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

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.