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Conclusion ⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗⠖⠗ This book has attempted to give the first systematic treatment of political and economic transformation among crafts and service workers in Egypt during the half-century or so preceding the First World War. In search of a popular history outside the factory gates and in pursuit of puzzles surrounding unevenness under capitalism, the preceding pages have examined restructuring, the disaggregation of the guilds, forms of collective assertion , and the growth of new kinds of formal and informal organization in Egypt during years of world economic integration, local state building, and colonial rule. Restructuring Contrary to a persistent conventional wisdom in which traditional crafts are perpetually in decline or stagnant, I have argued that crafts and service workers increasingly engaged in forms of restructuring in order to pursue their livelihoods as the nineteenth century lengthened, particularly after the cotton boom of the early 1860s, and with growing intensity during the investment boom of 1897 to 1907. The impact of imports, investment, and changing consumption tastes put tremendous pressure on crafts and service workers, eroding and often rendering impossible older ways of making of a living. Crafts and service workers were neither simply destroyed nor passive, but actively restructured their work, effecting a far-reaching transformation in trades, products, and relations and means of production in order to survive. In contrast to the emphasis of authors such as Martin on stasis and continuity, there was hardly a trade in Egypt by 1914 which had not been affected by restructuring. For example, one of the commonest urban occupations of midcentury, water carrying, was either transformed or largely nonexistent by the First World War. In Cairo, water carriers from the Nile either became local distributors from public fountains using not 191 water skins but tanks on wheels, adapted to sell water, sherbet, or tamarind on the streets, or found entirely new occupations. Likewise, fewer and fewer shoemakers made slippers in older styles, and where such production continued, it was on the basis of new tourist demands for the faux traditional , and cobblers substituted cheaper imports, such as plastic, for more expensive leather. More importantly, where imported shoes remained expensive , shoemakers diversified in their thousands to produce and repair shoes in European styles, customized to taste. Tailors, seamstresses, furniture makers, and construction workers in the tens of thousands thoroughly transformed their products in order to tap new demands for European styles. Masons, for example, started to dress stones in the Italian fashion and tailors now sewed European-style suits and shirts. Moreover, some of the commonest urban trades in Egypt by 1914, such as cabdriving and carting , were completely new. These trades, which were ubiquitous in the newly paved streets of Egypt’s cities by 1914, did not exist at all during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Crafts and service workers tapped markets where demand was weak, fluctuating, and unstandardized, a market structure which protected them to some extent from large-scale and capital intensive investment and production, which was unprofitable under these conditions. Crafts and service workers not only took up new occupations or provided new or adapted goods and services. In the context of world economic integration and the spread of market relations, as competition intensified, and as small masters and others sought ways to reduce costs, new inputs were used, tools were transformed, and relations of production constructed anew. Larger workshops were put together by those seeking to rationalize production , such as in silk weaving. Where employers or clients sought the completion of large or complex tasks and attempted to rid themselves of the costs of direct control of the workforce, such as in construction, contracting and subcontracting became far more extensive. Overheads and labor costs were driven down through the extension of putting-out networks in rural areas and the widespread employment of women and children , especially in the textile trades. Masters and self-employed migrated to find cheaper premises in poorer and low-rent parts of cities. Crafts workers also obtained cheaper working capital by seeking out inexpensive raw materials, often produced by large-scale industry: dyers started to use German synthetic indigo after the turn of the century; metal workers imported sheet metal from Birmingham; weavers, Manchester yarns; cab makers, British varnish and so on. As I have demonstrated, almost every crafts and service trade in Egypt relied on one cheap import or another to 192 The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories [18.226.251.22] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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