In 1720, an Act was passed prohibiting altogether the use 'of any garment or apparel whatsoever, of any painted, printed or dyed calicoes, in or about any bed, chair, cushion, window curtain, or any other sort of household stuff or furniture'. In 1774, a law sanctioned the manufacture of purely cotton goods in Britain, but still prohibited the import of cotton goods. This officially protected the industry from foreign competition. Once the indigenous Indian industry had been ruined, and the factory system was established in Britain, when the colonial power could compel its subject peoples to import Manchester goods, only then were the doctrines of free trade proclaimed. It is now the objective of the Western powers to ensure that countries like Bangladesh do not adopt the protectionism which proved essential to the effective development of their industry.
Globalisation institutionalises unequal development.
Economic, rather than military, forces are more discreet, impersonal and effective. This conflicts with the experience of the garment workers. About 800,000 people work in the garment factories of Dhaka, three-quarters of them women. Transformed And Dhaka has been transformed. The archaic elegance of the colonial city has been smothered by concrete, and grit from the traffic swirls in the artificial fogs generated by the two-stroke engines of autorickshaws imported from India.