ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on three interrelated concepts: the firm, the factory, and the managerial hierarchy. These are the key elements related to the socialization of capital. The growth of capitalism was indeed a matter of how capital1 was organized into 'firms' or 'corporations'. The chapter deals with the notion of the firm as a form of socialized capital. It explores the notion of the factory, which is the institutional form in which the capitalization of production takes place. The chapter discusses the nature of production relations before the invention of the factory system. It also discusses the particular transformations that made the capitalization of production possible: mechanization of production, rationalization of work, regimentation of labour, and cost accounting. The chapter also explores the third element of the institutional context, the managerial hierarchy. It shows that the managerial hierarchy as the capitalist invention that connects and creates an intimacy between capital and labour.
