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A review by mburnamfink
Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman
4.0
Factory-made goods are perhaps the defining feature of modern life. Looking around the hundreds of objects in my home office (there are a lot of bookshelves), only a handful of handicrafts did not come out of a factory. More broadly, except for a few decorative arts and crafts, everything in my house is a product of mass production machinery, and that's likely true unless you are either A) some kind of weird primitivist, or B) wealthy beyond all comprehension.
Freeman traces the origins of the factory, starting the textile mills of 18th century England. These 'dark satanic mills' provided the prototype for heavily capitalized large enterprises, where expensive machinery turned out cheap commodities with an exploited labor force. English mills set the broad strokes of conflicts between workers and managers, and concerns about the social consequences of mass production. The two key conflicts were over machine time, the need for all workers to move at the pace of the factory rather than their own periods of intense exertion and lulls, and compensation for this grinding labor. The next chapters move through American textile mills at Lowell, and the massive steel production of the late 19th century, but even during the industrial revolution, factories were relatively uncommon. Most shops had fewer than 10 employees, and factory owners were inherently conservative, choosing to find profits in efficiency and faster pace rather than possibly expensive innovation.
Henry Ford offered the first major break in the factory system, with the invention of the assembly line. Instead of a series of fixed machines or stations, with parts shuttled between workers doing moderately complex tasks, the work would flow continuously from end to end, each worker doing one task very precisely with the aid of expensive tool and die machines. Ford found new efficiencies with the Model T, which he plowed into vertically integrated megafactories such as the River Rouge complex, capable of taking in raw ores at one end and sending cars out the other. Factories were now miniature cities with hundreds of thousands of employees.
Fordism and the megafactory found a natural home in the Soviet Union, which in the years prior to Stalin's purges hired American experts to develop a domestic heavy industrial base. But the megafactory proved prone to labor disruption, and post-war Western practice saw factories scattered to smaller, distributed units, with containerized shipping and highways providing a virtual 'logistic space' extension of the factory. The narrative closes with the new megafactories of the Shenzen special economic zone, where everything from sneakers to smartphones are produced by millions of Chinese workers. This last section is hampered by the secrecy of modern manufacturing. Unlike older factories, which had PR campaigns to show how modern they were, the people who actually make stuff today would prefer no one think about it.
Freeman has a special focus on labor disputes and how the image of the factory, as a social problem, symbol of progress, or thing to be swept out of mind has evolved through history. Aside from a nod towards how Marx's theories developed from factories, and how factories developed in response to labor pressure, this book is light on theory. And while it's valuable background, it leaves aside the pressure of automation, and how while US industrial output has risen, the number of people employed in industry has remained relatively steady, or risen at a much slower rate. The valorization of labor is mixed with the fact that factory jobs are deskilled, deliberately designed to use humans as one more input. High turnovers, at some points in excess of 100%, are a recurrent feature of factory work, and one which deserves closer examination. While interesting, this book is a survey, and misses the grit of machines, the social environment of the assembly line, and the broader picture of factory-driven consumerism.
Freeman traces the origins of the factory, starting the textile mills of 18th century England. These 'dark satanic mills' provided the prototype for heavily capitalized large enterprises, where expensive machinery turned out cheap commodities with an exploited labor force. English mills set the broad strokes of conflicts between workers and managers, and concerns about the social consequences of mass production. The two key conflicts were over machine time, the need for all workers to move at the pace of the factory rather than their own periods of intense exertion and lulls, and compensation for this grinding labor. The next chapters move through American textile mills at Lowell, and the massive steel production of the late 19th century, but even during the industrial revolution, factories were relatively uncommon. Most shops had fewer than 10 employees, and factory owners were inherently conservative, choosing to find profits in efficiency and faster pace rather than possibly expensive innovation.
Henry Ford offered the first major break in the factory system, with the invention of the assembly line. Instead of a series of fixed machines or stations, with parts shuttled between workers doing moderately complex tasks, the work would flow continuously from end to end, each worker doing one task very precisely with the aid of expensive tool and die machines. Ford found new efficiencies with the Model T, which he plowed into vertically integrated megafactories such as the River Rouge complex, capable of taking in raw ores at one end and sending cars out the other. Factories were now miniature cities with hundreds of thousands of employees.
Fordism and the megafactory found a natural home in the Soviet Union, which in the years prior to Stalin's purges hired American experts to develop a domestic heavy industrial base. But the megafactory proved prone to labor disruption, and post-war Western practice saw factories scattered to smaller, distributed units, with containerized shipping and highways providing a virtual 'logistic space' extension of the factory. The narrative closes with the new megafactories of the Shenzen special economic zone, where everything from sneakers to smartphones are produced by millions of Chinese workers. This last section is hampered by the secrecy of modern manufacturing. Unlike older factories, which had PR campaigns to show how modern they were, the people who actually make stuff today would prefer no one think about it.
Freeman has a special focus on labor disputes and how the image of the factory, as a social problem, symbol of progress, or thing to be swept out of mind has evolved through history. Aside from a nod towards how Marx's theories developed from factories, and how factories developed in response to labor pressure, this book is light on theory. And while it's valuable background, it leaves aside the pressure of automation, and how while US industrial output has risen, the number of people employed in industry has remained relatively steady, or risen at a much slower rate. The valorization of labor is mixed with the fact that factory jobs are deskilled, deliberately designed to use humans as one more input. High turnovers, at some points in excess of 100%, are a recurrent feature of factory work, and one which deserves closer examination. While interesting, this book is a survey, and misses the grit of machines, the social environment of the assembly line, and the broader picture of factory-driven consumerism.