Proto-industrialization
Proto industry (also proto-industrial or Protoindustralisierung ) is a history of scientific technical term for a particular form of early industrialization .
Proto-industry is understood to mean the forms of industrial production that represent a series production of goods and goods in distributed workshops and factories . Parts of the manufacturing process also took place on the basis of home work .
Characteristics
The term means something like “first industrialization”, but more in the sense of “pre-industrialization”. What is meant is a process that began long before the industrial revolution . During this period, the rural population began, v. a. produce goods for export from the region in a decentralized way in agricultural sideline. This publishing system was particularly widespread in the field of textile production (especially spinning and weaving ). With increasing demand, market production developed in many places. As a result, a rural house industry emerged that was not yet dominated by machines, but also no longer dominated by agriculture . Traders brought raw materials that the whole family usually worked with and made products such as B. made clothes. These products were then taken from them by the dealers who owned them, and they were sold in large quantities.
Proto -industrialization also included the cameralistic efforts of the enlightened, absolutist princes of the 18th century, who intended to further develop their national economy through targeted support, for example in the mining and ceramics industries. According to one thesis, the proto-industry led to increased population growth , since employment opportunities now also existed outside of purely agricultural activities. However, this growth cannot be empirically proven by micro studies, or only for individual regions in Germany.
Protoindustrialization promoted actual industrialization through the proletarianization of large parts of the population, the expansion of the market and increased capital accumulation . But this thesis is also heavily criticized by historians today. These cite as counter-arguments that only part of the capital that went into industrialization was generated in the home industry and that commercialization of agriculture can be proven even before the alleged proto-industrialization.
Periodization and Examples
A fixed period for the proto-industrial era cannot be determined, as this development has progressed regionally differently and is still ongoing in parts of the Third World . In general, the period of proto-industry in Central Europe extends from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, with strong regional fluctuations, to the 18th to 19th centuries. The proto-industry was replaced by the early and high industries, whereby the transitions were again regionally fluid or abrupt.
Examples of proto-industry are local accumulations of water-driven hammer mills , mills and grinding docks on the watercourses, which such as z. B. in the Wupperviereck as a whole are responsible for a high degree of industrialization in the region, without forming a clear industrial center. The beginnings of mechanical activities are also discernible, such as the silk twine mills from the late Middle Ages, where over 200 spindles could be driven simultaneously by water wheel over time.
Switzerland
Characteristic for the period of proto-industrialization in Switzerland were v. a. the above-mentioned principles of the publishing system, as well as some manufactories. At the end of the 18th century, however, there were still only around 50 factories with between 50 and 100 workers on Swiss territory. They served a certain production rationalization in the form of an organizational centralization and a partial division of labor. The majority of them also used hydropower as an aid. In the textile industry, however, the publishing system clearly dominated, with a more rational use of the rural home work.
literature
- Dietrich Ebeling, Wolfgang Mager (Hrsg.): Proto-industry in the region. European industrial landscapes from the 16th to the 19th century , Publishing House for Regional History, ISBN 978-3-89534-177-9 .
- Markus Cerman , Sheilag C. Ogilvi (Ed.): Proto-industrialization in Europe. Industrial production before the factory age . Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1994 (= contributions to historical social studies, supplement no. 5). 236 pp., ISBN 3-85115-199-2 .
- Jürgen Schlumbohm: CVs, families, farms. The farmers and hiring men of the Osnabrück parish of Belm in proto-industrial times, 1650–1860 . Vandenhoeck & Rupoecht, Göttingen 1994 (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History, Vol. 110). 2nd, revised edition 1997, 690 pages. ISBN 978-3-525-35647-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick , Jürgen Schlumbohm: Industrialization before industrialization: commercial goods production in the country in the formation period of capitalism , Göttingen 1977
- ↑ Stefan Gorißen: Business in the Duchy of Berg from the late Middle Ages to 1806 , in: Stefan Gorißen, Horst Sassin, Kurt Wesoly (ed.), Geschichte des Bergisches Land, Vol. 1: Until the end of the old Duchy 1806 (Bergische Forschungen 31), Bielefeld (2nd edition) 2016, pp. 406–467. [1]
- ↑ A. Bohnsack: Spinning and Weaving - Development of Technology and Work in the Textile Industry , 1981
- ^ Josef Kulischer : General economic history of the Middle Ages and the modern age . (1928) New edition 1988