T-Shirt Travels

Hi all,
The book on t-shirts I mentioned: http://www.amazon.com/The-Travels-T-Shirt-Global-Economy/dp/0471648493

Empire of Cotton: Prompt question #3 Response

Answer to question 3:

I took this question to be one about raw cotton rather than cotton products.  Raw cotton itself did not have much economic value in the 16^th century in Europe, but cotton products had tremendous value.  In fact, raw cotton didn’t even have much value up through the 17^th and 18^th centuries, either.  Beckert writes, “The modest demand for raw cotton among European manufacturers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before they heyday of the new machines that would by 1780 revolutionize cotton manufacturing, was largely met through established and diversified trade channels.” (40). Raw cotton was in only “modest” demand because manufacturers of cotton could not compete with Asian manufacturers, in large part, as Beckert argues, because of wage costs.  While raw cotton was in modest demands during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, it seems that the same was true for the 16^th century as well.  Cotton industry had begun to sprout in northern Italy and southern Germany, but at this time “within Europe, the industry was not yet particularly prominent.  Europeans still largely dressed in linen and woolens, not cottons” (27).  Later, while Great Britain had begun to establish its dominance throughout the global markets through what Beckert describes as “war capitalism,” Indian cotton products were still of a higher quality and cheaper than British cotton products.  It was not until manufacturing took off at the end of the 17^th century that Britain was able to compete with Indian products by drastically reducing the hours needed to spin cotton.  War capitalism had been able to both, ironically, make trading in Indian products profitable by dominating global markets and protecting domestic cotton products at home.  However, it was only when, in 1790, British manufacturing gained the ability to spin a hundred pounds of raw cotton in just 1,000 hours (compared to the 50,000 hours it took Indian workers, 66) that cotton itself began to have real value in Europe.  Even beyond the economic value of the increase in the rate of productivity, industrial capitalism was a revolution in that “workers were neither enslaved nor populations murdered,” (79) making war capitalism irrelevant in the progression of what “Hegel would call the ‘spirit of history’” (79).

Empire of Cotton Response

In Empire of Cotton author Sven Beckert lays out a new definition for the economics system which governed the globalization of the cotton industry. Previously referred too mercantilism Beckart calls this system “war capitalism.” The provocative name is used to describe an economic system based on state coercion, imperialism, slavery, wage deflation and “armed trade.” He coins this phrase for a number of reasons, perhaps chiefly to push the genesis of western capitalistic enterprise back from 1780 to the 16^th century. Beckert’s definition of capitalism is very different than the classical definition exposed by economists. For Beckert “war capitalism” and by extension capitalism generally is dependent upon the state for protectionist tariffs, the seizure of land, etc. Industrial capitalism is simply the mechanization of the cotton reefing process. The use of environmental power such as falling water and eventually steam allow British textile producers to compensate for their high labor costs and to double down on ealier market gains. Rather than overturn “war capitalism,” this new mechanized Industrial capitalism for Beckert served to buttress it by pairing the coercive power of the state with an unmatched technical edge. These gains along with capital and overseas territorial possessions allowed British producers to dominate world cotton markets.   

Empire of Cotton post

Empire of Cotton offers a detailed account of capitalism in the 19^th century by using a single commodity as a lens for examining this. There were many similar aspects of this particular history to Cronin’s Changes in the Land lying in their discussions of European expansion, land (environment, exhaustion of natural resources), exploitation of the indigenous peoples, and more. In our class discussions regarding Cronin’s book, it was decided that he was actually talking about a capitalist market in New England and utilizing the environment surrounding in which it was situated in as a lens in which to examine this. Beckert’s book is much more direct and expansive providing a global look at how this commodity had so much power. He shows the process of this to be violent not only in the American South Pre/Post Civil War, but also in how it had a role in the destruction of local economies in Asia and the Middle East.

The book seems to be broken up into two separate sections as he used the production of cotton as a lens for the development of the modern world. The first “war capitalism” is used to illustrate how the colonial conquest and slavery prepared the ground for the cotton industry. He also uses “industrial capitalism” to discuss how states intervened to protect and help the industry along. I think that this history offers excellent insight into how influential a commodity can be not just locally, but globally, but I found that I had difficulty believing his argument that it was this specific commodity that kick-started the industrial revolution because there’s never just one spark that lights the fire for change to take place on such a large level.

King Cotton's harsh reign

Cotton, perhaps the premier commodity in a world of many commodities, became an important item for so many people around the world and helped fuel the widening gap between a few wealthier countries and their people and many more poorer countries and poorer people, which is also known as the Great Divergence.  

The winners were the wealthier people of Europe and their cultural descendants around the world, but not, according to Beckert, for the reasons many economists and historians have previously claimed.  For example, some have argued “that Europe’s explosive economic development can be explained by Europeans’ more rational religious beliefs, their Enlightenment traditions, the climate in which they live, the continent’s geography, or benign institutions such as the Bank of England or the rule of law” (Kindle Locations 147-155).  Rather, Europeans basically kicked the crap out of the world, bending the will and breaking the backs of others through unfair, if not inhumane, methods of domination.  

Europe and, eventually, the United States protected their markets, used government finances and financial policy, and subdued and enslaved people around the world to wring efficiencies and maximize profits, as capitalism and cotton were global forces.  The harsh, unfree, unfair, and state-controlled approach to making cotton profitable is referred to by Beckert as “war capitalism” and is an important precursor to, and enabler of, industrial capitalism and the Industrial Revolution.  According to Beckert, “Such a thorough and rapid re-creation of the world was possible only because of the emergence of new ways of organizing production, trade, and consumption. Slavery, the expropriation of indigenous peoples, imperial expansion, armed trade, and the assertion of sovereignty over people and land by entrepreneurs were at its core. I call this system war capitalism” (Kindle Locations 175-182).  Beckert points out that the sixteenth century ushered in war capitalism and the more important beginning of the trends that led to the Great Divergence, rather than the 1800s beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 

The western world might be close to experiencing a harsh dose of karma as Asia is using somewhat more subtle methods to become a more powerful player in the worlds cotton and global capitalism.  State control and direction may yet again prove to be a more powerful determinant in financial success than freer markets and the invisible hand.   

I loved this book.  It was interesting, informative, and thought-provoking.  The one issue I felt was left unresolved was why Europe utilized war capitalism on other parts of the world, and not the other way around.  What allowed or compelled Europe to push forward first?  I felt a chicken and egg issue was still left unresolved here.  For me, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel offered more closure on “why Europe?”  I’m not sure he’s right, but he offers a more thorough answer.  Still, Beckert thoroughly explains a certain phase in the Great Divergence and has me thinking about this topic so much more than I ever did before.   

Empire of Cotton

Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton, is  what I believe to be a continuation of the modern historical trend of focusing on one topic and somehow making it sound like that topic was the most important event in the history of the world.  Other books in this idea are COD: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World Book by Mark Kurlansky or How the Irish Saved Civilization book by Thomas Cahill.  While Beckert's book is extremely detailed and well written, I do though find large claims like these a bit hard to grasp.  Beckert's war capitalism for the rise of cotton notion is, while a driving force, was not the only piece to this puzzle of the rise of Colonialism and Worldwide political and economic dominance.  There was a need for land for rapidly growing populations, new markets that opened up once the Ottoman Empires grasp on the seas was weaken when their drive into Europe was stopped at the doors of Vienna.

Sven's work though does direct ones attention to a topic that most people would just glance over and not give a second thought. I found myself rapidly reading his work and doing side research to expand my personal understanding of this topic.  Maybe this is the point of single focus historical books now, to seek out and find those silences, need it be a group of people or a plant by-product that was easy to spin and dye. I know that I couldnt put this work down until it was all done.

Cotton, War Capitalism, (and Gender?)

In Empire of Cotton, Beckert leads us on a journey through the framework and evolution of capitalism through the lens of cotton. In what he describes as “war capitalism”, he details the foundations of global markets and global power relations as they developed around the cotton market and all it affected (which in scope was nearly all aspects of global relations spanning the past several hundred years).

Beckert’s work seemingly plays on the current historical interest in the history of capitalism. Throughout the course we have moved further away from social history as founded by Bloch/Braudel and more towards other facets of history, a big one being economic history. Several historians have criticized Beckert’s inconsistencies and contrary reductionism found in his understanding of mercantilism, aka “war capitalism” in the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries. Despite this fact, his work brings out many facets of a common commodity that’s history can be understood as a parallel to European imperialism, foreign relations, and globalism.

“The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a site of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, farmers and merchants, workers and factory owners. In this as in so many other ways, the empire of cotton ushered in the modern world.” (Sadly I have this on an old kindle and thus won’t have any exact page relations for my citations. This one is 178-87 on my version) When it comes to such power relations, highly gendered I might add, Berkert goes in much detail as to how the Europeans came to control the cotton market. The European dominance was not a result of their inherent militaristic or political supremacy, but rather a side effect of their capitalistic and economic interests.  “This recasting of cotton did not at first derive from technological advantages, but instead from a far simpler source: the ability and willingness to project capital and power across vast oceans. With increasing frequency, Europeans inserted themselves, often violently, into the global networks of the cotton trade…before using that same power to create entirely novel networks between Africa, the Americas, and Europe…Europeans became important to the worlds of cotton not because of their ability to reshape and then dominate global cotton networks.” The Europeans would accumulate interest of the industry, integrate themselves into it, often imperialistically and militaristically, internalize the processes, and then reap the source, often utilizing systems of protectionism that would ensure their economic dominance.

In an essence, without delving into the full range of Beckert’s intricacies, the cotton industry as a prime mover of modern capitalism led the West into the Industrial Revolution and setting the stage for modern power relations. Reading the first part of his work, I couldn’t help but notice two things. First, the parallels, and to some extent the differences, between our modern outsourced capitalism and the 16^th and 17^th centuries. One that balances on outsourcing the labor to cut costs, just as the Europeans did upon domination of the cotton industry, coupled with certain notions of protectionism. Though I am not an economic specialist, as I understand it our modern institutions of protectionism are not as direct as such early forms of capitalism, yet the basic concepts are still the same. Make others do the work, for as little as possible, and reap the benefits especially when brought back into our own markets. Secondly, although Berkert alludes to the topic on occasion, the gendered notions that are imbued upon capitalism and its formation. As Joan Scott mentions, gender is the root binary, and Catharine Hall/Leonore Davidoff discuss in Family of Fortune, class and gender are inseparably linked. Even greater than such a notion, gender defines relations between nations, races, negotiations and economies, and even industry itself. Focus on capitalism and gender spurred around the early 1990’s followed by economic and commodity histories. Beckert’s work here is the latest iteration of such ideology and helps us better understand the large from the small. Though in this case, perhaps it’s better understood as the largess of the seemingly inconsequential.