Quote from R. Heilbroner, "The Worldly Philosophers," (Simon and
Shuster, 1953), p. 21:
We are back in France; the year, 1666.
The capitalists of the day face a disturbing challenge which the
widening market mechanism has inevitably brought in its wake: change.
The question has come up whether a guild master of the weaving
industry should be allowed to try an innovation in his product. The
verdict: "If a cloth weaver intends to process a piece according to
his own invention, he must not set it on the loom, but should obtain
permission from the judges of the town to employ the number and
length of threads that he desires, after the question has been
considered by four of the oldest merchants and four of the oldest
weavers of the guild." One can imagine how many suggestions for
change were tolerated.
Shortly after the matter of cloth weaving has been disposed of, the
button-makers guild raises a cry of outrage; the tailors are
beginning to make buttons out of cloth, an unheard-of thing. The
government, indignant that an innovation should threaten a settled
industry, imposes a fine on the cloth button makers and even on those
who wear cloth buttons. But the wardens of the button guild are not
yet satisfied. They demand the right to search people's homes and
wardrobes and even to arrest them on the streets if they are seen
wearing these subversive goods.
And this dread of change and innovation is not just the comic
resistance of a few frightened merchants. Capital is fighting in
terror against change, and no holds are barred. In England a
revolutionary patent for a stocking frame is not only denied in 1623,
but the Privy Council orders the dangerous contraption abolished. In
France the importation of printed calicoes is threatening to
undermine the clothing industry. It is met with measures which cost
the lives of sixteen thousand people! In Valence alone on one
occasion 77 persons are sentenced to be hanged, 58 broken on the
wheel, 631 sent to the galleys, and one lone and lucky individual set
free for the crime of dealing in forbidden calico wares. . . .
- Jed
