[Marxism] Empirical confirmation of Hart-Landsburg/Burkett

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

A New Pattern Is Cut for Global Textile Trade
China Likely to Dominate as Quotas Expire

By Peter S. Goodman and Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 17, 2004; Page A01

AMPARA, Sri Lanka -- Wild monkeys and Buddhist shrines outnumber any
signs of industry, and rampaging elephants are not uncommon. The closest
port lies seven hours away, down a rutted road. Yet here in the jungle
of this small island nation in the Indian Ocean, the Daya Apparel Export
Ltd. factory and others like it churn out pants and shirts for American
Eagle Outfitters, A-line skirts for the Gap and bras for Victoria's Secret.

"If I didn't have this job, we wouldn't have enough to eat," said
20-year-old Mohammed Ismail Mazeela, one of 2,000 women from surrounding
villages who work at the plant. The $40 monthly wage supports her family
in Sammamthurai village, where people walk trash-strewn lanes in bare
feet. It buys the electricity powering the lone bulb in her shack, the
food her mother cooks over the wood fire on their concrete floor, and
schoolbooks for her sister's three children. "There is nothing else here."

Soon there may be even less. On Jan. 1, World Trade Organization rules
governing the global textile trade will undergo their biggest revision
in 30 years. The changes are expected to jeopardize as many as 30
million jobs in some of the world's poorest places as the textile
industry uproots and begins consolidating in a country that has become
the world's acknowledged low-cost producer: China.

About $400 billion in trade is at stake, but the implications are
greater than the money involved. Since 1974, many developing countries
have pinned their economic hopes on a complicated system of worldwide
quotas that guaranteed each a specified share of the lucrative textile
markets in the United States and Europe. By specifying how many blue
jeans or how much fabric an individual country could export, the quotas
have effectively limited the amount of goods coming from major producers
like China, while giving smaller or less competitive nations room to
participate. Capital and jobs followed the quotas, helping countries
build an industrial base through textile exports.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55462-2004Nov16.html

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