The factory system was an experiment--an effort to rearrange the relationship between work, resources, and capital to take full advantage of new technologies and new market opportunities. Karl Marx's interpretation of history as the history of class struggle resulted from his efforts to understand the implications and consequences of that experiment. Whether you agree or not with Marx's assertion that the factory system simply made a social dynamic more visible that had always existed, it is a fact that Marx's theory and the system it critiqued came to be interrelated phenomena. Class-consciousness shaped the experience of factory life which, in turn, shaped the future development of Marxist theory and political practice.

Keep this in mind as you review the boxed features on page 699 (The New Discipline of the Factory System) and page 721 (Marxism and the Working Class) of your textbook. When you're finished reviewing, take a look a look at Andrew Ure's "The Philosophy of the Manufacturers" (1835), a proponent of the factory system. Then explore the Marx and Engels Internet Archive. When you're done, consider the questions below.

1. How did the factory rules described in the boxed feature differ from the typical work regime of pre-industrial Europe? What kinds of worker characteristics did the rules try to promote? How might they have contributed to what Marx would describe as the alienation of labor?

2. Why did Marx believe that industrialization would eventually and inevitably lead to the collapse of capitalism? What factors did he focus on in his analysis? What important factors, if any, did he fail to take into account?