Factory system
The factory system was first adopted by successive entrepreneurs in Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late-eighteenth century and later spread around the world.
The main characteristic of the factory system is the use of machinery,[citation needed] originally powered by water or steam and later by electricity.
Other characteristics of the system mostly derive from the use of machinery or economies of scale, the centralization of factories, and standardization of interchangeable parts.
Other prominent early industrialists who adopted the factory system included Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) in Staffordshire and Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) at his Soho Manufactory (1766-1848).
The first use of an integrated system, where cotton came in and was spun, bleached, dyed and woven into finished cloth, was at mills in Waltham and Lowell, Massachusetts.
The Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company's Bridgewater Foundry, which began operation in 1836, was one of the earliest factories to use modern materials-handling such as cranes and rail-tracks through the buildings for handling heavy items.
[13] Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) is the person credited by some with being the brains behind the growth of factories[citation needed] and the Derwent Valley Mills.
[14][need quotation to verify][15][failed verification] Mass production using interchangeable parts was first achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslay and Simon Goodrich, under the management of (with contributions by) Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, the Inspector General of Naval Works at Portsmouth Block Mills at Portsmouth Dockyard, for the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
As these devices were mechanized, machine-made goods were able to underprice the cottagers, leaving them unable to earn enough to make their effort worthwhile.
[citation needed] Debate arose concerning the morality of the system, as workers complained about unfair working conditions prior to the passage of labour laws.
One of the earliest such reformers, Robert Owen (1771-1858), became known for his pioneering efforts in improving conditions for workers at the New Lanark mills, and is often[quantify] regarded as one of the key thinkers of the early socialist movement.
Karl Marx worried that the capitalist system would eventually lead to wages only sufficient for subsistence due to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
