Technology, Transaction Costs, and the Transition to Factory Production in the British Silk Industry, 1700–1870

S. R. H. Jones

The Journal of Economic History, 1987, vol. 47, issue 1, 71-96

Abstract: Scholars still disagree about why nineteenth-century Britain adopted the factory system. Traditional historians emphasize the scale requirements of new technology; radical economists stress the possibilities that factory production held for worker exploitation; other economists and economic historians argue that the factory system was preferred because of its superior transaction-cost properties. This paper tests these competing hypotheses by examining the technological and organizational developments in the British silk industry. It concludes that in this Industry technological factors were primarily responsible for the adoption of the factory system.

Date: 1987
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