The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade
From Publishers Weekly
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Hardcover
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Review
“An engaging and illuminating saga…Rivoli follows her T-shirt along its route, but that is like saying that Melville follows his whale…Her nuanced and fair-minded approach is all the more powerful for eschewing the pretense of ideological absolutism, and her telescopic look through a single industry has all the makings of an economics classic.” (New York Times)
“…Succeeds admirably… T-shirts may not have changed the world, but this story is a useful account of how free trade and protectionism certainly have.” (Financial Times)
“Rarely is a business book so well written that one would gladly stay up all night to finish it…” (CIO: Chief Information Officer Magazine, June 15, 2005)
“Globalization is a hot-button topic that generates strong feelings along with images of boarded-up, independent businesses in America and exploitative sweatshops overseas. But what exactly is it? Rivoli chronicles the round-the-world odyssey of a T-shirt, from Texas cotton-growers to an African used-clothing bazaar, to reveal how the planetary economy really works. Whether you feel hurt or helped by globalization, you’ll certainly understand it better after reading this fascinating account.” (Entrepreneur Magazine)
“The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is an excellent piece of work – a thorough, lucid and (best of all) honest examination of how politics and economics intertwine in the real world.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
“…a fascinating exploration of the history, economics and politics of world trade…The Travels of a T-Shirt is a thought-provoking yarn that exhibits the ugly, the bad and the good of globalization, and points to the unintended positive consequences of the clash between the proponents and opponents of free trade.” (Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
“…a readable and evenhanded treatment of the complexities of world trade… As Rivoli repeatedly makes clear, there is absolutely nothing free about free trade except the slogan.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
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This review is from: The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade (Paperback) Stimulated by a struggle against the protest of students at Georgetown maquiladoras, gave Pietra Rivoli the task of tracking the life of remember a (bad taste) t-shirt you buy in Florida, to examine the economics and politics of this non-trivial segment of the apparel industry. Why buy the shirt in the first place remains a mystery. Why Florida needs one that is likely to rule out even more of a mystery. She made me think about studying the American practice of souvenir shops and excessive consumption. However, his shirt has a story to tell.
Rivoli first skillfully traces the history of cotton as a matter of essential commodities, including the struggles in England two hundred and fifty years ago by the wool industry to combat the comfort of cotton, going so far as to prohibit the use of cotton and the requirement that people be buried in wool. The questionable economics of slavery moved cotton production to the United States, but was and remains the intervention of technology, research and financial capital today that made cotton farming more productive. However, the ability of Texas farmers market "low quality" best cotton can be attributed to technology and the federal price support, to 19 cents per pound to 59 percent of cotton. Cotton, while it is still an important product in world trade, has probably declined in relative value and part of the global economy. What we can see more of the slow death of the importance of a good date and less of a "race to the bottom" she suggests.
Then leads to the T-shirt and garment manufacturing and employment, now in decline in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. People mistakenly think that these jobs are being shipped to China. They are not. In fact, are disappearing. Rivoli notes that China, between 1995 and 2003, lost ten times the number of jobs in textile manufacturing as did the United States (p. 142), and Chinese workers have little or no safety net or alternative employment, to unlike their displaced American brethren. In the fatal race badly "at the bottom," must be clear that this fate seems to await any industry that is incapable of maintaining a long-term competitive advantage, and the only way to do that seems to be through protectionism. While the shirts are cheap, saving textile jobs is not cheap. Saving costs of U.S. textile jobs between $ 135,000 and $ 180,000 per job saved, according to best estimates (p. 144), costing taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars. When jobs are being created in the lobbying industry and trade associations. This section (Part III) is a vast alphabet soup of acronyms – WTO, AGOA, NAFTA, CBTPA, ADTPA, ATC, MFA, ACMI, LTA, ATMI, and ITCB – for trade agreements, trade associations, the trade and lobbying groups, and other advocates of (protectionism, mainly). The complexity of the letters is passed by the complexity of trade agreements to be enacted. It takes a lot of really well-intentioned effort and dollars to interrupt the free flow of commerce.
As noted above, Rivoli usually passes over the details of the U.S. retail clothing except minimal attention to the hated global icon Wal-Mart. Observe the outside and all terrain vehicles in downtown parking America shopping, queuing to leave the used clothing to the Salvation Army van in anticipation of going inside and buying clothes more evenly recyclable. I doubt that those malls contain a Wal-Mart, and is likely to be a big difference between those in the Wal-Mart and re-cycle clothes before buying Lord & Taylor.
This grant recycled sets the stage for the best example of free trade in the book – used clothing jobs in Tanzania, where savvy shoppers brand shop at lower prices, haggling and playing in the market from dawn to dusk. Discrimination, informed, conscious shoppers happily haggle, participate in one or functioning of markets in Tanzania. She is careful not to buy the 'humiliation' argument, saying that Africans should be ashamed to wear second-hand. As noted, some of the things used at the mall fallen U.S. never gets to Africa, which is released at will, as "vintage clothing", used by the Americans and the Japanese prepared to pay "hundreds of dollars" to use jeans. As noted, while much has remained the same in impoverished Africa, most Africans do dress better now, thanks to this free market.
It offers a brief conclusion (pp. 211-215) and analysis. We see some hope: "Cutting agricultural subsidies, democratization, and give poor countries a place at the table in trade negotiations are all steps in the right direction." She notes view, Cordell Hull, global trade may be the best prevention for war.
The book is relatively short (215 pages), well written, entertaining and, despite the need to use acronyms, very clear and readable. This is an excellent introduction to the problems of protectionism and the intricacies of delivering a truly free trade, noting that many of those who advocate free trade in practice do not really want or, more commonly, may be subject to competition free trade.
Three minor subtleties.
She writes courtesy of Tom Friedman, his lions and gazelles metaphors, analogies of hardware and software, but forgets that he also says that the world is flat. This book shows that world markets for shirts not free, fair or flat. And the playing field is not level. The mountain is full of lumps, dips, and massive. And, as noted Rivoli, was not made or kept this way than by "snarling dogs", not lions or gazelles. Friedman has popularized interest in globalization, but has shed little light on his understanding or analysis.
With two or three almost casual asides, which seems intent on laying this travesty of fair or free markets at the feet of George Bush, if only because cotton growers in West Texas are the beneficiaries of federal subsidies . A fairer view would recognize that people of political and social behavior now fight against globalization fought — and still fight – for the price of crop protection for farmers.
Rivoli claims that economists all over the world seem to have universally adopted, recommended and embraced free trade ( "virtually unanimous support among professional economists, a group almost without exception who scorn protectionism in general", p. 148) . I will not go that far. But we must go so far as to read this good book.
This review is from: The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade (Paperback) Basta comments praising the author and this book has been written, and all well deserved. But since it became available in paperback this June (2006), this review aims to stimulate a wider debate on how it could be used in the classroom.
The summary is well known. Driven by protests against globalization in its Georgetown campus, an economics professor travels the world to discover the life of a shirt, West Texas cotton (and a brief history of U.S. cotton and policies labor) to the Chinese industry of U.S. trade policy (including "perverse effects and unintended consequences") and finally to the use of the clothing market in Africa. Neither the champion nor henchman usual ideologues, the author uses the "narrative" rather than a strict quantitative analysis or theoretical models.
Applications for courses in foreign policy, political economy, public policies and style are obvious. For college students or new graduate students, could be a good way to introduce a variety of concepts in the beginning of a course, or as the conclusion of work, to see how the concepts of the semester to work together (and against) .
But neither should be ignored for use in ethics courses in business, or simply "ethics." It has lots of courses like science and society. "It could also contribute to courses interested in race, class or gender, although the responses and the consequences can be more mixed than some partisans might prefer. (For example, for the author without trade bias is challenged, but so are the notions that "exploited" tells the whole story of women in low-paying jobs in manufacturing.)
Our school is using the book as his "summer reading" for all incoming first year students with a series of events during orientation and the fall semester. Some of the questions I would like to see raised include considering "The commercial success can be achieved through moral failure" (p. 14), "Global capitalism and activism of labor are not enemies but are cooperating, however unwittingly, in improving human resources status "(p. 102), the role of technological progress in developing social and cultural changes, and questions about activism political, social justice, etc. Other faculty members are working on different issues that are interesting and important, in the back of the book, but also more general concepts applicable to life as a college student again.
My personal opinion is that this type of book, and this book in particular is a very pleasant student, plus a wide range of courses are usually full of dryer tomes. If you are looking for something different than the Lexus and the olive and the world is flat, this could be for you.
This review is from: The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade (Paperback) We all have an opinion on globalization. Or drop into the field of trade protectionism or free or perhaps somewhere between but few of us have a clear understanding of the mechanisms of globalization. Tonselson Alan's book "The race to the bottom" tried explaining that the ironic use statistical economic analysis but Rivoli breathes life into globalization by fleshing out the people involved in the life cycle of an ordinary T-shirt. His book illustrates this phenomenon to the layperson by demonstrating that globalization is more about the history and, more importantly, the policy on the economy.
His detailed analysis of textile trade politics leaves me to marvel at the fact that I'm actually wearing a shirt at all! Teleologically all political activity is aimed at material gain, therefore, we are back to economics or as she so aptly demonstrates that politics gets in the way of the economy.
Travels of a T-shirt is a book informative, enlightening, fascinating and exciting. The most striking feature is its historical analysis of cotton production and textile industries. If you thought that globalization is a 21st century phenomenon, think again. Globalization is as old as the human race. Only its magnitude is unique to our century.
Readers will discover that problems of globalization are not black and white but rather infinite shades of gray. I urge everyone to read this book because I guarantee they will walk away with a new perspective.