I feel guilty

[LONDONER]

Well, almost. Out this morning on my usual run, I bought the attached in a street market. I has no less than six pockets and six zips in it. How can they make this, ship it from China and sell it for €5 ($1.56, £4.25)? Now I feel guilty thinking about the kids they probably employ to make these and probably get paid a pittance.

[LONDONER]

No, not quite correct. My computer was made in Spain although I admit that probably some of the components were made in the Far East. Yes, my keybopard was made in China, my chair though, was a very expensive Balans chair made in Sweden. Not sure about my clothes, trousers probably made in Bangladesh and Tshirt someplace else. The truth is that it is almost impossible to buy stuff not made in the East these days. Doesn't stop me feeling slightly guilty though!

[Lilitu]

I visited a few factories in Changzhou when I went to China last year, they were making absorbent nipple and armpit pads for all different brands in different countries.

Often you have this image of these sweat shop workers slaving for 16 hours a day making cheap breakable products for the West, but it's a gross generalisation to say China is just that and nothing else.

The workers I saw were just ordinary women, packaging boxes of nipple pads with sanitary protection gear.

They weren't slaves, and they were eating their lunch like normal office workers.


Of course, given the provenance of that bag it might have been made by economic slaves... but the point is, there isn't much use pitying these workers in China that we know nothing of, they could be anywhere from child-slaves to young rural women working their way up the ladder.

But don't feel guilty everytime you buy an item made in China. Much of the time, these products create jobs that uplift the poor rural uneducated workers and give them opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

On the other hand, the morals come in, and you can see Capitalism like a shadow crawling over China's underprivileged, forcing them into compartmentalised workplaces as if they were tiny cogs in a machine.

The video above explains everything really well.

[LONDONER]

Thank you very much for that Lilitu. Very interesting and an articulate young lady. May I stop feeling guilty now?

[Englishman]

Give me the bag, that will help your guilt

[LONDONER]

You like it that much? Go buy your own and saddle yourself with the guilt! LOL. .

[Englishman]

I'm not to keen on London

[LONDONER]

Neither am I particularly with the exception of the culture that it has on offer, and that's a great deal.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I'd feel more guilt to having admitted that this bag got my eye - its sooooo gay! :tongue:

No doubt the electronics I use were made in some 4th world nation where children's small dexterous hands are put to work in what is a very reasonable manner in order to assemble those tiny pieces of technomancy, no doubt these machines I use run off the blood and sweat of innocent children... I accept that these dark magics must use the souls of the innocent to run. All magic comes with a price.

However I am reasonably certain that those products made in China, Tawaiin, Japan and India (and other third world places) stimulated local economies where nearly everyone in that community could live off the dollar per week because everything in that community was far, far cheaper than it is in say my community.

I do attempt to buy more 'Made in America' labeled things in order to help stimulate American Economy. but lets face it, American made products are usually a lot more expensive and often made 'cheaper' as in less material, weaker material, or assembled halfway to where the product snaps, breaks, shatters when used.

I'm going to assume here that the majority of the material that that bag is made out of came out of an oil well, thus is largely plastics or petroleum based plastics. THAT would bother me a lot more than the idea that children's bleeding hands worked to the bone for ten cents a month were used.

The idea that once you tire of this bag and toss it it will sit in a landfill for hundreds of years being pretty much a hand bag and not decomposing and rotting away disturbs me far much more than slave labor. I know that eventually China (or wherever) will dispose of slave labor like America, UK and other 'industrial' nations did well before that handbag becomes one with nature.

I do stick to recyclable, reusable/sustainable materials wherever possible: cotton, wool fibers over polyester and poly cotton blends. I prefer wood over plastic, metal over plastic, glass over plastics.

I have a very nice 95% leather handbag/side carry bag (purse for men?) that is made from cow and sheep skin with metal and a little bits of of poly and poly-cotton blended material (Thread stitching is mostly likely poly-cotton, zipper teeth are metal, undoubtedly the fabric part as oil-based, etc). If I'm going to carry a purse, you can bet your sweet ass its going to be made of leather and or hemp/cotton/wool or other "natural" materials.

I'm that annoying guy who stands in front of the store shelf tapping each jar/bottle and selecting the glass jar over the plastic jar. I'm the annoying guy who says 'Paper - lets save an oil-well today' because I know that paper bags are now 90% post consumer recycled material and about 95% of the paper uses comes from trees that were raised on a tree farm, and that while a tree was brought down to make that paper, another tree was planted to replace it.

I also know that that paper bag will molder, rot and decay in the landfill well before the plastic bag which will be there hundreds of years down the road still pretty much a plastic bag - or worse (like released into the wild to become part of the Pacific Gyre).

Now I'm not saying your guilt is misplaced.... No, actually I am.

[Lalo]

^^LOL^^

I don't know if everyone here gets the depth of your sarcastic humor, my elf! But I sure as hell do! :biggrin: