tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post6333225032004184587..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: On those who died for your $4.95 tank topsPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-64023786703976907722012-12-03T16:10:02.129-05:002012-12-03T16:10:02.129-05:00We don't know what the true cost of a tank top...<i> We don't know what the true cost of a tank top would be, and more to the point, we have no reason to think that if we opt for the $40 one, the difference goes to labor conditions, as opposed to better-quality materials, better designs, snootier store ambiance. We can't just reveal our willingness to generously pay a bit more, and expect conditions in factories to magically improve.<br /></i><br /><br />Agreed on the second point, but I think we actually can estimate what the cost of a tank top made under conditions acceptable to us as Americans (or Europeans) would be: with perhaps a slight discount for labor cost due to the lower cost of living in a developing country, it is the cost of a tank top made under the regulatory regime of the U.S. or EU.<br /><br />I still think it's politically unfeasible to, say, ban the import of goods that do not meet our local standards of health and safety in the production of said goods. Such a restriction is something that the unions pushed for in NAFTA and other trade agreements in the Americas, and it just doesn't seem to be happening. So you have to have change occur through consumer action. Since we've seen this work to some extent for particular brands (NIKE, Gap), I think it's reasonable to believe it can work for others, with one caveat: <br /><br />some significant portion of the target audience of that brand has to actually care about the conditions in which its products are made. And I think this is more likely with goods that obviously have a large markup (like NIKE sneakers), so that (a) the target consumer has plenty of disposable income; and (b) the company can't plausibly claim that it is operating on super-thin margins such that the slightest improvement in work conditions would entail a big (relative to the overall cost of the good) price increase.<br /><br />Basically, I <i>don't believe</i> that most people buying $5 tank tops would be happy to pay more if brands were differentiating themselves on the basis of decent treatment of workers. In particular, if you're not buying those tank tops because of fast-fashion, but because those are the only ones you can afford, I'm not even sure I can be morally condemnatory of your indifference to the welfare of Bangladeshi workers; your status in your own society may be equivalent to theirs in theirs, so why should your heart particularly bleed for them?PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.com