From Clothing Labels to National Economic System

Today is an experiment in the use of primary sources.  We use the same scenario as Disneyland Redux - 3011 where Los Angeles has been buried under volcano ash.  An archeologist finds the classroom and collects all of the clothing labels and turns them over to an economic historian who uses them to examine the economic system of the United States.

In groups of four the students look at all of the clothing labels they can write down the country where it was manufactured, after which we collect and coallate the country of origin.  Today there were some labels from the United States, Canada,  and Mexico, but most were from Asia or Central America.  In order the most common country from Asia was China, Vietnam, Indonesia followed by Phillipines, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and even Macao.  Central America is also strongly represented by Guatamala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador.  Others with smaller numbers are Haiti, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Kenya, Turkey, Bolivia, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and the UK.

The students must then attempt to explain why would we buy any product from another country instead of making it ourselves.  Today had some very good days including availabity of; materials, expertise, equipment, labor, capital, space, cheaper labor, of legal restrictions.  Since for clothes, we can dismiss all except cheaper labor, we need to understand why.

The players in the economy are broken down into consumers, retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers divided into owners and workers.  Going one by one we can deduce that all except workers benefit from cheaper labor costs.  The biggets winners are obviously the owners of the manufacturers.  Since economic policy is determined by the government, we can determine from this evidence the the government is concerend with manufactures first, consumers next, and workers not at all. 

It is very interesting to see what the students have been fed about economics. However, when I explain the consumers make up 70% of the economy and drives job creation, even they can realize that you are doing more for the economy by giving $10,000 to every resident of skid row that goving the same amount to the wealthy who are less like to spend it.

By using the clothing lables as evidence, the students get to look at their own society as a historian, and realize both mor about their own society, and how even a very simple primary source can provide in-depth knowledge of that civilization.