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The Putting Out System
The Cottage Industry was organized through what is called the "Putting Out System". There are two main participants in this system. There is the merchant capitalist, and the rural worker. The merchant loaned raw materials to several cottage workers, who then processed them in their homes and returned the finished product to the loaner in return for wages. This was a basic early form of capitalism and grew due to competitive advantages which has only grown to this day. -
Textile Workers in the 17th and 18th centuries
The very low wages implemented by merchants to their cottage workers and textile employees were meant to keep them at work. Merchants thought that their workers did not produce enough due to laziness and that a lower wage would incentivize harder and more efficient work. Although this was true, the low wages would suppress the growth of family wealth and cause women and children to enter the work force doing menial tasks for bare minimum wages. -
Urban Guild Peaks
Urban Guilds started around the year 1200 during the medieval era, but they didn't start to peak until the 17th and 18th centuries. Guilds provided social and religious functions and served to create a strong core of workers who would be punished if privileges or rules were violated in their work. guilds would restrict membership to local good Christian men as to spread wage and work equally and fairly. Guilds had powerful cottage industries but philosophers in the enlightenment dissaproved. -
Agricultural Revolution
The Agricultural Revolution was described as the period between the 17th-19th century. This time period was a time of innovation in crop growing to fix many problems that Europe faced. Famine, drought and depleted crop land caused disease, dysentery and would cripple populations of Europe or provide great surplus inconsistently. Peasants started to replace idle fallow field with soil rejuvenating crops, it would increase harvest by 50%. The surplus in crops would make Europe more Stable. -
Population Explosion of Europe
Lack of resources to support the European population was a big problem in the Medieval ages, which led to the Black Death, famine, and other diseases. After the agricultural revolution occurred, the population of Europe started to grow steadily rather than inconsistent cycles of growth and decline. Before the Population boom, Europe grew by about .5-1% every year. Humans started to stockpile foods and utilize cats to ward off rats and disease, or any pests that risk the stockpile -
Growth of Cottage Industry
During the 18th century a new system came about called the "cottage industry" or "domestic industry". Not to be confused with a factory industry. This was a time period where poor villagers started to seek work outside of their home that lacked land to farm with, and instead worked on other landowner's cottages for wages, which was a mutual relationship and created a system that is still used today. -
Industrious Revolution
The Industrious Revolution was the time period during the 17th and 18th century that led to the industrial revolution. This time period was called industrious due to family households starting to work for wages all at once, rather than just the male. Low wages during this time required the whole family to work to be able to afford the simplest of needs. Lower prices and higher wages would not come about until the mid 19th century. -
Mercantilism and Colonial Wars
Adam Smith Stated that the discovery of the Americas was the greatest recorded event in the history of mankind. The potential of wealth and economic growth that this land could bring and did bring was unfathomable. The raw materials that countries would get from their colonies would allow them to almost solely create finished products in the homeland to sell back to the colonies, a very basic but lucrative economic cycle, that nations would start wars over for hundreds of years. -
English Enclosure Problem
The English Nobility, who controlled most of the land in England were starting to cause problems. Although the agricultural advancements were very beneficial to Europe, the farmland started to become too vast, and privatized. The nobility created the enclosure act, which allowed them to enclose all of their farmland and basically steal land from other peasants. This left little room for wool farmers, and greatly slowed the production of the textile industry. -
Adam Smith and Economic Liberalism
Adam Smith was a professor of philosophy and the leader of Scottish Enlightenment. He is mainly known for his ideas of free enterprise and establishment of the basis of modern economics. Smith criticized guilds and corporations for their outdated restrictions and spoke out against these monopolies. He also believed that governments should protect citizens against monopolies and unfair marketing strategies.
