I wear Vans because I used to work someplace where I had to stand behind a counter on a concrete floor for 8 hours. Now I wear Doc Marten's, because I have to stand behind a desk on a thinly-carpeted concrete floor for 8 hours, and I can't wear sneakers. I have Frye boots because I got them 4 years ago and they're still in great condition, some Chucks because they were on ultra-sale at Urban Outfitters and I got them for $10 and...flip-flops? That's basically it. I don't really think about aesthetics, really, although I used to worry that my Vans made it look like I was wearing clown shoes. I know that Women Notice Shoes, but I'm pretty sure that the Women Who Notice Shoes are also the Women I Don't Want To Date.
Apparently VF Corp, the company that makes Vans, are pretty evil, and Doc Martens are made entirely in China now. Frye boots are made entirely in the US, so I can feel okay about owning three pairs (another win from UO ultra sale- $120 boots for $35? Don't mind if I do!).
The whole "sweatshop" issue is techy; the term itself hard to define, although I like the wiki definition, which says that sweatshops are not defined by their locations, but by their working conditions. I've seen it posited that sweatshops are actually a natural stage in the economic evolution of a country; America used to have a
shit ton of sweatshops. The problem is, in many places, the economic development of a country has been crippled, specifically to make sweatshops the only viable industry; there is also the problems inherent in sending manufacturing jobs overseas. And, in any case, most people don't work in a sweatshop because they're forced to (although sometimes they are; I've heard such things about sweatshops in Guatemala that are essential forced labor camps, although I haven't seen any facts on the matter and am in fact too lazy to google for them, as this is a conversation that began with cartoon cats); sweatshops are the best jobs around. Forcing companies to just shut down sweatshops is actually worse than keeping them open.
So what are we to do? If we were actually to bankrupt Nike, the situation would be much worse than before. Also, if we just refuse to purchase Nike and other such brands, they can just as well attribute the loss of sales to competition within the marketplace and miss the point entirely. And I never wore Nikes, even before I found out about the sweatshops.
What's the world community to do? Well, in my perfect totalitarian dictatorship, there would be a world minimum wage, calculated out using the GNP of a country; I'll leave that to people smarter than I. American companies, or even companies that operate branches in America or import to America would have to pay this minimum wage, as well as adhere to regulations regarding working environments, etc. Finally, companies that imported goods into America would have to pay taxes that would make setting up a plant overseas only slightly more economically feasible than setting up one in the States; thus, companies would keep their factories in other countries open, but new factories would be more likely to open in America. Any long-term economic loss would be more than made up for by the good PR created (Chuck Taylors- An American Original, Actually Made By Americans Again!). We'd probably have to throw in there some stuff about factory sizes (no fair just increasing the size of your factories, Nike! Bad Nike!), and we could funnel back most of the import taxes to the country of origin itself, or some sort of international body that could distribute it in a manner positive to the country of origin (as many places that have sweatshops don't have the best government).
Now all I have to do is ally myself with Victor Von Doom, totalitarian monarch of Latveria (apparently, Latveria is a pretty democratic place; they have a Parliament or something. Von Doom does get supreme veto powers, but I've read that he's actually quite sensitive to the needs of Latverians.). With his DoomBots, we can take over the WORLD and make every company act like
IKEA! Wobbly CD racks and rancid meatballs for all! That is, as long as that dastardly Reed Richards and
Squirrel Girl don't get in our way!
DAMN YOU SQUIRREL GIRLLLLLL!!!!!
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Topic: Grandpa Got Run Over By A Blog- December Blogs (Read 20662 times)