5 ms·

I would like to see evidence, that people were pushed into the factories. I was under the impression, that many went into the factories, because working in agri

by okr 5y ago

I would like to see evidence, that people were pushed into the factories. I was under the impression, that many went into the factories, because working in agriculture was not easy, as machines were not common. And once factories were there, humans improved working conditions there. While in agriculture, well, way more difficult to do, as the work had to be done.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
In seeing what has recently happened in China, I would agree. A gigantic migration has occurred in the past few decades where Chinese peasants moved from rural areas to the cities to work in factories. I thought for a long time "Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. I watched a pretty good documentary about this, and the answer pretty clearly seemed to be opportunity. It's kinda similar to how legions of people move to LA to be actors. 99% of them will be worse off for the experience, many of them much more so, but even the chance to escape the conditions of their situation is a powerful draw for a lot of people.
- okr 5y ago
  Opportunity, yes, it describes it pretty well. I also have seen friends from east europe leaving their home countries for opportunity in the west, even when judging from my warm, cosy, settled place, i thought, that their jobs were crappy. But it was opportunity for them. And now they also judge from their warm, cosy, settled place. and try to make working conditions better for for their fellows.
- Aunche 5y ago
  > 99% of them will be worse off for the experience, many of them much more so Chinese migrant workers aren't comparable to aspiring LA actors. 99% of people aren't stupid or easily deluded by dreams. You don't decide to move into a factory because you think you'll become the next Andrew Carnegie. You do so you can send money to your family in case if the harvest isn't good or they need to see a doctor. People have it so good here that they have completely forgotten all the hardships of preindustrial life.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  > "Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. Because, as horrible as the factory conditions might seem to modern eyes, they weren't, in general, as horrible as being an agricultural stoop labor peasant (either in the west in premodern or Victorian times, or in China today). Serfs were running away to the cities way back in the Middle Ages, long before any Enclosure Acts. The expected payoff wasn't nearly as low as it is for acting. While life in the cities wasn't a bed of roses by any means (deaths from infectious diseases were at a horrific level, to name just one downside), the one big advantage was that you no longer had a "master" or "lord of the manor" who essentially had the power of life and death over you. Yes, a factory might have a cruel foreman, and many did, but the workers were allowed to change jobs. Serfs didn't have that privilege.
  - helpfulmandrill 5y ago
    But on the other hand, the Enclosures provoked a number riots[1], so I don't think everyone agreed with you that "free" city life was better than rural serfdom, with common rights intact. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Enclosure_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Enclosure_riots
    - Turing_Machine 5y ago
      Of course everyone didn't agree. People don't work that way. Even today, there are people who prefer living in cabins without electricity or running water somewhere out in the Brooks Range of Alaska. However, most people don't do that (though a large number claim to aspire to something like that, few actually do it, and of the ones who actually do it, even fewer stick it out once the realities set in). The point is that the migration to the cities was in progress long before the Enclosure Acts came on the scene.
      - helpfulmandrill 5y ago
        I'm not sure that is the point. I personally don't think we can treat the choice made by such large numbers of people as comparable to the choices of a few modern cabin-dwelling weirdos. I think we should take seriously what appears to have seemed preferable for large numbers of people at the time, given the information they had, and lacking the benefit of centuries of hindsight.
- watwut 5y ago
  > Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. Another part of the answer is that their lives in agriculture were not all that great either. Many of them could have moved back, but they did not, because as bad as this was, it was still better or comparable. The factories made them earn more money and regular money. People tend to romanticize the agricultural or even hunters-gatherers lifestyle. In ideal conditions, it can be good. But conditions are not always ideal.
mikewarot 5y ago
I was going to argue about the dangers of factory work, then I remembered just how dangerous a scythe can be. Work, in general, was a dangerous thing back then.
Veen 5y ago
It depends on your definition of "pushed" or "forced". People often migrated from country to city for economic reasons. It was the only way to make a living for many. Others simply wanted to make more money or take advantage of other opportunities. You might say economic circumstances forced them to give up agriculture for factory work.
- okr 5y ago
  I agree. Or as someone above said, it created opportunity.
helpfulmandrill 5y ago
Google "The Enclosures". In Britain people had their right to subsist off common land removed by Parliament[1]. You can argue that the move from agriculture to industry, from countryside to city, would have happened anyway. What is indisputable is that for many people, the possibility of subsisting in the ways they had before were systematically removed by the state (at the time under the complete control of the property-owning classes). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclosure_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos...
- Aunche 5y ago
  Would enclosures not have happened if industrialization didn't? IMO this was inevitable because peasants simply lost the leverage that they had received after the black plague. Countries like the US had no such laws, yet they all went through the same industrialization occurred all the same.
  - helpfulmandrill 5y ago
    I don't know. Impossible to tell, I guess. I'm just pointing out that choice didn't come into it for many people. What choices they would have made had history gone differently, I can't say. Whatever might, hypothetically have happened in another timeline, as a matter of historical fact it was not a peaceful, free-market process of people voting with their feet.
netcan 5y ago
The story is complex. There aren't really no "gimme evidence" answers to these kinds of issues. A lot of people over centuries in many countries give you a lot if stories. One major factor was population growth. This was due to the coming of American crops (corn, potatoes, etc) and the green revolution (fertilizers, machinery, etc.). Another major factor (say in Ireland, where I'm from) was a change in the social-political system. There was a shift from old the old lordship order to a more modern landlord order. Relationships (rights, obligations) between lords/landlords and the landed an unlanded peasantry... Today we might call it rural unemployment and/or a small farm debt crisis. The latter half of this change is known in Ireland as "the land wars." There were also "pull" factors. These are more complicated, because they do involve choice. Cities offered a lot of hope. You might do very well in a city. Many did poorly though, and food/sanitation was often worse. A lot of the migration was (for example) adolescents sent to work as domestic servants... so thinking in terms of "homo economicus" is best tempered with some visualisations... say Oliver Twist. Similar things happen today in developing economies. Rural unemployment and stagnation. Cities that offer shiny opportunities in a game with few winners and many losers. Hence urban slums, 80 hr workweeks, etc. Working conditions in factories was also a 200+ year process. Unions played a big role. Politics played a big role. Revolutions and fear of revolutions played a big role. In Ireland, Soviet and pre-soviet revolutions were the threat that catalyzed land and labour reforma immediately before independence from the UK and after it. The Irish independence war was contemporary to the Russian Revolution, so the politics were naturally intertwined. For the most part, material conditions for the poor were a lot worse in the cities for most of the industrial era(s). Education was better and people became more worldly in cities. Rural peasantry tends to be culturally stagnant by default. Marx, in his day, saw this migration as the preceding factor to revolution. He was snobbishly dismissive of peasants' ability to evolve culturally, so revolution had to wait until a generation or two was seasoned by city life.
pratik661 5y ago
Theres been some research in modern day Bangladesh that seems to suggest that a presence of a garment factory in a village (aka sweatshop to some people) is associated with higher educational attainment for women and school completion rates. Basically, garment factory work requires some level of literacy and numeracy. Having a factory in your village which provides jobs and independence vs farm labor work provides people an incentive to complete a certain level of schooling.

by okr 5y ago

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

In seeing what has recently happened in China, I would agree. A gigantic migration has occurred in the past few decades where Chinese peasants moved from rural areas to the cities to work in factories. I thought for a long time "Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. I watched a pretty good documentary about this, and the answer pretty clearly seemed to be opportunity. It's kinda similar to how legions of people move to LA to be actors. 99% of them will be worse off for the experience, many of them much more so, but even the chance to escape the conditions of their situation is a powerful draw for a lot of people.

okr 5y ago
Opportunity, yes, it describes it pretty well. I also have seen friends from east europe leaving their home countries for opportunity in the west, even when judging from my warm, cosy, settled place, i thought, that their jobs were crappy. But it was opportunity for them. And now they also judge from their warm, cosy, settled place. and try to make working conditions better for for their fellows.
Aunche 5y ago
> 99% of them will be worse off for the experience, many of them much more so Chinese migrant workers aren't comparable to aspiring LA actors. 99% of people aren't stupid or easily deluded by dreams. You don't decide to move into a factory because you think you'll become the next Andrew Carnegie. You do so you can send money to your family in case if the harvest isn't good or they need to see a doctor. People have it so good here that they have completely forgotten all the hardships of preindustrial life.
Turing_Machine 5y ago
> "Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. Because, as horrible as the factory conditions might seem to modern eyes, they weren't, in general, as horrible as being an agricultural stoop labor peasant (either in the west in premodern or Victorian times, or in China today). Serfs were running away to the cities way back in the Middle Ages, long before any Enclosure Acts. The expected payoff wasn't nearly as low as it is for acting. While life in the cities wasn't a bed of roses by any means (deaths from infectious diseases were at a horrific level, to name just one downside), the one big advantage was that you no longer had a "master" or "lord of the manor" who essentially had the power of life and death over you. Yes, a factory might have a cruel foreman, and many did, but the workers were allowed to change jobs. Serfs didn't have that privilege.
- helpfulmandrill 5y ago
  But on the other hand, the Enclosures provoked a number riots[1], so I don't think everyone agreed with you that "free" city life was better than rural serfdom, with common rights intact. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Enclosure_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Enclosure_riots
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Of course everyone didn't agree. People don't work that way. Even today, there are people who prefer living in cabins without electricity or running water somewhere out in the Brooks Range of Alaska. However, most people don't do that (though a large number claim to aspire to something like that, few actually do it, and of the ones who actually do it, even fewer stick it out once the realities set in). The point is that the migration to the cities was in progress long before the Enclosure Acts came on the scene.
    - helpfulmandrill 5y ago
      I'm not sure that is the point. I personally don't think we can treat the choice made by such large numbers of people as comparable to the choices of a few modern cabin-dwelling weirdos. I think we should take seriously what appears to have seemed preferable for large numbers of people at the time, given the information they had, and lacking the benefit of centuries of hindsight.
watwut 5y ago
> Why would so many people do this? This factory conditions are quite horrible, or at least the definition of soul-crushing monotony. Another part of the answer is that their lives in agriculture were not all that great either. Many of them could have moved back, but they did not, because as bad as this was, it was still better or comparable. The factories made them earn more money and regular money. People tend to romanticize the agricultural or even hunters-gatherers lifestyle. In ideal conditions, it can be good. But conditions are not always ideal.

mikewarot 5y ago

I was going to argue about the dangers of factory work, then I remembered just how dangerous a scythe can be. Work, in general, was a dangerous thing back then.

Veen 5y ago

It depends on your definition of "pushed" or "forced". People often migrated from country to city for economic reasons. It was the only way to make a living for many. Others simply wanted to make more money or take advantage of other opportunities. You might say economic circumstances forced them to give up agriculture for factory work.

okr 5y ago
I agree. Or as someone above said, it created opportunity.

helpfulmandrill 5y ago

Google "The Enclosures". In Britain people had their right to subsist off common land removed by Parliament[1]. You can argue that the move from agriculture to industry, from countryside to city, would have happened anyway. What is indisputable is that for many people, the possibility of subsisting in the ways they had before were systematically removed by the state (at the time under the complete control of the property-owning classes). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclosure_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos...

Aunche 5y ago
Would enclosures not have happened if industrialization didn't? IMO this was inevitable because peasants simply lost the leverage that they had received after the black plague. Countries like the US had no such laws, yet they all went through the same industrialization occurred all the same.
- helpfulmandrill 5y ago
  I don't know. Impossible to tell, I guess. I'm just pointing out that choice didn't come into it for many people. What choices they would have made had history gone differently, I can't say. Whatever might, hypothetically have happened in another timeline, as a matter of historical fact it was not a peaceful, free-market process of people voting with their feet.

netcan 5y ago

The story is complex. There aren't really no "gimme evidence" answers to these kinds of issues. A lot of people over centuries in many countries give you a lot if stories. One major factor was population growth. This was due to the coming of American crops (corn, potatoes, etc) and the green revolution (fertilizers, machinery, etc.). Another major factor (say in Ireland, where I'm from) was a change in the social-political system. There was a shift from old the old lordship order to a more modern landlord order. Relationships (rights, obligations) between lords/landlords and the landed an unlanded peasantry... Today we might call it rural unemployment and/or a small farm debt crisis. The latter half of this change is known in Ireland as "the land wars." There were also "pull" factors. These are more complicated, because they do involve choice. Cities offered a lot of hope. You might do very well in a city. Many did poorly though, and food/sanitation was often worse. A lot of the migration was (for example) adolescents sent to work as domestic servants... so thinking in terms of "homo economicus" is best tempered with some visualisations... say Oliver Twist. Similar things happen today in developing economies. Rural unemployment and stagnation. Cities that offer shiny opportunities in a game with few winners and many losers. Hence urban slums, 80 hr workweeks, etc. Working conditions in factories was also a 200+ year process. Unions played a big role. Politics played a big role. Revolutions and fear of revolutions played a big role. In Ireland, Soviet and pre-soviet revolutions were the threat that catalyzed land and labour reforma immediately before independence from the UK and after it. The Irish independence war was contemporary to the Russian Revolution, so the politics were naturally intertwined. For the most part, material conditions for the poor were a lot worse in the cities for most of the industrial era(s). Education was better and people became more worldly in cities. Rural peasantry tends to be culturally stagnant by default. Marx, in his day, saw this migration as the preceding factor to revolution. He was snobbishly dismissive of peasants' ability to evolve culturally, so revolution had to wait until a generation or two was seasoned by city life.

pratik661 5y ago

Theres been some research in modern day Bangladesh that seems to suggest that a presence of a garment factory in a village (aka sweatshop to some people) is associated with higher educational attainment for women and school completion rates. Basically, garment factory work requires some level of literacy and numeracy. Having a factory in your village which provides jobs and independence vs farm labor work provides people an incentive to complete a certain level of schooling.