SOCIAL-CONTROL OVER THE MILLTOWN - INDUSTRIAL PATERNALISM UNDER SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM

The author discusses the distribution of benefits an costs of industrial company provisions in the socialist town and compares it with characteristics of early capitalist milltowns. It is shown that in contrast to 'binding' social control exercised by some of the paternalistic capitalist employers over their operatives, the industrial enterprise under socialism had wider 'gatekeeping' control over life chances of the whole local community on an everyday basis, regulating access to scarce local resources. It could shift these resources in favor of its employees, depriving other local residents and communities of their use and transferring the costs to the entire local community and/or to society at large. The legitimacy of the dominant position of the industrial employer in the local community could be promoted if it managed to permeate residents' sense of place.