Hastings – Philosophy of Manufactures

The Industrial Revolution in Europe made way for many differing views on the use of factories and how factory workers were treated. Andrew Ure published his take on factories in Great Britain in his work The Philosophy of Manufactures. He takes a brutal capitalist perspective to explain his ideas on the modern machine and its role as a catalyst for economic and social improvements. The purpose of this document was written on the behalf of all business owners, specifically the manufactory owners because they would mainly align with his views. 

Ure wove a storyline for the new class of manufactures by focusing on his ideas that the factories positively benefit society and the mechanical advances made life easier for both laborers and working-class throughout Britain. He begins the storyline by introducing how other intellectuals from this time had differing opinions than him. Others believed that machines were causing harm to the workers. Though, Ure did not see this as true since he believed that machines were helping all of the workers because they did not have to do anything laborious mentally or physically. He further explained that the labor was more time-consuming and expensive when workers did everything by hand. The way of the modern factory systems products was made faster and cheaper. 

The science of the factory system is to be able to produce more products for less money. Ure develops the storyline to describe that the future of factories was to not need laborers at all and just have the machines do the job. For the time, manufacturers would have workers work for wages that they can barely live off of to diminish the cost of things to make the profit higher. Ure states that this can be done by having women and children for workers because they are unskilled compared to men, thus they will not have to be paid as much. 

Finally, he concludes his narrative by saying that there are three important aspects when it comes to the use of machinery. The first important aspect was that machines make it possible to make things that could not be made before. The second aspect mentioned how machines allow the manufactures to make more outputs than they could before while still using the same amount of labor, time, and quality of work. The last aspect concluded that the factory owners can hire unskilled workers, making it cheaper for the owners of the factories. Ure was passionate about his ideologies of the factory system and looked past the working conditions of the workers. He takes a different viewpoint to show that even though workers were being overworked and underpaid, the economic benefits outweigh all of the human issues at hand. All of this is to show how manufacturers need to keep the economic standpoint in mind because life is simpler for the workers. The industrial movement is more important to society than the care for the workers. 

Andrew Ure wrote the Philosophy of Manufactures to encourage business owners at the time to continue the exploitation of laborers to create more production and profit. He encouraged the manufacturers to keep improving factories and disregard the working-class complaints about the working conditions and wages. The storyline that Ure creates is all to show that the factory system was beneficial to the workers since the use of machines will make their jobs easier. He used this document to warn factory owners about the dangers of the ideas of the working class and to keep moving forward with their factories. Any opposition to the factory system is because they are scared of the improvements being made and from ignorance about the system.

 

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