Book Review: Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry, by Ellen Israel Rosen

One of the most frustrating aspects of understanding sweatshops is how they came to exist in globalization. Abusive conditions are found in many industries in hundreds of countries around the world, but the sweatshop is notoriously identified in apparel and textiles. This brought scholar Ellen Israel Rosen to what may be the most accessible, but also thorough book on a modern history of sweatshops. Making Sweatshops (University of California Press, 2002) puts the last century in perspective by drawing from trade, military and industrial history to put hard economic facts into the underbelly of globalization.

The Losers of Globalization
In the miraculous spread of consumerism that brings plentitude to the masses in globalization, Rosen reveals it is not a zero-sum game. It may seem that while some may reap more than others, everyone gains in the end from the free trade that liberalizes globalization. One of the biggest claims of the advent of free trade in globalization is that consumers get affordable goods. In the case of apparel, Rosen points out that in the claim of “the free trade regime’s ability to offer clothing at lower cost, evidence suggests that the benefit consumers derive from this is minimal.” (Rosen, 221)

The other claim that has long been used for developing economies in globalization, rationalizes sweatshops as a stepping-stone. Rosen brings a great deal of attention to the Asian-Pacific rise of industry, especially since it branches from the industrial-military development of those regions after World War II. With young women, girls, even children employed in sweatshops, western economists often brushed aside criticism. They claimed, and still do that these workers were “treated in accordance with the economic standards, culture and traditions of their time and place.” (Rosen, 53-53) She goes on to show how this mentality still exists today, especially in the increasing use of export processing zones. With reports of abuse, sexual harassment, bonded servitude, where, one may ask do these economists get this brand of moral relativism.