Karl Marx and the Satanic Mills: Factory Politics Under Early Capitalism in England, the United States, and Russia

Abstract

This paper sets out from a theoretical paradox in Marx's analysis of capitalism: that the working class is the victim of the logic of capitalism: that the working class is the victim of the logic of capitalism and at the same time os supposed to rise up against that logic. Traditional resolutions of this paradox are inadequate; the resolution proposed here involves the distinction within the sphere of production between the labor process and the factory regime. By a series of comparisons of textile industries in 19th-century England, United States, and Russia, the article highlights four factors that shape factory regimes: the labor process, market forces, the reproduction of labor power, and the state. It shows how an examination of factory regimes can account for the absorption of working-class radicalism in England after 1850 and the deepening of working-class radicalism in Russia after 1905, culminating in the revolution-ary movements of 1917. Finally, it presents the implications for Marxism of this distintion between the strictly economic elements of production and its political and ideological institutions.