The Origins of Fossil Capital: From Water to Steam in the British Cotton Industry*
In: Historical MaterialismAbstract
The process commonly referred to as business-as-usual has given rise to dangerous climate change, but its social history remains strangely unexplored. A key moment in its onset was the transition to steam power as a source of rotary motion in commodity production, in Britain and, first of all, in its cotton industry. This article tries to approach the dynamics of the fossil economy by examining the causes of the transition from water to steam in the British cotton industry in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Common perceptions of the shift as driven by scarcity are refuted, and it is shown that the choice of steam was motivated by a rather different concern: power over labour. Turning away from standard interpretations of the role of energy in the industrial revolution, this article opens a dialogue with Marx on matters of carbon and outlines a theory of fossil capital, better suited for understanding the drivers of business-as-usual as it continues to this day.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Alderson M.A. An Essay on the Nature and Application of Steam 1834 London Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper
-
Allen Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective 2009 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Altvater Elmar O’Connor Martin ‘Ecological and Economic Modalities of Time and Space’ Is Capitalism Sustainable?: Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology 1994 New York Guilford Press
-
Altvater Elmar Panitch Leo & Leys Colin ‘The Social and Natural Environment of Fossil Capitalism’ Socialist Register 2007 2006 London Merlin Press
-
Andrews Thomas G. Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War 2008 Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press
-
Arago François Historical Eloge of James Watt 1839 London John Murray
-
Arrhenius Svante ‘On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground’ Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 1896 5, 41 237 76
-
Ashmore Owen The Industrial Archaeology of Lancashire 1969 Newton Abbot David and Charles
-
Ashworth W. ‘British Industrial Villages in the Nineteenth Century’ The Economic History Review 1951 3, 3 378 387
-
Aspin Chris The Water Spinners 2003 Helmshore Helmshore Local History Society
-
Aston Trevor Henry & Philpin C.H.E. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe 1987 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Atwood Rollin S. ‘Localization of the Cotton Industry in Lancashire, England’ Economic Geography 1928 4, 2 187 195
-
Babbage Charles On the Economy of Manufactures 1835 [1833] London Charles Knight
-
Balderston Theo ‘The Economics of Abundance: Coal and Cotton in Lancashire and the World’ The Economic History Review 2010 63, 3 569 590
-
Barca Stefania ‘Energy, Property, and the Industrial Revolution Narrative’ Ecological Economics 2011 70, 7 1309 1315
-
Bartrip Peter ‘Success or Failure? The Prosecution of the Early Factory Acts’ The Economic History Review 1985 38, 3 423 427
-
Blauwhof Frederik Berend ‘Overcoming Accumulation: Is a Capitalist Steady-State Economy Possible?’ Ecological Economics 2012 online first, doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012-03-012
-
Boden T.A., Marland G. & Andres R.J. Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions 2011 Oak Ridge: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, available at: <http://cdiac.ornl.gov/>
-
Boyson Rhodes The Ashworth Cotton Enterprise: The Rise and Fall of a Family Firm, 1818–1880 1970 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Brenner Robert Roemer John ‘The Social Basis of Economic Development’ Analytical Marxism 1986 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Brenner Robert Aston and Philpin ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe’ 1987a [1976] 1987
-
Brenner Robert Aston and Philpin ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’ 1987b [1985] 1987
-
Brenner Robert Wickham Chris ‘Property and Progress: Where Adam Smith Went Wrong’ Marxist History-Writing for the Twenty-First Century 2007 Oxford Oxford University Press/British Academy
-
Briggs Asa The Power of Steam: An Illustrated History of the World’s Steam Age 1982 London Bison Books
-
Burkett Paul Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective 1999 New York St Martin’s Press
-
Burkett Paul Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy, Historical Materialism 2006 Leiden Brill Book Series
-
Buxton Neil K. The Economic Development of the British Coal Industry: From Industrial Revolution to the Present Day 1978 Newton Abbot Batsford Academic
-
Bythell Duncan The Handloom Weavers: A Study in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution 1969 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Cameron Rondo ‘A New View of European Industrialization’ The Economic History Review 1985 38, 1 1 23
-
Castree Noel ‘The Spatio-temporality of Capitalism’ Time and Society 2009 18, 1 26 61
-
Catling Harold The Spinning Mule 1970 Newton Abbot David and Charles
-
Chaloner W.H. ‘Robert Owen, Peter Drinkwater and the Early Factory System in Manchester, 1788–1800’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 1954–5 37 87 92
-
Chapman Stanley D. ‘The Peels in the Early English Cotton Industry’ Business History 1969 11, 2 235 266
-
Chapman Stanley D. ‘The Cost of Power in the Industrial Revolution in Britain: The Case of the Textile Industry’ Midlands History 1971 1, 2 1 24
-
Chapman Stanley D. The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution 1972 Basingstoke Macmillan
-
Chapman Stanley D. The Early Factory Masters: The Transition to the Factory System in the Midland Textile Industry 1992 [1967] Aldershot Gregg Revivals
-
Church Roy The History of the British Coal Industry. Volume 3: 1830–1913: Victorian Pre-eminence 1986 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Clark Brett & York Richard ‘Carbon Metabolism: Global Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Biospheric Rift’ Theory and Society 2005 34, 4 391 428
-
Clery Daniel ‘Sending African Sunlight to Europe, Special Delivery’ Science 2010 329, 5993 782 783
-
Cohen John S. ‘Managers and Machinery: An Analysis of the Rise of Factory Production’ Australian Economic Papers 1981 20, 36 24 41
-
Cooke Anthony Stanley: From Arkwright Village to Commuter Suburb: 1784–2003 2003 Perth Perth & Kinross Libraries
-
Cooke Anthony The Rise and Fall of the Scottish Cotton Industry, 1778–1914: ‘The Secret Spring’ 2010 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Cooke Taylor William The Hand Book of Silk, Cotton, and Woollen Manufactures 1843 London Richard Bentley
-
Crafts Nicholas ‘Steam as a General Purpose Technology: A Growth Accounting Perspective’ The Economic Journal 2004 114, 495 338 351
-
Crutzen Paul J. ‘Geology of Mankind’ Nature 2002 415 23
-
Crutzen Paul J. & Steffen Will ‘How Long Have We Been in the Anthropocene Era?’ Climatic Change 2003 61, 3 251 257
-
Dearne Martin J. & Branigan Keith ‘The Use of Coal in Roman Britain’ The Antiquaries Journal 1995 75 71 105
-
Debeir Claude, Deléage Jean-Paul & Hémery Daniel In the Servitude of Power: Energy and Civilisation through the Ages 1991 [1986] London Zed Books
-
Engels Friedrich McLellan David The Condition of the Working Class in England 2009 [1845] Oxford Oxford University Press
-
Fairbairn William ‘Speech at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting in Manchester’ Proceedings of the Thirty-First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1861 Manchester Guardian Steam-Printing
-
Fairbairn William Treatise on Mills and Millwork, Part I., On the Principles of Mechanism and on Prime Movers 1864 [1863] London Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green
-
Farey John A Treatise on the Steam Engine, Historical, Practical, and Descriptive 1827 London Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green
-
Fitton Robert S. The Arkwrights: Spinners of Fortune 1989 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Fitton Robert S. & Wadsworth A.P. The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830 1958 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Flinn Michael W. The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume 2, 1700–1830: The Industrial Revolution 1984 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Foster John Bellamy Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature 2000 New York Monthly Review Press
-
Foster John Bellamy ‘Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem’ Monthly Review 2011 62, 8 26 33
-
Foster John Bellamy, Clark Brett & York Richard The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth 2010 New York Monthly Review Press
-
Foulkes Edward J. ‘The Cotton Spinning Factories of Flintshire, 1777–1866’ The Journal of the Flintshire Historical Society 1964 21 91 97
-
Gatrell Victor A.C. ‘Labour, Power, and the Size of Firms in Lancashire Cotton in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century’ The Economic History Review 1977 30, 1 95 139
-
Glasgow Mechanics’ Magazine ‘On the Comparative Costs of Power Obtained by Steam or Water’ 1826 7 January
-
Gordon Robert B. ‘Cost and Use of Water Power during Industrialization in New England and Great Britain: A Geological Interpretation’ The Economic History Review 1983 36, 2 240 259
-
Gray Robert The Factory Question and Industrial England, 1830–1860 1996 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Greenberg Dolores ‘Reassessing the Power Patterns of the Industrial Revolution: An Anglo-American Comparison’ The American Historical Review 1982 87, 5 1237 1261
-
archive Greg Manchester Archives and Local Studies: R. Greg and Co. Ltd. of Quarry Bank Mill, Styal
-
Harvey David The Limits to Capital 1999 [1982] First Edition London Verso
-
Hatcher John The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume 1: Before 1700 1993 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Hills Richard L. Power in the Industrial Revolution 1970 New York Augustus M. Kelley
-
Hills Richard L. Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine 1989 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Hills Richard L. ‘The Importance of Steam Power during the Nineteenth Century’ Transactions of the Newcomen Society 2006 76, 2 175 192
-
Horner Leonard The Factories Regulation Act Explained, With Some Remarks on Its Origin, Nature, and Tendency 1834 Glasgow David Robertson
-
Howe Anthony The Cotton Masters, 1830–1860 1984 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Huber Matthew T. ‘Energizing Historical Materialism: Fossil Fuels, Space and the Capitalist Mode of Production’ Geoforum 2009 40, 1 105 115
-
Humphrey William S. & Stanislaw Joe ‘Economic Growth and Energy Consumption in the UK, 1700–1975’ Energy Policy 1979 7, 1 29 42
-
Hyde Charles K. Technological Change and the Development of the British Iron Industry, 1700–1870 1977 Princeton Princeton University Press
-
Ingle George Yorkshire Cotton: The Yorkshire Cotton Industry, 1780–1835 1997 Lancaster Carnegie Publishing Ltd
-
Ingold Tom ‘Work, Time and Industry’ Time and Society 1995 4, 1 5 28
-
Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi Mark A. ‘Providing All Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas of Infrastructure, and Materials’ Energy Policy 2011a 39, 3 1154 1169
-
Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi Mark A. ‘Providing All Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part II: Reliability, System and Transmission Costs, and Policies’ Energy Policy 2011b 39, 3 1170 1190
-
archive Jevons John Rylands Library, Manchester William Stanley Jevons
-
Jevons William Stanley The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-Mines 1866 London Macmillan and Co.
-
Joffe Michael ‘The Root Cause of Economic Growth under Capitalism’ Cambridge Journal of Economics 2011 online first, doi:10.1093/cje/beq054.
-
Jones Christopher F. ‘A Landscape of Energy Abundance: Anthracite Coal Canals and the Roots of American Fossil Fuel Dependence, 1820–1860’ Environmental History 2010 15, 3 449 484
-
Journal of the Statistical Society of London ‘Increase of Steam-Power in Lancashire and Its Immediate Vicinity’ 1838 1, 5 315 316
-
Kanefsky John William The Diffusion of Power Technology in British Industry, 1760–1870 1979 unpublished PhD thesis, University of Exeter.
-
Kennedy John Observations on the Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade in Great Britain 1818 Manchester The Executors of the Late S. Russell
-
Kerr Richard A. 2010 ‘Do We Have the Energy for the Next Transition?’ Science 329, 5993 780 781
-
Kirby Raymond George & Edward Musson Albert The Voice of the People: John Doherty, 1798–1854. Trade Unionist, Radical and Factory Reformer 1975 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Lee Clive Howard A Cotton Enterprise, 1795–1840: A History of the M’Connel & Kennedy Fine Cotton Spinners 1972 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Lefebvre Henri Nicholson-Smith Donald The Production of Space 1991 [1974] Oxford Blackwell
-
Leggett L. Mark W. & Ball David A. ‘The Implication for Climate Change and Peak Fossil Fuel of the Continuation of the Current Trend in Wind and Solar Energy Production’ Energy Policy 2012 41 610 617
-
Lloyd-Jones Roger & Lewis Myrddin John British Industrial Capitalism since the Industrial Revolution 1998 London Routledge
-
Lord John Capital and Steam Power, 1750–1800 1965 [1923] New York Frank Cass
-
Malanima Paolo Prak Maarten ‘The Energy Basis for Early Modern Growth, 1650–1820’ Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe, 1400–1800 2001 London Routledge
-
Malanima Paolo ‘Energy Crisis and Growth 1650–1850: The European Deviation in a Comparative Perspective’ Journal of Global History 2006 1, 1 101 121
-
Malm Andreas Hornborg Alf, Clark Brett & Hermele Kenneth ‘Steam: Nineteenth-Century Mechanization and the Power of Capital’ Ecology and Power: Struggles over Land and Material Resources in the Past, Present and Future 2012a Abingdon Routledge
-
Malm Andreas ‘China as Chimney of the World: The Fossil Capital Hypothesis’ Organization & Environment 2012b 25, 2 146 177
-
Malm Andreas ‘Fleeing the Flowing Commons: Robert Thom, Water Reservoir Schemes, and the Shift to Steam-Power in Early Nineteenth Century Britain’ Environmental History 2013 forthcoming.
-
Manchester Guardian ‘Great Hydraulic Improvements in Scotland’ 1827 3 February
-
Manchester Guardian ‘Serious Riot’ 1830 17 April
-
Manchester Guardian ‘Proposed Reservoir Near Bolton for Supplying the Mills on the Irwell’ 1831 30 June
-
Manchester Guardian ‘Emigration of Labourers – Poor Law Commissioners’ 1835 21 March
-
Mandel Ernest ‘Introduction’ Marx 1990 1990 [1976]
-
Marshall J.D. ‘Early Applications of Steam Power: The Cotton Mills of the Upper Leen’ Transactions of the Thoroton Society 1957 60 34 43
-
Marvel Howard P. ‘Factory Regulation: A Reinterpretation of Early English Experience’ Journal of Law and Economics 1977 20, 2 379 402
-
Marx Karl Fowkes Ben Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I 1990 [1867] Harmondsworth Penguin
-
Marx Karl Fernbach David Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III 1991a [1894] Harmondsworth Penguin
-
Marx Karl ‘Marx’s Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63’ Marx and Engels Collected Works 1991b 33 London Lawrence and Wishart
-
Marx Karl Fernbach David Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume II 1992 [1885] Harmondsworth Penguin
-
Marx Karl Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 1993 [1939/41] Harmondsworth Penguin
-
Mayumi Kozo ‘Temporary Emancipation from Land: From the Industrial Revolution to the Present Time’ Ecological Economics 1991 4, 1 35 56
-
McCulloch J.R. ‘Babbage on Machinery and Manufactures’ Edinburgh Review 1833 LVI January 313 132 [unsigned]
-
McCulloch J.R. ‘Philosophy of Manufactures’ Edinburgh Review 1835 LXI July 453 472 [unsigned]
-
McCulloch J.R. A Statistical Account of the British Empire: Exhibiting Its Extent, Physical Capacities, Population, Industry, Civil and Religious Institutions 1837 London Charles Knight
-
Mechanics’ Magazine ‘The Shaws’ Waterworks, Greenock’ 1832 11 August 306 313
-
Meiksins Wood Ellen Democracy against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism 1995 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Meiksins Wood Ellen The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View 2002 Second Edition London Verso
-
Mitchell Brian R. Economic Development of the British Coal Industry, 1800–1914 1984 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Mitchell Timothy Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity 2002 Berkeley University of California Press
-
Mitchell Timothy Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil 2011 London Verso
-
Musson Albert Edward ‘Industrial Motive Power in the United Kingdom, 1800–70’ The Economic History Review 1976 29, 3 415 439
-
Musson Albert Edward & Robinson E. ‘The Early Growth of Steam Power’ The Economic History Review 1959 11, 3 418 439
-
Nardinelli Clark ‘The Successful Prosecution of the Factory Acts: A Suggested Explanation’ The Economic History Review 1985 38, 3 428 430
-
Nef John U. The Rise of the British Coal Industry 1966 [1932] I–II Abingdon Frank Cass
-
Nuvolari Alessandro The Making of Steam Power Technology: A Study of Technical Change during the British Industrial Revolution 2004 Eindhoven Eindhoven University Press
-
Owens Jessica Quarry Bank Mill and Styal Estate 2011 National Trust, GCSE Resources, available at <http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/>
-
Parliamentary Papers 1833a Volume XX, Reports from Commissioners: Factories, First Report.
-
Parliamentary Papers 1833b Volume XXI, Factories Inquiry Commission, Second Report.
-
Parliamentary Papers 1834 Volume XX, Reports from Commissioners: Factories Inquiry, Part II.
-
Parliamentary Papers 1835 Volume XXXV, First Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners.
-
Parliamentary Papers 1840 Volume X, Reports from Committees: Factories
-
Parliamentary Papers 1845 Volume XXV, Factory Inspectors: ‘Report for the Quarter Ending 30th September, 1844; and from 1st October, 1844, to 30th April, 1845’
-
Parliamentary Papers 1849 Volume XXII, Factory Inspectors: ‘Report for the Half-Year Ending 31st October 1848’
-
Peacock A.E. ‘The Successful Prosecution of the Factory Acts, 1833–55’ The Economic History Review 1984 37, 2 197 210
-
Peacock A.E. ‘Factory Act Prosecutions: A Hidden Consensus?’ The Economic History Review 1985 38, 3 431 436
-
Pollard Sidney ‘The Factory Village in the Industrial Revolution’ The English Historical Review 1964 79, 312 513 531
-
Pollard Sidney The Genesis of Modern Management: A Study of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain 1968 [1965] Harmondsworth Penguin
-
Pollard Sidney ‘A New Estimate of British Coal Production, 1750–1850’ The Economic History Review 1980 33, 2 212 235
-
Pomeranz Kenneth The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy 2000 Princeton Princeton University Press
-
Postone Moishe Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory 1993 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Redford Arthur Labour Migration in England, 1800–1850 1976 [1926] Manchester Manchester University Press revised and edited by W.H. Chaloner
-
Reynolds Terry S. Stronger than a Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel 1983 Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press
-
Rodgers H.B. ‘The Lancashire Cotton Industry in 1840’ Transactions and Papers of the Institute of British Geographers 1960 28 135 153
-
Rose Mary B. The Gregs of Quarry Bank Mill: The Rise and Decline of a Family Firm, 1750–1914 1986 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Rosenberg Nathan Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History 1994 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Samuel Raphael ‘Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain’ History Workshop Journal 1977 3, 1 6 72
-
Satterthwaite David ‘The Implications of Population Growth and Urbanization for Climate Change’ Environment and Urbanization 2009 21, 2 545 567
-
Schaffer Simon ‘Babbage’s Intelligence: Calculating Engines and the Factory System’ Critical Inquiry 1994 21, 1 203 227
-
Senior papers National Library of Wales Aberystwyth Nassau William Senior
-
Shaw John Water Power in Scotland, 1550–1870 1984 Edinburgh John Donald
-
Sieferle Rolf Peter The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution 2001 [1982] Cambridge The White Horse Press
-
Smil Vaclav Energy in Nature and Society: General Energetics of Complex Systems 2008 Cambridge, MA. The MIT Press
-
Smith Neil Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space 2008 [1984] Athens, GA. Georgia University Press
-
Steffen Will, Crutzen Paul J. & McNeill John R. ‘The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?’ AMBIO 2007 36, 8 614 621
-
Storper Michael & Walker Richard The Capitalist Imperative: Territory, Technology, and Industrial Growth 1989 Oxford Basil Blackwell
-
Stuart Robert A Descriptive History of the Steam Engine 1824 London John Knight and Henry Lacey
-
Tann Jennifer The Development of the Factory 1970 London Cornmarket Press
-
Tann Jennifer ‘Richard Arkwright and Technology’ History 1973a 58, 192 29 44
-
Tann Jennifer Harte Negley B. & Ponting Kenneth George ‘The Employment of Power in the West of England Wool Textile Industry, 1790–1840’ Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour of Miss Julia de Lacy Mann 1973b Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Taylor A.J. ‘Concentration and Specialization in the Lancashire Cotton Industry, 1825–1850’ The Economic History Review 1949 1, 2/3 114 22
-
The Circulator of Useful Knowledge, Literature, Amusement, and General Information ‘Mr. M’Culloch’s Lectures on Political Economy, at the London Tavern’ 1825 9 April 228 232
-
The Civil Engineer and Architects’ Journal ‘Comparative Power of Steam Engines’ 1840 3 7 8
-
The Scottish Jurist ‘M’Leod v. Buchanan and Rose’ 1835 24 January.
-
Thom archive Bute Museum Rothesay Robert Thom
-
Thomas Brinley ‘Escaping from Constraints: The Industrial Revolution in a Malthusian Context’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1985 15, 4 729 753
-
Thompson Edward Palmer The Making of the English Working Class 1966 [1963] New York Vintage
-
Thompson Edward Palmer ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’ Past and Present 1967 38 56 97
-
Trainer Ted ‘A Critique of Jacobson and Delucchi’s Proposals for a World Renewable Energy Supply’ Energy Policy 2012 44 476 481
-
Turner Herbert Arthur Trade Union Growth, Structure and Policy 1962 London Allen and Unwin
-
Turner W.H.K. ‘The Significance of Water Power in Industrial Location: Some Perthshire Examples’ Scottish Geographical Magazine 1958 74, 2 98 115
-
Ure Andrew The Philosophy of Manufactures: Or, An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral and Commercial Economy of the Factory System 1835 London Charles Knight
-
Ure Andrew The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain 1836 London Charles Knight
-
von Tunzelmann G.N. Steam Power and British Industrialization to 1860 1978 Oxford Clarendon Press
-
Ward J.T. The Factory Movement, 1830–1855 1962 London Macmillan and Co.
-
Weart Spencer The Discovery of Global Warming 2003 Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press
-
Wilkinson Richard G. Poverty and Progress: An Ecological Model of Economic Development 1973 London Methuen
-
Williamson Jeffrey G. ‘Migrant Selectivity, Urbanization, and Industrial Revolutions’ Population and Development Review 1988 14, 2 287 314
-
Woolrich A.P. ‘John Farey, Jr. (1791–1851), Engineer and Polymath’ History of Technology 1997 19 112 142
-
Woolrich A.P. ‘John Farey, Jr., Technical Author and Draughtsman: His Contribution to Rees’s Cyclopedia’ Industrial Archaeology Review 1998 20, 1 49 67
-
Woolrich A.P. ‘John Farey and His Treatise on the Steam Engine of 1827’ History of Technology 2000 22 63 106
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony ‘The Supply of Raw Materials in the Industrial Revolution’ The Economic History Review 1962 15, 1 1 16
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony ‘The Process of Modernization and the Industrial Revolution in England’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1972 3, 2 225 259
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony ‘The Limits to Growth: Malthus and the Classical Economists’ Population and Development Review 1988 14 30 48 Supplement: Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England 1990 [1988] Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony ‘The Divergence of England: The Growth of the English Economy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2000 6, 10 117 141
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony Poverty, Progress, and Population 2004 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Wrigley Edward Anthony Energy and the English Industrial Revolution 2010 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
-
Zalasiewicz Jan, Williams Mark, Smith Alan, Barry Tiffany L., Coe Angela L., Bown Paul R., Brenchley Patrick, Cantrill David, Gale Andrew, Gibbard Philip, Gregory F. John, Hounslow Mark W., Kerr Andrew C., Pearson Paul, Knox Robert, Powell John, Waters Colin, Marshall John, Oates Michael, Rawson Peter & Stone Philip ‘Are We Now Living in the Anthropocene?’ 2008 GSA Today 18, 2 4 8
-
1.
Ure 1835, p. 18.
-
2.
Babbage 1835, p. 18.
-
3.
Rosenberg 1994, p. 24. See also Schaffer 1994.
-
4.
See Weart 2003; Arrhenius 1896.
-
5.
Babbage 1835, p. 54.
-
6.
Boden, Marland and Andres 2011; Church 1986, p. 773; Cameron 1985, p. 12.
-
7.
Dearne and Branigan 1995.
-
8.
Nef 1966; Flinn 1984; Hatcher 1993.
-
11.
Farey 1827, p. 13; emphasis in original.
-
12.
On steam engines in China, see Pomeranz 2000, pp. 61–2.
-
16.
For an excellent overview, see Barca 2011.
-
17.
Wrigley 1962.
-
18.
Wrigley 1962, p. 1. See further Wrigley 1972; Wrigley 1988; Wrigley 1990; Wrigley 2000; Wrigley 2004; Wrigley 2010.
-
20.
Ricardo quoted in Wrigley 2010, pp. 10–11. The quotation also appears in Wrigley 1988, p. 36; Wrigley 1990, pp. 49–50; Wrigley 2000, pp. 128–9; twice in Wrigley 2004, pp. 55, 72.
-
21.
Wrigley 2010, p. 174.
-
22.
Wrigley 2010, p. 99.
-
23.
Sieferle 2001, pp. 102–3; Malanima 2006, p. 104.
-
24.
For example, Wrigley 2010.
-
25.
Wilkinson 1973, pp. 4–5, 19–52. ‘Every animal population’: Wilkinson 1973, p. 20.
-
26.
Wilkinson 1973, p. 76.
-
27.
Wilkinson 1973, p. 101.
-
28.
Wilkinson 1973, p. 112.
-
29.
Wilkinson 1973, p. 115.
-
30.
Wilkinson 1973, pp. 126, 134.
-
32.
Thomas 1985, p. 729; emphasis added.
-
33.
Wrigley 1962, p. 12.
-
34.
Wrigley 2010, p. 100.
-
35.
Wilkinson 1973, p. 120; emphases added.
-
36.
Pomeranz 2000, p. 61.
-
37.
See, for example, Tann 1970.
-
39.
Wrigley 2000, p. 139; Wrigley 2010, pp. 193, 191.
-
40.
Wilkinson 1973, pp. 90, 102.
-
41.
Pomeranz 2000, p. 207; emphasis in original.
-
43.
Wrigley 2010, p. 209.
-
44.
Sieferle 2001, p. 121.
-
45.
Marshall 1957; Chapman 1971, pp. 5–6. On Arkwright and steam, see Fitton 1989; Tann 1973a.
-
48.
Letter quoted in Tann 1973b, p. 220. This particular manufacturer was in the woollen industry, but his objections summarised those ‘of many small clothiers to steam power at the turn of the century’ (ibid.). Compare Musson and Robinson 1959, pp. 423–4; Hills 1970, p. 145.
-
49.
Quoted in Briggs 1982, p. 57.
-
51.
Allen 2009, p. 172.
-
52.
Gordon 1983, p. 243.
-
53.
Gordon 1983, p. 256.
-
54.
Shaw 1984, p. 544.
-
56.
Chapman 1971, p. 12.
-
58.
Kanefsky 1979, p. 141.
-
59.
Kanefsky 1979, p. 142.
-
61.
Chapman 1971, p. 13.
-
62.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, p. D2.132; emphasis added (John Cheetham).
-
63.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, p. D1.16.
-
64.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, p. D2.99.
-
65.
Ure 1835, p. xlvii.
-
66.
Rose 1986, p. 42. On the size of the firm, see for example Ure 1835, p. 347.
-
68.
Chapman 1971, p. 18.
-
69.
von Tunzelmann 1978, p. 130.
-
70.
von Tunzelmann 1978, p. 136.
-
71.
Kanefsky 1979, p. 175.
-
72.
Kanefsky 1979, p. 176; emphasis added.
-
74.
Farey 1827, pp. v–vi.
-
75.
Farey 1827, p. 7; emphasis added.
-
76.
McCulloch 1833, p. 323; emphasis added. Compare The Circulator of Useful Knowledge, Literature, Amusement, and General Information 1825; McCulloch 1835, p. 457.
-
77.
Kennedy 1818, pp. 10, 15–16.
-
78.
Jevons 1866, pp. 150–1.
-
79.
Fairbairn 1864, p. 67.
-
86.
Boyson 1970, pp. 141–55.
-
87.
Parliamentary Papers 1835, pp. 344–50.
-
88.
Parliamentary Papers 1835, pp. 346–7.
-
89.
Rose 1986, pp. 39, 43, 55; Owens 2011, p. 74.
-
90.
See Boyson 1970.
-
92.
Quoted in Fitton 1989, p. 151. See further Lee 1972.
-
93.
Parliamentary Papers 1834, p. D1.206 (James Fernley). On the self-acting mule, see Catling 1970; on the power-loom, see Bythell 1969.
-
101.
Adapted and developed from Smil 2008, p. 204; Sieferle 2001, pp. 124–5; Debeir, Deléage and Hémery 1991, p. 102.
-
102.
Cooke Taylor 1843, p. 156.
-
103.
Parliamentary Papers 1834, p. D1.301.
-
104.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, pp. C2.65–6.
-
105.
Shaw 1984, p. 481.
-
106.
von Tunzelmann 1978, pp. 154, 170.
-
107.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, p. 10.
-
108.
Parliamentary Papers 1834, p. C1.19 (J. Whitaker); emphases added.
-
109.
Parliamentary Papers 1833a, p. C2.66.
-
111.
See, for example, Horner 1834. For the history of factory legislation and the factory movement, see for example Gray 1996; Ward 1962.
-
112.
Parliamentary Papers 1840, pt. 1, pp. 5, 9.
-
113.
Marvel 1977. On the prosecution of the Act, see also Peacock 1984; Bartrip 1985; Nardinelli 1985; Peacock 1985.
-
116.
Parliamentary Papers 1833b, p. D2.49 (Charles Hindley).
-
117.
Compare von Tunzelmann 1978, p. 225; Allen 2009, pp. 173, 177.
-
119.
Babbage 1835, p. 49; emphasis added.
-
120.
Alderson 1834, p. 44; emphasis added.
-
121.
Fairbairn 1861, p. 9; Stuart 1824, p. 192; emphases added.
-
122.
Farey 1827, p. 13.
-
123.
Arago 1839, p. 147. On this as the first biography of Watt, see Hills 2006, pp. 175–7.
-
124.
Kanefsky 1979, pp. 254–5, 281–90, 301; Journal of the Statistical Society of London 1838; Gatrell 1977, p. 101.
-
125.
Allen 2009, pp. 172–3, 177–9; Lloyd-Jones and Lewis 1998, p. 70; Fairbairn 1864, p. 67. There were, of course, a whole spectrum of branches that had yet to be mechanised. See, for example, Samuel 1977; Greenberg 1982.
-
126.
Mitchell 1984, p. 1.
-
127.
Mitchell 1984, p. 12.
-
128.
Church 1986, p. 27.
-
129.
Pollard 1980; Mitchell 1984, pp. 7, 23–31; Church 1986, pp. 28–9; Flinn 1984, p. 26; Church 1986, p. 3.
-
130.
Farey 1827, p. 225; emphasis added.
-
131.
McCulloch 1837, p. 2.
-
132.
Jevons 1866, p. viii.
-
133.
Wrigley 1990, p. 75. Compare Wrigley 1972, p. 249.
-
134.
Marx 1990, pp. 562–3.
-
136.
Marx 1992, p. 120. Compare Marx 1992, pp. 114–15.
-
138.
Marx 1993, p. 646.
-
141.
Marx 1990, p. 288.
-
142.
Marx 1992, pp. 177, 111.
-
143.
Marx 1993, p. 90; emphasis added.
-
144.
Marx 1992, p. 208.
-
145.
Engels 2009, p. 34.
-
146.
Storper and Walker 1989, pp. 140–5; Smith 2008, p. 116; Harvey 1999, pp. 381–4.
-
147.
Compare Lefebvre 1991, p. 319; Harvey 1999, pp. 398–405; Smith 2008, pp. 166, 182.
-
148.
Lefebvre 1991, p. 49.
-
149.
Lefebvre 1991, p. 101.
-
150.
Compare the argument made in Mitchell 2011, especially Chapter 1.
-
151.
Postone 1993, pp. 201–2.
-
152.
Thompson 1967, p. 78. Compare Ingold 1995.
-
153.
Postone 1993, pp. 210–12; Thompson 1967, pp. 61, 90–1.
-
154.
Postone 1993, pp. 202, 214–15.
-
155.
Marx 1990, p. 534; emphasis added.
-
156.
Marx 1991b, p. 335.
-
157.
Castree 2009, p. 27; emphasis in original.
-
159.
Marx 1991a, pp. 779–81; emphasis added.
-
160.
Marx 1991a, p. 784; emphases added.
-
161.
Marx 1991a, pp. 784–5.
-
162.
Arago 1839, p. 150.
-
164.
Malm 2012b.
-
169.
On Desertec, see for example Clery 2010.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3202 | 1474 | 68 |
| Full Text Views | 3371 | 1230 | 37 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 4153 | 2614 | 81 |
The Origins of Fossil Capital: From Water to Steam in the British Cotton Industry*
In: Historical MaterialismAbstract
The process commonly referred to as business-as-usual has given rise to dangerous climate change, but its social history remains strangely unexplored. A key moment in its onset was the transition to steam power as a source of rotary motion in commodity production, in Britain and, first of all, in its cotton industry. This article tries to approach the dynamics of the fossil economy by examining the causes of the transition from water to steam in the British cotton industry in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Common perceptions of the shift as driven by scarcity are refuted, and it is shown that the choice of steam was motivated by a rather different concern: power over labour. Turning away from standard interpretations of the role of energy in the industrial revolution, this article opens a dialogue with Marx on matters of carbon and outlines a theory of fossil capital, better suited for understanding the drivers of business-as-usual as it continues to this day.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3202 | 1474 | 68 |
| Full Text Views | 3371 | 1230 | 37 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 4153 | 2614 | 81 |