Machinery changed all
this. It drove the workers into large factories, and obliged them to
live in concentrated masses near their work. They no longer owned the
material in which their labour was stored, or the tools with which they
worked; they had to use the material belonging to their employer; the
machinery which made their tools valueless was also the property of the
capitalist employer. Instead of selling the products of their capital
and labour to merchants or consumers, they were compelled to sell their
labour-power to the employer as the only means of earning a livelihood.
Again, the social relations between the wealthy employer and his "hands"
were quite different from those intimate personal relations which had
subsisted between the small master and his assistants. The very size of
the factory made such a social change inevitable, the personal relation
which marked medieval industry was no longer possible. Machinery then
did two things. On the one hand, it destroyed the position of the
workman as a self-sufficing industrial unit, and made him dependent on a
capitalist for employment and the means of supporting life. On the other
hand, it weakened the sense of responsibility in the employer towards
his workmen in proportion as the dependence of the latter became more
absolute.
With each step in the growth of the factory system the workman became
more dependent, and the employer more irresponsible. Thus we note the
first industrial effect of machinery in the formation of two definite
industrial classes--the dependent workman, and the irresponsible
employer.
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