View all 6 comments. Jun 13, Ronyell rated it really liked it Shelves: Animal Farm… In comic form! What is the story? Ever since the Fables were forced out of their homeland by an evil being called the Adversary, the Fables who were non-humans were forced to live on the Farm so that way they would not be under the suspicious eyes of the mundane world.
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Unfortunately, a revolution seems to take place on the farm as the non-human fables decided to take back their land from the Adversary and then try to rule both Fabletown in New York and the Farm itself and it is up to Snow White to stop this crazy revolution before it is too late! What I loved about this comic: It was also interesting seeing how Goldilocks and the Three Little Pigs were leading the revolution, which put an insane spin on our favorite fairy tale characters.
What made me feel uncomfortable about this book: Now, I did have a couple of issues with this volume that mainly revolves around the plot of this volume. Now, I understand that this story is about the animals and the non-human characters having a revolution on the Farm because they felt they were being treated unfairly compared to the fables who live in the city, but I felt that this story just came out of nowhere since it was never mentioned in the first volume about there being problems on the Farm.
Also, the ending felt like it lost some steam after the first half of the volume was pretty exciting with the revolution going on and then suddenly, the story starts to slow down towards the end. Anyone who is not a fan of violence in graphic novels might want to skim over the violent scenes in this volume.
Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog Jul 22, Jonathan Terrington rated it really liked it Shelves: Fables has to be one of the most inventive ideas to have been created in terms of comics and graphic novels in recent years. Thanks to the recommendations of university friends reading the series on my trip to the States I picked up the second book who begins at the beginning these days? So of course I have to go through and read the rest now that I enjoyed this first foray into the graphic novels. The real problem for me, coming in when plenty has already b Fables has to be one of the most inventive ideas to have been created in terms of comics and graphic novels in recent years.
The real problem for me, coming in when plenty has already been written, is trying to catch up when there's so much else to read The premise of the Fables series is simple and from what I understand each novel is something of a stand alone, based on the overall premise and with some connection to previous stories. This overall premise is that in our modern day world Fables exist.
These are characters from books, legends and stories that have gained some kind of cultural mythology from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to the story of Snow White. These Fables have been driven from their story worlds and now live in a special area in real life called Fabletown. This particular volume takes its cues from the story by Orwell: Snow White has to head up to the Farm where the less human looking Fables are kept, basically the talking animals, some giants and a dragon. Things go in an Orwell type of direction and everything ends up interestingly.
Interestingly enough for me to want to read more of the graphic novels There are adult ideas behind these books. But then fairytales have always featured a hidden sense of adult themes and morals. What the writers and artists in this series do is to expose those adult ideas and write them into the contemporary side of their story. As a result the story becomes a mix of fantasy fairytale set in the real world and grappling with real adult issues. I fully recommend this book at least and I intend to become a fan and to read into the future.
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The idea of fairytales intersecting with real life is something that's interested me for a while now and seeing a graphic novel deal with that is doubly intriguing. Feb 20, James DeSantis rated it liked it. Fable town isn't all that it seems. This time we head to the Farm where the unhuman type Fables reside.
Oh shit, who's ready for some Animal Farm type shit? This volume really focuses on Snow white and Red Rose. They go to the farm to check up on all the other fables. However, things aren't what they seem. Soon after we are shown a lot of the animals are building a army to go back and fight the adversary. However, anyone who gets in their way, will pay the consequences. Who will make it out of t Fable town isn't all that it seems.
Who will make it out of this one? I really enjoyed the snow white and red rose stuff. It was really well done and kind of get enough past to understand why they are where they are. Also how great was Snow White wrecking shit? So nice to see strong women in here. Bigby whole section felt kind of odd and out of place.
I get it had to happen to build towards the end, but took away from the tension of the rest. Also the betrayal is telegram like a mofo. Overall this is another solid volume. I think I like it more than even 1. It still lacks the character connection to me but I'm getting more into it.
I'm hoping next volume we really get into the meat of it. Mar 03, Stephen rated it it was ok Shelves: I feel pretty much the same way about this installment as I did about Volume 1 of this series. I really like the concept characters from fables "outside of their stories" and in modern times but the story itself is just not very interesting and the execution not very compelling.
For example, I liked the concept of the character of Goldilocks as a radical revolutionary and married to the grown up Baby Bear but after her introduction her character never became compelling. Anyway, I already own Volume 3 of the series and so will read that at some point. However, if that one doesn't grab my interest more, I will likely not buy any more of the series. Jul 26, Cheese rated it really liked it. This was much better than the first one. I suppose the first one was a bit slow because they had to introduce the story world and many different characters.
This volume set the action going. Snow White takes her sister rose red into fable town, the country outskirts where all the "non-human fables" live, i. The three little pigs, the three bears etc. However, when they get there they discover a revolution being conducted. This means Snow White is stu This was much better than the first one.
Allan Sekula: Polonia and Other Fables
This means Snow White is stuck in the middle of it and things start to get hairy. Here we are introduced to many different characters and I must say it was a treat to read, because it reminded me of all the characters I read about as a child. This has sparked my interest to read further volumes. Feb 25, Sam Quixote rated it liked it. Snow White, the Deputy Mayor of Fabletown, and her wayward sister Rose Red venture out of the city and into the country to visit the Farm. This limiting of their freedom for hundr Snow White, the Deputy Mayor of Fabletown, and her wayward sister Rose Red venture out of the city and into the country to visit the Farm.
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- Fables, Volume 2: Animal Farm!
This limiting of their freedom for hundreds of years has led to widespread discontent among as the Farm Fables as Snow and Rose are about to find out — the animals are revolting! Like the first volume which was a murder mystery, the second volume of Fables is a self-contained five-issue story arc, though less generic and unfortunately less interesting.
Fables remains a straightforward series. Except the second book still feels like setup. They run, they fight, they run some more, yeah ok. And the ending itself felt anticlimactic and drawn-out. Here, the more engaging characters like Bigby, Bluebeard and Jack were supporting players at best while Snow ran around a forest. Jul 23, RJ rated it did not like it Shelves: Since all of my friends seemed to love this, I think it's possible I'm having trouble doing the whole separating the artist from the art thing after hearing an interview with Bill Willingham that left me with a bad impression.
But it could also be that his themes were just more novel and exciting when this came out, and now that "fairytales in the real world" is so worn, the flaws are too clear. I really didn't like this! The clunky dialogue that made the first volume a just-ok read is mixed in v Since all of my friends seemed to love this, I think it's possible I'm having trouble doing the whole separating the artist from the art thing after hearing an interview with Bill Willingham that left me with a bad impression. The clunky dialogue that made the first volume a just-ok read is mixed in volume two with poor character development, bad pacing and a totally inconsistent sense of ethics.
Goldilocks as a militant revolutionary was so promising! The allusion to Lord of the Flies seemed contrived- perhaps on purpose, to make the characters seem shallow, but it read to me more like Willingham just wanted that image in his book. But the very last panel tried to pull an emotional moment that was so undeserved that I'm comfortable dismissing this as a case of bad writing and tuning out. Nov 30, Misty rated it it was ok Shelves: I had to push myself through this, to be honest. I said in the last one that my tolerance for unlikable, horrible characters is at an all-time low, and that's basically all this volume was.
I get the allusions to Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies, and all that, and I even get why this was an aspect of the Fables that needed to be explored, but I just felt very anxious reading it, and wanted to be done. A I had to push myself through this, to be honest. Also, I hate Rose Red. I don't care how it turns out in the end, she's the worst. Aside from maybe Goldilocks. View all 7 comments. Oct 25, Patrick rated it really liked it Shelves: This next volume to Fables was interesting to say the least.
I liked the new characters. I was cracking up when I saw Rabbit holding an AK The image of rabbits and chickens holding guns bigger than they are for the revolution was pretty entertaining. Apr 26, Sud rated it really liked it Shelves: Animal Farm is the second volume of the acclaimed Fables series. In a play on words the second Fable community of the Farm descends into the idiocy of communist revolution in order to cause the invasion of their original home.
Farm to Fable: Do you know what you're eating? - Chicago Tribune
Not all the residents of the Farm are involved, but with communist-revolutionary idiot Goldilocks leading the group that consists of the Three Pigs and other notable famous animals they take over the farm. But Snow White is not without her skills and recruits allie Fables: But Snow White is not without her skills and recruits allies who help to rout the communist idiots. The tale itself seems simple, but Willingham's ability to use fable's characters is what makes this a unique vision.
Their interesting quirks take on a new meaning in light of communist idiocy. Fables combines good storytelling and combines it with good art and compelling characters. The interplay of common fables into a modern telling is what really makes this a fascinating read. It is also interesting that certain Fables are nearly immortal due to their popularity such as Snow White. If you liked reading fables as a child or just enjoy a good story this one is for you. Apr 03, Cathy rated it liked it Shelves: This was a very weak 3 star rating for me. I liked the first book a compilation of the first four comics a lot.
I thought that the fables that were introduced showed a lot of depth to their characters and an appealing edginess. The story was engaging, and even if the mystery wasn't much in the end, it did keep me curious throughout. And it is clear as noon-day, that machines and systems of machinery, the characteristic instruments of labour of Modern Industry, are incomparably more loaded with value than the implements used in handicrafts and manufactures. In the first place, it must be observed that the machinery, while always entering as a whole into the labour-process, enters into the value-begetting process only by bits.
It never adds more value than it loses, on an average, by wear and tear. Hence there is a great difference between the value of a machine, and the value transferred in a given time by that machine to the product. The longer the life of the machine in the labour-process, the greater is that difference. It is true, no doubt, as we have already seen, that every instrument of labour enters as a whole into the labour-process, and only piece-meal, proportionally to its average daily loss by wear and tear, into the value-begetting process.
But this difference between the instrument as a whole and its daily wear and tear, is much greater in a machine than in a tool, because the machine, being made from more durable material, has a longer life; because its employment, being regulated by strictly scientific laws, allows of greater economy in the wear and tear of its parts, and in the materials it consumes; and lastly, because its field of production is incomparably larger than that of a tool.
After making allowance, both in the case of the machine and of the tool, for their average daily cost, that is for the value they transmit to the product by their average daily wear and tear, and for their consumption of auxiliary substance, such as oil, coal, and so on, they each do their work gratuitously, just like the forces furnished by Nature without the help of man. The greater the productive power of the machinery compared with that of the tool, the greater is the extent of its gratuitous service compared with that of the tool.
In modern industry man succeeded for the first time in making the product of his past labour work on a large scale gratuitously, like the forces of Nature. In treating of Co-operation and Manufacture, it was shown that certain general factors of production, such as buildings, are, in comparison with the scattered means of production of the isolated workman, economised by being consumed in common, and that they therefore make the product cheaper. In a system of machinery, not only is the framework of the machine consumed in common by its numerous operating implements, but the prime mover, together with a part of the transmitting mechanism, is consumed in common by the numerous operative machines.
Given the difference between the value of the machinery, and the value transferred by it in a day to the product, the extent to which this latter value makes the product dearer, depends in the first instance, upon the size of the product; so to say, upon its area. Baynes, of Blackburn, in a lecture published in , estimates that. The same is the case with the steam-hammer mentioned above.
Given the rate at which machinery transfers its value to the product, the amount of value so transferred depends on the total value of the machinery. The less value it gives up, so much the more productive it is, and so much the more its services approximate to those of natural forces. But the production of machinery by machinery lessens its value relatively to its extension and efficacy. An analysis and comparison of the prices of commodities produced by handicrafts or manufactures, and of the prices of the same commodities produced by machinery, shows generally, that, in the product of machinery, the value due to the instruments of labour increases relatively, but decreases absolutely.
In other words, its absolute amount decreases, but its amount, relatively to the total value of the product, of a pound of yarn, for instance, increases. It is evident that whenever it costs as much labour to produce a machine as is saved by the employment of that machine, there is nothing but a transposition of labour; consequently the total labour required to produce a commodity is not lessened or the productiveness of labour is not increased.
It is clear, however, that the difference between the labour a machine costs, and the labour it saves, in other words, that the degree of its productiveness does not depend on the difference between its own value and the value of the implement it replaces. As long as the labour spent on a machine, and consequently the portion of its value added to the product, remains smaller than the value added by the workman to the product with his tool, there is always a difference of labour saved in favour of the machine. The productiveness of a machine is therefore measured by the human labour-power it replaces.
Hence, leaving waste on one side, lbs. By means of his invention one negress was enabled to clean lbs. A pound of cotton wool, previously costing 50 cents to produce, included after that invention more unpaid labour, and was consequently sold with greater profit, at 10 cents. In India they employ for separating the wool from the seed, an instrument, half machine, half tool, called a churka; with this one man and a woman can clean 28 lbs.
With the churka invented some years ago by Dr. Forbes, one man and a boy produce lbs. If oxen, steam, or water, be used for driving it, only a few boys and girls as feeders are required. Sixteen of these machines driven by oxen do as much work in a day as formerly people did on an average. As already stated, a steam-plough does as much work in one hour at a cost of three-pence, as 66 men at a cost of 15 shillings. I return to this example in order to clear up an erroneous notion.
The 15 shillings are by no means the expression in money of all the labour expended in one hour by the 66 men. Therefore, though a machine cost as much as the labour-power displaced by it costs, yet the labour materialised in it is even then much less than the living labour it replaces. The use of machinery for the exclusive purpose of cheapening the product, is limited in this way, that less labour must be expended in producing the machinery than is displaced by the employment of that machinery, For the capitalist, however, this use is still more limited.
Instead of paying for the labour, he only pays the value of the labour-power employed; therefore, the limit to his using a machine is fixed by the difference between the value of the machine and the value of the labour-power replaced by it. Hence the invention now-a-days of machines in England that are employed only in North America; just as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, machines were invented in Germany to be used only in Holland, and just as many a French invention of the eighteenth century was exploited in England alone.
In the older countries, machinery, when employed in some branches of industry, creates such a redundancy of labour in other branches that in these latter the fall of wages below the value of labour-power impedes the use of machinery, and, from the standpoint of the capitalist, whose profit comes, not from a diminution of the labour employed, but of the labour paid for, renders that use superfluous and often impossible.
In some branches of the woollen manufacture in England the employment of children has during recent years been considerably diminished, and in some cases has been entirely abolished. Because the Factory Acts made two sets of children necessary, one working six hours, the other four, or each working five hours. The Yankees have invented a stone-breaking machine. Hence nowhere do we find a more shameful squandering of human labour-power for the most despicable purposes than in England, the land of machinery. The starting-point of modern industry is, as we have shown, the revolution in the instruments of labour, and this revolution attains its most highly developed form in the organised system of machinery in a factory.
Before we inquire how human material is incorporated with this objective organism, let us consider some general effects of this revolution on the labourer himself. In so far as machinery dispenses with muscular power, it becomes a means of employing labourers of slight muscular strength, and those whose bodily development is incomplete, but whose limbs are all the more supple. The labour of women and children was, therefore, the first thing sought for by capitalists who used machinery.
The value of labour-power was determined, not only by the labour-time necessary to maintain the individual adult labourer, but also by that necessary to maintain his family. It thus depreciates his labour-power. In order that the family may live, four people must now, not only labour, but expend surplus-labour for the capitalist.
Machinery also revolutionises out and out the contract between the labourer and the capitalist, which formally fixes their mutual relations. Taking the exchange of commodities as our basis, our first assumption was that capitalist and labourer met as free persons, as independent owners of commodities; the one possessing money and means of production, the other labour-power. But now the capitalist buys children and young persons under age. Previously, the workman sold his own labour-power, which he disposed of nominally as a free agent.
Now he sells wife and child. He has become a slave-dealer. Wanted, 12 to 20 young persons, not younger than what can pass for 13 years. Wages, 4 shillings a week. A surgeon officially appointed must certify their age. The manufacturer, therefore, asks for children who look as if they were already 13 years old. In the notorious district of Bethnal Green, a public market is held every Monday and Tuesday morning, where children of both sexes from 9 years of age upwards, hire themselves out to the silk manufacturers.
The scene and language while this market is going on are quite disgraceful. Whenever the law limits the labour of children to 6 hours in industries not before interfered with, the complaints of the manufacturers are always renewed. We have already alluded to the physical deterioration as well of the children and young-persons as of the women, whom machinery, first directly in the factories that shoot up on its basis, and then indirectly in all the remaining branches of industry, subjects to the exploitation of capital. In this place, therefore, we dwell only on one point, the enormous mortality, during the first few years of their life, of the children of the operatives.
In sixteen of the registration districts into which England is divided, there are, for every , children alive under the age of one year, only 9, deaths in a year on an average in one district only 7, ; in 24 districts the deaths are over 10,, but under 11,; in 39 districts, over 11,, but under 12,; in 48 districts over 12,, but under 13,; in 22 districts over 20,; in 25 districts over 21,; in 17 over 22,; in 11 over 23,; in Hoo, Wolverhampton, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Preston, over 24,; in Nottingham, Stockport, and Bradford, over 25,; in Wisbeach, 16,; and in Manchester, 26, Julian Hunter was therefore commissioned to investigate this phenomenon on the spot.
But the inquiry showed the very opposite, namely, that the same cause which drove away malaria, the conversion of the land, from a morass in winter and a scanty pasture in summer, into fruitful corn land, created the exceptional death-rate of the infants.
In fact, the revolution in the mode of cultivation had led to the introduction of the industrial system. Every phenomenon of the factory districts is here reproduced, including, but to a greater extent, ill-disguised infanticide, and dosing children with opiates. The moral degradation caused by the capitalistic exploitation of women and children has been so exhaustively depicted by F.
The spirit of capitalist production stands out clearly in the ludicrous wording of the so-called education clauses in the Factory Acts, in the absence of an administrative machinery, an absence that again makes the compulsion illusory, in the opposition of the manufacturers themselves to these education clauses, and in the tricks and dodges they put in practice for evading them. It provides nothing more than that the children shall on certain days of the week, and for a certain number of hours three in each day, be inclosed within the four walls of a place called a school, and that the employer of the child shall receive weekly a certificate to that effect signed by a person designated by the subscriber as a schoolmaster or schoolmistress.
Previous to the passing of the amended Factory Act, , it happened, not unfrequently, that the certificates of attendance at school were signed by the schoolmaster or schoolmistress with a cross, as they themselves were unable to write. The inspectors, when the Bill of was in preparation, did not fail to represent the disgraceful state of the places called schools, certificates from which they were obliged to admit as a compliance with the laws, but they were successful only in obtaining thus much, that since the passing of the Act of ,.
Upon asking her to spell her name, she straightway made a mistake, by beginning with the letter C, but correcting herself immediately, she said her name began with a K. On looking at her signature, however, in the school certificate books, I noticed that she spelt it in various ways, while her handwriting left no doubt as to her unfitness to teach. She herself also acknowledged that she could not keep the register To this is to be added scanty school furniture, deficiency of books, and other materials for teaching, and the depressing effect upon the poor children themselves of a close, noisome atmosphere.
I have been in many such schools, where I have seen rows of children doing absolutely nothing; and this is certified as school attendance, and, in statistical returns, such children are set down as being educated. In Scotland the manufacturers try all they can to do without the children that are obliged to attend school. Horribly grotesque does this appear in print works, which are regulated by a special Act.
The attendance at school must be between 8 a. Under ordinary circumstances the children attend school morning and afternoon for 30 days, for at least 5 hours each day, and upon the expiration of the 30 days, the statutory total of hours having been attained, having, in their language, made up their book, they return to the print work, where they continue until the six months have expired, when another instalment of school attendance becomes due, and they again seek the school until the book is again made up The requisite number of hours is made up each six months, by instalments consisting of from 3 to 5 hours at a time, spreading over, perhaps, the whole six months For instance, the attendance on one day might be from 8 to 11 a.
By the excessive addition of women and children to the ranks of the workers, machinery at last breaks down the resistance which the male operatives in the manufacturing period continued to oppose to the despotism of capital. If machinery be the most powerful means for increasing the productiveness of labour — i. In the first place, in the form of machinery, the implements of labour become automatic, things moving and working independent of the workman. They are thenceforth an industrial perpetuum mobile , that would go on producing forever, did it not meet with certain natural obstructions in the weak bodies and the strong wills of its human attendants.
The automaton, as capital, and because it is capital, is endowed, in the person of the capitalist, with intelligence and will; it is therefore animated by the longing to reduce to a minimum the resistance offered by that repellent yet elastic natural barrier, man. The productiveness of machinery is, as we saw, inversely proportional to the value transferred by it to the product. The longer the life of the machine, the greater is the mass of the products over which the value transmitted by the machine is spread, and the less is the portion of that value added to each single commodity.
The active lifetime of a machine is, however, clearly dependent on the length of the working-day, or on the duration of the daily labour-process multiplied by the number of days for which the process is carried on. The wear and tear of a machine is not exactly proportional to its working-time. The material wear and tear of a machine is of two kinds. The one arises from use, as coins wear away by circulating, the other from non-use, as a sword rusts when left in its scabbard.
The latter kind is due to the elements. The former is more or less directly proportional, the latter to a certain extent inversely proportional, to the use of the machine. But in addition to the material wear and tear, a machine also undergoes, what we may call a moral depreciation. It loses exchange-value, either by machines of the same sort being produced cheaper than it, or by better machines entering into competition with it.
It has, therefore, lost value more or less. The shorter the period taken to reproduce its total value, the less is the danger of moral depreciation; and the longer the working-day, the shorter is that period. When machinery is first introduced into an industry, new methods of reproducing it more cheaply follow blow upon blow, [65] and so do improvements, that not only affect individual parts and details of the machine, but its entire build. It is, therefore, in the early days of the life of machinery that this special incentive to the prolongation of the working-day makes itself felt most acutely.
Given the length of the working-day, all other circumstances remaining the same, the exploitation of double the number of workmen demands, not only a doubling of that part of constant capital which is invested in machinery and buildings, but also of that part which is laid out in raw material and auxiliary substances. The lengthening of the working-day, on the other hand, allows of production on an extended scale without any alteration in the amount of capital laid out on machinery and buildings.
It is true that this takes place, more or less, with every lengthening of the working-day; but in the case under consideration, the change is more marked, because the capital converted into the instruments of labour preponderates to a greater degree. Ashworth, a cotton magnate, to Professor Nassau W. It is, in truth, monstrous, that a single one of our people should ever leave the factory!
The magnitude of the profit whets his appetite for more profit. As the use of machinery becomes more general in a particular industry, the social value of the product sinks down to its individual value, and the law that surplus-value does not arise from the labour-power that has been replaced by the machinery, but from the labour-power actually employed in working with the machinery, asserts itself.
Surplus-value arises from variable capital alone, and we saw that the amount of surplus-value depends on two factors, viz. Given the length of the working-day, the rate of surplus-value is determined by the relative duration of the necessary labour and of the surplus-labour in a day.
The number of the labourers simultaneously employed depends, on its side, on the ratio of the variable to the constant capital. Now, however much the use of machinery may increase the surplus-labour at the expense of the necessary labour by heightening the productiveness of labour, it is clear that it attains this result, only by diminishing the number of workmen employed by a given amount of capital.
It converts what was formerly variable capital, invested in labour-power, into machinery which, being constant capital, does not produce surplus-value. It is impossible, for instance, to squeeze as much surplus-value out of 2 as out of 24 labourers. If each of these 24 men gives only one hour of surplus-labour in 12, the 24 men give together 24 hours of surplus-labour, while 24 hours is the total labour of the two men. Hence, the application of machinery to the production of surplus-value implies a contradiction which is immanent in it, since of the two factors of the surplus-value created by a given amount of capital, one, the rate of surplus-value, cannot be increased, except by diminishing the other, the number of workmen.
This contradiction comes to light, as soon as by the general employment of machinery in a given industry, the value of the machine-produced commodity regulates the value of all commodities of the same sort; and it is this contradiction, that in its turn, drives the capitalist, without his being conscious of the fact, [71] to excessive lengthening of the working-day, in order that he may compensate the decrease in the relative number of labourers exploited, by an increase not only of the relative, but of the absolute surplus-labour.
If, then, the capitalistic employment of machinery, on the one hand, supplies new and powerful motives to an excessive lengthening of the working-day, and radically changes, as well the methods of labour, as also the character of the social working organism, in such a manner as to break down all opposition to this tendency, on the other hand it produces, partly by opening out to the capitalist new strata of the working-class, previously inaccessible to him, partly by setting free the labourers it supplants, a surplus working population, [72] which is compelled to submit to the dictation of capital.
Hence that remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern industry, that machinery sweeps away every moral and natural restriction on the length of the working-day. They understood, as the learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch have discovered, nothing of Political Economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working-day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of another.
The immoderate lengthening of the working-day, produced by machinery in the hands of capital, leads to a reaction on the part of society, the very sources of whose life are menaced; and, thence, to a normal working-day whose length is fixed by law. Thenceforth a phenomenon that we have already met with, namely, the intensification of labour, develops into great importance.
Our analysis of absolute surplus-value had reference primarily to the extension or duration of the labour, its intensity being assumed as given. We now proceed to consider the substitution of a more intensified labour for labour of more extensive duration, and the degree of the former.
It is self-evident, that in proportion as the use of machinery spreads, and the experience of a special class of workmen habituated to machinery accumulates, the rapidity and intensity of labour increase as a natural consequence. Thus in England, during half a century, lengthening of the working-day went hand in hand with increasing intensity of factory labour.
Nevertheless the reader will clearly see, that where we have labour, not carried on by fits and starts, but repeated day after day with unvarying uniformity, a point must inevitably be reached, where extension of the working-day and intensity of the labour mutually exclude one another, in such a way that lengthening of the working-day becomes compatible only with a lower degree of intensity, and a higher degree of intensity, only with a shortening of the working-day. So soon as the gradually surging revolt of the working-class compelled Parliament to shorten compulsorily the hours of labour, and to begin by imposing a normal working-day on factories proper, so soon consequently as an increased production of surplus-value by the prolongation of the working-day was once for all put a stop to, from that moment capital threw itself with all its might into the production of relative surplus-value, by hastening on the further improvement of machinery.
At the same time a change took place in the nature of relative surplus-value. Generally speaking, the mode of producing relative surplus-value consists in raising the productive power of the workman, so as to enable him to produce more in a given time with the same expenditure of labour. Labour-time continues to transmit as before the same value to the total product, but this unchanged amount of exchange-value is spread over more use-value; hence the value of each single commodity sinks.
Otherwise, however, so soon as the compulsory shortening of the hours of labour takes place. The immense impetus it gives the development of productive power, and to economy in the means of production, imposes on the workman increased expenditure of labour in a given time, heightened tension of labour-power, and closer filling up of the pores of the working-day, or condensation of labour to a degree that is attainable only within the limits of the shortened working-day.
This condensation of a greater mass of labour into a given period thenceforward counts for what it really is, a greater quantity of labour. In addition to a measure of its extension, i. We now come to the question: How is the labour intensified? The first effect of shortening the working-day results from the self-evident law, that the efficiency of labour-power is in an inverse ratio to the duration of its expenditure.
Hence, within certain limits what is lost by shortening the duration is gained by the increasing tension of labour-power. That the workman moreover really does expend more labour-power, is ensured by the mode in which the capitalist pays him. Hence, when in the reduction of the working-day to less than twelve hours was being debated, the masters almost unanimously declared. This assertion was contradicted by experiments.
Robert Gardner reduced the hours of labour in his two large factories at Preston, on and after the 20th April, , from twelve to eleven hours a day. But in the weaving department, where, moreover, many sorts of figured fancy articles were woven, there was not the slightest alteration in the conditions of the work. While they got the same wages and gained one hour of spare time, the capitalist got the same amount produced and saved the cost of coal, gas, and other such items, for one hour. Similar experiments, and with the like success, were carried out in the mills of Messrs.
The shortening of the hours of labour creates, to begin with, the subjective conditions for the condensation of labour, by enabling the workman to exert more strength in a given time. So soon as that shortening becomes compulsory, machinery becomes in the hands of capital the objective means, systematically employed for squeezing out more labour in a given time. This is effected in two ways: Improved construction of the machinery is necessary, partly because without it greater pressure cannot be put on the workman, and partly because the shortened hours of labour force the capitalist to exercise the strictest watch over the cost of production.
The improvements in the steam-engine have increased the piston speed, and at the same time have made it possible, by means of a greater economy of power, to drive with the same or even a smaller consumption of coal more machinery with the same engine. The improvements in the transmitting mechanism have lessened friction, and, what so strikingly distinguishes modern from the older machinery, have reduced the diameter and weight of the shafting to a constantly decreasing minimum.
Finally, the improvements in the operative machines have, while reducing their size, increased their speed and efficiency, as in the modern power-loom; or, while increasing the size of their framework, have also increased the extent and number of their working parts, as in spinning-mules, or have added to the speed of these working parts by imperceptible alterations of detail, such as those which ten years ago increased the speed of the spindles in self-acting mules by one-fifth. The reduction of the working-day to 12 hours dates in England from In a manufacturer stated:.
In the year , Lord Ashley, now Lord Shaftesbury, made in the House of Commons the following statements, supported by documentary evidence:. Machinery has executed, no doubt, the work that would demand the sinews of millions of men; but it has also prodigiously multiplied the labour of those who are governed by its fearful movements In , the labour of following a pair of mules spinning cotton of No. In , the distance travelled in following a pair of mules, spinning cotton yarn of the same number, was 20 miles, and frequently more.
In , the spinner put up on each mule 2, stretches, making a total of 4, In , 2, stretches, making a total of 4,; and in some cases the amount of labour required is even still greater I have another document sent to me in , stating that the labour is progressively increasing — increasing not only because the distance to be travelled is greater, but because the quantity of goods produced is multiplied, while the hands are fewer in proportion than before; and, moreover, because an inferior species of cotton is now often spun, which it is more difficult to work In the carding-room there has also been a great increase of labour.
One person there does the work formerly divided between two. In the weaving-room, where a vast number of persons are employed, and principally females In , the number of hanks spun per week was 18,, in it amounted to 21, In , the number of picks in power-loom-weaving per minute was 60 — in it was , showing a vast increase of labour. The apparent correctness of their reasons will be best shown by the following contemporary statement by Leonard Horner, the factory inspector, their ever watchful censor. One of the most important problems, therefore, which the owner of a factory has to solve is to find out the maximum speed at which he can run, with a due regard to the above conditions.
It frequently happens that he finds he has gone too fast, that breakages and bad work more than counterbalance the increased speed, and that he is obliged to slacken his pace. I therefore concluded, that as an active and intelligent mill-owner would find out the safe maximum, it would not be possible to produce as much in eleven hours as in twelve. I further assumed that the operative paid by piecework, would exert himself to the utmost consistent with the power of continuing at the same rate.
Horner, therefore, came to the conclusion that a reduction of the working hours below twelve would necessarily diminish production. James Nasmyth, the eminent civil engineer of Patricroft, near Manchester, explained in a letter to Leonard Horner, written in , the nature of the improvements in the steam-engine that had been made between the years and After remarking that the horse-power of steam-engines, being always estimated in the official returns according to the power of similar engines in , [87] is only nominal, and can serve only as an index of their real power, he goes on to say:.
The number of spindles and looms in was respectively 33,, of the former, and , of the latter, which, reckoning the force of the nominal horse-power required to be the same as in , would require a force equal to , horses, but the actual power given in the return for is ,, less by above 10, horses than, calculating upon the basis of the return of , the factories ought to have required in Without any doubt, the shortening of the hours of labour The latter, combined with the more intense strain on the workman, have had the effect, that at least as much is produced in the shortened by two hours or one-sixth working-day as was previously produced during the longer one.
One fact is sufficient to show how greatly the wealth of the manufacturers increased along with the more intense exploitation of labour-power. But however great the progress of English industry had been during the 8 years from to under the influence of a working-day of 10 hours, it way far surpassed during the next period of 6 years from to In silk factories, for instance, there were in , spindles 1,,; in , 1,,; in , looms 9,; in , 10, But the number of operatives was, in , 56,; in , 52, The increase in the spindles was therefore In the year there were employed in worsted mills , spindles; in , 1,, increase But if we deduct the doubling spindles that figure in the numbers for , but not in those for , it will be found that after the number of spindles remained nearly stationary.
On the other hand, after , the speed of the spindles and looms was in many cases doubled. The number of power-looms in worsted mills was, in , 32,; in , 38,; in , 43, The number of the operatives was, in , 79,; in , 87,; in , 86,; included in these, however, the children under 14 years of age were, in , 9,; in , 11,; in , 13, In spite, therefore, of the greatly increased number of looms in , compared with , the total number of the workpeople employed decreased, and that of the children exploited increased.
Planned gentrification through food has become a new agent of urban renewal. In most scenarios, gentrification and urban renewal are not without aspects of exclusion. In Sacramento, the consumption end of the food spectrum becomes a spectacle for middle and upper middle-class urban life that tends to reinforce romanticized views of Jeffersonian agrarianism. For sure, California was a land of large industrialized agriculture from its inception.
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Moreover, Mexican day laborers pick nearly all of the produce in California , not to mention they perform much of the work in the back kitchens. Furthermore, Mexican day laborers often depend on cheap tacos sold from roving trucks. Not only does the urban renewal of Sacramento rely on inexpensive Mexican labor to create an image of exclusiveness, it also aims to eliminate their cultural culinary customs. Accordingly, city council and code enforcement systematically find new ways to exclude the taco truck from the city center through ever-evolving urban policies.
The farm-to-fork initiative reconfigures the urban landscape through food practices, privileging middle and upper middle-class urbanity over Mexican street food performances. Indeed, the people who have the power to remake the urban landscape as they wish it to look often do so by making invisible those who they must rely upon to help shape it. Such a spatial process conjures the question: His work merges visual arts with geographic theory to create new ways of experiencing knowledge and to bridge social differences.
His academic research focuses on spatial practices and their patterns as a cultural landscape. Much of his research examines how people experience and transform the built environment through culinary practices. The manuscript details the ways in which Mexican immigrant owned and operated taco trucks have affected the social, political, and physical dimensions of American cities. Robert is also an enthusiastic lecturer and dedicated teacher. He offers a wide range of courses on urban geography, the cultural geography of food, the American cultural landscape, as well as filmmaking as a geographic method.
Additionally, he is often invited to lecture on food geography and has given numerous international departmental talks about how culinary practices shape urban space.