It was said that if
each Chinaman appended
six inches to his shirt, the mills
of Manchester would run
indefinitely. Now we know
when each Mancastrian desires
a shiny phone assembled in
Shanghai the mills of China
run intermittently at best.
As to world-shaking, as
Napoleon predicted, China has
awakened but must learn
to take in each others' washing
instead of taking in
the washing of the world–
to stop its rumblings.
According to the file note, this was originally written on March 5th. Not especially edgy then, it has aged... rapidly in just two months.
Great presentation, I love the subject matter in this poem! It was well written, I also like the word economy in the piece, what do you mean by the mills of Manchester would run indefinitely, but previously you also said appended six inches to his shirt? What is that about? Also I don't understand the last few lines of the poem, elaborate on that, thanks for sharing!
One should not explain, but since this particular miscellany splashes along the muddy line between jargon and cliche...
The idea that if every Chinaman added an inch (sometimes it's six inches) to the tail of his shirt, something would happen (sometimes it's the price of cotton going up, sometimes it's that shirtmakers would never lack customers) was a common capitalist trope in the 19th century. It's packed with racist, chauvinist, and other assumptions (Can't non-Europeans make their own shirts? Gandhi showed they could.) Its main economic fallacy is that supply will never outstrip demand, which is silly when you think about it for a minute: are no books ever remaindered?
Napoleon's prediction that China would shake the world if it woke up was easy for him to say, but is proving problematic to live through.
Taking in others' washing is another economic commonplace: if a town has 100 people and each does his own washing, no gain to anyone. If each family pays someone to do its washing but also gets paid to do someone else's, commerce flourishes. (Helped out by the stereotype that Chinese immigrants in America operated laundries for the natives.) The business about taking in others' washing breaks down when one family is particularly good at it and ends up getting rich - that's Adam Smith's competitive advantage, and the wealth of nations results because whole nations are collectively better at some things and need to hire other nations to do what they're not so good at.
An economist might say that China and the US need to dial back heir mutual interdependence because it's making both uncomfortable, even though specializing was making both rich. If they can't do that, survival becomes an issue because not all specializations are equal: A massive food surplus versus a massive capacity to assemble electronics balances until someone notices that you can't eat transistor radios while those radios are desired by the farmers but not essential. People (not to mention governments) foreseeing unmet survival needs can become violently irrational. Which even worries the farmers.
Too many words, of course. Only economical with them in verse, if then.
rapidly in just two months.
Non-practicing atheist
