Tag: textile manufacturing

Why Is Technological History So Misleading?

We are conditioned to think of technological history in a very binary way. For thousands of years before motorized transportation, we think of horses and wind-powered ships. We also sense that if we brought great historical minds from before the industrial revolution to a modern city, most likely they would be stunned by the technology surrounding them. Think of a world of medical science before anesthesia and germ theory.

Let’s modify this binary view of human history. David F. Noble gives us a more accurate view:

Augustine, the chief author of Christian orthodoxy, wrote in The City of God, “there have been discovered and perfected, by the natural genius of man, innumerable arts and skills which minister not only to the necessities of life but also to human enjoyment.” Augustine recognized the “astonishing achievements” that had taken place in cloth-making, navigation, architecture, agriculture, ceramics, medicine, weaponry and fortification, animal husbandry, and food preparation; in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy; as well as in language, writing, music, theater, painting, and sculpture. But he emphasized again that “in saying this, of course, I am thinking only of the nature of the human mind as a glory of this mortal life, not of faith and the way of truth that leads to eternal life… And, remember, all these favors taken together are but the fragmentary solace allowed us in a life condemned to misery.”5

5 St. Augustine, The City of God (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958), pp. 526, 527.

David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, Penguin Books, 1999 (originally 1997), pages 11-12.

Note that Augustine wrote The City of God in 426 AD, meaning that even 1600 years ago, they had already made colossal advances. The prejudice that we have, given our scientific training, is utterly misleading. Rather than being blinded by Biblical explanations of how the world came to be, Augustine lauded these scientific advancements. We think of Thomas Edison and the lightbulb, rather than, “Let there be light.”

There are various levels of empirical and artisanal knowledge. In cooking, we rarely worry about molecules that make up ingredients. All these daily life pillars Augustine lists cannot be overlooked, even as we unlock the submicroscopic world of quantum mechanics.

World-Watching: USDA GAIN Reports from 19 August 2025

[from the United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service: Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN)]

Australia: Stone Fruit Annual

Stone fruit production in Australia is forecast to decline in marketing year (MY) 2025/26, primarily due to the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) projection of a wetter-than-average spring. If realized, these conditions are expected to negatively affect both yields and fruit quality. Cherry production is forecast to fall by ten percent, while peach and nectarine production is expected to drop by seven percent. Growing conditions to date have been favorable, with excellent winter chill hours supporting strong bud burst and production potential. However, the anticipated shift to wet spring weather is likely to undermine these early-season advantages. As a result, cherry exports are forecast to decrease by nine percent and peach and nectarine exports by seven percent. Imports, though starting from a low base, are projected to rise modestly in MY 2025/26.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Chile: Stone Fruit Annual

Post projects exports of Chilean cherries to grow significantly in the coming years, driven by strong international demand, particularly from China. Post estimates cherry production in marketing year (MY) 2024/25 to reach 730,000 metric tons (MT), a 6.7 increase over MY 2024/25. Chilean cherry exports will increase by 7.2 percent reaching 670,000 MT. In MY 2024/25, Post estimates nectarine and peach production to total 205,000 MT, a 3.4 percent increase over MY 2024/25. Peach and nectarine exports will increase by 3.4 percent totaling 146,000 metric tons. This growth reflects the continued expansion of nectarine planting, which offsets the decline in fresh peach area planted.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: Call for Domestic Comments on 30 National Food Safety Standards

On August 1, 2025, the Chinese government announced a public comment period for 30 national food safety standards, open until September 26, 2025, via the national standards management system. The standards have not yet been notified to the WTO. This report includes an unofficial translation of the announcement and the list of standards, and stakeholders are advised to review the regulations for potential market or regulatory impacts.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: New CCP Regulation Expands Anti-Corruption and Frugality Measures

On May 18, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party and State Council issued a revised regulation on “Strict Economy and Opposing Waste by Party and Government Organs.” The regulation bans drinking alcohol at public receptions and events and discourages other forms of consumption that could be seen as extravagant. The FAS China offices are monitoring the potential impact on high-value U.S. agricultural products.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: Revised National Food Safety Standard for Paddy Rice Notified

On July 25, 2025, China notified a National Food Safety Standard for Paddy Rice to the WTO under G/TBT/N/CHN/2091. This national food safety standard includes mandatory requirements for quality, testing, inspection, packaging, and labeling of domestic and imported commercial paddy rice. This report provides an unofficial translation of the notified standard. Comments may be submitted to the China’s TBT National Notification and Enquiry Center at tbt@customs.gov.cn until August 24, 2025.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Guatemala: Retail Foods Annual

Guatemala boasts a young population with a median age of 26 years and a growing middle class, driving increased demand for modern retail formats. However, traditional markets and informal retail remain prevalent across the country. In 2024, the United States exported $1.9 billion in agricultural and related products to Guatemala, with $886 million attributed to consumer-oriented goods. Key export categories included red meats, poultry, dairy products, fresh fruits, and processed vegetables.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

India: Cotton and Products Update

FAS Mumbai estimates MY 2025/26 India cotton production at 24.5 million 480-lb bales from 11.2 million hectares, down two percent from the previous estimate as farmers shift to higher-return crops like paddy, pulses, and cereals; kharif sowing decreased 2.4 percent from last year (as of August 1). An eight percent increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for medium- and long-staple cotton, effective October 1, is pushing fiber prices higher, encouraging mills to increase imports. Mill consumption is forecast at 25.7 million 480-lb bales, supported by steady yarn and apparel demand in key export markets and a potential export surge following ratification of the U.K.-India Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Japan: Stone Fruit Annual

Japan’s fresh cherry production for the 2025/26 marketing year (MY) is projected to be 12,500 tons. This forecast is a result of production losses caused by high temperatures during the pollination period in the country’s largest cherry-producing region. While this represents an 8.7 percent increase compared to the previous year’s historically poor harvest, it is expected to be a low yield year with a 25 percent decrease from the average production year. Due to the poor domestic production, demand for U.S. cherries is expected to remain strong for the 2025/26 MY, continuing the trend from the previous year. For peach production in Japan, the absolute number of fruits is anticipated to be equivalent to the previous year; however, the total production volume by weight is forecasted to decrease by approximately 10 percent because of high temperatures and low rainfall during the critical fruit growing period.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Nicaragua: Nicaragua Peanut Report Annual

Nicaragua’s peanut farmers are expected to reduce harvested areas by at least five percent in marketing year (MY) 2025/26 in anticipation of lower prices due to increased Brazilian peanut production. FAS Managua expects farmers to be more rigorous in selecting production areas based on historical yields in MY 2025/26, excluding marginal lands with less fertile soil. Even with fluctuating market prices and adjustments to planted areas, Nicaragua is expected to remain a stable peanut producer in the region, with exports of shelled peanuts exceeding 70,000 metric tons annually.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

For more information, or for an archive of all FAS GAIN reports, please visit gain.fas.usda.gov.

India: Deep History

In his lectures, Professor Amartya Sen, the Harvard Nobel Prize in Economics winner, mentions Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. Wheeler wrote, while reporting on the excavation of the Indus Valley Civilization (of India), that the plumbing and sewerage were advanced, in some ways surpassing modern equivalents.

Sen’s larger point is that history is characterized by phases of rise and fall and not just classes and class struggles à la Marx.

Consider the following depiction of the East India Company, from The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (also subtitled The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire) by William Dalrymple.


On 28 August 1608, Captain William Hawkins, a bluff sea captain with the Third Voyage, anchored his ship, the Hector, off Surat, and so became the first commander of an EIC vessel to set foot on Indian soil.

India then had a population of 150 million — about a fifth of the world’s total — and was producing about a quarter of global manufacturing; indeed, in many ways it was the world’s industrial powerhouse and the world’s leader in manufactured textiles. Not for nothing are so many English words connected with weaving — chintz, calico, shawl, pyjamas, khaki, dungarees, cummerbund, taffetas — of Indian origin. It was certainly responsible for a much larger share of world trade than any comparable zone and the weight of its economic power even reached Mexico, whose textile manufacture suffered a crisis of ‘de-industrialisation’ due to Indian cloth imports. In comparison, England then had just 5 per cent of India’s population and was producing just under 3 per cent of the world’s manufactured goods. A good proportion of the profits on this found its way to the Mughal exchequer in Agra, making the Mughal Emperor, with an income of around £100 million,* by far the richest monarch in the world.

The Mughal capitals were the megacities of their day: ‘They are second to none either in Asia or in Europe,’ thought the Jesuit Fr Antonio Monserrate, ‘with regards either to size, population, or wealth. Their cities are crowded with merchants, who gather from all over Asia. There is no art or craft which is not practised there.’ Between 1586 and 1605, European silver flowed into the Mughal heartland at the astonishing rate of 18 metric tons a year, for as William Hawkins observed, all nations bring coyne and carry away commodities for the same’. For their grubby contemporaries in the West, stumbling around in their codpieces, the silk-clad Mughals, dripping in jewels, were the living embodiment of wealth and power — a meaning that has remained impregnated in the word ‘mogul’ ever since.

By the early seventeenth century, Europeans had become used to easy military victories over the other peoples of the world.

* Over £10,000 million today.

Think of the larger point: what you just read is the story of Indian de-industrialization and its negative results. Ask yourself whether American de-industrialization is something of an echo of this, as manufacturing is offshored.

Movies As Parallel Universities: The Promised Land

The Promised Land is a Polish film masterpiece based on Nobel laureate Reymont’s 1899 novel. The novel describes the industrialization of the Polish city of Łódź in the nineteenth century and reminds one a little of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle of 1906 but with the emphasis not on dangers and miseries for labor but on the “mad dance” of the capitalist industrial free-for-all:

“The Promised Land (Polish: Ziemia obiecana) is a 1975 Polish drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the novel by Władysław Reymont. Set in the industrial city of Łódź, The Promised Land tells the story of a Pole, a German, and a Jew struggling to build a factory in the raw world of 19th century capitalism.”

(Wikipedia)

Wajda presents a shocking image of the city, with its dirty and dangerous factories and ostentatiously opulent residences devoid of taste and culture. The film follows in the tradition of Charles Dickens, Émile Zola and Maxim Gorky, as well as German expressionists such as Dix, Meidner and Grosz, who gave testimony of social protest. Think also of the English poet, William Blake’s metaphor describing industrial England as a world of “dark Satanic mills.”

Reymont, the author of the original novel, was in his heart a ruralist and intensely disliked the modern industrial world, which he saw as maniacal and destructive.

In the 2015 poll conducted by the Polish Museum of Cinematography in Łódź, The Promised Land was ranked first on the list of the greatest Polish films of all time.

Plot

“Karol Borowiecki (Daniel Olbrychski), a young Polish nobleman, is the managing engineer at the Bucholz textile factory. He is ruthless in his career pursuits, and unconcerned with the long tradition of his financially declined family. He plans to set up his own factory with the help of his friends Max Baum (Andrzej Seweryn), a German and heir to an old handloom factory, and Moritz Welt (Wojciech Pszoniak), an independent Jewish businessman. Borowiecki’s affair with Lucy Zucker (Kalina Jędrusik), the wife of another textile magnate, gives him advance notice of a change in cotton tariffs and helps Welt to make a killing on the Hamburg futures market. However, more money has to be found so all three characters cast aside their pride to raise the necessary capital.

On the day of the factory opening, Borowiecki has to deny his affair with Zucker’s wife to a jealous husband who, himself a Jew, makes him swear on a sacred Catholic object. Borowiecki then accompanies Lucy on her exile to Berlin. However, Zucker sends an associate to spy on his wife; he confirms the affair and informs Zucker, who takes his revenge on Borowiecki by burning down his brand new, uninsured factory. Borowiecki and his friends lose all that they had worked for.

The film fast forwards a few years. Borowiecki recovered financially by marrying Mada Müller, a rich heiress, and he owns his own factory. His factory is threatened by a workers’ strike. Borowiecki is forced to decide whether or not to open fire on the striking and demonstrating workers, who throw a rock into the room where Borowiecki and others are gathered. He is reminded by an associate that it is never too late to change his ways. Borowiecki, who has never shown human compassion toward his subordinates, authorizes the police to open fire nevertheless.”

(Wikipedia)

Notice the sentence above:

Borowiecki’s affair with Lucy Zucker (Kalina Jędrusik), the wife of another textile magnate, gives him advance notice of a change in cotton tariffs and helps Welt to make a killing on the Hamburg futures market.

Textiles and hence cotton prices and tariffs are, as elsewhere, “the name of the game” in Łódź industry.

There is a concrete basis in reality for this 19th century version of our derivatives trading contributing to 2008 and the Great Recession:

In a discussion of futures markets, we read:

“Already in 1880 merchants were buying an idea rather than a palpable commodity, as we saw happen in the grains futures market. In that year, sixty-one million bags (coffee, in this example) were bought and sold on the Hamburg futures market, when the entire world harvest was less than seven million bags!

It was this sort of speculation that caused the German government to shut down the futures market for a while.”

(Global Markets Transformed: 1870-1945, Steven Topik & Allen Wells, Harvard University Press, 2012, page 234)

The danger with such speculative excesses is that the economy, national or global, becomes a “betting parlor” (bets on bets on bets in an infinite regress, as in the lead-up to 2008) and governments have been paralyzed and passive in the face of such “casino capitalism” (to use Susan Strange’s vocabulary) because laissez-faire neoliberal ideology has a profound hold in the West, especially in Anglo-America.

Professor Milton Friedman (died in 2006) argued in interviews going back to the 1960s and before, that speculators fulfill a valuable economic function since they “keep the system efficient.”

The current semi-dismantling and neutralizing of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms and guidelines has to do not only with lobbying but also with the hold of various strands of such “laissez-faire” ideology and market fundamentalism.

Keynes’s classic essay, “The End of Laissez-Faire” tends to yield to the countervailing force of this market fundamentalism/“laissez-faire religion.”