Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century

Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century (1990) breaks new ground in understanding the culture of the workplace. It addresses debates in social history concerning the nature of the labour process under early capitalism and the language of politics, and it draws these debates together in a compelling way. It challenges the standard interpretation of the social relations of production in the workshop sector. Conflict over work reorganization involved very particular constructions of the social world by both employers and workforce. It argues that the social, economic and political facets of these constructs are not separable. By analysing the rhetoric of justification offered by those attempting to formulate economic change, and by those challenging their efforts in the workplace, it casts new light on the context within which different notions of political representation evolved in Britain.