The Rise of a Rural Industry

Abstract

It is common to meet the assumption that workshop production is relatively static; that the small enterprises persist in a relatively unchanged form over long periods, unable to grow and reluctant to retreat into domestic production. This assumption is not borne out by evidence from Santiago. The advantage of taking workshop activity within a small town is that it provides information about a bounded population. The characteristics of workshop production are thus methodologically easier to explore than where workshops are more scattered. A review of Santiago’s workshop history can therefore be expected to give some insights into the dynamics of workshop production in general by revealing how individual enterprises alter over time, how differentiation comes about within a single industrial branch, what form differentiation takes as seen from a comparison of individual enterprises (in terms of size, technology, markets, etc.) and what relations link enterprises within and across ‘class’ boundaries.