So Santa's elfs are actually asian children?
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
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Nah. We only shifted from domestic manufacturing in the late 70s/early 80s. The last fifty years have been a rapid shift to Chinese production due to the low price resulting from the posted picture.
Just ask a Gen-Xer about the super safe American made die-cast steel toys they used to hit their siblings with.
https://rekennect.com/blogs/toys-made-in-usa/history-manufacturing/
I feel this in a scar in my head. US made cap grenade. Like cap guns, but a grenade. There is a dent. In my head.
I had one of those! Heavy as hell with a half sphere on the bottom where the caps would go, right?
As a now parent... How the hell was that ok to give to kids??
Here's a metal baseball. Throw it towards your friends.
Oh wow you just unlocked a previously lost memory!
I mean yes, the corporations are enslaving children in Asia and polluting the globe, but you need to look on the brigth side: the profits of shareholders have never been higher.
We
Found Santa!
New and improved Sifu Santa! Now with Kung Fu grip!
And China's been eyeing up moving out of the manufacturing game, which will be a wrench in our plans.
Over way around, we’re eyeing up leaving China and production slowly is.
China cannot afford to not have a manufacturing industry. It would be political suicide for the party to move towards agrarian or a service economy.
...what. They're everyone's largest trading partner, why would they do that?
Well, it's kind of a choice kind of material conditions. China's become prosperous and educated. Their citizens are starting to demand imports and better jobs. It's not going to give up the manufacturing game for many decades but it's definitely ramping down whether it wants to or not. It's not really a problem for western consumption, there are plenty of struggling countries with cheap/free labor to exploit around the world.
Nah, China had a civil war that spanned WW2, it was only after that that Asia became a manufacturing base for western companies.
Before then western countires did their own things in factories.
Think of all the toys that contain plastic, from lego (1949), to barbie (1959), to most electronics, they didn't exist as we know them today prior to WW2.
Before then toys were mostly made of wood and metals like tin, and were made more locally and nationally. People had jobs in factories over here, rather than over there.
We need to go back. I was destined to die horiffically in a factory accident, not waste away at a desk.
To cut the story short: before ww2, it was local children.
So jealous of the kids who got to play with it first! I waited months for them to release the Optimus Daul-Pez Despenser!
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Most people have no choice but to engage.
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
Where do you live where K-Mart is still a thing?
Buy second hand at thrift stores and there’s a lot of facebook groups dedicated to giving away free stuff
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.
Buy second hand at thrift stores and there’s a lot of facebook groups dedicated to giving away free stuff
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.”
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.
please elaborate and share what list you consult to never buy from sweatshops?
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!
All I see are your excuses for being selfish and cheap. I’d wage all my sustainably-made, ethically sourced stuff you’re not as helpless as you claim.
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.
how's the weather in that ivory tower?
I honestly just research whatever item I want to buy and look into the company that makes it.
I detect some dishonesty here. how sure are you that your toilet paper is made with sustainability in mind? or that the minerals in your toothpaste are from reputable sources?
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.
That's great for you! Should the rest of us uproot our families from our socioeconomic communities and move to wherever you live? I'll warn you, there's more than 10 of us so it might put some pressure on your mom&pop shops to deliver regularly.
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.
this is the problem with all that hippie-dippy bullshit. how do you expect a small business to regularly deliver on a scale that's so out of reach they would literally need to work themselves to death to cover a fraction of the demand?
I live in a metropolitan area with around 5 million consumers. what's your answer for providing locally sourced/locally manufactured products at a scale that suits the needs of those 5 million people. AND without damaging the local ecology, economy, or social structures.
it's easy to say, "just do your research", but for real tangible change at scale it's just not possible for your "solution" to work.
yes, harsher penalties to products and services that ignore human rights.
yes, banning companies that continuously break or abuse human rights.
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.
Can you help me? I'm having trouble finding a locally sourced RTX 4090. And while we're at it, I also need to locally source some insulin for my diabetic child.
hey, have you ever found locally sourced lumber? I live in Nevada and I just can't find anyone willing to deliver any for a project I have.
the fact that your answer is, "just google it" tells me that you're just a low level troll with nothing better to do on a Friday night.
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.
What's the origin of this phrase?
Confucius, I think
Yep and people care, until they realize no one else does and it's not possible for them to stop it.
"Christmas Peasants"