The Decline of the British Cotton Industry:
Trick of History, or Historical Inevitability
At one time, and for more than 100 years, the cotton industry in Great Britain was the most powerful in the world, and indeed was one of the backbones of both the British Empire and World Economic Development in the 19th Century. One school of historians argue that the decline of the cotton industry in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s was "a trick history played on the managers of the British cotton industry" (McCloskey & Sandberg, 1971, 102; Bellamy, 1962, 106). This analysis will refer to them as the "Fatalists," and assert that their belief is that life (both social and economic) is nothing more than a series of random acts, some more important than others. To the Fatalists, the study of history is the study of mankind's and societies' reactions to the events with which they are confronted.
Still others (Lazonick & Mass for instance) argue that the decline in the British Cotton industry was as explicable as cancer and was the direct, inevitable result of the ways in which those same managers chose to produce and sell their cotton in the prosperous pre-War (WWI) years (Lazonick & Mass, 1990, 1-44). The school of historical research that they represent in this debate is sometimes called "Casualist," since the belief is that history is nothing more than a series of situations (causes) that cause successes or calamities (effects). It is instructive to explore both of these schools of thought when examining an issue as complex as the rise and fall of the British cotton industry.
This is a debate well worth exploring since an examination will reveal two important economic facts germane to the British cotton industry. First, for over a century, Britain was the world leader in both cotton imports and cotton manufacturing (Mass & Lazonick, 1990, 14). In fact, its expertise in this area led to the development of an economic hist...