The Global Journey of T-shirts - A Market, Power, and Politics Examination of World Trade by an Economist

Author: Pierella Rivero
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: In The Global Tribe of T-shirts, business professor Pierella Rivero takes readers on a fascinating global journey, revealing the real story behind her $6 T-shirt. From cotton farms in West Texas to textile production workshops in China, from trade negotiations in Washington to second-hand clothing markets in Africa, Rivero examines today's international trade through this simple product. The stories Rivero collects and writes achieve high academic standards while showing that both critics and advocates of globalization tend to oversimplify many issues in international trade. When Rivero talks to business leaders around the world who are involved in her T-shirt story, she is forced to question her own views on the political, economic, and moral impacts of globalization. As a trained economist, Rivero hopes her T-shirt stories will reveal the undeniable benefits of global free trade and counter the misleading perceptions spread by anti-globalization movements. However, she finds that "free markets" are often far from free; staunch supporters of free trade actually benefit from trade restrictions; and those who claim to be victims of globalization are often the biggest beneficiaries. While today's debates about globalization focus on whether competitive markets bring disaster or a bright future, Rivero discovers that the stories she tells are more about power and politics. The Global Tribe of T-shirts uses a simple T-shirt to expose the political and human side of the globalization debate. The story suggests that every component of any product is tied to an intriguing business process, and ordinary people attach their hopes and dreams to these products (or their components). To realize these hopes or dreams is largely influenced by politics, which is both beneficial and detrimental. Through T-shirts, ordinary people are closely connected, and their stories paint a vivid picture of the political and economic landscape of globalization.