Boundless Competition: Subcontracting and the London Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Why did subcontracting remain, well until the end of the nineteenth century, a viable way to organize metropolitan manufacturing? This article addresses historically and theoretically the reasons for the permanence of subcontracting as a viable alternative to centralized forms of production in London. It also questions the literature that equates the decline of subcontracting with the rise of sweating and argues for a reinterpretation of traditional explanations that saw the “sweater” as a central figure in the “degeneration” of the metropolitan productive system. The article concludes by proposing a reinterpretation of the “decline of subcontracting” and argues that the logic of flexibility of subcontracting was challenged by the increasing power of London wholesalers and retailers and the demands of fin-de-siècle mass consumption.