Domestic industry

“ The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry, replaces also, by every such operation, two distinct capitals, but one of them only is employed in supporting domestic industry. ”

“ But, as a matter of fact, the division of what was formerly the home into unproductive and productive departments, into domestic work and work outside the house, has been far less thorough and complete in the retail trade than in other spheres of labour. The factory, which has absorbed industry after industry formerly carried on in the house, is a comparatively modern institution ”

“ The degree of protection which will be required for domestic industry beyond 1842, depends upon the reduction of wages, the accumulation of capital, the improvement in skill, the protection of machinery, and the cheapening of the price, at home, of essential articles, such as fuel, iron, and so forth. ”

“ The farmer, or planter, who toils yearly in his fields, is engaged in ‘domestic industry,’ and is as much entitled to have his labor protected as the manufacturer, the man of commerce, the navigator, or the mechanic, who are engaged also in ‘domestic industry’ in their different pursuits. ”

“ Continued dynamism in construction and the services sector, especially tourism, should keep the economy growing in 1995. Tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing for export remain key sectors of the economy. Domestic industry is based on the processing of agricultural products, oil refining, and chemicals. ”

“ The facts there stated, with many known subsequent circumstances, will give rise to serious reflections, in the minds of the landholder and the statesman, upon the subject of the protection of the productions of our own soil. The industry of the landed men of the United States is manifestly and unalterably much greater than any, and than all, the other branches of our domestic or national industry. The mercantile and manufacturing branches result almost entirely from the landed industry. ”

“ Will the present standards of management, skill, workmanship and factory discipline be improved? Will the consumers benefit? Will people save? i. e. Will sufficient fresh capital be forthcoming for the further developments of industry? ”

“ To this end the authorities switched to a system of household responsibility in agriculture in place of the old collectivization, increased the authority of local officials and plant managers in industry, permitted a wide variety of small-scale enterprise in services and light manufacturing, and opened the economy to increased foreign trade and investment. ”

“ Closely allied with the manufacturing occupations are those branches of industry classified in the census reports under the heading: "trading and transportation." They comprise all commercial activities. Merchants, clerks, bookkeepers, salesmen and women, typewriters, telegraph and telephone operators, etc., are enumerated in this class. Flourishing industries are invariably accompanied by flourishing commerce, and the capitalistic system of production depends upon a constant expansion of trade. ”

“ The independent workman with his own tools was superseded by the factory, the small producer has given way in turn to the trust. With the introduction of expensive machinery it became necessary to organize capital on a large scale. Corporations with limited liability were organized for the manufacture of goods, the exploitation of mines, the building of railroads, and the carrying on of trade. As methods of production improved industry became more and more concentrated, and finally huge trusts took over the operation of combined plants. ”

“ Under the stimulus of this the wheels of industry hummed. Factories covered the land. National production grew to a colossal size and the whole outer world seemed laid under a tribute to the great industry. ”

“ THE ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL OF INDUSTRY The purpose of this chapter is to explain how American industry is organized and how the government has endeavored to regulate this organization in the public interest.
The broad scope of industry. What is Industry?—Industry comprises the whole process of converting raw materials into finished products. It includes the production of goods by hand in the workshops, and by machinery in the factories. Agriculture, mining, and forestry furnish the raw materials; industry works them up; commerce distributes them. ”

“ But with the increasing division of labor, production for direct personal consumption becomes of less and less importance compared with the production of means of production, and therewith also the sphere of governmental production increases. On the other side this field is extended by the development of commerce and of the great industries, which bursts the local bonds of the market for each branch of production one after another, and transforms one after another from a local into a national industry. ”

“ All possible trades -- weaving, workers in wood, in metals, in bone, in india-rubber, and so on -- may be found under the category of purely domestic trades, with all possible gradations between the purely domestic form of production and the workshop and the factory. ”

“ The money which they take back to their homes is amply replaced by the treasures they leave behind in the product of their labour, and in the branches of industry which they have introduced or improved." [45]
[45] Of the sixty-four manufactories and workshops, twenty-eight belong to foreigners; and there is not a single industrial establishment in which foreigners are not employed, either as managers, engineers, or labourers. ”

“ Thus the English manufacturer is bettered, for he has a new market for his manufactures, which he exchanges for cheap provisions; and the dealer in eggs and poultry has a new impulse to this branch of industry, because it enables him to give clothes to his wife and children. This exchange of benefits—this advancement in the condition of both parties—this creation of produce and of profitable labour—this increase of the number of labourers—could not have taken place without machinery. ”

“ The Manufacturing Industry.—It is the function of the agriculturist and the herdsman, the miner and the lumberman, to produce the raw material. The sailor and the train-hand, the longshoreman and the teamster, transport them to the industrial centres. It is the business of [181] the manufacturer and his employees to turn them into the finished product for the use of society. ”

“ The boys of the family will branch out, get fields, orchards, vineyards of their own, and add to the solid producing industry of the country. This orderly, contented industry, increasing its gains day by day, little by little, is the life and hope of any State. ”

“ Industry will never progress to vigorous and healthy development unless our conception of the relationship between industry and the nation is radically revised. That conception to-day is mean, stunted, and utterly devoid of any power of inspiration. Industry I have defined, in the language of economics, as the production of commodities and services for the purpose of satisfying the wants and desires of men. ”

“ In places where those institutions prevail, besides the persons regularly engaged in them, they afford occasional and extra employment to industrious individuals and families, who are willing to devote the leisure resulting from the intermissions of their ordinary pursuits to collateral labors, as a resource for multiplying their acquisitions or their enjoyments. The husbandman himself experiences a new source of profit and support from the increased industry of his wife and daughters, invited and stimulated by the demands of the neighboring manufactories. ”

“ All over the country, we find the inhabitants of certain localities devoted almost exclusively to one industry, such as pork-packing, manufacturing, fishing, and mining, and even in our cities we find certain sections devoted exclusively to banking, shipping, shopping, dry-goods, manufacture, and commission brokerage. The people of a certain town, having for generations devoted themselves exclusively to the manufacture of say, bricks, have become proficient and expert in that industry. ”

“ With the growth of manufactures, there arose a great demand for laborers, particularly skilled laborers, who knew the technique of industry. There was also a great need for common laborers who would be willing to go into factories and do the routine work. ”

“ In industry, we must support our objective of higher industrial growth with investments in relatively labor-intensive finished consumer goods industries, the second stage of import substitution for selected intermediate and capital goods industries, and the generation of exports. ”

“ The first industrial tendency to be noted is that toward the concentration of capital and labor in large industrial enterprises. Not only have the factory and the mill superseded the individual system of manufactures, but the growth of “bonanza farms” and the increasing number of tenant farms show the same tendency in agriculture; the trust is the resort of wholesale business houses ”

“ Although numerous companies are now engaged in this industry, it constitutes a comparatively small factor in the commercial interests of the city, inasmuch as it possesses at the present time over five hundred industrial establishments; giving employment to not less than twenty thousand people. ”

“ To find for our industrial population work at wages of higher purchasing power, and to secure healthier surroundings and more regular employment. To enterprising manufacturers, co-operative societies, architects, engineers, builders, and mechanicians of all kinds, as well as to many engaged in various professions, it is intended to offer a means of securing new and better employment for their capital and talents, while to the agriculturists at present on the estate, as well as to those who may migrate thither, it is designed to open a new market for their produce close to their doors. ”

“ Still another, and equally important, industry developed was that of supplying the food and other requirements of the men and women engaged in the factory, and this gave new activity to the agricultural industries near the factory and further occupation to those engaged in transportation. ”

“ Habits of industry should be inculcated as they grow up, and the field of their operations enlarged when they are grown, by portioning out lands and providing a market for their surplus stock and produce. ”

“ Another phase of corporate growth is the "integration of industry," that is, the grouping under one control of a whole series of industries. One company may carry the iron ore through all the processes from the mine to the finished product. A railroad line across the continent owns its own steamers for shipping goods to Asia or Europe. Large wholesale houses own or control the output of entire factories. ”

“ The subject of Home Industries is beginning to attract the attention of those who are interested in political economy and the general welfare of the country, and thoughtful people are asking themselves why, in all the length and breadth of America, there are no well-established and prosperous domestic manufactures. ”

“ We propose to own the commodities we produce ourselves and to exchange commodities containing a certain quantity of necessary social labor, for other commodities representing an equal quantity of necessary social labor.
You and I work for the boss because he owns the factory or mine or railroad or the mill. Ownership of the means of production and distribution (the factories, land, mines, mills—the machinery that produces things) makes masters of capitalists and wage-workers of you and me. ”

“ But the magnitude and value of this industry are appreciated when the statement is made that of our total annual exports more than three-fourths are the products of agriculture, and of our total population nearly one-half are exclusively engaged in that occupation. ”

“ These are some of the steps by which the systems of the manufacturing world have been, in the past 150 years, transformed from household work, or that of the small shop, into that of the factory—and the factory developed into enormous establishments through the investment of great sums of money in the purchase and installation of ever-improving machinery, more ingenious, more productive, more costly, but turning out more and better of the finished product with each new device and new investment of capital. ”

“ Through the doors of the different rooms passed an endless procession; men from the front with the marks of the desert sun on their faces—engineers, superintendents, bosses, messengers, agents—servants of the Company; laborers of every sort and nationality came in answer to the cry: "Men wanted!"; special salesmen from foundry, factory and shop drawn by prospective large sales of machinery, implements and supplies; land-hungry men from everywhere seeking information and opportunity for investment. ”

“ Mines, factories and mills of all kinds, large business houses and stores, together with those farms whose owners would employ hired labor for the production of goods to be sold at profit, would all be looked upon as being among the principal means of production. ”

“ The dealer in raw materials knew that the user must come to him; the great factories were contented with the phenomenal demand for their output, not alone at home, but also abroad, where merit had already won a profitable trade. ”

“ The plain instruction, of these genuine facts, to our planters and farmers, is, to encourage household manufactures, and all other manufactures on the estates, at the doors, in the townships, villages, and counties in which they live, consuming raw materials, building materials, food for man and beast, fuel, drinks, and other productions of the earth. This system of adjacent manufactures saves all the cost of transportation of our productions to the sea-ports, and the expense of carrying foreign goods from the sea-ports to the interior, more profitable than canals and turnpike roads. ”