“Who made your T-shirt?”A Geoletdown University student raised that question.Piertra Rivoli, a professor of business, wanted to find the answer.A few weeks later, she bought a T-shirt and began to follow its path form Texas cotton from to Chinese factory to charity bin(慈善捐贈箱).The result is an interesting new book, The Travel’s of a T-shirt in the Global Economy(經(jīng)濟).
Following a T-shirt around the world in a way to make her point more interesting, but it also frees Rivoli from the usual arguments over global trade.She goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner.In China, Rivoli shows why a clothing factory, even with its poor conditions, means a step towards a better life for the people who work there.In the colorful used-clotting markets of Tanzania, she realizes that,“it is only in this final stage of life that the T-shirt will meet a real market,”where the price of a shirt changes by the hour and is different by its size and even color, Rivoli’s book is full of memorable people and scenes, like the noise, the bad air and the“muddy-sweet smell(泥土香味)of the cotton,”she says.“Here in the factory, Shanghai smells like shallot water Texas.”
Rivoli is at her best when making those sorts of unexpected connections.She even finds one between the free traders and those who are against globalization.The changes opened up by trade are vast, she argues, but free markets need the correcting force of politics to keep them in check.True economic progress needs them both.
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