| > If a majority of the world agreed on labor standards and excluded the rest from trade, there would be no need for protectionism The average American does not want to buy stuff from slaves, at any price. It's just that if I want to record a factory in China and show people how kids and prisoners are making their shit, it's not that they won't watch - it's that someone in China will shoot me. It's very hard to show someone what slavery looks like, even though it's pervasive in the offshore supply chain. People become vegans when they see what happens to animals at slaughterhouses. There are a lot of vegans. The reaction from the meat lobby isn't, blah blah blah prices. It's just to make it illegal to record in a slaughterhouse. > But virtually no Americans are willing to pay a higher price for them. This is some really myopic thinking. Just decide: would you pay a higher price to not get stuff from slaves, or not? Just you personally. I don't care what Americans think. How could you possibly say, "Yes, I'm okay with lower prices enabled by slavery." You wouldn't! I just go and buy American. So I pay four times more for a pair of shoes, setting me back to 2001 prices. A time when quality of life was still very high. Boohoo. I don't want to fucking profit from slavery. The argument you're engaging in is almost always made in bad faith. While you aren't saying it in bad faith, you're being co-opted by people who are. No CEO or politician sincerely blames Americans' sensitivity to prices for slavery in China, they just want to reap the profits of that status quo. |
Since you asked: For me personally, it depends. I bought a lab grown diamond for my wife's engagement ring some years back (before they were generally socially acceptable) since we weren't comfortable with diamond mining. I buy free-run eggs even though they're more expensive. We have a community-supported agriculture subscription and we buy Ontario apples when Costco stocks them.
But like the vast majority of westerners, I buy cheap shoes, despite not knowing where they are manufactured, and despite knowing that almost all shoes are made by questionable labor. I even eat chocolate even though it's virtually impossible to get chocolate that doesn't come from child slave labor. I eat all typical meats despite seeing videos of slaughterhouses, of baby chicks being shredded, etc.
Does this answer your question? I think it proves my point: I consider myself knowledgeable on this stuff and it barely affects my purchasing behavior. No one cares. No matter how many videos of slaughterhouses and labor camps you try to shove in my face, I will still eat steak and buy shoes. People want meat, people want gas, people want cheap goods, and people want to ignore all negative externalities. Information is more accessible than ever, and yet like the sibling comment says, there are not a lot of vegans.