Factory system in the context of "Cotton mill"

The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succeeding the Second Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Great Britain around 1760, the Industrial Revolution had spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and rise of the mechanised factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.

Many technological and architectural innovations were British. By the mid-18th century, Britain was the leading commercial nation, controlled a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and had military and political hegemony on the Indian subcontinent. The development of trade and rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution. Developments in law facilitated the revolution, such as courts ruling in favour of property rights. An entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution helped drive industrialisation.

The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialisation of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764–1765 by James Hargreaves in Stan Hill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England.

The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce cloth, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology advanced. The yarn produced by the jenny was not very strong until Richard Arkwright invented the water-powered water frame. The spinning jenny helped to start the factory system of cotton manufacturing.

Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001. It is administered by the Derwent Valley Mills Partnership. The modern factory, or 'mill', system was born here in the 18th century to accommodate the new technology for spinning cotton developed by Richard Arkwright. With advancements in technology, it became possible to produce cotton continuously. The system was adopted throughout the valley, and later spread so that by 1788 there were over 200 Arkwright-type mills in Britain. Arkwright's inventions and system of organising labour was exported to Europe and the United States.

Water-power was first introduced to England by John Lombe at his silk mill in Derby in 1719, but it was Richard Arkwright who applied water-power to the process of producing cotton in the 1770s. His patent of a water frame allowed cotton to be spun continuously, meaning it could be produced by unskilled workers. Cromford Mill was the site of Arkwright's first mill, with nearby Cromford village significantly expanded for his then-new workforce; this system of production and workers' housing was copied throughout the valley. To ensure the presence of a labour force, it was necessary to construct housing for the mill workers. Thus, new settlements were established by mill owners around the mills – sometimes developing a pre-existing community – with their own amenities such as schools, chapels, and markets. Most of the housing still exists and is still in use. Transport infrastructure was built to open new markets for the mills' produce.

The value-form or form of value (German: Wertform) is an important concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, discussed in the first chapter of Capital, Volume 1. It refers to the social form of tradeable things as units of value, which contrast with their tangible features, as objects which can satisfy human needs and wants or serve a useful purpose. The physical appearance or the price tag of a traded object may be directly observable, but the meaning of its social form (as an object of value) is not. Marx intended to correct errors made by the classical economists in their definitions of exchange, value, money and capital, by showing more precisely how these economic categories evolved out of the development of trading relations themselves.

Playfully narrating the "metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties" of ordinary things when they become instruments of trade, Marx provides a brief social morphology of economic value — what its substance really is, the forms which this substance takes, and how its magnitude is determined or expressed. He analyzes the evolution of the form of value in the first instance by considering the meaning of the simple value-relationship that exists between two quantities of traded objects. He then shows how, as the exchange process develops, it gives rise to the money-form of value – which facilitates trade, by providing standard units of exchange value. Lastly, he shows how the trade of commodities for money gives rise to investment capital. Tradeable wares, money and capital are historical preconditions for the emergence of the factory system (discussed in subsequent chapters of Capital, Volume I). With the aid of wage labour, money can be converted into production capital, which creates new value that pays wages and generates profits, when the output of production is sold in markets.