Nike Mayfly
Aug. 21st, 2003 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyReading the paper the other day, I was struck by some correspondence about the Nike ‘Mayfly’ running shoe; a shoe which is so light and sleek that it will disintegrate after about 60 miles of running but reduces the weight carried by marathon runners by that vital extra pound. The correspondence wasn’t about this being a waste of resources (Nike actually will take them from you & recycle them when the shoes give it up), but rather about the perceived iniquity between the shoes costing about $100 a pair and the fact that Vietnamese workers for Nike get about $1 to actually make a pair.* Not for the first time (and no way will it be the last) I was struck by the astounding ignorance of my fellow man. Several things struck me about this.
1) If people perceive an injustice being done within the international world of Nike training shoes, the easiest way to tackle that is simply not to buy their goods. Manufacturers are in the business of making money and if they don’t make money from one product then they’ll either go out of business of make a different one.
2) More notably, whilst it is easy for happy, comfortable, plump westerners like you & I to rail about the evils of global capitalism, the thin, unhappy, third world recipients of it are only too delighted. It’s quite rare that Nike is held up as a shining example of capitalism with a conscience and so I expect that it’ll come as a surprise to most that quite recently it was just that, and the organisation doing the praising was the Vietnamese Communist Party. For all that $1 might seem a nugatory amount to you & I, in Vietnam it is three times the average daily wage and the people who work in Nikes factories are loaded in comparative standards. This influx of relative wealth has brought schools, sanitation, wealth, and health to a town which formerly had none of those.
Now I know that my various socialist friends will claim for some tortuous reason or other that the Vietnamese Commies aren’t proper commies (except when they’re talking about the Vietnam war, when suddenly that perception changes), but I tend to discount such claims as spurious at best and actively disingenuous at worst.
So it seems to me that a net result of global capitalism is that a bunch of people stupid enough to buy shoes designed to fall to bits after a week are bringing happiness, education, and health to people on the other side of the world whose lives, until only recently, had been blighted by the malignant curse of Socialist government.
I find it remarkably ironic that the anti-capitalism protestors who travel the world smashing the windows in Gap could make a much more significant impact on improving the lives of Vietnamese peasants by buying a pair of shoes that will have dropped to bits by the middle of next week, but just try pointing that out to them and see how much fun you have.
* EDIT: This figure is incorrect and I'm quoting the fool who wrote to the paper, not accurate pay figures or costs.
1) If people perceive an injustice being done within the international world of Nike training shoes, the easiest way to tackle that is simply not to buy their goods. Manufacturers are in the business of making money and if they don’t make money from one product then they’ll either go out of business of make a different one.
2) More notably, whilst it is easy for happy, comfortable, plump westerners like you & I to rail about the evils of global capitalism, the thin, unhappy, third world recipients of it are only too delighted. It’s quite rare that Nike is held up as a shining example of capitalism with a conscience and so I expect that it’ll come as a surprise to most that quite recently it was just that, and the organisation doing the praising was the Vietnamese Communist Party. For all that $1 might seem a nugatory amount to you & I, in Vietnam it is three times the average daily wage and the people who work in Nikes factories are loaded in comparative standards. This influx of relative wealth has brought schools, sanitation, wealth, and health to a town which formerly had none of those.
Now I know that my various socialist friends will claim for some tortuous reason or other that the Vietnamese Commies aren’t proper commies (except when they’re talking about the Vietnam war, when suddenly that perception changes), but I tend to discount such claims as spurious at best and actively disingenuous at worst.
So it seems to me that a net result of global capitalism is that a bunch of people stupid enough to buy shoes designed to fall to bits after a week are bringing happiness, education, and health to people on the other side of the world whose lives, until only recently, had been blighted by the malignant curse of Socialist government.
I find it remarkably ironic that the anti-capitalism protestors who travel the world smashing the windows in Gap could make a much more significant impact on improving the lives of Vietnamese peasants by buying a pair of shoes that will have dropped to bits by the middle of next week, but just try pointing that out to them and see how much fun you have.
* EDIT: This figure is incorrect and I'm quoting the fool who wrote to the paper, not accurate pay figures or costs.
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Sanctions can work
Yet, at the same time, given the longevity of these sanctions, the regime really was hurting, and the complete reliance on the military (esp. the line soldier) to subjugate the people and maintain control was weaking, on at least two fronts:
1. AIDS - the policy of the junta is to discharge any soldier found to have AIDS. Theoretically this is a deterrent, but in reality this is producing a break in staffing - as well as spreading infection back in the rural villages when these soldiers return.
2. The line soldiers are paid in kyats, which they have little faith in - exemplifed by a run on the dollar in the black market while I was there - largely from soldiers exchanging their worthless kyats for seen-to-be-valuable dollars.
Granted, this has had little impact on the officers or the ruling elite directly, but the very structure of their power is crumbling, badly. The result: the regime's days are numbered, and their too stupid to realise it.
I also have to acknowledge some noticable regional difference, and the crucial role of Burma's neighbours in this affair. ASEAN has been a major boon for the survival of the junta, especially through pipeline construction to Thailand (UNOCAL). Also through the growth of traditional jewelry links to points beyond - such as the newly constructed Mandalay international airport with direct flights to Hong Kong. Likewise, the junta has received considerable support from the PRC, with entire factories rebuilt in northern Burma, and a massive 12-lane border station for a 2-4 lane road to Yunnan province.
Lastly, there's a strong suspicion of opium money making its way into junta coffers. Well illustrated by the incredible number of international banks with offices in Mandalay.
So, the economic sanctions on Burma are incomplete, but they are far from useless.
Re: Sanctions can work
Date: 2003-08-21 10:01 am (UTC)The cost in human suffering and deaths is really quite noticeable and a weaker population is a side-effect which will be seen much faster than any effect on the hold of the ruling regime.
Another problem is also the incompleteness of the sanctions. Even if in the long term incomplete sanctions destabilise a regime they also set up black market powers and mafia (for want of a better term) which make it very difficult for a country to recover after regime change and the lifting of sanctions.
Re: Sanctions can work
Fair point. The wider public will always suffer first and longest before the military does - that has *always* been true.
Still, in an age when there is a general reluctance to invade one's neighbours, especially on universalist principles rather than realpolitik - what other option is there? Externally-supported Coup d'etats are messy, and may only serve to introduce a cycle of instability (Iran, for example).
This perception still rules, even after the US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - and could well be reinforced by those as-yet-unfinished experiences.
As for your black markets and mafia comments - that is less certain a problem post-political change. Most regimes are highly dependent on corruption, and in Burma's case, corruption has certainly infused itself everywhere. Not unlike the Soviet Union in that regard. Still, with that political change, the black marketeers became capitalists, some became oligarchs, and now - under public pressure, the might of the oligarchs is being limited. The challenge is whether the black marketeers can be legitimized, brought back into the clear market business, and then limit their political influence to that of any other business. A messy proposition to be sure, and there are countless examples of corrupt tinpot dictatorships leading to corrupt degenerate economies after 'liberation' ... but the healing can work.
You know, in a lot of ways, black markets are excellent vehicles for recovery...there are existing distribution networks, pricing communications, and perhaps even an alternate trusted currency. They are often the only genuine markets around. The challenge is to leash them as vehicles of recovery, rather than engines of further degeneration, as we're seeing with the scavenging and looting in Iraq.