Tigray, Ethiopia. Photo by me.
Here’s another follow-up to my article, originally posted on the Huffington Post.
So on Wednesday I wrote this article for Highline arguing that consumer movements are never going to end sweatshops. The worst conditions are in sub-contractors, small workshops and factories producing for emerging markets. We can lean on multinational corporations all we want, they don’t have the information or the power to ensure decent factories, and neither do we.
Since the article came out, much of the reaction has been two covers of the same song. Either ‘Well I buy my T-shirt from sustainable brands’ or ‘Well I only buy local.’
Let me be super clear about this, in words I might have minced in the piece itself: that is impossible. And pretending it’s not is exactly what keeps sweatshops from being solved.
First, your T-shirt. Let’s say it really was produced by an American company, made in the USA, by people earning a living wage…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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