The Factory System and Its Impact on the Labor Movement before the Civil War - Essay Example

It is the centralization of industrial production that led to the emergence of the factory system. Before that, production was organized in the form of a rural-based cottage industry. The worker was almost a total producer. His relationship with the product was more intimate. The worker had control over his working hours. Prior to 1760 textile manufacturing was happening in the homes of textile workers in England. It was during the Industrial Revolution (1760-1850) that all the production systems underwent drastic changes leading to the emergence of the factory system.

The factory system emerged first in England and spread to other countries. The introduction of costly machines and methods of mass production necessitated such a system. Thus the production became concentrated under a single roof, where the machines are installed. This single roof production gave the owner more power and control over the workers, as the workers couldn’t afford to own such expensive machinery and because he was forced out of his homely ambiance of production to the factory space alien to him.

It was a new way of organizing labor. The new control and power gained by the owners helped him to exploit the workers more. Children and women were the most exploited. Working hours were like that of a farmer, from dawn to dusk. But the farmer had control over his working time; the factory worker never had it. The worker also lost control over the total production process. The fundamental concept of the factory system is that each worker will create only a part of the product, in an assembly line.

He ceased to be a total producer. Gordon Marshall (1998), the sociologist describes the advantages of the owner in the factory system thus: As a production system, it possesses three main types of efficiency gains for the owner or controller: economic, by allowing advantages of scale, while reducing the cost of distribution of raw materials and finished product; technical, by making possible the deskilling of craft labor and use of machines; and managerial, by increasing the scope for disciplined control of the effort bargain, (Factory System, A dictionary of sociology.)