Mechanisation and the Labour Process from 1850

Abstract

Looking back over the past 130 years we can see some patterns in the development of production machinery. The patterns have expressed themselves in leading industrial sectors at different times since the mid-nineteenth century. In this chapter we shall try to identify how those machine systems measure up against the classification scheme we have developed from the work of Bright and Bell. Of particular interest, of course, are changes in the labour process which link machinery developments to the broader structural changes within the development of the capitalist mode of production.