How fashionable opinion doth gyre and gimbal in the wind

A year ago fashionable opinion was that fast fashion is a very bad thing. We were all being ultra-consumerist by buying clothes that we wore a few times only. Why, it was almost as if the lumpenproletariat were able, like their upper bourgeoisie betters, to doll themselves up for a night out. Thus the end point of the argument, that we should all spend much more on each piece of clothing and have many fewer of them. Sumptuary laws imposed by intellectual fashion rather than the law - although you could see that argument coming down the pike too.

There was also a campaign to massively increase the wages of those in those sweatshops. That they were vastly better than any alternative available in that time and place was not an argument that made much headway. Instead factory workers should be making two and three times the median wages for those countries just because. It’s justice, innit?

Events have led to that fast fashion production line being interrupted:

In March, as the pandemic hit, the factory closed after foreign buyers pulled their business from the factory and thousands of workers lost their jobs. Last week, amid mounting desperation and despair, hundreds of them came together demanding they be paid months of outstanding wages and pension contributions, without which they say they will be unable to feed their children.

This turn in opinion at least has the benefit of being based upon truth. The absence of fast fashion does mean that some of the poorer in the world are distinctly less well off:

A year ago she was working as a machine operator at A-One (BD) Ltd and supporting her young family. Now she, along with thousands of others, is jobless and destitute.

Azad joined the protest because she didn’t know what else to do. She is the sole breadwinner for her family of six and is surviving on the charity of her neighbours.

So, what should be done about this?

Exactly what we have been saying for years. The best way to aid poor people in poor countries is by buying goods made by poor people in poor countries.

From which we can gain two policy prescriptions. The first and most obvious is that we should not charge tariffs upon our own purchases of these goods made by poor people in poor places. It’s of vastly more benefit to them that we buy than anything that is done with the official aid budget. Indeed, perhaps the best use of that aid budget would be to replace the tariff income to government that we’d not gain by declaring unilateral free trade.

The second is that all those whingeing about fast fashion can stop changing their opinions. Even if it is by chance that fashionable opinion is now that Bangladeshi workers being on the bread- and unemployment- line benefit from not being so. Thus, let us employ them and gain sparkly party clothes for ourselves by purchasing their output.

Next time you’re passing some outlet that retails sweatshop made clothes don’t just buy one, buy three. Anyone, and everyone, who wants to make Azad richer should, must, start by buying the product of her labour.