davywavy | Nike Mayfly

Reading 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

raggedhalo.livejournal.com

(continued)

Family values in the West are eroding, as are social ties due to antisocial working schedules. This is not good for individual benefit as we are a social species reliant on one another for normalising contact.

5. Often, however, the developers misrepresent the benefits to be had from adopting the consumerist lifestyle, and the tribesmen (in what I'll grudgingly call their naievety) believe them. They don't necessarily realise before it's too late that they are less happy and worse off.

6. But the world economy has been able to expand because the world itself has "expanded" -- in previous centuries, it was the discovery of new lands, now it's governments being forced to grant the existence of Temporary Autonomous Zones so new territories "appear." The space in which the economy exists has expanded as new people add to this aggregation of human interactions.
I'd also contend that our choice and opportunity is bound and restricted. Also, that many tribes have huge, effective healthcare systems that don't involve hospitals or "scientific medicine."

And which one of us is plumper, huh? *grin*

Also, in financial terms, the money has to come from somewhere, no? So someone's gain is someone else's loss.

7. I wouldn't wish the opportunity to be exploited by some heartless multinational on anyone. Education, healthcare, social support, communication -- yes. Definitely. But we shouldn't give it because it profits us. We should give it because we believe that all humans are born equal and deserve equal treatment.

From:

davywavy.livejournal.com

I'd like to return your attention to the rest of my arguments, rather than simply concentrating on my assessment of your beliefs. My original second half had a disclaimer about this, saying that I realise that you're not some brain-dead consumerist monomaniac, but LJ ate it and I forgot to include it in the rewrite. I apologise.

As it happens, I am a consumerist monomaniac, but that’s quite all right.

Anyway:

1. We aren't going to agree on this. There is no historical evidence that socialism or communism by the book wouldn't work, because it's never been tried. And I also happen to be more of an anarchist (in the "don't need laws because everyone has a healthy measure of mutual respect and people stop being cockjockeys as a result" style, rather than "fuck it all") than a communist. Any form of rule mediated by violence is weak and doomed to failure.

I disagree; it has been tried, and it’s failed in such short order that I reckon is demonstrable that it’s so unstable as to be unworkable. You might say that Communism has a half-life of about 30 minutes.

2. You and I are quite similar, in that we both seem to have quite high estimations of our own abilities. I think a state made up of talented and motivated individuals could well administer money better than any individual, especially if the aggregate desires of the nation were explicitly served.

Ha! No, no, and thrice no. That’s the curse of socialism, and the thing I hate most passionately about it. Who decides who is talented and motivated? What talents and motivations? It is the refuge of bien-pensant intellectuals that they think they know better than the little people who things should be done and how their money should be spent. Who cares if the little people disagree, we’ve got the army on our side, right? Naturally I’m flattered that you include me in your grouping of clever motivated people who would help run society. That’s good of y’all. However, I’d rather opt out and keep my property, thanks. Presumably this wouldn’t be allowed under your free and open society, however.
Give me an electoral system so the little people can decide. If that doesn’t return a socialist government, then I say that means the people don’t want one, and darn right they are too.
Does that mean, if you want the aggregate desires of the nation served, you advocate a return to the death penalty as polls consistently show 75%+ in favour? Or is that aggregate desires so long as they match your personal beliefs?

3. I don't believe that people don't want to work, but I also don't believe that all work is meaningful and challenging. Take my job, for example. Modern life is crammed full of examples of tertiary and quaternary jobs that mean nothing and it is these roles that lead to alienation, despair and insanity.

Work is very much the attitude you bring to it. By the sounds of it you’re saying that if someone doesn’t really feel like working to the net good of society then they won’t have to. That’s all dandy and so on, but who, precisely, is going to do the work to support the people who just don’t feel that their job is rewarding enough?
Can I stop working now? Can I? Huh? Will you pay for my food, Joe? Go on, it’s the socialist thing to do?

From:

davywavy.livejournal.com

4. We're not going to agree on this. I must state, for the record, however, that I do not support abolishing the many advances that have been made simply on principle, but am concerned that I think people are probably less happy nowadays than in the past. Family values in the West are eroding, as are social ties due to antisocial working schedules. This is not good for individual benefit as we are a social species reliant on one another for normalising contact.

Isn’t it amazing how much we disagree on stuff? I was surprised by your statement that the internet was the greatest innovation of the 20th century, as I consistently argue that it was actually reliable female contraception, and the social revolution that created.
As for people being happier in the past, I can think of a certain 50% of the population who aren’t tied to the home for their entire lives producing children, and who can now get out and have lives. And good on them too, I say. If you think that people were happier in the good olde days, ask any of your female friends if they’re rather be alive now or in the days before the pill and social equality and see what answer you get.

5. Often, however, the developers misrepresent the benefits to be had from adopting the consumerist lifestyle, and the tribesmen (in what I'll grudgingly call their naievety) believe them. They don't necessarily realise before it's too late that they are less happy and worse off.

That’s a question of human honesty, rather than a fault of the economic system. Next you’ll try and tell me that people will suddenly become lots more honest in the Communist world of milk & honey…
Sadly, they won’t. You’re attempting to socially engineer human nature, and it won’t work. I’m sorry, it’d be nice if it would. But it won’t. It’s been tried before, in many places, and once the failure begins, out come the guns to force people to act in this ‘ideal’ way…and it’s downhill from there.

From:

davywavy.livejournal.com

6. But the world economy has been able to expand because the world itself has "expanded" -- in previous centuries, it was the discovery of new lands, now it's governments being forced to grant the existence of Temporary Autonomous Zones so new territories "appear." The space in which the economy exists has expanded as new people add to this aggregation of human interactions.
I'd also contend that our choice and opportunity is bound and restricted. Also, that many tribes have huge, effective healthcare systems that don't involve hospitals or "scientific medicine."

I read an interesting economic study that indicates that, if you had all the money in the world, you could buy everything in the world and have some money left over, indicating that money has now superceded property to an extent (this is in fact the strongest argument I’ve ever heard for the worthlessness of money as a system).
In what way is our choice & opportunity restricted? Please expand upon this.
As for tribalism & healthcare, you can say they’re effective, but they’re not, by any measure of comparison, anything like as effective. However, if people want to do without, let them. I’ve no problem with that, as previously noted.
I’m curious at this point, however – how much have you traveled? How much have you actually seen and how much of this is speculation?

And which one of us is plumper, huh? *grin*

And your argument is? I’m not the one advocating removal of opportunity from the disenfranchised on the grounds of a moral position that is only sustainable from a position of comparative wealth.

Also, in financial terms, the money has to come from somewhere, no? So someone's gain is someone else's loss.

No, as noted above, money is now coming from nowhere. It’s become a self-perpetuating system.
You continue to confuse ‘loss’ with ‘cost’; If I find a really nice suit at a knock-down price, I don’t consider myself at ‘loss’ when I buy it, as the transfer has been one of physical goods + perceived value / cash. As such, I see a good trade, and don’t feel myself to have lost.

7. I wouldn't wish the opportunity to be exploited by some heartless multinational on anyone. Education, healthcare, social support, communication -- yes. Definitely. But we shouldn't give it because it profits us. We should give it because we believe that all humans are born equal and deserve equal treatment.

At least heartless multinationals realise that paying their workers is a good investment. In a market system where the workers cease being of value (i.e. a socialist one) this motivation vanishes.
To some extent I agree with you and in others disagree. I would rather give people the opportunity to build for themselves, because from there true self-reliance and self-respect comes. Simply giving people things leads to nothing more than a victim culture, such as we are seeing in this country.

From:

raggedhalo.livejournal.com

I think it's probably quite easy to come to a satisfactory (if general) definition of talent and motivation; I must confess I've never sat down and formulated an exact one, but problem-solving ability, honesty, and concern for others' well-being would seem to be important qualities that most people could agree as being important.

My belief in socialism/communism/anarchism isn't about me thinking I know better than everyone else; it's about my belief that a way can be found that benefits the majority of people -- maybe all the people -- and that the army isn't needed either. If you need force to convince someone else of your ideas then I think your ideas need reworking.

You seem to keep making the mistake of viewing me as if I'm some cliché 70s student anarchist, like Rich from the Young Ones or something. I don't believe property is theft. I don't believe that might makes right.

I also think that a decent electoral system, one as free from spin and bias as humanly possible, would be a good tool for ensuring social justice. I don't believe we have such a thing anywhere in the world at this time. FPP systems, as shown most clearly by the Bush-election fiasco and the incorrect removal of over 90,000 names from the electoral register in Florida for felonies that did not exist show how much FPP-style systems exaggerate flaws and mistakes.

From:

raggedhalo.livejournal.com

The lack of choice in current politics is what really bugs me. Votes become increasingly meaningless when the status quo is not validly challenged; when questions and accusations are not answered directly but instead with flowery words and bullshit. Using an innate ability to lie well or distort the truth to gain political or other advantage is something which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It's not about feeling like working for the net good of society. It's about not working for money, but instead for the good of society -- something I do not believe to be the same.

And I wouldn't pay for your food if you stopped working, but a socialist government funded by taxes might. However, a sensible socialist government might include a (fairer and more motivating) version of New Deal/Jobseekers Allowance-type thing. People should work, but installing them in jobs just for the sake of it seems daft.

From:

raggedhalo.livejournal.com

As for the "greatest invention of the 20th century" issue, this may well be the short-sightedness of youth; female contraception has existed, as far as I'm aware, all my life, and beforehand too. It's never not been a factor, and (having neither experience nor knowledge of what came before) the change in conditions isn't really something I was aware of. However, the effect the Internet's had and is having on resistance and co-ordination is something which is really within my lifespan and experience.

And, yes, I agree that sexism (and other discrimination) was a definite detractor from people's quality of life (and still is now, perhaps lessened) but I also think that the first-wave feminists made a horrendous mistake in pushing for men and women to be considered as the same, rather than as of equal value. I'm still formulating a livejournal post in my head about this, but I suspect that (kinda firm-wired) gender roles play a part in human happiness, and ignoring them may be another part of modern-day alienation and stress. But I'm also very much against sexism, so it's a topic I'm still fuzzy on.

As the economy is aggregated from human interaction, a fault in human nature becomes a compound fault in the economy. I'm more saying that a Communist world of milk and honey won't exist until humans are a lot more honest.

We're told that capitalism leads to greater choice of products etc., but I don't believe this to be true. The choice of Coke/Pepsi/supermarket own brand (expand this to a sensible range -- basically what's offered on the shelves) is all most people get, and that's not free; it's bounded by commercial decisions and other people's choices.

From:

raggedhalo.livejournal.com

While I haven't travelled particularly much at all, I have studied at medical school for a while and was told by a few tutors that "complimentary medicines" (a euphemism for a variety of traditional remedies and folk cures) can in several cases be as successful (if not moreso) than conventional Western medicine. I'm also aware that that introduction of new products, foodstuffs and cosmetics can affect enzyme balances, local ecosystems and even prove fatal to people. And who can forget the Nestlé baby-milk debacle in the 70s, that's still earning them boycotts nowadays? I've also read books and papers with more information, but I'm buggered if I can source them right now.

I agree that money's a self-perpetuating system (I believe I originally said that and then moved my argument toward the ground where you seemed to be pitching a battle). If money effectively has begun to exist for itself and come from nowhere, why are people so obsessed with it? Media manipulation and clever misrepresentation by those who stand to gain. Reinforcement of the dominance hierarchy by those at the top.

And when you say that heartless multinationals realise that paying their workers is a good investment, I find it funny that they don't then act on this information by providing a minimum wage which is actually enough to live reasonably and support oneself and a family on, or job security if one doesn't fidn oneself able to work dehumanising hours and conform mindlessly to every bureaucratic piece of minutiae.