Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
I was just thinking about this and checked a bunch of my shoes. All Emericas I have are made in Vietnam, all Vans in China. Now I don’t know what sort of problems there are in Vietnam but in the light of the recent news from China I’d actually much rather support Emerica than Vans. I like Emerica better otherwise anyway. Maybe we should start a new thread about the ethics of skate products. We got the environmental impact thread already and that’s good stuff IMO but there’s more to ethically manufactured products than just environmental impact.
Which is why rather than vainly searching for the magic company that doesn’t fuck over the environment, doesn’t use sweatshop labor, gives its employees a living wage, AND makes durable shoes for skating, do what you can to support changes that affect the base ideals of capitalism.
Please understand that Capitalism does not and will not promote that kind of ethical thinking, and no amount of ‘ethical shopping’ (for that tiny niche market) or even boycotting it will affect the root of the problem.
Skaters want cheap, we have been conditioned by this society to ethically compromise ourselves to ‘get paid’. It comes up again and again in corporate sponsorship conversations.
Because selling ourselves the only way we are allowed to survive in this current situation.
Capitalism needs to be abolished and something much more democratic and accountable needs to be advanced.
Yes, I agree with the bolded part. But do you think that'll happen with me not "wasting my time" on this stuff? I get that you might get burned out on this stuff having tried to fight it for 15 years but giving up won't do any good. The more we focus on what's wrong and what we could do to make things better, the better chance of improving things we have. I don't see changes like this being fast and revolutionary. Focus more on the issues will bring awareness and that'll improve our chance of actually impacting a change. Giving up won't help anything.
‘Don’t waste your time’ was too harsh in retrospect. I still try to shop ethically when possible, I still feel it’s better to give my money to companies that make an effort into doing something right rather than the opposite.
But I wanted to tell people change will not come from changing shopping habits, it has to come from us building something new.
There are lots of possibilities, and the time is getting ripe for something big to change.
Can you clarify how exactly you want to abolish the current system? What specifically do you want to replace it with? I agree it incentivizes some serious bullshit in it's current form, but without providing a alternative I dunno man. I'm being devils advocate here but what other system would you have in mind?
What would i personally replace it with? I hope I never have to decide, I’m too much of an idiot.
But alternatives abound, from P2P-style sharing, Michael Albert’s Parecon theory, and many others.
My biggest hope is that we can peacefully transition into a controlled decline in current resources, while we build more infrastructure that supports sustainability.
One way to do this would be to nationalize the main infrastructure, including the internet sites, and institute a algorithmic command economy.
Walmart and Amazon, two extremely large economies are already command economies unto themselves.
That same technology could be used to form an effective command economy that gets people what they want and need, with less waste than Capitalist production.
The main problem with communist command economies is that they are run centrally, and get price signals wrong.
For this to work, and price signals to be effective, the system has to be democratic in the extreme, in a way we’ve never seen before.
After several centuries of capitalism telling us to compete, and in a political system where our extent of participation is voting once every 4 years, are we psychologically able to move to something radically democratic enough in a short time?
I have no fucking idea. But the book ‘The People’s Republic of Walmart’ is a great glimpse of what we could do with already existing technology.
I don't think I can get on board with this man. I need a more concise action plan, not knowing what system specifically you'd substitute isn't convincing. While there are lots of alternatives, which one has the best chance of being adopted en masse and peacefully?
People already do p2p style sharing digitally, but there's a huge difference between copying files and giving something away in an exchange. The closest thing I could find was info on a "sharing or access economy" that was widely adopted were business models where people rented stuff like cars or scooters out for a fee that was shared among consumers. There is already some traction for this in our current system but I don't see how there would be a complete shift to this peacefully and democratically since people want their own things.
How would you peacefully and democratically nationalize infrastructure, including websites, into this algorithmic command economy. Considering large companies are generally hostile in a competitive market, which is what got them to their current position, how would we get to a position where we control the means of production, peacefully and democratically without the same hostile action? While large companies like Amazon already have something that could be similar, they also have massive issues (poor treatment of employees, preventing small/local businesses from being as effective etc). The algorithm may hamper certain markets depending on who wrote it as well. I don't think it's just price signals that planned economies mess up, historically it's been a lot worse than that. Not only that but nationalizing websites sounds it could prevent freedom of speech to some degree. I can definitely see their being less waste though.
What do exactly do you mean by democratic to the extreme? How would you increase voter turn out for getting people to decide on anything? Couldn't I argue that I currently "vote with my wallet"? I also looked into the republic of walmart book. From what I found the idea is a planned economy could work now because we have the computing power to accurately distribute goods. The book also talks about how companies themselves are essentially already mini-planned economies but does it address that these planned mini-economies have to compete unlike a single central planned one and how that difference affects their structure? Does the book also address the possibility of the abuse of all the power government officials could have?
I don't know if it's a psychological thing so much as it is a convenience and practicality thing myself. Honestly I don't see an (eco) facist taking control anytime soon but I'm not American so I can't say for myself. I'd like to believe in the plan you've got because the current system has a lot of fuckery, but I need something more direct and concrete dude.
Good points, and truthfully I don’t have an answer for you. Other people who deal in strategy might, but I haven’t read any firm outlines.
Well, not completely true. The extinction rebellion in the UK is trying to leverage the climate crisis to get a citizen assembly instated to solve the political deadlock. Apparently for politically contentious issues where politicians can’t make headway, a citizens’ assembly can be called and have authority to resolve the issue.
They are trying to use that legal framework to call a climate emergency and force the government to act appropriately.
But that’s one of the only examples that comes to mind.
As the failures of capitalism accumulate (like the money in the ultra-rich’s bank accounts) and people get fed up, more and more people will wake up to this, and momentum can build for larger, and hopefully more radical reforms.
What the tipping points will be, the ones that sporadically happen where revolutions occur, I have no idea.
Part of the job right now is exposing people to these ideas, and then organizing them. I’m not great at either, but some people are hopefully reading this.
A huge problem is when the crisis deepens, fascist/nationalist/religious fundamentalist ideology also gets more popular as people get desperate.
Topic: CNN - Vans faces Hong Kong boycott over sneaker design controversy (Read 9627 times)