paper from class

The serious and grave Karl Marx of my study of The Communist Manifesto steps aside in these new readings to reveal a witty man capable of mocking Britain’s incompetence in its relations with China while acknowledging England’s place in starting a revolution that will begin in China and spread to Europe[1]. For the bulk of Marx’s writings on China, I agreed with his analysis of British-Chinese relations, however two specific arguments contained a logic gap that left me unconvinced: 1) Lord Palmerston’s supposed alliance with Russia and 2) that the trade imbalance between the West and China comes only from China’s traditional manufacturing methods.

Marx, through the various articles, tracks British petulance toward China, particularly in the person of Lord Palmerston. The articles are persuasive but border on conspiracy theory when Marx asserts that Palmerston is working for the benefit of Russia. According to Marx, Lord Palmerston takes steps toward war to appear to be working against Russian interests, but the goal is actually to push the targeted country into an alliance with Russia. What reasons the Englishman could possibly have to do so? Marx shows that “Lord Palmerston's old tricks”,[2] do work to increase Russia’s relations with China, but this fact seems only part of Britain’s incompetence in dealing with the Chinese rather than a larger conspiracy between Lord Palmerston and Russia.[3]

Marx first shows in Trade or Opium that the imbalance of trade with China has its roots in the opium epidemic. The Chinese people do not have the money to spend on English or other Western goods because their income is spent satisfying their severe addiction to opium.[4] In Trade with China, he foregoes that argument and instead proves that the traditional Chinese household and its particular mix of “husbandry with manufacturing industry”[5] keeps trade imbalanced, with China exporting far more than it imports. Marx then shows that the cost of production of necessities in China, specifically garments, is well below Western prices, and the goods last significantly longer. Does function win over fashion? If opium addiction is removed from the equation, the reader must assume that the Chinese people simply do not want the products offered for import, regardless of whether it is due to the traditional manufacturing within their society or their particular tastes. However, identifying a single cause of an import imbalance overly simplifies an entire culture. The motivations that create the trade disparity likely include traditional manufacturing, opium addiction and other reasons not to purchase Western goods. Marx weakened his argument by attempting to prove a single cause for the unequal trade between China and the West.[6]

On the whole, Marx persuades the reader that Britain is at best a petulant child and at worse a barbarian in its dealings with China. The narrow scope of his analysis of Palmerston-Russia relations and the lack of imports into China leaves a void in each of his arguments. The former would be alleviated by showing the motivation that would lead Palmerston to work specifically for the benefit of Russia, the latter by broadening his analysis of reasons behind China’s low imports of Western goods.

[1] Marx, Karl. “Revolution in China and In Europe” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/14.htm)
[2] Marx, Karl. “The New Chinese War” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/10/18.htm)
[3] Ibid.
[4] Marx, Karl. “Trade or Opium” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/09/20.htm)
[5] Marx, Karl. “Trade with China” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/12/03.htm)
[6] Ibid.

I have a plot outline for the rest of the Alice story, but I have not had any time whatsoever to work on it. I have another paper to write this weekend. Maybe I will get to it in November.