Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Empire Of Cotton 2

CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Empire Of Cotton February 22, 2015

I think we will get started. I want to thank julia for allowing me to say a few words. Welcome to the new school. Welcome to one of the featured events at the center for capitalism studies. For a couple of years i taught a course at our undergraduate division on understanding global capitalism and the first day we would come in and everyone had to look at the tag of the shirt on the shirt of the person to their left and tell us what country that shirt was made in. That was the first thing we did in understanding global capitalism and we would write the names of the countries on the board. It was invariably 25 countries. Actually remarkable in the era that the production is still quite diversified. What we learned by looking at cotton shirts in that case was about globalization of production. We learned about the structure of the modern corporation, about grounding Fashion Design and the relation between trade and capital movements but what we didnt have when i taught the course was sven beckerts book empire of cotton which not only raises those issues but those of colonization slavery were agricultural industrialization much broader. I look forward to teaching my course again so i will have this as a reference. These are enormous big issues about capitalism. In a way as an economist i feel comfortable saying they could really only be told in a single tome by a historian. That was the basic rationale behind our formation of the center for capital studies. They are these major questions about capitalism that cant be addressed by economics alone. There are these political cultural sociological aspects and all of these big questions. Historians can provide the atlanta and bring these perspectives together in this case and one brilliant book but its not surprising that has to historians with came up with this idea. Julie and her colleague Klaus Frankel who are the ones that imagine the idea for capitalism studies center at the new school school. The pleasure we have a historian that for us tonight. The idea of the center for capitalism studies was to precisely take on these questions about economic dynamics about equality of Income Distribution distribution in that role at the state and social movements in relation to economic change. It was only going to be accomplished with and put it was clear from the outset from all the disciplines at the school for social research and some outside of it. So its not surprising the center sits comfortably at the new school for social research were all of those disciplines concern themselves with those types of questions. Bob kyle brenner after whom the center is named who had the Great Fortune working with and teaching with for over a decade became wellknown not for the precise answers that he gave to these questions but because he raised these questions in the first place. He argued along marxist and keynesian lines that capitalism had a nature and it had a logic but it sounds highly precise but he also understood economics and modern rate rigorous economics could not adequately address these questions. One story was a quip story was equipped to use when he said of economics had a journal called the journal of big Economic Issues its pages would be empty which was to say economists were not taking up the big important issues around questions of the dynamics of capitalism. The profession could not take them on so the profession retreated into corners of texas is amend over specialization. The question of these big issues and how to theorize them is not just of academic interest. When the financial crisis hit in 2008 the queen of england the queen of england wrote a letter to the presence of the British Academy asking why did no one see it coming . Their reply and i will quote from two prominent economists was quote everyone seemed to be doing their own job properly on its own merit and according to standard measures of success they were often doing it well referring to the economist. The failure was to see how collectively this added up to a series of interconnected imbalances of which no Single Authority had jurisdiction. So in summary your majesty they wrote the failure to perceive the timing extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people to understand the risks to the system as a whole. So not just a theoretical questions at stake really raise the need for a center for capitalism studies. Im pleased to ask julia to introduce our speaker. Julie is associate professor of history at the new school for social research at lang college preachy as a ph. D. In history from el and is the author of the widely acclaimed book when wall street met main st. The quest quest for investor democracy published by Harvard University press. She is currently working on a book project that explores quote the ideas, individuals and institutions that brought u. S. And equality. She is the codirector of the Auburn Center for capitalism studies and a the great colleague. Julia. [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction and marvelous comments which i hope youll emailed to me. So its a true honor for the hall Brenner Center for capitalism studies at the new school for social research to welcome professor sven beckert here tonight. He he is flared bell professor of American History at Harvard University. Tonight professor beckert will present his book empire of cotton but by way of introduction or that many of you in the audience might like to know a bit about his own history with the new school for social research. Our esteemed colleagues Charles Tilly and Eric Hobsbawm shaped his thinking in the early stages of the project that became the money metropolis. Professor beckerts first book. Publishing capers in 2000 money metropolis examines a surprisingly and its surprising that surprising, surprisingly unlikely social consolidation of wealthy neighbors new yorkers he became the most powerful social group in the United States. Working with professors tilly and hobsbawm perked kesser beckert emboldened him to take up capitalism as the subject of historical and critical inquiry and to think about large social formations and questions to engage in comparative perspective to broaden his analytic frame and encompass the entire globe. All of these had fallen out of favor in the discipline of history at that time. So in the last 15 years since he published the book professor beckert has let the emergence of a new history of capitalism within the discipline of history. He has done that not just on account of the acclaimed and influence of his first book. He codirects the program on the study of capitalism at harvard where he has provided a generation of not just harvard graduate students and historians but a whole generation of scholars coming back to questions of capitalism and provided them with intellectual nourishment. Next year the prestigious Charles Warren center will take up the history of capitalism under the direction of professor beckert. He cochairs the weather ahead initiative for global history at harvard and i dont have time to list all of his awards but they do include the American Council of society the Coleman Center for scholars and writers and the guggenheim foundation. Now then to cotton. Tonight professor beckert will tell us a story of the commodity that brought his capitalism and in the process he will challenge us to rethink the meaning and the history of that social formation and indeed the meaning and the history of the modern world itself. Thank you everyone for coming. [applause] thank you so much for being here tonight. I am delighted to be here and im very much much looking forward to our discussion. As you know empire of cotton the book that im going to be talking about for the next 45 or 50 minutes was published approximately two months ago and im honored to be able to present it here at the new school for the first time in new york city as julia just mentioned. The new school has indeed played a very Important Role in its genesis because it was here that i took seminars with professor george tilly and hobsbawm and for those of you who had a chance to begin reading the book were for those of you who will eventually read it you will undoubtedly be able to discern their influence. As you probably are ready now for at least a guest empire of cotton deals with more than 5000 years of history and it deals with a vast array of different places from india to the United States, from egypt to central asia, from west africa to the United Kingdom. The scope of the book is so fast that it cant possibly give you the complete picture in the short time we have here today. I can only hope i will be able to provide you with a taste of importance but also the exciting nature of that story, empire of cotton and this story of the empire of cotton which will lead you to a leisurely study of the book itself. So what kind of book is empire of cotton . First and foremost empire of cotton is a book that is much different from most history books that you have read. Most historical studies as you note deal with events with world war i world war i are a particular person such as a biography of napoleon or they deal with a particular subject such as the history of industrialization and they almost always deal with relatively narrow short timeframes and they limit themselves to studying developments in one town in one region, one country. Of course there are exceptions. One only has to think of the great works of nathaniel bordanelle or Eric Hobsbawm or george tilly but by and large most Historical Research is framed in these particular ways. I dont disagree with framings as such. I think they are important to understand. Empire of cotton breaks with these traditions and it tries radically different way to think about history mainly to look at history from a global perspective and at the same time to try to analyze one of the greatest issues of our contemporary moment, capitalism and in doing so by putting a physical thing cotton at the center of the story that it is telling. So what kind of book is empire of cotton . Empire of cotton as its title suggests first and foremost the history of cotton. Instead of putting a fence people are themes into the center of its narrative it circles around a commodity if fluffy white viper that allowed humans to manufacture textiles for 5000 years. The book follows that cotton from the peasants, the slaves the sharecroppers who grew it to the merchants who traded in cotton to the spinners and weavers who manufacture cloth and then on to the consumers who used it to dress themselves. It traces the history of that fiber over period of 5000 years from the moment when it emerged as a householdbased industry of hand operated spindles and looms strung between trees and what is today pakistan to the Industrial Revolution in england and all the way to the modern era and the rising dominance of china. This is of course a fascinating story as such but more importantly to focus on cotton allows me to disentangle connections between agriculture and industry but also connections between wage workers and slaves, between industrialization and deindustrialization. In some ways a commodity history helps us see what i call the unity of the diverse of the industrialization of one part of the word to the t. Industrialization. Importantly however, and is not in a commodity but one and this is one of the core argument of the book that was very significant to global history and especially to the global history of capitalism as i mentioned earlier. Only few of us know and can imagine for about 900 years from the year 1002 the year 1900 approximately the growing spinning and weaving on cotton was the most important contribution that humans engaged in. And large areas of the world from central asia to east africa from anatolia to china a large number of people kept themselves busy growing spinning and weaving cotton. It was indeed the central importance of cotton previous to the Industrial Revolution that eventually motivated drastic improvements in its production techniques. Very large markets existed before the Industrial Revolution of the 1780s and the possibilities forprofit seemed unending for anybody engaging in the manufacture of cotton textiles and new and productive ways. As a result the cotton industry was at this center and was always in cottons. During the 19th century there was no industry that employ as many people as the cotton industry and its enough huge swaths of United States from the slave plantations of the south to the industrial cities of new england were dominated by cotton cotton. The advent of mechanized cotton production in many ways was assembled of countries entering the modern world a world that is recognizable to us today. As a result no other manufactured goods stood at the cradle of so many revolutionary Technical Innovations organizational shifts social changes or as many conflicts. By inventing the factory is the most efficient way producing textiles cotton manufactures recast the way humans worked. By searching for evermore staff factories english american brazilian and glendan japanese cotton manufactures men others approached an unprecedented move of people from the countryside into cities. By demanding ever more cotton manufactures encourage planters to vastly expand their cotton land and the cheaper labor led to the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of slaves as well as New Territory such as africa and asia. The Factory Production of cotton in fact pioneered a new relationship between industry and the countryside by producing ever more cotton textiles efficiently and selling them to markets throughout the world cotton traders destroyed discovered more efficient ways to send it to asia to western europe and then to the United States. In the search for labor capital mandates cap together different regions of the globe creating one of the earliest waves of globalization. As you might no cotton was important to many different places. In britain it became the most important Manufacturing Industry early in the 19th century while cotton was the most important import and beyond britains most important export product. In india shifting from spinning towards the growing of cotton for export combined to create tectonic upheavals in the indian economy. In Continental Europe cotton manufactures manufactured everywhere became the first Manufacturing Industry. In the United States cotton exports established praise in the Global Economy. In mexico and egypt india brazil steps are taken towards industrialization and all of them in cotton. Egyptian agriculture was turned upside down to facilitate cotton production for export and by the late 19th and early 20th century peasants throughout africa northern argentina and australia turned their fields into cotton plantations. Huge profits were accumulated in cottons. The bearings of browns and many other families profited from cotton. Throughout the world ever more people began to use ever more cotton textiles notable in areas that came late to cotton such as the continent of europe revolutionary seeing how people dressed on how they kept clean. From the perspective of a century as a whole from the 19th century as a whole cottons importance can only be compared to the importance of oil in the 20th century. Even today and perhaps that is somewhat more surprising to you cotton is still important. Last year in 2013, 2014 about 124 million cotton balers were produced throughout the world every one of them weighing approximately 400 pounds enough cotton to produce 20 tshirts for each human on this planet. If one would put these balers on top of one or that they would make a tie were 40,000 miles high. Globally up to 350 Million People work in todays cotton industry in one way or another. A number that has never been rich in Human History and represents three to 4 of the entire human population. Huge cotton plantations can still be found around the world from china to india to the United States from west africa to central asia. Indeed 75 million acres of land are used today for the growing of cotton. Those tightly pressed raw fibers are sure to factories around the world for hundreds of thousands of workers spend then we them and eventually turn them into clothing. The finished products are sold everywhere from her most Country Stores to stores such as walmart and indeed cotton goods are among the very few products that can virtually be acquired anywhere and thus cottons history demonstrates the oppressive and unprecedented increase in human productivity and consumption that industrialization and capitalism have been able. As an Advertising Company in the United States quite accurately cotton fabric of our lives. Empire of cotton the book tells us history of cotton during the past 5000 years but it focuses in particular on the 150 years between 1780 and 1930 the years when cotton was central to the unfolding of industrial capitalism. It focuses on the sears because empire of cotton does not tell the story as an end in itself. Indeed a truly conference of history of cotton would take many thousands of pages and it would tax the patience of readers to an unbearable degree. Empire of cotton tries to do something slightly different by focusing on cotton to engage one of the most urgent issues of the modern world mainly the issue of capitalism. The book is not just a history o

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