The rise of market culture : the textile trade and French society, 1750-1900

Combining the perspectives of anthropology and social history, Professor Reddy traces the transition from precapitalist to capitalist culture in the French textile industry from 1750 to 1900. He shows how and why a new conception of the social order based on the idea of the market began to emerge, and examines the attendant political and social conflict. Focusing on the northern regional centres in France which led the movement toward mechanisation, the author - employs the methods of cultural anthropology to find that even by 1900 French textile labourers had failed to develop a social identity commensurate with the idea of wage labour. This discovery leads him to a critique of the market idea that suggests radical and prevalent interpretations of the social history of industrialisation as well as of the concept of 'class consciousness'. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title 5 Copyright 6 Contents 7 List of Figures and Maps 8 List of Abbreviations 9 Preface 11 Introduction 15 Part One: A World Without Entrepreneurs, 1750–1815 33 1. Commerce as Conflict 36 An Entrepreneurial Riot 45 The Guild As Antientrepreneur 48 The Politics of Proto-industrialization 52 The Myopia of Physiocracy 54 The Mysteries of Production 57 The Missing Ingredient 60 2. The Design of the Spinning Jenny 62 Engineering as Folklore 63 A Design for Social Change 65 Machines as Poor Relief 67 Machines That Steal Bread 71 3. New Terms and Old Practices 75 Abstract Equality 76 Productivity and Social Class 78 Balance Sheets and Contracts 81 Odd Assortments of Machines 88 Ambitious Weavers 96 The New Status Quo 98 Part Two: Uses of The Market Idea, 1816–1851 101 4. The First Crisis of Management 103 Careers Open to Talent 104 Selling Upward Mobility 108 An Increment of Control 111 The Anatomy of a Slump 114 Theory and Practice at the Mule 120 5. Spinners on Guard 127 The Prefects' Coalition 128 Paying For Steam 139 Disorderly Weavers 141 Experiments With Refusing Work 143 The Larger Context 148 6. Visions of Subsistence 152 A Base Line of Comparison 152 Function Versus Moral Existence 154 Imaginary Budgets 161 Wages and Families 171 The Rhetoric of Subsistence 183 From Rhetoric to Legend 194 Fourier on Guard 196 7. A Search for Identity 199 Oil Lamps and Hidden Scales 201 The Coming of a New Word 213 A Revolution in Pay Procedures 218 Limiting Cases 232 Uncertain Harvest 235 Part Three: Unquestioned Assumptions, 1852–1904 239 8. The Clock Time of the Second Empire 241 Liberalism By Decree 241 Imperial Empiricism 243 Gradgrind in the Factory 250 The Plasticity of Labor 254 The Strike's New Form 260 9. The Moral Sense of Farce 267 Desrousseaux's Delivery 270 The Farcical In Practice 290 From Farce to Politics 294 What People Make of Words 298 10. Little Insurrections 303 A Detail and its Meaning 304 A Ritual Jacquerie 311 The Success of Guesdist Indifference 319 A Total Victory in Defeat 323 The Liberal Box 337 Conclusion 340 Notes 351 Bibliographical Note 401 I. Manuscript Sources 401 II. Published Primary Sources 402 III. Secondary Sources on the French Textile Trade 403 Iv. Recent Studies of Industrialization 404 Index 409 Professor Reddy traces the transition from pre-capitalist to capitalist culture in the French textile industry from 1750 to 1900. Using anthropology and social history, he shows how and why the conception of the social order based on the idea of the market began to emerge, and examines the attendant political and social conflict. If entrepreneurship was not a distinct activity in eighteenth-century textile production, then one cannot expect it to have left any documentary trace.