
I Tried to See Where My T-Shirt Was Made - denzil_correa
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/india-garment-factories-sumangali
======
tokenadult
Come on, ladies and gentlemen, the fine submitted article is about stark
conditions in _India,_ where "Western capitalism" was specifically rejected,
and socialism embraced, as an economic model after independence in 1947. The
comparison with Taiwan (where I have lived, twice) is instructive. Taiwan too,
under the China Nationalist Party (KMT) dictatorship, had a period of
governance that accepted Sun Yat-sen thought and dabbled with a lot of
socialism. (That the field of Taiwan's flag, formally the flag of the Republic
of China, is red is no accident. The KMT was very much part of a worldwide
socialist movement when it was founded.) Meanwhile, as the mainland fell to
the Commmunist Party of China and then Stalin's invasion of South Korea from
the north began, the United States felt constrained to prop up Taiwan, and one
way it did so was by promoting land reform in Taiwan and local free and fair
elections. Gradually, Taiwan became more "capitalist," and it went from stark
poverty (being poorer in my wife's birth year than some newly independent
countries in Africa) to prosperity. Taiwan hasn't had a garment industry like
that described in the submitted article for a long, long time. Essentially
everyone who gets online to discuss issues on Hacker News probably uses an
Internet device with multiple components made in Taiwan and traded in
international trade.

Trade is the foundation of capitalism, not exploitation. (The references for
this, of course, are the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.) India (and
also much of South America) specifically rejected this wisdom during much of
my lifetime, and now those countries have to play catch-up. They still have
time. They won't have stark poverty forever if they learn from the examples of
other countries, just as Taiwan did.

~~~
oskarth
Thank you for being a voice of reason and empiricism in this thread. Seems
like too many people took a class in marxist sociology and all of a sudden see
the whole world in terms of The Capitalists and The Exploited Class.

EDIT: Taking a class in economics and thinking everything has a monetary value
attached to it, or that homo economicus actually exists would obviously be
just as bad.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Personally I don't agree with Marx a lot (I'm more of a Groucho Marxist and am
therefore not allowed to join any club that would have me as a member), but I
do have Marxist family members and know a fair amount of what it is and what
it is not. India is definitely not an example of a Marxist state.

edit - Folk keep framing stuff in the economic dogma-battles of the
superpowers in the 19th and 20th century, but to me the problem is 14th
century economics combined with 21st century logistics. Retaining a caste
system in a world of global networks can give you a fucking big pyramid and
systemise abuse on an unprecedented scale with the money that flows in from
those outside the structure.

~~~
steveklabnik
Not only that, if I recall correctly there's actually a few Maoist groups in
India that are trying to start a revolution as well... They certainly don't
see India as anything but capitalist.

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
Indeed, the communist party in India is about as militant as they come. You're
probably referring to the naxalites[0], they're not shy about targeted
violence[1], especially since they're active in a lot of poor, "backward" [2]
areas that go ignored by the central government until there is an industrial
resource to exploit.

[0]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite)

[1]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite%E2%80%93Maoist_insur...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite%E2%80%93Maoist_insurgency)

[2]
[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-27/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-27/news/42427766_1_special-
category-status-raghuram-rajan-backwardness)

Edited to include a reference to "backward" \- a term used in official
language.

~~~
steveklabnik
Yes, this is exactly what I was thinking of, thank you.

------
joezydeco
NPR's "Planet Money" podcast team decided to sell t-shirts and did a similar
project where they researched and followed the production process from start
to finish. Some of the interviews have been pretty interesting:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=19...](http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=190719989)

The NPR staff wound up working with Jockey to have the shirt made and that
obviously opened up a lot of doors to the production facilities and interviews
with factory workers, etc.

The Mother Jones article reminded me, I guess, that Jockey's hand in the NPR
access had a non-trvial amount of P/R influence in the project.

------
ilaksh
The thing that people don't realize is that exploitation is the foundational
structure of capitalism, and 'civilized' wage work is only removed from the
examples in this story by a matter of degrees. The current capitalistic
structure is only a moderate change from the old-fashioned slavery it came
from directly.

We clearly need to apply science and technology directly to human needs rather
than relying entirely on outdated systems like money that primarily enforce
hierarchies. In previous eras where the only means to an end was raw human
labor, perhaps this type of system made sense. In our contemporary society
with our technological capability it is absurd. Too bad that people can only
see that when it involves the most extreme cases.

~~~
VMG
Capitalism is the only system that has a proven track record of bringing
people out of poverty. Many industrial nations had a garment industry phase
and graduated from it.

We have had experiments with other systems than Capitalsm, and some of them
are still running. Korea is split in North and South, the southern part is
capitalist, was in garment manufacturing and now has an exceptional level of
wealth, while the northern part is communist and has become one big
concentration camp.

I hope you won't bother pulling a No True Scotsman here, because the list goes
on.

~~~
moo
North Korea is not communist. Read the book The Cleanest Race to see how U.S.
analysts really see North Korea. There are no communist countries today. It's
fun to talk about capitalism in the abstract like it doesn't keep monarchism
in the closet, underdevelops Africa, props up lackey dictators in the Third
World, depends on colonialism/imperialism to get rich, and turns to fascism
when in crisis. I'm sure mafias have made life better too for people but that
doesn't look at the whole picture. Where would your bought off Scotsmen be if
he wasn't capitalism's shock troops who invaded South Africa,Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas and kept police order in India, the
Middle East, and Asia?

~~~
notdrunkatall
There are no communist nations today because communism failed, utterly and
often spectacularly, usually because some asshole came to power who was more
interested in furthering his own agenda and increasing the power of himself
and his friends than in doing what was actually good for the people.

This always occurs because in order to transfer to communism, an intermediate
government is necessary to take power from the evil capitalists, consolidate
it, and distribute it throughout the people before volunteering to dissolve.
In practice, this never occurs. Where power is centralized, sociopaths will
congregate, and the first stage of the transition to communism is nothing if
not the centralization of power. Thus, communism has always failed under the
weight of despots, and will always do so as long as that is the case. There
are no benevolent governments, period.

Meanwhile, though capitalism is surely far from perfect in its implementation,
every nation which has embraced it has done remarkably well relative to those
which embraced its ideological opposite. No, it's not perfect, but it's
obviously preferable to communism. I give those who sided with communism or
socialism before 1980 or so the benefit of the doubt, as they were not privy
to the vast evidence that we are today of communism's many failures. On the
other hand, I immediately write anyone off who still believes communism >
capitalism to be a delusional idiot who is almost certainly not worth arguing
with.

~~~
moo
Communism is not for you buddy, you're not the same class as those toiling in
India or other Third World nations. With its proven track record of defeating
imperialists and for those with nothing to lose and first world nation
traitors, it has still proven viable.

------
csmuk
And this is typically the end game for capitalism and globalisation. Can't see
it changing without everyone working together and by nature that isn't going
to happen if capitalism is in place.

~~~
LeeHunter
To misquote Churchill "Capitalism is the worst possible system, except for all
the rest".

The problem here is more a lack of strong mechanisms to set and enforce
standards along with a host of deeply rooted cultural norms (especially the
dowry system) that are easily exploited.

~~~
moo
Because the fat imperialist says capitalism is the best we have to keep it for
all time until our star goes supernova? Our rooted first world lifestyle is
the strong mechanism enabling these sweat shops.

~~~
VMG
I agree.

A better argument is that free trade based on voluntary transactions is the
only just and moral system of allocating resources, in theory and in practice.

~~~
nzp
Without further qualifications, I too agree completely. However, to me it's
both sad and funny how twisted the meaning of "free" and "voluntary" become
when used to defend (liberal) capitalism. This is a general remark, it's not
meant as an attack of how you use these words (I wouldn't really know).

------
ibsathish
Almost 90% of the sports jerseys are produced from Southern part of India
where the situations and characters mentioned in the article are still alive.

Multinational garment companies like Adidas, Nike, Puma etc. should have
stricter vigilance towards exploitation of employees. Young girls are prone
towards exploitation and they are willing to undergo this as they are
desperate for money.

And, blame parents too!

~~~
blumkvist
If you think Addidas, Nike, Puma etc. don't already know exactly what is
happening in this factories, and even further - outsorce their production to
EXACTLY those unethical factories, you my friend, are just deceiving yourself.

------
alcari
> just a quarter of the $105 a month she was promised, about $0.84 a day.

It really bugs me when reporters use inconsistent units to exaggerate a point.
Yes, the pay difference is horrible, but it sounds almost as bad when you say
$25.20 per month, and that is a less misleading way to describe it.

~~~
corin_
I read that differently to you - the words "a quarter of $105" instantly tells
me $25.20 because it's such an easy calculation, whereas telling me an extra
stat like what that is per day is something I hadn't already worked out
myself.

~~~
ehamberg
Well, not _that_ easy. A quarter of 105 is 26.25.

~~~
corin_
Hah, I copied rather than calculated :( Point still stands that it's easy to
see roughly what it is.

------
kmfrk
HN users should be wary of cheap clothing the same way they are of free online
services.

They cut those costs _somewhere_.

~~~
terhechte
I always find it amusing if people claim (just an example) "I would never buy
Apple/Nike/++, they employ child workers, it is awful" and then they go to the
supermarket, buy the cheapest meat/vodka/sugar/coffee they can find, or they
buy a cheap $99 tablet/smartphone/TV from india/china/malaysia, or they buy
$3.99 t-shirts/pants/shoes from throwaway stores. As if somehow these products
can be produced at such low prices without affecting quality and wages of the
workers behind it.

~~~
iaskwhy
One thing to remember is that you must start somewhere. Overall, it's way
better than not doing anything.

~~~
rebel
I don't see how. Whether you buy it from Nike or (insert lesser known shoe
company with same policy), there's really no difference.

~~~
iaskwhy
Can't say I have an example but let's hope there's at least one company who
cares about that. Some industries actually changed to accomodate for those
that care. A good example: food companies. At least in Europe it's quite easy
to buy from companies that care about the environment, animals, lack of
chemicals, etc. Eventually this kind of thinking will expand to other
industries.

Update: I tried to search for a couple of minutes for more responsible brands,
apparently New Balance makes some of their shoes in the US:
[http://www.zappos.com/search/made+in+usa/filter/productTypeF...](http://www.zappos.com/search/made+in+usa/filter/productTypeFacet/%22Shoes%22/orig/made+in+usa?zfcTest=sis%3A0#!/made-
in-usa-men-sneakers-athletic-shoes/CK_XARC81wHAAQLiAgMBGAI.zso?t=made+in+usa)

~~~
marquis
American Apparel is a famous example. Though their marketing may be subject to
discussion, their production practices are admirable.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Apparel#Production](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Apparel#Production)

------
nano_o
How would you find clothes that have not been manufactured by slaves ? In
Switzerland I can buy from Switcher (switcher.ch), which markets clothes "made
with respect", and I just found out about the Fair Wear Foundation, which has
a short list of member brands (www.fairwear.org). As pointed out in this
thread, just buying more expensive clothes may not make a difference.

~~~
Nursie
A friend of mine has a (very small so far) ethical underwear company called
Who Made Your Pants
([http://www.whomadeyourpants.co.uk/](http://www.whomadeyourpants.co.uk/))

She started it because she realised that in the UK marketplace it was very
hard to buy underwear that didn't come from sweat-shops, even if you were
prepared to spend a bit (or a lot) more. So these are made here in the UK, by
disadvantaged women who get to learn a skill and take home some pay.

------
ghshephard
I can't help but read this and wonder whether "Aruna" actually exists, and, if
she does, whether all the details about her are as described. That's the
legacy that Mike Daisey has left us with.

~~~
pessimizer
With a distrust of stories about labor exploitation? That's the wrong message
to take from someone lying to you. Be less credulous about people's stories in
general maybe, but restricting it to stories about labor is as reasonable as
being racist because a black person bullied you in high school.

~~~
ghshephard
Not really the same thing - It's not that I don't trust monologuests (sp?) as
a class of people, and, indeed, the writer of this article, Dana Liebelson is
a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau.

It's more along the lines of living your entire life without locking your
doors, and then, one day getting burgled, and thereafter making a point to
lock your doors when you leave.

Or getting mugged at night, and not walking down that dark street anymore.

Perhaps it's a good thing that I don't just automatically take things at face
value; I'll admit to having listened with rapt attention to Mike Daisey's
performance on NPR - he's really quite talented - maybe there was a positive
takeway, Mike Daisey was like a vaccine, I'm now more resistant to false
reporting.

------
amerika_blog
Oh. Mother Jones. Well, that's about on the level of the National Enquirer for
me, so I'll pass.

------
notdrunkatall
Ugh, motherjones, that perpetual bastion of leftist bullshit!

Why is this tripe being upvoted here on HN? You might as well have posted
something directly from Rush Limbaugh's blog (or website, or whatever he has).
It's crap.

