UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY
2nd International Conference on Economic and Social History
"Markets" and Politics
Private interests and public authority (18th-20th centuries)
Volos, 10-12 February 2012
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Abstracts
- Nikos Potamianos State policy, small business units and concentration of capital: the case of labour legislation and hygiene standards, 1910-1929
The state policy in 19th c.-early 20th c. Greece is generally accepted to have played a role in the extended reproduction of the small units of production in agriculture, while there had not been any interventions in favor of the concentration of capital in industry. What was the part played, from this point of view, by the labour and hygiene legislation that was introduced in the 1910’s by the goverments of the Liberals? In this paper I will focus on crafts and retailing sectors.
Well known is the discontent of big and small entrepreneurs with the “social legislation”; but while one can mention cases of industrialists eager to accept it in order to reproduce their power over their employees, this is not the case with petite bourgeoisie. Small firms’ profits were marginal and their owners could hardly afford the increase in the costs brought by improvements in the workplace’s hygiene and safety or by the limitations in the employment of cheap children’s or women’s labour. In fact in certain professions some of the bigger firms owners supported such reforms, sometimes in alliance with the labour movement, in order to hit their small competitors: this was the case in the conflicts about shops’ opening hours and Sunday holiday of grocers, barbers, bakers, coffeeshops and taverns; small shops in the neighbourhoods were selling goods and services next to their customers when their bigger competitors were closed.
However the labour and hygiene legislation was not strictly enforced; in fact, it proved easier for the underdeveloped state apparatus to enforce the law in the bigger firms. Thus in practice the “social legislation” burdened more the bigger firms, and contributed to the reproduction of small ownership structures in the interwar years.
Was another outcome possible? Yes, as the case of bakery illustrates. The dominance of small units of craft production in this profession was challenged chiefly when the state (the governments of Liberals, again) decided to favor industry and smaller firms using machines, in order to achieve a significant decrease in the price of bread. It did so by setting (and, by and large, enforcing) hygiene specifications and price regulation that were pressing the small units, as well as by forbiding night-work and setting working hours that were not compatible with the pace of production in craft bakery.
