A Review of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy When a Georgetown business professor picks up a clearance t-shirt and embarks on a journey around the globe, a world of international trade and globalization is unlocked. Author Pietra Rivoli is a longtime professor with specialized knowledge in international business, finance, and social issues. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy documents the process in which a t-shirt is made: from cotton production and manufacturing to entering and reentering the market. America has managed to stay on top of the global industry for over 200 years, despite the fact that in most industries, dominance is short-lived (Rivoli 5). The secret to the cotton farmer’s success is government support. …show more content…
America’s demand for cheap clothes and China’s demand for cheap cotton are a match made in heaven. After China reopened its doors to the world after the transition to Communism, factories were state-owned. The Chinese state exploits the powerless, through the hukou system. Each citizen is registered to specify where they live, and what jobs they have. People with a rural hukou are ‘second-class’, and often migrate to the city to try and work in factories (Rivoli 106-107). Workers in the he yarn and fabric factories work long hours doing dull, repetitive jobs in dangerous conditions. The crushing central planning and human labor left no room for innovation, so the private sector, where innovation is valued, has nearly quadrupled in size (Rivoli 85). Widespread cheating and deception, are becoming common in order to keep costs low, creating a ‘race to the bottom.’ While trying to get on top, factories have destroyed many basic human rights, as well as the environment. It has become commonplace to read news articles about dumping waste into rivers, clear-cutting forests for industrial sites, and heavily polluted air. The humans have hurt the environment, and it may seem as though Mother Nature is trying to bite back. Respiratory diseases from smog and toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water are examples of the environment affecting …show more content…
I would recommend this book to my dad. It leaves the reader thinking, and imparts several worthwhile lessons about how humans shape the environment, politics, and the economy. Economics and politics are extremely intertwined. If one wishes to be an informed, politically active citizen, an understanding of economics is key. On the flip side, economists need to have a knowledge of politics to understand trade regulations, foreign actions, and international business. Just as America uses economic access as rewards to her allies, revoking economic access can be used as a ‘punishment.’ For example, in the recent months Russia annexed Crimea, and has threatened Ukraine. United Nations members, including America, have placed sanctions against Russia, to show that they do not condone Putin’s actions. The goal with these sanctions is not to damage the economy, but rather put pressure on Russia, in hopes to influence Putin’s next action. Sanctions, boycotts and blockades have had a long history throughout the world as protest strategies and political statements, just as economics and politics have been intertwined since the beginning of modern
Try as it might, America as a whole had difficulty dealing with trust monopolizations, southern attempts at industrialization, bad factory working conditions, immigration, and unsatisfied farmers. Though some conflicts were fixed to the best of reformers' ability, the dearth of strong leadership prevented the checking of corporations, and as a result, people suffered economically. However, as industry and agriculture boomed, factory owners and farmers began to look passed the boundaries of America for resources, promoting foreign affairs, and eventually, bringing in the Age of
The 19th century market revolution was a period of dramatic socioeconomic development in the United States. According to Ronald Takaki, this “revolution” culminated in a boom of entreprenuership, ease of business, and an insatiable demand for labor that led to the racialization of minorities in the United States. After a stagnate economy in the late 1700s due to poor soil quality, the invention of the Cotton Gin by Elie Whitney jumpstarted the market by allowing tougher strains of cotton to be grown and processed. Suddenly, the “Cotton Kingdom” was immensely profitable. In addition, a decrease in shipping costs (76) and spreading use of banking and capital (76) made doing business in the US easier. The United States also had, in contrary to
Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...
When you go to the mall to pick up a pair of jeans or a shirt, do you think about where they came from? How they were made? Who made them? Most consumers are unaware of where their clothes are coming from. All the consumer is responsible for is buying the clothing from the store and most likely have little to no knowledge about how it was manufactured, transported, or even who made the clothing item and the amount of intensive labor that went into producing it (Timmerman, 3). In my paper, I will utilize the book Where Am I Wearing? by Kelsey Timmerman and the textbook Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age by Kenneth J. Guest to examine globalization in the context of the clothing industry.
In China, Kelsey Timmerman spent time with a couple who worked at the Teva factory, traveled to the countryside to meet the couple’s son, insert name, who hasn’t seen his parents in three years due to his parents working long hours and it being expensive to take a train ride. In the US, the author visited one of a few clothing factories in the US to talk to the workers about his shorts, and the decrease of American garment factories. Timmerman wants the consumer to be more engaged and more thoughtful when mindlessly buying clothes. By researching how well the brands you want to buy from monitor their factories and what their code of ethics details, you can make a sound decision on if this is where you would want to buy your clothes. The author writes about brands that improve employers lives like SoleRebels, a shoe company who employs workers and gives them health insurance, school funds for their children, and six months of maternity leave. Brands like soleRebels that give workers benefits most factory workers have never even heard of help improve the lives of garment workers and future generations. From reading this book, Timmerman wants us to be more educated about the lives of garment workers, bridge the gap between consumers and manufacturers, and be a more engaged and mindful consumer when purchasing our
After the War of 1812, cheaper British manufactured goods poured into American markets. In order to protect American “infant industries” from British competition, Congress passed a protective tariff in 1816. Proponents of the tariff reasoned that, without some protection, American would always be in the position of supplying raw materials (such as cotton) in ret...
Bentley, J., & Ziegler, H. (2008). Trade and encounters a global perspective on the past. (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 182-401). New York: McGraw-Hill.
The period between 1880 and 1900 was a boom time for American Politics. The country was finally free of the threat of war, and many of its citizens were living comfortably. However, as these two decades went by, the American farmer found it harder and harder to live comfortably. Crops such as cotton and wheat, once the sustenance of the agriculture industry, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them. Furthermore, improvement in transportation allowed foreign competition to materialize, making it harder for American farmers to dispose of surplus crop. Mother Nature was also showing no mercy with grasshoppers, floods, and major droughts that led to a downward spiral of business that devastated many of the nation’s farmers. As a result of the agricultural depression, numerous farms groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what the farmers saw as the reasons for the decline in agriculture. During the final twenty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw monopolies and trusts, railroads, and money shortages and the loss in value of silver as threats to their way of life, all of which could be recognized as valid complaints.
China’s economy is one very large indicator of its role in globalization. “In 2010 China became the world’s largest exporter” (CIA World Factbook). Without China many places such as the United States of America would be without billions of goods imported from China annually. An influx of companies moving their manufacturing to China has allowed people to flock to cities and find jobs. China’s economy has grown exponentially over the last few decades. In the last three years China’s economy has grown by nearly ten percent every year. Despite this influx of money to China it has also resulted in many drawbacks. For example, China’s environment has been obliterated. China burns more coal than every country in the world combined. Beijing has been so badly polluted that there are actually companies that sell cans of fresh air to people, and gas masks are a common sight. On January 12th 2013 Beijing’s air pollution reached a record setting 775 PPM. To put that into perspective, the scale for measuring pollution is 0-500 PPM. This set an all-time recorded high. In Los Angeles a high ...
Scott Szwast’s speech entitled, “Scott Szwast: The global business next door” was an informative look into international trade in America and the effects thereof to a business’s growth potential. Szwast used this speech to dispel the idea held by many American’s, which is that global trade is a market for large corporations. According to Szwast, many business owners don’t take advantage of the business opportunities across the world because of “self-imposed borders”, which are doubt, uncertainty, and fear.
In The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, business professor Pietra Rivoli takes the reader on a fascinating around-the-world adventure to reveal the life story of her six-dollar T-shirt. Traveling from a West Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory, and from trade negotiations in Washington to a used clothing market in Africa, Rivoli examines international trade through the life story of this simple product. Her compelling story shows that both globalization's critics and its supporters have oversimplified the world of international trade.
In his books Where Am I Wearing? and Where Am I Eating?, Kelsey Timmerman humanizes the issues of globalization and provokes readers be informed about the origins of their products. By traveling the world and telling the stories of the people he meets, Timmerman is able to enlighten his readers and intiate communication about how to improve our world economy.
Globalization and industrialization contribute to the existence of sweatshops, which are where garments are made cheaply, because they are moving production and consumption of those cheap goods. Industrialization has enabled for global distribution, to exchange those goods around the world. They can also set apart the circumstances of consumption and production, which Western countries as mass consumers, are protected from of producers in less developed countries. These factories are usually located in less developed countries and face worker exploitation and changes in social structures. Technological innovation allows for machines to take the place of workers and do all the dirty work instead of workers doing hours of hard work by hand.
15. Hill, Charles W.L. International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace. New York : McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Stonehouse, G., Campbell, D., Hamill, J. & Purdie, T. (2004). Global and Transnational Business (2nd ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.