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Nice article, but I find it strange that not once was the gorilla in the room mentioned- China. Wedgwood was working in a world that had been re-shaped by Chin
by dpau 8y ago
Nice article, but I find it strange that not once was the gorilla in the room mentioned- China. Wedgwood was working in a world that had been re-shaped by Chinese export porcelain, one of the first examples of a truly global product and marketing "brand". Chinese porcelain was of extremely high quality (some of it unrivaled even today), technologically advanced, culturally complex, and cherished by the European nobility. European potters like Wedgwood were desperately trying to re-create the purity and beauty of the Chinese product. I would argue that what Wedgwood came up with was not only technologically inferior but also a strange cultural mishmash of influences with less cultural value than Chinese porcelain.
I highly recommend Joseph Needham's "Science and Civilisation in China" Volume 5, Part 12, covers Ceramic Technology: https://books.google.com/books?id=mabcHwmAD5oC https://books.google.com/books?id=mabcHwmAD5oC
- kerbalspacepro 8y ago>European potters like Wedgwood were desperately trying to re-create the purity and beauty of the Chinese product. Oh, how the pottery turntable turns. >Chinese manufacturers like Huawei were desperately trying to re-create the purity and beauty of the American product.
- laumars 8y agoI think that’s grossly unfair given the American products you refer to are also manufactured in China. So they clearly have the knowhow to produce high quality products - even if they often prefer to target the non-premium market (which probably makes better financial sense when it comes to selling hardware domestically)
- kerbalspacepro 8y agoManufacturing things is a commodity, creating things is where the value is.
- Theodores 8y agoHistorically China has been ahead of the West by centuries if not millennia! It has taken me a lot of reading about the Opium Wars and what went on before to come to this conclusion. We in the West are but cultural infants with a lot to learn. Really. Regarding those phones you speak of, they might have been designed in Silicon Valley but 'anyone' can design a phone, making one is a lot harder. It is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration really. We would be kind of stuck at the making bit without the hard work and ingenuity of folks in China. Apple and co went there to get products made not just because of cheaper labour but because China can do such things. The more one learns about China the more one rejects Trumpist 'they steal our IP' arguments and the more one respects Chinese history, culture and hard working attitudes. Nope, China is not perfect and not for everyone, they have a lot of problems but they also have a quite aggressive Western media that always wants to do them down with so much whataboutism, e.g. 'human rights' which is so rich considering that the US locks up so many millions of people.
- anigbrowl 8y agoI was also wondering why rich merchants in China didn't qualify as tycoons, but I'm inclined to think that this is because the author didn't feel like pursuing his line of inquiry any farther as opposed to some fundamental aspect of the Wedgewood business' corporate structure.
- malkia 8y agoThat reminds of how, in the next century confenctioners in West Europe were trying to recreate the turkish delight (lokum, in m native Bulgarian). Fascinating!
- growlist 8y ago> less cultural value than Chinese porcelain Care to elaborate?