Pietra Rivoli, "Dogs Snarling Together: How Politics Came to Rule the Global Apparel Trade "

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:

1. Throughout her argument, Rivoli repeatedly uses the phrase--“the race to the bottom”—without every explicitly defining what it means. What is this race? Who are the participants? What are they racing to the bottom of? What is the prize that goes to the winner? What do the losers get?

2. One of the particular challenges Rivoli faces in writing about the recent history of trade policy governing fabrics in the United States is the sheer complexity of the regulations; another is the great number of players involved (the “alphabet armies”); and yet another is the way that alliances shift over time, with key players moving over to “the dark side.” Given the level of detail that this subject requires, it is possible that Rivoli’s larger point are in danger of getting lost. What would you say are Rivoli’s larger concerns, beyond pointing out the complexity of the issue of textile trade?

3. Rivoli is writing about events as they unfold and, thus, cannot offer her assessment as final or definitive. She can only say, as she does repeatedly, that this is how the situation looked heading into 2005. Did the MFA quotes expire, as scheduled, on December 31, 2004? If you were to update Rivoli’s argument, what would you say has happened to the textile trade in the years after she published The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy?

Questions for Writing:  

1.  Rivioli identifies the negotiations over the U.S.-Carribbean Trade Partnership Act as a “telling example of the dominance of politics over markets,” an example that appears to carry on an American tradition of exempting the textile industries from free trade. Is a world where markets dominate the political system superior to one where politics dominate over markets? Given that Rivoli’s case involves a long history of American presidents exempting the textile industries from compliance with broader trade policies, how does this illustrate the dominance of politics over markets, rather than vice versa? What are the stakes in such an argument?

2.  Towards the end of her piece, Rivoli observes that, “Negotiations over whether to end the MFA were simple compared to the negotiations over how to end the MFA.” Given the history Rivioli has related, this can’t be much of a surprise; indeed, one could say that it is the very nature of political entities to impede the pace of change. With this thought in mind, describe what might have happened had all the trade restrictions Rivioli describes been eliminated in the blink of the eye. And then, based on your own independent research, discuss what actually happened to the textile industry once it went over the “cliff” of 2005. Do we now find ourselves with a free market?

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. In “’Market Fundamentalism’ Versus the Religion of Democracy,” Bryan Caplan asserts that it “is more important for students to understand that self-interest often encourages socially beneficial behavior, than to understand that this mechanism falls short of perfection.”  Does the textile trade, as Rivoli describes it, serve to illustrate Bryan’s central point? Would Bryan focus on individual agents or groups to illustrate the value of self-interest or would he focus on the collective value derived from the actions of all at once? Or is it that any specific instance of economic activity can be construed as “encourag[ing] socially beneficial behavior” of some kind? Write a paper where you explore the role of self-interest in the creation and maintenance of the textile industry.

2.  In “A World on the Edge,” Amy Chua discusses the very same issues that concern Rivoli: globalization, democracy, markets. And yet, Chua’s account differs both in its focus and its conclusions: where Rivoli sees the steady erosion of trade protections for the textile industry, Chua sees a rise in ethnic violence and a failure of the United States to fulfill its global obligations to the disadvantaged. How do you explain these differing views on the import of globalization? Does Rivoli’s study illustrate broader developments discussed in Chua? Or does Chua’s account illustrate the macroeconomic forces Rivoli discusses? Which version of globalization has greater explanatory power?