this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
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That is such dogshit. You can buy so many things that are made by people getting fair wages and humane working conditions. Don’t act like you HAVE to buy stuff from sweatshops. You have a choice.
Its a tough choice. $40 ethical chirt vs $9 kmart shirt. I do feel bad when shopping at kmart, but either i need a better job, or live off 2 shirts and just do washing every day
Buy second hand at thrift stores and there’s a lot of facebook groups dedicated to giving away free stuff
Where do you live where K-Mart is still a thing?
Australia still has kmart
I have serious doubts about anything labelled as "ethical".
It's like every year some investigative journalist reveals that the labels and prices on promised ethical products are bullshit.
OP would probably disagree with the concept of a fair wage under a capitalist system. Im not weighing in my opinion here, just explaining the 'no ethical consumption' angle goes much deeper than what youre envisioning.
Not so much but close, the system requires winners and losers to maintain class power, it has to be possible to live a good life with the wage you make, you have to know people who engaged and succeeded. The majority also have to be left out of that in this system (credit drives the western spending in an incredible way). No matter how small and local you imagine your circle of influence, it's actually the whole world due to globalization.
You can't guarantee that a product you consume doesn't have parts that aren't made in the most disgusting of circumstances, just like you can't guarantee something was shipped by a company that was paying a living wage. You can dig as deep as you want, and you will keep unearthing fresh horrors.
We don't really have a choice. We have the illusion of choice and evils laundered into ethics.
I honestly just research whatever item I want to buy and look into the company that makes it. I also don’t buy a lot of superfluous shit so I barely ever buy anything anyway. Plus every town I’ve ever lived in, there are people/mom and pop shops who make and sell stuff themselves.
Globalization of trade has done so much damage to our sense of humanity. People so easily ignore that they’re buying stuff from sweatshops because it’s not in the town they live and they can put it out of their mind with the wave of a hand.
You aren't special in some frontier town that only buys things from local grocers and smiths your own tools.
Even those shops you are buying from are sourcing dozens of products that are exploitative or damaging. That's what globalization is, as well. It's impossible to escape exploitation in a global supply chain, and even the most local producers are buying things from international companies to do their work.
No matter what your hands are stained, we all don't have a choice but to participate. It's a real drag!
you sound like a troll lmao
This is the one thing I regularly get so mad about. 99% of people I know have the means to shop responsibly but act so helpless and get so defensive of their need to buy nonsense from Walmart and Amazon. I realize I’m acting very high and mighty but I have family in very poor parts of Mexico, I’ve seen how awful their working conditions are, let alone the kids in sweatshops in China. I sound like a jerk/troll because I’m so fucking pissed that everyone can’t be bothered to care.
I love the response that unless every bit of what I do is flawless in every way, then none of it means anything and I might as well buy stuff made by slaves. Yes, I acknowledge I’m acting very high and mighty, but stop being so defensive of your need to buy the cheapest stuff available. If you actually saw first hand what these kids go through, I guarantee you’d feel differently. 99% of people I know act like they’re so poor and then immediately spend their paycheck on the dumbest bullshit. I’m just infuriated by how checked out people are about this issue.
I'm going to largely agree with you because I do my best to buy local, to buy from locations that market that they go out of their way to get ethical goods, etc etc. But I'm going to also say that I have the incredible privilege to be able to do so. I have the money that I can drop on things that cost more (and these things often do), and I live in a location that has stores that are conscientious about this sort of thing, that know that there's a market for it in the area. I don't live in a food desert or the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I'm really grateful for that. And I recognize not everyone has either of those boons.
I think it's important to let people know those options are out there. And it's important to understand that not everyone can reasonably live up to that standard.
To those who are still reading and are genuinely interested in making a swap, start small and work your way up. My first change was when I had to switch to reusable grocery bags. It was state mandated. But it got me thinking about what else I could change, like no longer buying cases of water bottles and instead buying water filters. One step at a time, as opportunity permits.
Not them.
You're perfectly capable of googling "locally made", "ethical", "sustainable" products.
Its as simple as not buying mass produced, not the cheapest thing you can find, and only buying what you actually want.
The fact you are expecting someone to give you a list of places tells me you would never put in the effort to use them anyway.
I see you've picked a few hardest examples and picked specifically difficult items.
RTX 4090 is specifically produced in areas with specific tech and infrastructure to do so. My big question here is why are you looking at specifically buying a top end graphics card, that is better than 95% of cards in existence? Nvidia does have significant sustainability progress, but seen nothing on if its environmental or social.
You asked what you can do? Don't buy the most expensive, high end, newest card.
It's all a lie, we create a million ways to launder the little evils that are required to make, ship, and consume.
Even when a group has gone the lengths to try ethically source, the materials and meta materials go far back into supply chains that things like slave labor are literally threaded in. Every time you put in checks and balances for fair wages and ethical material harvesting, you increase the price until you begin pricing people with lesser means out.
Those price increases end up forcing those without the ability to buy a higher priced, ethically-produced thing, to buy things that aren't like that. By participating in this, you are ensuring the dichotomy remains. But at a certain point in scale of consumption, it's impossible to consume ethically.
Even when you are assured by organizations that the things you are consuming are ethically produced, they aren't examining every product, they are doing things in aggregate and reporting a mean or average to you. It's all a game of cups.
Not everyone has the financial space to spend more for a more ethical product. Some are so poor, it's the only thing they can afford. A hamburger is $1 but a broccoli is $5. A Primark shirt is $3 but a fair trade cotton shirt is $35. Many have minimum wages. It's either a sweatshop shirt and a hamburger or a fair trade shirt and no food for a week. When you have more money it's easier to buy more ethical products but sadly people with more money also consume more products and often buy sweatshop products non the less.
The poorest people I know seem to make the effort and even support tax increases for social services. The wealthiest people I know cannot be bothered to do the right thing. People just shrug and say “I don’t want to think about that.”
Buy second hand at thrift stores and there’s a lot of facebook groups dedicated to giving away free stuff
Yeah, because those companies totally disclose their use of foreign labor and shitty wages. Blaming the consumer is such a corporate tactic. Laws need to be passed at the supply side, not the consumer side. Consumers will nearly always choose the cheaper option and of you want real change you need to change the choices available. I mean, do you take the same attitude toward climate change? Why don't we all just stop using gas cars, buy only sustainably sourced food, and buy only products that are made with low emissions? Because it's not feasible for most people. They don't disclose the emissions involved in every product you buy anyway. Only with government initiative will we make any real changes, and the same applies to this meme above. If we stepped in and saved American manufacturing sooner it wouldn't have gotten this bad. Just like how our individual choices are a mere drop in the ocean of emissions since corporations (supply side) make up the super-majority of emissions, we need supply side changes, not blaming individual consumers as if you would even be able to change most people's minds.
Name something, anything, you can buy in a store and I'll tell you how inhumane it is.
Yes, that also includes a loaf of bread.