The Travels of a Five-Dollar T-Shirt

November 12, 2009

Economist and author Pietra Rivoli has a hard time answering big questions. For instance, what is the definition of globalization?

"I often get asked that question from reporters and they want my answer in 60 words or less," said Rivoli. "But I don't have a 60 word take on globalization."

Because there are so many valid ways to address and define globalization, Rivoli sought to narrow the scope on the topic through her award-winning book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.

The book tracks a t-shirt from the Texas cotton fields, through manufacturing in China, to consumers in the U.S. and to Africa's used clothing market all the while showing the economic, political and social forces that come to bear on a T-shirt.

"This was my attempt to bite off a piece of this huge topic of globalization. Bite off a piece that was big enough to be meaningful but small enough to be manageable," said the Georgetown Professor of Finance and International Business, who spoke at the Martin Institute on Wednesday, November 11.

Rivoli arrived at the idea of using a simple everyday item, in this case a $5 t-shirt, to address the topic of globalization through historian Lauren Ulrich's approach of using ordinary people and objects to tell stories.

"Rather than trying to answer the question 'is globalization good or bad?' or 'what's your take on it?', I wanted to turn the question into something a lot more focused and say, 'what can the biography of this simple product teach us about international business, globalization, and trade today?'"

Rivoli first began her research for the book during the anti-globalization movement earlier this decade which brought several protests to college campuses, including Georgetown's.

Student activists at Georgetown and several other colleges and universities across the country were taking a stand against sweatshops, where workers are underpaid and work in unsafe environments.

"The students refused to buy or wear any Georgetown t-shirts if they were made in sweatshops," said Rivoli, "but no one knew where the t-shirts were coming from."

While vacationing with her family in Florida, Rivoli plucked a $5 t-shirt out of a bin at a tourist shop and decided she was going to find out where exactly that t-shirt came from.

After a seven-year journey, which took her to places she never expected, Rivoli concluded "most disadvantaged people are not disadvantaged by markets or capitalism, they are much more disadvantage because they are on the outside of the rulemaking process and the rulemaking process is not democratically governed."

Most of the people she spoke to for her book, from textile industry leaders throughout the world to a Tanzanian t-shirt stall owner, didn't want to discuss business but rather what wasn't fair. "This wasn't the conversation I was expecting...but I came to realize that in each chapter of this t-shirts life, different issues of justice and fairness emerged."

"Why was my t-shirt born in Texas and not West Africa? The answer was the extensive political and financial support the U.S. government provides to the cotton industry. That is not a business explanation. It's not an economic explanation. It's a political explanation," said Rivoli.

Rivoli said the reason China is the leader in the apparel industry today has much more to do with politics and how the Chinese government manages the labor supply and the labor force, than a simple explanation of low wages.

"What struck me over and over again was that of course the people in power are the ones who get to write the rules. And if you give someone the power to write the rules it will be natural from them to write the rules in such a way it protects themselves."

Rivoli said almost all justice issues related to globalization can be traced back to the rules and who makes those rules.

"When you look at people's dissatisfaction with how the economy is working, I don't think you can trace that dissatisfaction back to economics, business, or capitalism. Often times if you trace it back, you will find a fundamental apprehension towards who writes the rules, why they have the power to write the rules, who is protected by the rules and what it means to those of us on the outside of the rules." 

Contact

For more information, contact Communications and Media Relations at 508-565-1321.