tbh my take is alot of people would like an option between paying $2 for a garment they know involved exploitation/slavery vs an accessible1 independent option that doesn’t cost $500/garment.
I would have wanted to believe that too, but then you see things like Temu that promise clothing and consumer goods at impossibly low prices, prices that simply aren’t possibly without forced labor somewhere, and people eat that shit up. I think that most people have an out of sight, out of mind approach to it, and as long as they can’t directly see the exploitation, they’ll accept it.
1 Quick note on accessibility, there are ofc some scant options between $2-500, but what isn’t clear (ie. readily accessible) to the consumer is which of those options isn’t just some greedy bastard buying a $2 option and selling it on for $15.
I strongly suspect that this obscurity is by intent.
And, taking this whole thing a bit farther, as a designer that was paying myself $20/hr, I still can’t guarantee anything about being free of forced labor, because I have no way of realistically tracking everything in my supply chain. This is why there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, so the best you can do is pick your battles.
I would have wanted to believe that too, but then you see things like Temu that promise clothing and consumer goods at impossibly low prices, prices that simply aren’t possibly without forced labor somewhere, and people eat that shit up. I think that most people have an out of sight, out of mind approach to it, and as long as they can’t directly see the exploitation, they’ll accept it.
I strongly suspect that this obscurity is by intent.
And, taking this whole thing a bit farther, as a designer that was paying myself $20/hr, I still can’t guarantee anything about being free of forced labor, because I have no way of realistically tracking everything in my supply chain. This is why there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, so the best you can do is pick your battles.