Stop Treating People Like Things, and Stop Treating Nature like Factories
The True Cost movie is a documentary that investigates the cost of fast fashion in various depths. It first starts taking about labor safety and fair wage issue in the third world countries. The issue is not only limited to factory workers but also the cotton farmers who raise GMO cotton with eccessive chemicals. In the region Punjob, birth defects, cancers and metnal illnesses have raised significantly after it started the farm industry within the city. In the last 16 years more than 250,000 recorded suicides of farmers in India. That is about one farmer every 30 minutes, making it the largest record wave of suicide in history.
Secondly, the documentary talks about the destroyed local garment industries caused by the way we consume clothes. Only less than 10% of clothes we donate get sold at local second hand shops. The rest of them are sent to third world countries, like Haiti. Because there are just so many of them and so cheap, local fashion industry has disappeared in many countries.
And yet we are ignorant and indifferent about the information. Why? It came shocking to me when I listened to the interview with Benjamin Powell, the director of Free Market Institute.
“These low wage manufacturing so called sweatshops, they are not just the least-bad option workers have today. They’re part of the very process that raises living standards and leads to higher wages and better working conditions over time. Your proximate causes of development are physical capital, technology, and human capital or skills of the workers."
The excuse is that the alternatives of working in the sweatshop are not the alternatives that we have in the developed countries. Therefore the companies are providing better conditions for the workers even though it may “seem” that the workers are living in poverty in our point of view. That being said, sweatshops are excused because of the fact that the companies provide the needed jobs for people who do not have the alternative choices to make.
So this issue is not just about fixing the problem, but educating ourselves what is the problem. When we want to fix the problem, we need to acknowledge the fact that there is a problem. When we conveniently think that the issue is not as significant enough to discuss about it, the system fails.
While writing this blog post, it was very hard for me to fight the urge to write down every single quotes from the movie. I highly recommend you to what the documentary, as it will completely change the way you think of the significance of the issue.
You can watch the movie on Netflix.
If you would like to learn more deep into the subject, you can visit the official website.
