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.
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Boyson 1970, pp. 141–55.
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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.
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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 | |
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| Abstract Views | 3289 | 1514 | 47 |
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