Friday, January 1, 2016

Empire of Cotton: One Big Bloody Boll





What would have happened if “King Cotton” had packed up its bags and left the antebellum South?  Would slavery, as an institution, have survived emerging markets from across the globe?  Were there emerging markets?  Would slavery have withered on the branch had there been adequate competition?  Would the War of Northern Aggression been inevitable without slavery?  These questions and more have piqued my interest for years.

Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert was published in 2014.  Normally, I try to stay away from comprehensive histories.  Most are usually too broad in scope, and often than not, subjected to the political inclinations of its author which in today’s academia is progressive, if not outright Marxist.

One must be careful when purchasing a history book.  I first research the author and then the reviews.  Empire of Cotton received acclamations from progressive publications such as The Nation, Slate and other usual suspects.  So-called historian, leftist propagandist and red diaper baby, Eric Foner, also wrote a high praise for this work.  Come to find out, Mr. Beckert acknowledged Foner as a friend and thanked him for his valuable input.  Again, when reading today’s history, one must proceed with a wary eye and a skeptical mind.

When reading this tome it won’t take long before you’re assaulted with an ethos that is pervasive in today’s academia: Eurocentric self-loathing, anti-capitalism rants, Luddite sentimentalism, and of course, the illegitimate and criminal enterprise that is the United States.

Mr. Berkert was kind enough to classify certain types of capitalism, the foremost being war capitalism.  War capitalism consists of violence, coercion, and modernity; in the case of the United States it is slavery, expropriation of lands from the native Indians and infrastructure projects that invaded the tranquil paradise of subsistence farmers.  Here is an excerpt:

The muscle of armed trade enabled the creation of a complex, Eurocentric maritime trade web; the forging of a military-fiscal state allowed for the projection of power into the far-flung corners of the world; the invention of financial instruments – from marine insurance to bills of lading – allowed for the transfer of capital and goods over long distances; the development  of a legal system gave a modicum of security to global investments; the construction of alliances with distant capitalists and rulers provided access to local weavers and cotton growers; the expropriation of land and the deportation of Africans created flourishing plantations.  Unbeknownst to contemporaries, these alterations were the first steps toward the Industrial Revolution.

Who knew bills of lading, maritime insurance and a legal system could be considered weapons of mass destruction? 

Mr. Berkert advances progressive hyperbole on one of the pillars of American illegitimacy.  Slave owners were sadistic task masters seething with unbridled, wanton violence.  He gives the impression that the “masters of the lash” whipped their slaves from sunup to sundown, squeezing every ounce of energy that could be had in a 17 hour work day.  Of course, he didn’t mention that states, like North Carolina, had laws that forbade abuse of slaves.  Of course, abuses did happen, but it wasn’t as prevalent as the author would have us believe.  Slaves were expensive.  What good would they have been if they were crippled or maimed?  Common sense should carry the day.

And let’s not forget the other pillar.  What would a progressive polemic be without the abuses of the bunny rabbit people: the North American Indian.  Here is an excerpt:

Native Americans understood the underlying foundations of the expanding military-cotton complex: Upon removal in 1836, the chief of the Cherokees, John Ross, in a letter to Congress decried that “our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints.  We are denationalized; we are disenfranchised.  We are deprived of membership in the human family!”  The coercion and violence required to mobilize slave labor was matched only by the demands of an expansionist war against indigenous people.  Nothing of this kind had ever been dreamed of in Anatolia or Gujarat.

The Trail of Tears is probably one of the most misunderstood, if not, the most distorted event in American history.   The most honest description I’ve read, so far, on the removal of the indigenous peoples is in The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini.  Here is an excerpt:

Jackson believed that the steady increase and movement of the white population was slowly surrounding and pressuring the Indians into adopting one of two possible courses of action: either “to become industrious Citizens” and accept the sovereignty of the states in which they lived; or “remove to a Country where they can retain their ancient customs, so dear to them, that they cannot give them up in exchange for regular society.” 

It would have been nice if Mr. Beckert had added some context on Indian removal.  It would also be of some help had he given a brief history of Chief John Ross and the schism within the ranks of the Cherokee nation.  Since he refused to do so, I will.  Mr. Ross was one of the richest men in Northern Georgia.  He owned a number of businesses along with a 200 acre farm that was worked by SLAVES.  That’s right, the man who lamented the deprivation of his humanity owned slaves.  And when the Civil War broke out, Ross sided with the Union while a sizeable faction sided with the Confederacy under Stand Watie.  Nothing is as simplistic as progressives would have us believe, nor is the displacement of peoples unique to the United States.  To suggest so is dishonest.

Empire of Cotton does have redeeming qualities and it is an interesting read if you can get past the self-loathing and insatiable bloodletting that a mountain of cotton bolls couldn’t absorb.  For instance, this book did answer the questions about emerging markets prior to the American Civil War, and the surprising amount of U.S. cotton production after the abolishment of slavery.

Sven Beckert’s history on the evolution (or devolution depending on your outlook) of cotton and how this one commodity advanced capitalism and became the indispensible fabric that bound the global marketplace met my expectations in some areas and exceeded in others.  It is worth the read.    

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