"Habitation versus Improvement" [
43 ]
impact of the machine on a commercial society is realized. We do not
intend to assert that the machine caused that which happened, but we
insist that once elaborate machines and plant were used for produc-
tion in a commercial society, the idea of a self-regulating market sys-
tem was bound to take shape.
The use of specialized machines in an agrarian and commercial so-
ciety must produce typical effects. Such a society consists of agricul-
turalists and of merchants who buy and sell the produce of the land.
Production with the help of specialized, elaborate, expensive tools and
plants can be fitted into such a society only by making it incidental to
buying and selling. The merchant is the only person available for the
undertaking of this, and he is fitted to do so as long as this activity will
not involve him in a loss. He will sell the goods in the same manner in
which he would otherwise sell goods to those who demand them; but
he will procure them in a different way, namely, not by buying them
ready-made, but by purchasing the necessary labor and raw material.
The two put together according to the merchant's instructions, plus
some waiting which he might have to undertake, amount to the new
product. This is not a description of domestic industry or "putting
out" only, but of any kind of industrial capitalism, including that of
our own time. Important consequences for the social system follow.
Since elaborate machines are expensive, they do not pay unless
large amounts of goods are produced.* They can be worked without a
loss only if the vent of the goods is reasonably assured and if produc-
tion need not be interrupted for want of the primary goods necessary
to feed the machines. For the merchant this means that all factors in-
volved must be on sale, that is, they must be available in the needed
quantities to anybody who is prepared to pay for them. Unless this
condition is fulfilled, production with the help of specialized ma-
chines is too risky to be undertaken both from the point of view of the
merchant who stakes his money and of the community as a whole
which comes to depend upon continuous production for incomes,
employment, and provisions.
Now, in an agricultural society such conditions would not natu-
rally be given; they would have to be created. That they would be cre-
ated gradually in no way affects the startling nature of the changes in-
volved. The transformation implies a change in the motive of action
* Clapham, J. H.,
Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. III.