Part II

(a)

The history of the location of the textile industry illustrates the “globality” in global economics. From the reading, it is clear that the textile industry can prosper in numerous environments, countries and even continents. From England to New England and North Carolina to China and Japan, the textile industry has been home to incredible cultural diversity. However, what all of these different environments have in common is the high number of workers who are willing to work long hours for low wages. More than anything, the book has shown that the success of any industry is more dependent on the productivity and willingness of the workers than it is the actual location. 

There are many similarities of the type of workers that brought success to each of the textile industries in England, the US, Japan and China. All three industries took advantage of women’s labor to reap industrial success. In the Southern mills, the book noted that “more than 60 percent of the females working in Southern cotton mills in the early 1900’s were 13 years old of younger” (99). Moreover, they tried more “docile and tractable” women that could easily be taken advantage of. In Japan, the first cotton mill workers “were young women escaping a life of subsistence agriculture in the countryside, driven into the mills by both rural poverty and natural disasters” (102). Ultimately, it appears as if the textile industry has reaped success at the bloodied and nimble fingers of the low-paid workers (a strong majority of them women). However, Rivoli presents an interesting perspective about the textile industry actually providing the women in China with a kind of liberation, which I will address in the next point. 

(b)

It is clear that Industrialization brings both positive and negative consequences, and I think that the Rivoli’s exploration of female liberation in the Chinese textile industry is a perfect representation of this industrial dichotomy. For instance, the negative side of industrialization can be seen in the Chinese hukou system.

“Through the hukou system, China ensured a stable food supply for its cities while at the same time limiting the population of the urban areas. In reality, however, the masses in the countryside were ‘surplus labor,’ an academic term for people with nothing to do, people so ‘surplus’ that their presence had no effects of the output of the commune. And while focusing the masses to remain idle in the countryside, China devoted its resources to the urban population, developing the cities’ housing, education, healthcare, and infrastructure, while leaving the rural population to fend for itself” (106-107).

Although the hukou system has gradually been liberalized, “each rural citizen rolling toward the coast is on a leash,” (107) meaning that while they can visit the city it is not easy to stay, nor is it possible to bring one’s family; only one’s labor. This completely isolates the worker and makes them vulnerable to exploitation. Therefore, not only are these “floating workers” cheaper than urban workers, but “they ‘can bear more hardship’ and are ‘more manageable’” (108-109). Therefore, rural Chinese women who work in these industries endure low pay, long hours and incredibly poor working conditions with bad, incredible noise and curfew regulations (109-110). 

However, interestingly enough, it is this same system that draws numerous rural Chinese women to industrial work in the city in which they find their so called “liberation,” despite all of the hardship and regulation. The Chinese women who come to the city to work find that they are able to dress how they like, marry who they like or not choose to marry at all, and experience life outside the boring rural countryside. The following is a passage about one such Chinese woman, the young and single Chi Ying from Hubei, who has found more freedom in the textile industry despite all of the limitations:

“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 young and free . . . Chi Ying compares herself to her mother and grandmother, and the striking differences seem to her to be not income but horizons” (113). 

Therefore, although these women face low pay and horrible conditions, they experience much greater personal freedoms than they would in the rural countryside. The question is, do these liberties outweigh their injustices? Can their exploitation be reconciled with their new opportunities? 

(c)

I was very intrigued by Rivoli’s discussion about her involvement on the Licensing Oversight Committee at Georgetown. 

“I clearly remember thinking that the students, however noble and impassioned, just weren’t being reasonable. Names and addresses of all of the factories in this fleet-footed industry with its global supply chain? Unannounced visits by independent monitors? And why would the factories let them in, even assuming we did have names and addresses? And of course we would never get names and addresses, since every company producing the clothing had stated flatly that they would never release this information. I see now that my responses in these early meetings were very close to the response the business community has had to social, environmental, or labor activists since the days of Thomas Percival: How could all of this possibly work? And how could we know we were doing more good than harm?” (128). 

From the reading we found out, however, that the companies did in fact agree to these terms. Yet the text doesn’t go into further discussion about how the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) actually carries out its job. I’m interested in if these companies like Nike do in fact follow through on all that they claim, and if they didn’t, how it is able to be covered up. I guess I’m interested in if the WRC has found any of these companies in violation or how the process is actually executed.