"Hey, if we weren't exploiting the poor bastards they would just be lying around in the dirt playing with their own feces so clearly sweatshops are a win-win situation!"

Ira Israel wonders what it will take to get us to support ethical businesses.

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Everyone knows the old joke: “What’s a surefire way to make money in Las Vegas?”
“Invest in the casinos!”

Nonetheless, once a year for the past twenty years I meet my childhood friend Rob Lefko in Las Vegas for a weekend of high-powered meditation.

Rob meditates on the craps tables; I meditate on the roulette wheels; and we meet up at the buffet to test who has become more financially enlightened (meaning whose wallet is now lighter). I mention this only because the half hour pitstop that I usually make during the drive from Santa Monica to Las Vegas constitutes 95%-99% of the time that I spend shopping for clothing every year. Hitherto I have stopped at the outlet mall in Barstow to buy 2 pair of Levis jeans, 3 white button-down shirts, 5 white t-shirts, 5 black or blue t-shirts, a gray sweater and 10 pairs of boxers from the GAP or Banana Republic, and then a dozen black and dozen white pairs of socks from whomever has them on sale. I have a few nice dinner jackets that a buddy gave me and under those jackets neatly fits the contraband from my yearly thirty minute excursion to scenic Barstow.

What I am saying is that when it comes to fashion, I am completely ignorant. I have been wearing the exact same outfit for 30 years every day whether I go to the symphony or Chipotle.

I’m not bragging.

I mean, OCD is not really anything to brag about—is it? Come over with a bottle of wine and I’ll talk your ears off for days about music, painting, literature, film, psychology, philosophy, politics, and spirituality. But fashion is one of the infinite subjects that I know nothing about.

And until recently, I did not care.

That is, until I watch John Oliver’s amazing exposé.

Oliver claims that the chairman of H&M is the 28th richest person in the world and the co-founder of Zara is the 4th richest person in the world – mostly due to the fact that only 2% of the clothing we wear in this country is produced in the United States and the rest is produced around the world in sweatshops. Now the Republican attitude towards this form of virulent capitalism is, “Hey, if we weren’t exploiting the poor bastards they would just be lying around in the dirt playing with their own feces so clearly sweatshops are a win-win situation!” Other humans have this thing called a “conscience” and feel that people should get paid for an honest day’s work (c.f. the now extinct métier formerly known as “Writer.”)

Steve Jobs famously told President Obama that he wouldn’t manufacture iPhones in the United States because it would detract from the mere $47 billion dollars of net profit that Apple earns per year so somehow it now seems almost unavoidable to be the beneficiaries of cheap clothing, electronics, smartphones, food, cars, etc.

So thank you very much to John Oliver for taking all of the fucking fun out of my twenty years of Barstow outlet mall shopping victories!

Does it even remain possible for ethical businesses to compete in today’s market?