Question

Explain the shift from artisan to factory worker, and discuss the factory system. What were the advantages and disadvantages

Answer 1

The Shift from Artisan to Factory Worker and the Factory System

a) The Shift from Artisan to Factory Worker: Earlier, people produced everything they needed by their own hands. Food production was limited to subsistence level as every household owned farms on which they cultivated the food the family required. The artisan worked alone to handcraft tools and other ornamental works.

But, all this changed with the invention of the steam engine. Following the improved systems of transportation with steamboats, travelling was enhanced. Gradually, production processes were mechanized. Factories started springing up in concentrated areas near water channels. People left their rural areas to live near the factories in towns and cities. With the birth of the factory system, goods were mass-produced and could be sold in markets farther from the factory towns.

It was the age of industrialization, trade unionization, assembly line production, scientific management, and now complete automation of processes with robots replacing manual labor. It has been a long way.

b) Advantages of the Factory System:

1. Hunger was reduced as more food items were produced and processed into finer products on a large scale.
2. Exports of goods were encouraged and more markets outside the domestic markets were explored.
3. The world became a global village with the pursuit of the common good of man, thereby levelling human beings to a common humanity and experience.
4. More sophisticated goods and equipment can now be produced as a result of the factory system. Manual labor has been eased greatly.
5. The factory system introduced scientific management, which has ensured production innovations and encouraged skills development.

c) Disadvantages of the Factory System:

1. The artisan was rendered jobless by the factory system as some of the tools and goods which only the artisan could produced was commonalized to the extent that unskilled laborers could produce them, just by each concentrating on a part through the principle of division of labor.
2. The factory system created urbanization with its attendant problems, especially sanitation problems and pollution of the environment. People's health has been jeopardized as a result.
3. The factory system also created the consumerism culture.
4. It widened wealth-inequality as wealth creation became concentrated in the hands of a few people.

Step-by-step explanation:

The factory system encourages a method of manufacturing through the use of machines, automation, and division of labour. It gave rise to urbanization, transportation efficiency, and globalization.