

The Tragedy of Toms Shoes - nathancahill
http://thepublicqueue.com/2012/the-tragedy-of-toms-shoes/

======
Homunculiheaded
I wish this article had any actual data to back up it's claims. Rather what I
see is a bunch of moral anecdotes (not even anecdotes about economic/social
effects of these actions).

The author claims that it is morally wrong to spend more flying to give
charity then you spend on the charity itself.

Then claims it is morally wrong to give handouts (which somewhat complicates
the pervious moral belief, since you shouldn't give handouts what does it
matter if potential handouts are wasted flying?)

Then claims it is morally wrong to make a profit attempting to do good.

And finally that it is morally wrong to have consumerism masking as charity
(despite the fact that the author claims that may forms of charity are morally
bankrupt anyway).

I am absolutely aware that there are many cases of 'charity' that have very
negative consequences. But I don't actually care about 'morality' at all, what
I care about is measuring positive or negative consequences. I'll even take a
qualitative anecdote (ie "here's a story of how this person's life became
worse because of Tom's shoes"). After all not all experiences fit nicely into
a spreadsheet.

Reasoning through moral appeal only makes any sense at all if everyone shares
your same moral system as a basis. For example it is legitimate to make moral
arguments to members of a religious group you belong to that all share the
same moral beliefs and assumptions, that's in part what theology is.

There is absolutely no substance to this piece other than the author espousing
their moral system, which, at least from the information presented, don't
sound any more founded on reality that moral beliefs of purchases of Tom's
shoes.

~~~
csharpminor
While we're shooting down this article, I'd like to jump in to say that this
article doesn't match what I consider to be hn material. I don't really see
what it has to do with technology, coding, or even social change related to
tech.

It's a demonstration of precisely what Rob Malda described to the Washington
Post on Aug. 7 when he said that HN was getting too big.

------
patio11
Public service announcement before reading my comment: Do not Google "Guinea
worm." Do not Google "Guinea worm." Do not Google "Guinea worm."

If given the alternative between two courses of action, one of which puts
shoes on peoples' feet through "imperialism" and one of which results in them
getting Guinea worm, morally serious individuals should not have _one iota_ of
doubt as to which is the correct course of action.

~~~
luke_s
I wholeheartedly support your sentiment - we should not avoid trying to solve
really bad problems because the solution causes some smaller problems.

However, looking through the wikipedia page on guinea worm [1] it seems that
people are infected by drinking contaminated water and most of the prevention
revolves around filtering water. Its true that part of the worms lifecycle
involves infected people stepping in drinking water, but owning shoes is
unlikely to prevent that.

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worm)

~~~
patio11
Sorry, seems I fail my years-ago parasitology bio lesson. I mentally confused
Guinea worm and hookworm. You don't want either, shoes prevent against #2
only.

------
honeydrip
Toms Shoes are terrible quality. I do not suggest buying them. It took some
time for me to admit to myself that I was tricked by a sly marketing campaign.

The founder Blake Mycoskie also got caught partnering up with the American
group Focus On the Family which sponsors all sorts of anti-gay legislation in
Africa. He said that he didn't know all of the awful things they do, which I
find really hard to believe.

People like a story that let's them shop and make them feel like they are
making a difference in the world.

I read his book, Start Something That Matters, and found it to be full of
bullshit marketing speak.

[http://jezebel.com/5819435/why-is-toms-partnering-with-an-
an...](http://jezebel.com/5819435/why-is-toms-partnering-with-an-anti+gay-
anti+choice-group)

Edit: Just to expand a bit. They have a term called "One-for-One" which I
absolutely hate. It basically says that if you buy a pair of shoes, a pair of
shoes will be given to a kid in need. The problem with it is that these shoes
are made for a couple of dollars. They make it so you perceive that they are
spending $50 on the pair of shoes that they give to the child. When in fact
these shoes are being made for a few dollars. Seriously. Just check them out
on Alibaba. They are the exact same things, just minus the Toms logo. If they
really wanted to make a difference they could give 9 or 10 pairs of shoes away
for each pair of shoes you buy. This is a for-profit business, and I don't
have a problem with that, what I do have a problem is their sleezy marketing.
They are shameless.

[http://alibaba.com/countrysearch/AR/espadrilles.html](http://alibaba.com/countrysearch/AR/espadrilles.html)

~~~
dkrich
I'm going to have to call bullshit on this. Many companies that we all shop
from regularly have huge, ridiculous markups that can be justified in only one
way: we are willing to pay the price asked. By doing the good deed of donating
_just_ one measly pair of $2 marginal cost shoes to a child in need they are
somehow misleading you with clever marketing? Don't get me wrong, I totally
agree it is a marketing play, otherwise it would be operated as a non-profit.

Had they never offered up free shoes, this article wouldn't have been written
and you wouldn't be vilifying them. Nike has huge profit margins, as does
Apple and just about every cosmetic brand you know of, and yet where is the
disdain for their greedy tactics? Oh wait, they never offered to give anything
away so let's give them a pass.

~~~
falk
This doesn't negate the fact that Toms makes a shitty product that fall apart
easily, especially in the 3rd world.

Have they never offered free shoes we wouldn't be talking about them. They
make it seem like they are giving away a pair of shoes worth $50, when they
are really just spending a couple of dollars on a marketing expense. I bet
they pass the cost of giving away a "free" pair of shoes onto their customer.

I can't speak for OP, but I have no disdain for Apple or Nike in terms of
their markup because they are not masquerading as some sort of quasi-charity
that is supposedly helping people in need. Also, they make good products.

~~~
dkrich
_This doesn 't negate the fact that Toms makes a shitty product that fall
apart easily, especially in the 3rd world._

This actually isn't a fact, it's an opinion. After all, what makes something a
"shitty product?" If we are measuring value based solely on build quality, I
have to tell you that most designer shirts you pay $70+ for in the mall fail
this test, while polyester shirts that go for $14.99 at Wal-Mart will probably
last you most of your adult life. While we're at it, try sprinkling a few
drops of water on your MacBook keyboard then take it to your local Apple store
and see how much they stand by their build quality when it is determined that
you will need a new logic board in your $1400 computer.

Quality is a subjective matter. Who can say that somebody who feels good about
their purchase of some horribly made shoes shouldn't if they like the way look
and the way those shoes make them feel when they take them out of the box and
put them on?

------
dalerus
When TOMS first came out, I loved the idea. But now that I have lived in a
developing country for the past two years, I've realized the damage something
like this can cause.

One of the biggest issues is the displacement of local business. There are
much better ways to empower and provide aid to the poor.

Also, I don't know if TOMS does shoe drops in SE Asia, but in Cambodia I have
been apart and seen endless groups give families/kids shoes only to see the
same kids walking around without shoes the next day. Here most of these aid
gifts end up at the local market.

~~~
dnautics
I don't believe the displacement of local business idea. Let's say Toms didn't
shoe drop. Fast forward ten years. How is the local, artisanal shoe maker
going to compete with the chinese shoes that are now in the market? By sending
shoes in to these locations it is equally acting as a signal that this is not
a market worth trying to capture and their best efforts are spent
entrepreneurially in other directions.

~~~
jeremymcanally
I also find the entire idea disingenuous. Do these "artisan shoe makers"
actually exist? Or is the author just creating a crappy straw man?

If they do exist, why haven't the poor people in their area purchased their
wares? It's not like TOMS is giving shoes out to people who have them. They're
probably not wearing them because it's not economically feasible. So, the
author thinks that the vast majority of the population in their area should be
shoeless so that one person can keep a probably struggling business afloat?
Makes no sense.

Even further, it seems having shoes would lead to positive economic effects.
The recipients will probably be able walk further, stay healthier, and
generally lead better lives. That seems like a longer term net positive than
someone's small shoe shop that may or may not exist and may or may not have
actually been impacted by this.

~~~
honeydrip
Yes. Toms did not come up with the designs for their original shoes. They are
called espadrilles and are a Latin American tradition. He got the idea when he
was on vacation in Argentina I believe.

These shoes are made in Argentina, for example.
[http://www.paezshoes.com](http://www.paezshoes.com)

~~~
jeremymcanally
I realize that alpargatas and espadrilles are a thing (I own some higher end
ones myself! :)). I meant are these "artisan shoe makers" actually in the
communities where they're sending shoes and are being actively hurt by their
actions. I believe the answer is no, but I'm definitely open to being proven
wrong.

------
simonrobb
I work at a social enterprise in Melbourne, Australia, and our model works in
a similar way to TOMS. So I really appreciated a couple of the points made
here, particularly regarding how it impacts local industries. Our SE
constructs water/food/hygiene aid projects and programmes, so it probably
doesn't apply directly to us, but I'll look into it further just in case.

Social enterprise is a relatively new concept so its understandable that not
everybody has got a full grasp on it. And there are others who have got a good
grasp on it, and don't like it, and that's fine too. But let me emphasise one
point which underpins SE for those who haven't heard it before:

The commercial success of a social enterprise directly controls the amount of
the funding they can give. A lot of people criticise that they use the banner
of charity to make a whole lot of money - which is half true. They inform
consumers that a portion of what they pay for that product will help in some
social cause, hopefully ethically, and if that brings about more sales, then
great - that's more funding available.

If you have five dollars to give, then please give it to a charity! Never be
under the impression that you have to buy these products because it is the
only/most efficient way to help the world. It isn't. Your five dollars will go
much further in the hands of a charity, and every social enterprise should be
transparent about that. However, in the example of my social enterprise, the
other fifty dollars you spend a week on food/sanitary products/bottled water
(if you're a bottled water buyer) - we give you the option of having part of
that additional $50 go to projects also.

Please fire any questions you might have about social enterprise my way :)

------
theyip1218
Was just reading for a good two hours about TOMS and then you post this
and.... How did you know?!?!?!

The story is a bit silly for me in that it is shooting down a company for
being imperfect when the company isnt trying to be the 100% perfect cure-all
mentioned in the article. Corps helping third world countries is a GOOD thing
- I see TOMS as a nice, fuzzy-feeling-in-your-stomach addition to the
relatively large amount of money US citizens donate to charities around the
world. A person wishing to be an agent of change can either fight the hard
battle and start educating (or sometimes just annoying) people in to donating
MORE money, or they can design some ugly shoes that cleverly coerce said US
Citzens into giving a few more bucks to people that really need it.

Tom (if thats the name of the guy who made TOMS), could've just done what the
author is suggesting to her readers and donate a large chunk of his meager sum
of money after college, and then he would've contributed about twenty dollars
and fifty cents to suffering children instead of being a catalyst for millions
of dollars of aide through his company TOMS.

------
adambratt
Ever since I learned that TOMS (the store) and TOMS Shoes (the charity) were
100% separate I started to feel a weird vibe from the company.

I have no problem with a for-profit having a separate charitable entity. But
they clearly make it seem as if they are all one giant non-profit org.

Add that to the fact that they make absolutely terrible shoes. The copycat
shoes that Keds make are much better and about 1/3 of the price.

~~~
simonrobb
This is a common model, and in my experience there's a couple of common
reasons:

\- Taxation laws haven't quite caught up to social enterprise. Social
enterprises are set up this way to enable the charitable entity to be tax-
exempt (the rest of the business is not). I'm not sure of the ins-and-outs,
but I believe it allows tax breaks on the donations from the enterprise entity
to the charitable one. In short, it makes the whole thing more efficient.

\- Most of a social enterprise runs like a traditional company, and you
generally want a managing director at the helm. However I don't think it's a
good idea to have the same person creating the funding and distributing the
funding. In my SE, the charitable trust is managed by an entirely unpaid
board, which encourages unbiased distribution.

------
rmc
Charity (or "development" as they call it themselves) is a complex issue. Is
it right to flight westerners to poor countries? What's the right form of aid?
What works, what doesn't work...

Even if you go to a area of poverty you have ethical dilemmas, Should I give
to this beggar? If yes, then will that just encouarge more beggars? If no,
this person standing in front of me will go without...

------
erikpukinskis
These are all great points. Rather than put shoes on some kid's feet, why not
fix the U.S. foreign policy that is leading to some other kid losing his shoes
tomorrow? Trying to fix disastrous economic policy by mailing shoes seems
really short sighted.

~~~
patio11
Supposing that one believes that U.S. foreign policy is the primary cause of
people not having shoes [+], the relevant question would be "Does putting
shoes on some kid's feet make it _more_ difficult to change U.S. foreign
policy?" If yes, then one could sensibly go to that child and say "Sorry kid,
you're going to get Guinea worm, but it is in the service of preventing more
Guinea worm in the future." If not, then there is no competition between
attempting to fix U.S. foreign policy tomorrow but putting shoes on that kid's
feet today. Which is great, because we _profoundly_ don't want that kid to
contract Guinea worm.

Is there a mechanism by which US decisionmakers become more hostile to your
preferred policy if we increase the number of shoes in the world? If so, can
you identify which decisionmakers those are and, let's say for a minimum, how
they measure the number of extant shoes as their KPI for "must increase the
extent of our damaging policies?" How sensitive to that KPI are they? Can we
maybe get a thousand shoes without them tightening the screws? How about a
million? Where is the red line where "one more shoe causes unnamed policymaker
to adopt my disfavored policy?" If we can find that red line, that would be
_great_ , because we should produce shoes right up to it.

\+ I tend to think that the reason people do not have shoes is that Mk 1
humans are not born equipped with shoes and that shoes do not exist in the
state of nature. The state of "I am a kid, I have no shoes, WTF" predates the
existence of the US, imperialism/capitalism/etc, by thousands of years.

(The newfangled innovation from capitalism isn't lack-of-shoes-for-poor-
people, it is presence-of-shoes-for-some-poor-people. That's not as optimal as
presence-of-shoes-for-all-poor-people but I have not heard a convincing
rationale on why abandoning capitalism gets us that transition.)

