In the inaugural issue of Past and Present, Eric Hobsbawm cautioned historians against the assumption that a capitalist economy has an inherent tendency to cost-saving and technological innovation, emphasizing that ‘It has a bias only towards profit’. Inspired by Hobsbawm, this article shows how a history of profit can elucidate the economic and social history of machines. Beginning with miners’ protests at the stoppage of Boulton & Watt steam engines in Cornish copper mines in the late 1780s, it shows that these engines’ implications for the people who invested in, and worked, the mines were conditioned by a complex relationship between profit and power: mechanical power, which was crucial to the mining of copper and the costs of its production; imperial power, given fluctuating demand for copper from different parts of the British empire; and market power, since control over price setting on the British copper market was crucial for Cornish mining profits. Understanding what determined mines’ profits helps to account for capitalists’ decisions to stop their engines as well as copper miners’ protests at their actions. More generally, it suggests the potential of studying the economic and social history of new machines through the lens of profit.

中文翻译：

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资本家手中的机器：18 世纪晚期康沃尔铜矿的权力和利润

在《过去与现在》的创刊号中，埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆 (Eric Hobsbawm) 告诫历史学家不要假设资本主义经济具有节约成本和技术创新的内在倾向，并强调“它只偏向利润”。受霍布斯鲍姆的启发，本文展示了利润的历史如何阐明机器的经济和社会历史。从 1780 年代后期康沃尔铜矿 Boulton & Watt 蒸汽机停工引起的矿工抗议开始，它表明这些发动机对投资和工作的人的影响，这些矿山受到利润与矿山之间复杂关系的制约和动力：机械动力，这对铜的开采及其生产成本至关重要；鉴于大英帝国不同地区对铜的需求波动，皇权；和市场支配力，因为对英国铜市场定价的控制对于康沃尔矿业的利润至关重要。了解是什么决定了矿山的利润，有助于解释资本家停止发动机的决定以及铜矿工人对其行为的抗议。更一般地说，它暗示了从利润的角度研究新机器的经济和社会历史的潜力。