I have been watching this salon conversation for a week now and have been noting various thoughts on Michael Bischof's suggestion that perhaps governmental regulation might be used effectively to provide consumers with accurate information about some aspects oriental rugs they are considering for purchase.

I think this suggestion is reasonable and would likely be efficacious, if it could be adopted AND EFORCED internationally.

Unfortunately, I see little chance of either of these things happening.

Since I have been employed in the U.S. Federal Civil Service for almost 30 years, and have seen such regulatory efforts close-up, repeatedly, and since I was once modestly trained as a political scientist, let me suggest why I think Mr. Bischof's suggestion is unlikely to be adopted in the U.S.

The first is a rather general American belief that "that goverment governs best which governs least." Americans are deeply, viscerally, individualists and have considerably difficulty thinking of the necessarily joint activity of governing themselves in positive terms. "Government" is usually thought of as an intrusive "they" not as a "we." I think it instructive that Mr. Bischof lives in Germany, a society the political culture of which has traditionally been far more hospitable to the notion of solving social problems with governmental rules.

Secondly, the pitch of American society with regard to such things as health hazards is tilted sharply in directions that favor business. That is, it is almost alway a prerequisite of governmental regulation of something that may be unhealthy for human beings that it be shown to be so with overwhelming evidence before any action is seen to be justified. Regulation based on the liklihood that something may be harmful is unlikely. And often, look at the history of the U.S. tobacco industry, even very impressive evidence of harm will not produce much regulation. The freedom of business enterprise is perhaps the most jealously guarded of Amerian freedoms. Way ahead of political democracy.

Third, as someone has pointed out, the American right, during the Reagan administration, was successful it making it even more difficult that it has been historically to issue new governmental regulations. The current rules are so stringent that they often prevent Federal agencies from surveying their citizen "customers" to determine how well they are provided the services they are responsible for delivering.

Fourth, it is difficult to write clear, concise understandable regulations that are enforceable. I know of a regulatory passage that is intended to provide migrant workers in employer-provided housing with minimum ventilation. The regulatory passage is three very long convoluted paragraphs and its intent is merely to make sure that each window in a house can be opened to the extent of about 50% of its total area. The three convoluted paragraphs are necessary because that is what is required to make that seemingly simple requirement enforceable.

Fourth, the issuance of such regulations in the U.S. does not mean they would be enforced. It is a simple and frequent thing for an administration to effectively halt enforcment of some laws and regulations that they do not favor by simply starving the enforcing agencies with regard to needed resources.

Fifth, governmental regulation is a fairly awkward tool to use to produce desired social effects. The finer-grained the behavior to be regulated, the less successful governmental regulation is likely to be. The character of the materials used in a rug is a fairly fine-grained matter and is doubly disadvantaged because it would not command much attention as a social priority.

So while I think Mr. Bischof's suggestion is sound and would be efficacious if implemented and enforced, I do not think it will attract much attention in U.S. society and its political system in the foreseeable future.

Regards.

R. John Howe

well, John, I am convinced that governmental labels will not match the American appetite. I think it is a pity because it would make things easy in case it works - but here the details of a long chain (from the vleece to the final carpet) that is build up some thousand kilometers away in the Near, Middle and Fr East , including the backyard tricks, would be supervised and the result of this action guaranteed. Most likely too complicated.

But there is another way, a more American style, may be. A labeling system based on a private contract between the buyer and the seller (the wholesaler in the Orient and the retail dealer in the West plus the retail dealer and his customer here). Because we do not have such a governmentel labelling system here as well until now, as a kind of improvisation, we did it like this. I show an example of such a certificate
which is issed in Germany (!) though the carpet in question was made in Turkey. But a Turkish certificate would be meaningless because no customer would ever get compensation money in case he has damage there.
All one has to do is to cut 2-3 cm of the warp of the rug, keep it in an envelope e.g. for 3 months and let the buyer sign the envelope. The buyer of the piece has the chance to have the piece checked in the next 3 months. In case he claims it is chemically washed he may show his witness at court. The seller then has the same right.
After 3 months this part of the certificate is obsolete.
The background: a smart guy might buy the rug, have it chemically washed then and attend a court in order to cash the 30 000 $. In the above given way he would have no chance. The same with dyes: for that amount it might be temptative to have some minor colours changed. And to prove that at a court
is impossible.
My essence is: a buying contract is a regulation between two partners protected by law. If I assure that hydro sulphite and chlorine never ever came into contact with the ready carpet and it comes out that this is wrong - then I cheated. That simple. If I claim the rug is natural dyed and analysis gives evidence that synthetic Indigo had been used the same happens.
If such a contract is made with the United States as the place of issue the laws of the US enforce it.
For the carpet trade it is not a big burden: each major producer in the Near East has some good old business partner there. So the customer can make this contract not with the producer in Turkey or Iran (he never would see money) but with this partner who has to guarantee for his companion over there.
And in case they do not want to guarantee ? Well, they might have reasons ...

I never did this but believe me: in case I run around in Frankfurt or Vienna and purchase a new rug, "natural dyes" the people say, pay the money and then insist that they write on the receipt "natural dyes only" I could easily earn quite some money. Because at today except some minute offers ., the exemptions, all such material is in reality "partially naturally dyed", to leave aside chemical wash, which is like wine plus glycol or so.
As an appendix I show such a certificate for a yellow ground Anatolian rug that was made for the wedding of a German teacher with whome we organized a longer seminary "Introduction into natural dyes" 3 years before in Konya.

Michael
________________________________
APPENDIX: MODEL CERTIFICATE

KÖK
Marangozlar Sanayi
Yürekli Sok. 19
TR-42300 Konya
0090 332 238 01 48 Tel.
0090 332 233 94 40 Fax

Certificate Sari Ceyiz Hali

1. Yarns: warp - machine-combed, hand-spun (kirman), wool.
weft - hand-combed, hand-spun (kirman), wool. Medreselik Köyü, Mehmet Külüs
pile - machine combed, hand-spun (kirman) 70% Mohair, 30% wool. Taskale, Dursun Eryigit.

2. Dyes: all natural dyes, KÖK END dyeing systems. The Indigoid dyes from natural Indigo using woad as an
auxiliary. Memduh Kürtül, Civit dye plant, Konya.

3. Weave: Susan Yalcin. 1,29 x 2,06 m = 2,65 m². Knot count 33 h x 22 v. 8,5 kg.

4. Design and colour match: the design principe is a tradition from Eastern and Southern Central Anatolia.
For antique carpets of this type see Kirchheim, E.H.(ed.): Orient Stars - A Carpet
Collection. London, 1993.
This particular design was developed in a communication between the weaver,
Susan Yalcin, and Mümin Kurnaz, to be a wedding present for Marianne ( "M")
and Wolfgang ("W") Münzinger who had visited us in the summer of 1998 with a
group of German chemistry teachers.

5. We guarantee that the following substances that attack the wool and the dye quality have not been used :
soap, agressive cheap detergents like sodium lauryl sulphate, Na-Laurylether sulphate, PEG-adducts
(detergents achieved by application of ethylen oxide), Silicon-type materials, synthetic petrochemical
lipids. Reducing agents like hydrosulphite or oxidizing agents like hypochlorite have not been used
(whatever form of chlorine).
The washing process has been undertaken (according to the CTFA system) using:
a. water, extracts from plants, alkylpolyglucoside (synth. from natural sources), phospholipids (natural),
E 223.
b. water, wool fat alcohols (natural), jojoba oil (natural), phospholipids (natural), carbohydrate polymers
(natural), E 223, ascorbyl palmitate (synth.), formic and acetic acid (synth.).

We guarantee that the carpet has not been pressed.

6. In case that a scientifical witness can be achieved stating that one of the above given details is not correct
and demonstrated at a court I have to compensate the buyer of this rug with 30 000 $. The place of court
is Mainz/Germany.

Lonsheim (Germany) ........................................................... ...................................
( Michael Bischof ) ( Date )

Regards, Yon

I know I've said this before, but it has arisen again in this thread: the fact that a law requiring labels would be broken sometimes is not an argument against having such a law. It does suggest that such a law ought to be enforceable (about which Michael Bischof is reasonably specific) and for which violations should have have fairly stiff penalties.

The notion that the legal venue for enforcement should be civil rather than criminal chills me to the bone. Just what we need, another area for frivolous litigation. The American civil law system is so fundamentally flawed that I often wonder whether scrapping it altogether might be a good idea even if it means losing the protections it offers.

While I don't really want to see this thing get to be entirely political (although the topic has, by its nature, a large political element in it), I simply cannot let John's statement, The freedom of business enterprise is perhaps the most jealously guarded of Amerian freedoms. Way ahead of political democracy pass without comment.

It is simply not true. The example John chooses to illustrate this point is tobacco. But tobacco products have had governmentally imposed warning labels on them for many years, have restrictions on their advertising that go far beyond anything that would pass the First Amendment test for almost any other product, are extremely heavily taxed and have restrictions on who can buy them and where they can be used. The only concession I can see is that it is legal to produce and sell the products, a decision that I think simply reflects the disastrous experiment with making it illegal to produce or sell alcohol products. The fact, whether we like it or approve of it or not, is that most people who smoke do so because they want to do so, and the essence of a free society is that it is every person's right to be a damn fool as long as he is reasonably harmless to others.

Regards,

Steve Price

Yours sincerely

Michael

The US civil law system is a mess, but this isn't the right venue for discussing it.

Any two parties can enter into a contract, of course, and there are remedies for breaking it. A contract like the one in your model would offer significant protection to the buyer at little risk to the honest, knowledgable seller, but I don't think such contracts would be common in the absence of requirements that they exist. And if such requirements were put in place, my opinion is that they would create less mischief if violations were criminal rather than civil matters.

Regards,

Steve Price

I do not intend to create more punished people but, of course, such regulations make people more conscious on what they are saying and doing. And, in the carpet business, as a dealer when You are forced to do a statement about Your merchandize and You have to commit: I do not know ... ? It may limit the noise of Your marketing abilities but would not break Your neck.

Yours sincerely

Michael

Let's set up a little imaginary situation: Somebody bought a rug from a dealer in the USA last week, and brought it home. His 2 year old child scraped some of the fuzz off the surface with his fingernail, put it into his nose, suffocated and died.

This is a tragedy, but I think most of us would agree that the dealer did nothing wrong, and there is no sensible reason why he should suffer any consequences. In our criminal system, he wouldn't suffer any consequences. In fact, nobody would have any reason to punish him.

On the other hand, the person who bought the rug might have read Turkotek this week and learned that being able to pull off lots of fuzz from a carpet is a sign of something less than first quality. He might have insisted that the dealer give him a contract of the type you showed. He could go to a lawyer and explain all this, and show the contract that says the rug is an excellent quality Persian carpet. If the dealer is wealthy or has insurance, he is likely to get sued. If the carpet came from a big corporate producer, they would also get sued. The buyer would collect some money out of all this. Obviously, he has suffered a loss, a jury will see him cry about the loss of his beloved child and do their best to make him feel less sad. Besides, the dealer and the producer were selling something not up to the standard of the first class carpet they represented it to be. Furthermore, the damages would be paid by an insurance company, so as far as the jury is concerned, they are doing something nice for the grieving parent and nobody (at least, nobody who can be identified as a human being) is getting hurt by it.

See the difference? In our criminal system, the victim has nothing to gain by prosecuting so he is not likely to do so without real cause. In the civil system, every tragedy is a financial opportunity.

Oversimplified, but I think you get the point.

Regards,

Steve Price

Steve is right that while there's something essentially political about this salon topic, it is sometimes difficult to pursue points made within it without moving to a pretty purely political world, something that we're not about here.

It should be clear from Steve's flat contradiction of one of my points above (which I still confidently hold despite my access to his opinion ) disagree about the basic character of the American political system. I would not argue that the political system is not ever able to act on its own ground, but that usually it is reflective of an economic system to which we are even more firmly wedded.

I think Marx was basically correct about this insight but you don't have to be a fan of his to see the our economic system is usually primary. Look at Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution," written, I think, in the 1940s or the 1950s. Beard is not much read anymore, but would be able to demolish most self-images that Americans have of their political system in relationship to their economic one.

And Tocqueville said "watch for the silences" in any society to detect it deepest values. That is, look for the things that don't have to be explained or defended anymore.

It is the U.S. political system that has to be constantly justified nowadays. Our particularly jungle-ish species of capitalism is hardly ever required to do so. We now see it as the deepest vein of our society and the one least open to self-reflective scrutiny. The "market" is our true secular religion. It is seen by many Americans to be the chief and often the only legitimate social instrument and value. The notion of a "public interest" is seen unavoidably and unacceptably to entail some in our society foisting their values on others.

The notion that there are societal values (other than self defense) that rise about individual short-term economic interest is thought nearly always to endanger our individualism with something that inherently risks some species of totalitarian socialism.

I won't pursue this tangent further, although others may want to speak to what I've said here.

Regards,

R. John Howe

without commenting in detail the different attitudes towards governmental interferences into the carpet business here further I think one can conclude from the various contributions:
- the aspect of quality and to safe-guard this quality was enhanced by everybody. Opinions differ on how this can be obtained and to which extent governments may be involved in it. Conditions in the US and in Europe seem to be quite different from each other.
- automatically this is connected with grading. In the present grading does not function as everybody has the best only.

So I propose to go back again to the details of modern weaves. Fitting to the basic principle of grading we should ask, may be, for what different purposes modern weaves are (should be) made and discuss whether we can derive safe regulations (what should be done-controlled-guaranteed) from that.

Contributions up to now came to me as a big surprise: how diverse the world is.

Yours sincerely

Michael Bischof

I think we will simply continue to disagree about how jungle-like the US system is, and responded mostly because it may be useful to our readers to understand that opinion in this country is far from monolithic.

Some time when you and I sit down over a couple of beers you can explain to me how economic and political systems can be independent of each other, which seems to be fundamental to your position.

Regards,

Steve Price

Public Relations

To a large degree customers dictate what is produced. Demand influences supply. This is valid whether we're talking about drugs or rugs. (Brand new products try to create demand, but this isn't what we're considering here.) The pressure for change and innovation most often comes from the consumer.

Let me cite one recent example: the label on new rugs that attests to their manufacture without the use of child labor. Several network television news programs did features on children shackled to looms. Heartrending images. Sad little faces. Dim, dungeon-like rooms. The New York Times picked up the story. More pictures. More sad tales. Rug dealers had customers ask whether the rug they wanted to buy was made with child labor. Rug dealers asked the manufacturers if child labor was used. Rug manufacturers got the message. Many of them got together and created a program of labelling to identify rugs produced without child labor.

There is a similar program going on with diamonds. Again through news programs the public was made aware that part of the trade in diamonds was financing African genocides and civil wars. The term "blood diamonds" got attached. Customers asked jewelers whether they were selling blood diamonds. Jewelers asked their wholesalers. And now there is a system of laser labelling that identifies diamonds as being free of any "taint".

Were content and production labelling ever to come about in the US this is the way it would happen. The little child that Steve hypothesized would have to die. There would have to be a long trial treated to non-stop coverage by Court TV (one of the cable channels here in the US). News programs like "60 Minutes" and "Dateline" and "Larry King" would have to pick it up and do features about the risk to our children from crawling on new oriental rugs. Customers would have to ask rug dealers whether the rug they wanted to buy would potentially kill their first-born. The dealers would have to check with the manufacturers.

And sure as God made little green apples, you'd see detailed labelling on all new rugs sold in the US.

Government regulation would have nothing to do with it. Economic self-interest would be the motivating force.

-Jerry-

Your mention of Rug Mark is a good effort that does seem comparable in the child labor area to what Michael Bischof is proposing.

And it is true that Rug Mark is mostly administered by employer groups and it is likely that public pressure plays an important role.

I'm not sure, though, that it is an effort in which governments have not been and are not currently involved. And it appears that laws are to some extent involved, because many of the countries with child labor problems actually have pretty good child labor laws on the books. The problem has been to get enforcement.

Yes, the most visible penalty to a producer is the inability to put the Rug Mark symbol on his/her rugs attesting to the fact that they are woven without child labor, but potential additional penalties under existing laws also play a role.

Here is a link to a Ford Foundation Report on the Rug Mark program.

http://www.fordfound.org/ffreport/spring2001/

I have tracked it personally a bit because ILAB, on of the U.S. Department of Labor's components, is active in supporting Rug Mark, and as I have approached retirement I have looked for rug-related efforts to which I might apply my own instructional design skills.

One of the first Rug Mark rugs (an Indian pieces with a Sarouk design) hangs in the Great Hall near the main elevators at the Frances Perkins Building, the Labor Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. I pass it daily. It was bought by the ILAB staff and presented to the Department for display.

ILAB's association with Rug Mark is through the ILO, a specialized and tri-partite (employers, unions and governments) of the United Nations.

I am glad you mentioned it. It seems among the more successful efforts of its kind, although I'm not sure what proportion of the rug industry in countries where it has been mounted is seen to be "signed up" and "in compliance."

And since I have built a lot of training for U.S. child labor investigations, I do wonder how they select and prepare their inspectors and how the inspections themselves are conducted.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Any labeling regulations are only viable for new rugs. This, at least, would be a start towards accurate identification.
Antique rugs are not able to be identified as to origin, much less compliance. Even antique rug dealers squabble over attribution.
"Authentic Antique Cabistan" comes to mind.
One problem would be dealers purporting to sell "used" rugs not requiring labels. I see rugs labeled "antique" with inwoven dates in the second half of the 20th century! If you can't join AARP, you ain't antique!
One can find rugs speculatively identified as "40-60 years old" that are only 4-6 years old.
One positive note is that many of the used/antique rugs on the market do still carry labels from their original manufacture or importation.
Michael has an uphill battle, but one that can be won. It just takes a groundswell of public support generated by constant public relations efforts.
Volunteers?

Patrick Weiler

what Jerry proposes seems good. In a way it realizes what I expressed as necessary feed back from an educated customer who insists that he buys what is written on the label. Too which extent such media campaigns must be theatralic ( ? right word - I mean "shocking") has nothing to do with rugs but, in general, with our present culture of how to enforce perception. - The problem I see is that problematic
processing methods do not lead to spectacular sudden death. It is more suboptimal health, a growing tendency for allergenic effects, slow build up of sinusitis (chlorine, hydro sulphite), may be low sperm quality which affects our society as a whole in the middle and long term run. This mechanism often helps
such things to escape from our attention till, some day, somebody cries "Alarm !".
Rugs created by child slave labour are indeed disgusting. This is no problem of the traditional rug weaving societies. And keep in mind, please, that one has to start as a child to develop the skills necessary like spinning, selection of wool, one has to grow up with it. If this is done without escaping school or weaving 8 hours a day or more I think it is okay.

Patrick, my essay did not touch antiquities. For good reasons I think. Not that at present things are okay in this sphere.
- that antique pieces are anonymous is an artifact, man-made, by purpose. In former years when they were treated exclusively as more or less expensive floor covers, not as textile art, there was no reason to be interested in where they are from. This was just a side aspect in order to help sorting them for potential technical aspects of how they can be used, what will their performance be .... Look into the very old carpet books from beginning of the 20th century. "Soft wool " was a negative remark because such a rug is used up quicker. "Firm grip" a positive. As a connoisseur of textile art today nobody would appreciate a commercial late Shirvan because it has a construction more tight than that of an early splendid Kazak. So a lot of information is lost becaue of neglect.
The situation for pieces that are found today in the Orient and then brought to the West is completely different. They are anonymous on purpose - and this includes their "distribution fate": who has done what with this piece ? How was it washed, how was it repaired .... these are very important details that define the middle and long term value of a piece. In 1992 the tale of some Suzanis came up. Experienced people were sure that they had natural dyes. They had been sold in the Near East. When they were washed again later in Europe these colours run. The reason: unqualified people had applied chemical wash to improve their look. Natural dyes on silk are much more volatile than on wool ....
In reality such "fresh antiquities" are like corpses that were left in the water for a long time, lost their heads, later the finger tips were cut. Or, another comparison, fifth or sixth hand old cars where the motor number has been removed and which are sold without their documents. The problem of fakes is on top of these ones.
This must not be like this. A serious treatment (including proper documentation, sometimes even to the extent from which house a certain piece came: then it is possible to make real textile art research) is possible. This year we had a great kilim exhibition in Essen. A single collector put together, from his own collection, as loans from other prominentcollectors, what where the ultimate top pieces of certain design groups. Quite a lot of such "non-anonymous" pieces of art came together and I think it should be like this.

Yours sincerely

Michael