Rivoli Questions Ch. 6

1. Explain how the hukou system and liudong renkou created a comparative advantage for China's textile industry.  Use the terms rural, urban, leash, Bracero and apartheid in your answer.

2. What does the Chinese government do to floating worker quotas when US demand for T-shirts increases?

3. What factors lead Rivoli to predict that China will continue to lead in the "race to the bottom"?

4. Why do Chinese women leave rural areas to work in the sweatshops?  Use the terms drudgery, paycheck, and autonomy in your answer.

5. How is the freedom that workers feel ironic?

6. Based on Pinchbeck's and others' studies, what benefit should we expect to see for China's sweatshop workers? 

7. How was David Hume a prophet?

8. What point is Rivoli trying to make in her section that describes the histories of Manchester, Charlotte, Osaka and Hong Kong?  Use the term "ignition switch" in your answer.

9. How have student activists and others "raised the bottom"?

10. How, when and where did the "factory acts" "raise the bottom"?

11. Why does Rivoli mention the historic changes in life expectancy?

12. How did students, just 6 years ago, force Nike, and other apparel companies, to improve working conditions?

13. What aspects of China will make it more difficult to "raise the bottom"?

14. What evidence is there that the "race to the bottom" is leaving Shanghai?  Why is it leaving?