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.