Manufacturing

Manufacturing was a relation of production that existed during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Manufacturing workers were a transition between the independent craftsmen of the Middle Ages and the proletarians of capitalism. Unlike proletarians, they owned their own means of production but were still paid in wages.

Manufactories emerged in Florence and other Italian states in the 14th and 15th centuries. They spread to the rest of Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries. In Russia, they usually used serf labour instead of wage labour until the late 18th century.