Consequences of size: ideas and hypotheses

The colliery-and plant-based analyses of industrial conflict, which form part of the industrial relations literature referred to in chapter 5, have been confined to a handful of studies restricted to short periods during the post-nationalization era (see Scott et al. 1963; McCormick 1969; Christine Edwards 1978; Christine Edwards and Heery 1985; Rigg 1987). While it is only relatively recently that such approaches have incorporated explicit concepts relating to size, and have involved quantification and the formal testing of hypotheses, the interest in workplace scale in relation to labour relations and human behaviour is not new. Before examining the potential of colliery size for explaining the history of strikes in the industry, therefore, we provide a context in the form of a survey of the social comment and analysis provoked by the emergence of large-scale workplaces.

Three traditions are discernible in the economics and sociology of size. The first is that introduced by Charles Babbage, who in 1832 was the first to link Adam Smith's concept of the division of labour with large-scale industry. Size of factory, he thought, both facilitated and advanced the technical division of labour (Babbage 1832/1989: ch. 19, section 263; compare with Adam Smith 1776/1976: ch. 1). The economic advantages of the division of labour were stressed, but the consequences for the social relations of production were addressed only in passing, if at all.