Review the Part II of Rivoli’s book (Ch5-8) before addressing the following questions.
1). What does the history of the location of the textile industry illustrate about global economies?
The histories of the locations play a huge part in the global economies because of the different locations, it allows trades. With each country at a different location, they each have their own economy and this link to exports and imports within that country. Examples of places with certain goods such as “by the mid-1930s Japan would have approximately 40 percent of the world’s export of cotton goods.” “By the 1970s, Hong Kong was the world’s largest exporter of clothing, with manufacturing base designs for the low end of the Western apparel markets.” The locations shape the global economies.
2). Industrialization brings both positive and negative consequences. How do you view these trade-offs. Use specific examples from the text to support your view.
Industrialization on positive consequences in that with globalization the world is able to trade with each other and have share the amount of goods. Although with the benefits of industrialization, migrant workers and people involved with the process have to live in poor conditions and work long hours to produce the goods. They also earn low amount of wages. Although there have been regulations and policies to help these workers, it is still not enough. An example of a policy is “in the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was formed in 1970 and today is advising an analogous body that is developing in China.” I feel that one way to help these poorer countries is to also develop their environment and living area to a higher standard and in even if they are receiving lower wages at least they can live comfortably. This can also give the worker an incentive to want to work. This trade-off between both negative and positive consequences, overall I feel that they balanced each other out because without these workers there will be no goods and the economies will not so well off. This tradeoff is similar to what the author says, “As much as the CEOs would like to silence the activists and activists would like to silence the corporations, the fact is that the two sided need each other…” Both the negative and positive tradeoff needs each other in order for production to work.
3). Choose one passage from this section of book that you found particularly informative. Explain why it was interesting.
There are many passages that are interesting but one of the passages that I thought is informative and interesting is:
“Chi-Ying, a young single woman from Hubei, was interviewed by Lee. Though Chi-Ying makes seven to eight times as much money at the factory as her father does at home, money is not at the top of her list of reasons for leaving the village for the factory. Chi-Ying has delayed marriage and ultimately decided against the husband her parents had chosen for her. With her wages, she repaid the young man for the gifts he had given her parents. In the city, she feels modern,, free, and young. She likes buying a pair of cheap earrings with her own money, seeing a movie or visiting the shopping mall. Chi-Ying compares herself to her mother and grandmother, and the striking differences seem to her to not income but horizons. Mom and Grandma never had their own jobs, or their own money. They never saw a paved road.” (p. 113).
I found this passage interesting because we can be aware of china’s situation and look at a personal story of Chi-Ying. I feel that since the world is becoming globalized and changing, the different generation is experiencing different lives than their parent and the families are no longer living traditional lifestyles. Chi-Ying mentions both her mother and grandmother never had a job or money of their own, this makes her feel as if she had more opportunity and advantage growing up in the time era because she have freedom and could live in a world where she can buy cheap goods and enjoy her life. This passage can also make us think about other countries as well and how globalization shapes the lives of workers.
Works Cited
Rivoli, Pietra. The travels of a t-shirt in the global economy: an economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.
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