The Struggle of the Handicraft Cotton Industry Against Machine Textiles in China

Abstract

The peasant economy of China, compared to systems based upon the labor of serfs or peasants that existed in other times and places, stood out for its relative independence and intensity of production, and for the greater development of the division of labor and cooperation within the peasant household. These constituted the very social foundation for China's earlier leadership in the world. However, at the same time, the small peasant economy of China was relatively inflexible, owing to the integration of agriculture and handicrafts within the peasant household. Specialization and differentiation occurred here only with difficulty. This, consequently, hindered continuing progress in the social division of labor and forces of production. In the course of time, the small peasant economy of China was gradually transformed into an economy characterized by slow development and backwardness. This explains the longevity of feudalism in China, as well as the feebleness of the sprouts of capitalism that did appear (see Xu Xinwu, 1986). Despite the invasion of foreign capitalism after the Opium War, the system of land ownership and the structure of small peasant production survived intact-an important factor that obstructed the development of modern capitalism in China. This point can be seen in rural cotton textile handicrafts, which were closely linked with agriculture within the small peasant household, and which long competed with the machine cotton textile industry.