The paragraph I chose was on page 41. It says that from the years 1900 - 1990, "the number of gins in operation in the US fell by over 90 percent from 20,214 to 1,513 and the capacity of the typical gin has risen by a factor of 30". This jump started my thinking and brought me back to the wild discussion I had in my QU201 class about neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is basically an economic philosophy that puts most of the money in the hands of a "royal class". The United States is falling victim to this ideology today, and unlike times in history when it has worked, America's current free market ideology and democracy clash with neoliberal ideas. To put it in lamen's terms, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
This decrease in cotton gins is an indication that a select few gin owners saw an opportunity and bought out all the other gins. This leaves many people out of work, and puts all the power in the hands of a few cotton ginners. An IHT article explains that by the year 2004, the wealthiest 1% of Americans controlled 78% of the country's income. It is widely known that this already staggering number is growing even larger, due to the fact that there is nobody to do business with except for these huge players.
In the ginning industry, that means that the average ginner is going to lose a lot of business, and since raw cotton is not a product that consumers demand, this industry is particularly hard to enter into. The 1,500 cotton gins in America likely gin cotton from all over the country, whereas before mass shipping was introduced, smaller gins serviced rural and suburban areas. Today, cotton gins can just have cotton shipped in from locations around the world.
This means that there are only big players left, there is no need for a small operation cotton gin anymore, it is an obsolete industry, think of a wal-mart next door to a mom and pop store. In essence, the cotton ginning industry is the perfect example of neoliberalism, and could be a good indicator of what future industries will look like due to a rise in neoliberalism and globalization.
Neoliberalism article.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/22/opinion/edblond.php
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I like your idea in talking about how there are fewer cotton gins and that it is hurting the smaller gins, but at the same time this is not necessary a rich get richer scheme. In the book many of the gins were co-ops, which means they are owned by the farmers that use them. There is no one person who owns the gins, but rather many and that this means that those who owner have greater control over their products and therefore can turn a better product and make more of a profit. These gins have actually made the poor a little bit richer.
ReplyDeletehmm that makes a lot of sense. i know a lot of people disliked President Bush because he lowered the taxes for the rich, while the middle class was taking the brunt of economic failure and higher taxes. it makes sense that buisness owners need more money as an insentive to higher workers, but it seems that this idea no longer applies as jobs are being shipped off to other nations. i think that those in real trouble, the poor and middle class should be the focus of governmental help.
ReplyDeleteI think the big business eats up all the money in the US. I agree with you Yitz. Off the topic of the cotton industry, look at the pharmecutical companies and the Meat and Dairy Industry. They control America! They brain wash people into thinking drugs are the answer which in turn they are not. They have commercials on TV saying this drug works but in small print it has 34 side effects, one being death! The Meat and Dairy industry tricks people into eating more of there product when vegetables are the answer to health. There are no vegetable lobbiest and people wonder why we live in "fat america".
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same scheme here. The big business scares people and so they comply with what is offered. As in over seas with these sweat shops people are too scared to speak up about bad working conditions. They need these jobs just to survive. Why would they want to be the ones to jeoprodize there salary, what little it is. Big business is very intimidating in all aspects of the US.