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
In this assignment, you should learn to identify and discuss:
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on Population, Malthusian climax, the
Black Death.
In addition, you should also have considered the following issues:
- What is the view of Thomas Malthus on population as a limitation on human
progress?
- How valid is Malthus's view?
- How did population increase lead to economic competition in thirteenth-
century Europe?
- What were the consequences of the rise of Capitalism in medieval Europe?
TEXT
Although I mentioned in the previous essay that the guild system failed
because it was not adapted to a competitive economy, I did not discuss in any
detail why the medieval economy, which had been expanding almost constantly
ceased to do so after about 1250.
In about 1796, Mr. Malthus, an English gentleman had finished reading a book
that had optimistically predicted that human life would continue to grow richer,
more comfortable and more secure, that nothing could stop the march of progress.
He discussed this theme with his son, Thomas, and Thomas emphatically disagreed
with his father, the book he had been reading, and the entire idea of unending
human progress. His father suggested that he write down his objections so that
they could discuss them point by point. Not long after, Thomas returned with a
rather long essay. His father read it and was so impressed that he urged his son
to have it published. And so, in 1798, Thomas Malthus's An
Essay on Population appeared. Although it was attacked at the time and
ridiculed for a long time afterward, it has remained one of the most influential
works in the English language.
Malthus assumed that people would generally have as many children as they
could rear. There are several valid reasons for this assumption, and, so far,
attempts to control population growth have proven ineffective. Malthus was also
willing to concede that production might also increase, but he pointed out that
production increases arithmetically, but population increased
geometrically. Let's think about that for a minute. Let's say that we
have a population of 1000 who produce X amount of goods, enough to maintain them
in comfort and good health. Let's then say that they invent something that
allows them to increase their production by 100% so that they are producing 2X
amount of goods. But each of the couples that make up the population, times
being good, have four children who reach maturity. At the end of a generation,
the population numbers 2000 and they produce 2X amount of goods. So far, the
ratio of goods to people is the same as it was in the previous generation, since
1X/1000 is the same as 2X/2000.
Then they invent something else that allows them to increase their production
to 3X. But the 1000 couples comprising the population each have four children,
and so the population rises to 4,000. This means that the standard of living is
dropping since 3X/4000 is considerable less than 2X/2000. Another inventions
raises production to 4X, but population rises 8,000, and another round raises
production to 5X and population to 16,000. Population is now rising much faster
than the available supply of goods.
Under such conditions, the price of goods begins to rise simply because there
isn't enough to go around. People begin to compete for the available wealth and,
although some become able to buy more than the average, most people have to
spend most of their income for food and shelter. These means that the number of
people able to buy manufactured goods begins to drop. Manufacturers try to
increase their sales by lowering prices, but they can do that only by paying
less for raw materials and cutting their workers' wages. But this means that
their workers and suppliers have less money to buy things, and this decreases
the market for anything but food and shelter still further. Much of the
resources of labor and capital that have been devoted to manufacturing has to be
shifted to agriculture, and more land is put under cultivation, even if it is
land that is not very productive under the best of circumstances. But all of
this makes very little difference, since the population is still rising faster
than production.
Eventually, at least theoretically, things reach what is called a
Malthusian climax, in which there is now way of producing enough
to provide the population with sufficient food and shelter for them to stay
alive. The population must be reduced, and this can occur in any of a number of
ways. The most common is a famine, in which large numbers of people
starve to death and many more are so weakened that they fall victim to any of a
number of normally minor illnesses. Another way in which such populations are
decreased is by disease, often of epidemic proportions, that kills a
significant portion of the population. A third possibility is warfare,
often within the population itself, in which one portion of the society pursues
the genocide of another portion. There is still another path for
population decrease. If there is empty land available, or land that can be taken
away from its inhabitants -- especially if its inhabitants are not making full
use of the resources at their command -- part of the population can
emigrate and establish colonies.
Even these solutions are only temporary, however, since the population will
only begin to grow again once it is no longer limited by the available
resources. Sooner or later, Malthus suggested, the population will once again
reach a climax and will have to be decreased one way or another. What about
population limitation through birth control? Malthus, in effect, said that he
would accept that as a possibility only when he saw it practiced successfully.
He did not believe that human were capable of such rational discipline. By and
large, little attention was paid to Malthus's theories during the course of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The production increases brought about by
the Industrial Revolution regularly outstripped the increase in world
population. In the twentieth century, though, medical advances, such as the
eradication of smallpox and the general control of malaria, cholera, and yellow
fever, allowed world population to begin to increase at a faster rate.
We'll return to this matter later in the course. Right now, the important
consideration is that, starting in about 1250, the growth of European population
started to outstrip the growth of the European economy. Markets began to
dwindle, and people began to compete to sell what they were accustomed to
produce and to maintain their customary standard of living. The capitalist
organization of production was better adapted to these new competitive
circumstances than was the old guild organization, partly because the capitalist
producers did not use any of their profit for the public good. Moreover, the
capitalist organization of the economy did not solve the problems created by a
growing population. In 1300, a greater portion of the land of Europe was being
used for food crops than ever before or ever since. But, in 1315-1317, a spell
of bad weather caused a continent-wide famine in which some ten percent of the
population died. It was not until the 1340's, however, that a long-term
"solution" arose. The Black Death, or bubonic plague, swept
through Europe and, in the space of about five years, killed about a third of
the inhabitants of the continent. This was only the first of many epidemics that
would periodically act as a check upon Europe's population.
There were factors other than population increase that contributed to the
emergence of European Capitalism, but the increase of population and the
resultant impoverishment of the Europeans was certainly one of the important
factors to be considered. The results of the transformation of the European
economy are well-worth thinking about. In the guild system, the owner of a
business worked and lived alongside his employees, and the employees could look
forward to having their own businesses someday. The capitalist rarely associated
with his workers and certainly did not wish to pay them enough so that some of
them might eventually become his competitors. A great gulf had been opened
between workers and owners. Then, too, the capitalists did not, as a matter of
course, devote much of their time, attention, or resources to the public good.
Under the guild system, the economy and the welfare of society had been closely
linked. The rise of capitalism broke that link. Finally, the guild master sought
to rise to a comfortable level of living, and his fellow guild members would
have prevented him from growing rich by producing shoddy goods, engaging in
false advertising, rigging the market, driving others out of business, or any of
a number of activities that soon became more or less standard business practices
of the capitalists. The responsibility of the manufacturer to his profession
and, by extension, to the public was ended.
This perhaps paints too dark a picture, but it is interesting to speculate
how a modern society with an economy organized according to the guild system
might operate.
ASSIGNMENTS
REQUIRED ASSIGNMENTS
One of the reasons for the outbreak of the Black Death in the 1340's was the
fact that the Mongols, under Genghis Khan, had established an empire extending
from China in the East to the Black Sea in the West. Trade and communications
were now much easier between East and West, and Western Europe's long isolation
had come t an end. There was a disadvantage to this, however, in that Europe was
now open to the spread of diseases from outside. Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of
Genghis Khan offers a good picture of the establishment of the Mongol
empire. There is a brief discussion of the effects of
the Black Death that may interest you.
This text was produced by Lynn H. Nelson, Department of
History, University of Kansas.
23 February 1998
Lawrence
KS
