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Kris Inwood wrote:
>I don't know the literature on the antebellum tariff all that well, but I
>am somewhat startled by your view of early manufacturing.
>One reason is that before 1850 considerable manufacturing existed in
>British North America
My earlier statement about manufacturing and the tariff is clearly an
overstatment. Please excuse my rhetorical excess. I agree that much 18th
and early 19th century manufacturing was of the form of processing locally
produced and locally consumed commodities. Undoubtedly these kinds of
activities would have existed, and even expanded in the United States as
population grew, transportation improved and the density of settlement
increased.
But, would there have been a textile industry? Especially the distinctive
vertically integrated large scale industry that grew up in New England in
the 1820s and 1830s. I think not. For the details, look at Peter Temin's
article, "Product Quality and Vertical Integration in the Early Cotton
Textile Industry," _JEH_ 48, no. 4 (Dec. 1988): 891-907, and Marc Bils,
"Tariff Protection and Production in the Early U.S. Cotton Textile
Industry," _JEH_ 44, no. 4 (Dec. 1984), 1033-46. These articles show that
without the tariff most of the US textile industry would have vanished. As
it was, the US was competitive only in the lowest counts of cotton yarn,
and the production of these was closely linked to the distinctive
manufacturing style that Lowell introduced.
Without the factory style production of the Massachusetts textile mills, we
would not have the textile machinery shops that they produced, which in
turn spun off into production of locomotives and other industrial
machinery, nor would the U.S. have developed the same expertise in machine
building. Without this the history of manufacturing would undoubtedly have
been different (how much I am afraid I cannot answer).
Moreover, without the magnet of the textile mills it seems unlikely that as
many Irish immigrants would have been drawn to the Northeast. Without
these immigrants there would have been fewer industrial workers and hence
higher wages, and higher manufacturing costs. This would have further
slowed the development of manufacturing.
In sum, yes there would have been some manufacturing, but it would have had
a very different character, and presumably this would have had different
developmental consequences. Can we measure these in a single index like
"social saving" probably not, but the role of contingency and historical
accident is not the less striking in my view.
Joshua Rosenbloom
University of Kansas
Joshua L. Rosenbloom e-mail: jrosenbloom@ukans.edu
Associate Professor of Economics phone: 785-864-2839
Department of Economics fax: 785-864-5270
University of Kansas
http://www.bschool.ukans.edu/home/jrosenbloom/jlr.html
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