Towards a Socially Sustainable World Economy: An Analysis of the Social Pillars of Globalization, and: Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry (review)

Towards a Socially Sustainable World Economy and Making Sweatshops offer detailed explorations of the contradictory social and economic effects of globalization in recent decades, and the factors that have contributed to its successes and failures. The two volumes provide a complementary introduction to the current debates on globalization; although they acknowledge similar trends, their approaches and conclusions vary significantly.

In remarkably succinct chapters, Towards a Socially Sustainable World Economy defines and measures economic globalization, and then describes its effect on a variety of areas, including income inequality, job insecurity, part-time and temporary employment, taxes, and trade. Each section of the book includes useful charts and graphs, and draws examples from seven recent country-specific studies (Bangladesh, Chile, Korea, Mauritius, Poland, South Africa, and Switzerland.) Its closing chapters propose policy recommendations for countries seeking to "improve the returns from globalization while reducing the social costs."

For labor educators looking for a brief, fact-filled overview of recent trends in globalization and their effects, this book can be very useful. However, the book lacks any substantial discussion of corporate power and agency in forming the rules of globalization. Although there is a brief reference to a shifting power balance between labor and capital in favor of capital, the author argues that by prioritizing social needs such as education and job training, nations have the potential to attract corporate investors while protecting their citizens from exploitation. Rather than questioning the rules of today's global economy, the book focuses on the ways governments can better adapt.

Making Sweatshops, on the other hand, challenges the assumption that we must choose between protectionism and the current form of globalization. The globalization of the U.S. apparel industry, the author argues, was not the natural result of market forces unleashed from regulation. "Trade liberalization has not freed the apparel trade from government regulation. It has merely replaced the old trade rules with new ones, which have been designed to boost the benefits of trade for transnational corporations. . . . It is difficult to see these outcomes as the result of an invisible hand rather than as results of human and political agency."

The book traces the history of the U.S. textile, apparel, and retail industries since World War II. Relying on a broad range of primary sources, Ellen Israel Rosen convincingly argues that U.S. trade policies regarding textiles and apparel were heavily influenced by anti-communist foreign policy priorities in Asia and Latin America, as well as increasingly powerful (though sometimes diverging) interests of multinational retail, textile, and apparel corporations. As she reviews each subsequent trade program, Rosen paints a vivid picture of the debates, alliances, and struggles that preceded and followed its implementation. Throughout the book, and more systematically in the final chapters, Rosen discusses the "winners" and "losers" at each phase in the globalization of the apparel industry.

Popular audiences who are relatively new to global studies debates might find Making Sweatshops daunting. It combines detailed historical discussions of the apparel, retail, and textile industries with in-depth coverage of U.S. and international trade policy. However, by framing a wide range of trade issues within the lens of the apparel and textile industry, it creates an interesting and relevant story that workers need to hear.