Empire of Cotton and all things
Matthew 19:24
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
I'm reading The Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert and really, it seems that from time immemorial it has been true of the human condition that the wealthy keep getting wealthier off the backs of the poor. There was a thriving textile industry in India in the 1400s-1600s. The weavers set their price and merchants paid it. Then the European merchants came in and figured out a way to cut out the textile merchants in India, and even set the prices that weavers could ask for their cloths and thus got the cloth for far less than they would have otherwise paid.
How did they do this? The author calls it War Capitalism, through means of violence of course. Eventually they set up factories in England and France (the two primary wagers of War Capitalism) to weave the cloth and forbade textiles from India from entering their countries, even though the Indian cloth was far superior to the English or French versions. They then employed all manner of espionage to steal the methods of technology the Indians used so they could duplicate their products.
Of course the whole production of cotton back in the eighteenth century was predicated on slavery. It's an interesting read. But it makes me think of today, and how wealthy merchants continue to use "slave" labor, and child labor in countries like China and India to make their wares for the least amount of money. Anything other than this would be deemed "bad business.
"
Turkey red calico print circa 1827
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
I'm reading The Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert and really, it seems that from time immemorial it has been true of the human condition that the wealthy keep getting wealthier off the backs of the poor. There was a thriving textile industry in India in the 1400s-1600s. The weavers set their price and merchants paid it. Then the European merchants came in and figured out a way to cut out the textile merchants in India, and even set the prices that weavers could ask for their cloths and thus got the cloth for far less than they would have otherwise paid.
How did they do this? The author calls it War Capitalism, through means of violence of course. Eventually they set up factories in England and France (the two primary wagers of War Capitalism) to weave the cloth and forbade textiles from India from entering their countries, even though the Indian cloth was far superior to the English or French versions. They then employed all manner of espionage to steal the methods of technology the Indians used so they could duplicate their products.
Of course the whole production of cotton back in the eighteenth century was predicated on slavery. It's an interesting read. But it makes me think of today, and how wealthy merchants continue to use "slave" labor, and child labor in countries like China and India to make their wares for the least amount of money. Anything other than this would be deemed "bad business.
"
Turkey red calico print circa 1827