Tag Archives: cotton

Labour repression & the Indo-Japanese divergence

Posted on 2017-10-02 by pseudoerasmus

There used to be more research and debate on the negative effects of labour resistance on early industrialisation, but that topic has been crowded out by the intense focus on inequality of recent years. There now prevails a quiet presumption … Continue reading →

Posted in cotton, cotton textiles, India, Japan, labour, Lancashire, New England textiles, strikes | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

The Napoleonic blockade & the infant industry argument: caveats, limitations, reservations

Posted on 2016-12-26 by pseudoerasmus

Some caveats and reservations about the Napoleonic blockade paper on the infant industry argument that’s making waves. My caveat: protection persisted for decades after the blockade and may have helped keep the French cotton industry backward relative to Britain.

Posted in cotton, cotton textiles, France, import substitution industrialization, industrial policy, Industrial Revolution, Infant industry argument, protectionism, trade & development | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Reductionist Summary

Posted on 2016-06-16 by pseudoerasmus

Historian Sven Beckert’s widely acclaimed book, Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism, is a good agrarian, business, and labour history of a single commodity. But as economic history it’s not so good.

Posted in cotton, cotton textiles, Empire of Cotton, global history, historians of capitalism, Sven Beckert | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

The Baptist Question Redux: Emancipation & Cotton Productivity

Posted on 2015-11-05 by pseudoerasmus

Edward Baptist, the author of The Half Has Never Been Told, has been claiming since the publication of his book that a putative post-Emancipation drop in overall agricultural productivity in the American South is proof that it was torture, not new cotton cultivars and … Continue reading →

Posted in cotton, Edward Baptist, historians of capitalism, Slavery, The Half has never been told | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Baptism by Blood Cotton

Posted on 2014-09-12 by pseudoerasmus

The underlying claim in Edward Baptist’s “oral economic history” of slavery, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, is that slave owners, through the scientific “calibration” of torture, intensified the work of slaves in order to increase labour productivity by … Continue reading →

Posted in cotton, Edward Baptist, historians of capitalism, Slavery, The Half has never been told | Tagged , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Plant breeding, not working slaves harder, drove cotton productivity gains in the US South

Posted on 2014-09-05 by pseudoerasmus

Summary : New cultivars of cotton led to an unprecedented rise in the productivity of US southern cotton in the 60 years before the American Civil War. The Economist magazine may have said some stupid things about the subject in its review of Edward Baptist’s book … Continue reading →

Posted in cotton, Edward Baptist, historians of capitalism, Slavery, The Half has never been told | Tagged , , , , , , | 18 Comments