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Lecture

The Age of Factories: Evolution of Work and Time Perception

In course

HUM-254: Contemporary international history

Ce cours a pour objectif de mettre en évidence l'histoire du capitalisme de la révolution industrielle (fin 18e siècle) jusqu'à nos jours. Il s'intéresse aux grandes mutations économiques, technologiques, sociales et environnementales qui ont accompagné l' ...

Description

This lecture discusses the transition to factory work during the Industrial Revolution, highlighting the shift from artisanal crafts to wage labor. It explores the impact on workers' social life, time management, and the emergence of capitalist ideologies. The instructor analyzes the strategies used by factory owners to control labor time and the consequences on workers' lives, including the anonymization of labor and the enforcement of strict schedules.

Instructor

Thomas David

Official source

Related concepts (21)

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

Wage labour

Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined. In exchange for the money paid as wages (usual for short-term work-contracts) or salaries (in permanent employment contracts), the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer.

State capitalism

State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor). The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized along business-management practices) or of public companies such as publicly listed corporations in which the state has controlling shares.

Wage slavery

In the capitalist mode of production, wage slavery (or starvation wages) refers to the exploitation of labor by keeping wages low or stagnant in order for a business to maximize its surplus value. Wage slavery can be loosely defined as a person's dependence on wages (or a salary) for their livelihood, especially when wages are low, treatment and conditions are poor, and there are few chances of upward mobility.

Anti-capitalism

Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism. Socialism Socialism advocates public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals, with an egalitarian method of compensation.

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