merchant-capitalist

Updated: June 1, 2025

With all that the merchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process. His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut up and given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up in small shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by the journeyman at his home, all being paid by the piece. This was the notorious "sweatshop system."

Selig Perlman - A History of Trade Unionism in the United States