Travel of a T-Shirt - Globalization

Alexia Latat

Book Review: The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

         After reading « The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade » from Pietra Rivoli, I learned a lot about the path from manufacturing to the actual buyers wearing the t-shirt through different points. Globalization is a complex and often subject of debate topic, this book gives a good point of view of the thoughts and arguments that can be made up in our mind to highlight our position in the debates. I structured my review on 4 main points.

        Firstly, history of cotton, that I had not even an idea about where it was produced, and how. My surprise was even bigger when I realized it was in US, and that after checking on internet, there were effectively still farms producing it. My surprise was also here when Rivoli talks about exchange with China in 19th century, as I thought inter-continent trade begun not before 20th. Moreover, at a moment of the book, when he talks about machines arriving in farm production process, taking the jobs of thousands of people, my question was, where did these people go? How people learn to live without making the jobs they make since their childhood (probably only domain they are expert in)? After some research and book deduction, I made a point that they either take their own business or begin to work in factories as it was when industrialization began. Moreover, I had not imagined someone making business without knowing reading. That is what Rivoli shows with Nedd Cobb, which says the touching sentence: “Dealing with bureaucrats meant a brave new world.  All of a sudden, if you couldn’t read, you couldn’t farm”. That highlights sudden appearance of higher administrative demand from government when farmers begin to have to fill papers in order to obtain subsidies and financial helps from institutions. Shanghai, Great-Britain, Tanzania are all countries I would love to visit. Learning a little more about their history is always a chance to get to know more about cultures.

        Secondly, institutions are always present in the book. We feel how crucial is their role in globalization and country protectionism, although I was thinking it would come mainly from companies expanding abroad and creating links between countries. From the beginning, government is one of the main reasons in American textile industry success, to Chinese trade regulations that are still in discussion nowadays. We see that tariffs (average of 2% for textile imports), quotas and subsidies are a complex mix of what they have to manage to help home companies to develop and to welcome foreign products. I see how difficult it is to satisfy growing economy in a country and how badly these “barriers” at importing can affect local and foreign companies.

        Thirdly, I learned a lot about market forces, pushing companies to lower and lower their prices to stay competitive, so far that there are no rules anymore. We find that along the entire book: first with slaves and then with low-paid workers and their inconsiderable working conditions, especially for women. Since I am in management schools (for 4 years now), I always had topics on ethics and how revolting was some company’s behavior toward it. I understand now better how market factors push companies to lower to the minimum their costs in order to survive, but also how, in some companies which usually are low-skilled industries, money can have higher value than human lives.