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. However, If Nike were held accountable (not by skaters, but people with power or an overwhelming number of ordinary people) and forced to change its practices, you'd better believe Lakai would have to as well. Put differently: the whole reason why e.g. Lakai has such low standards for its labor and environmental practices is because an actor like Nike has succeeded at setting the bar so low for itself.
this is fucking hilarious. thanks for giving me a nice little chuckle to start my day
Not sure why it's "fucking hilarious" to point out that industry leaders call the shots for how their entire industry is run. Also not sure what's funny about the rest of it, but hey, glad you're easily amused by your ability to experience cheap contempt.
Lakai's labor practices if Nike never made skate shoes:
sure thing buddy
It's cool how you just admit you can't really understand the things you read. Pretty brave to own it like that, actually.
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Maybe they use bad labor practices, but the reality is that buying skater owned (while you still can) means your money does not go to a globe-spanning behemoth that causes unfathomable environmental harm and human suffering in literally dozens of nations because it's so much cheaper to make every possible kind of shoe and garment when they ravage the land and work their child slaves to death.
Core companies are literally incapable of that degree of harm just by virtue of being that much smaller and more focused on the skate market, as opposed to trying to take over every aspect of the global shoe and athletic equipment marketplace they possibly can. Perhaps buying core is harm reduction? I mostly skate Adidas these days so I'm not perfect on this count by any stretch, but it's food for thought.
Good point, but just to be clear here: In the early 1990s, a former Airwalk employee set up a process with shoe factories in Korea and later other countries in the region and helped 'core' shoe companies manufacture shoes over there. With huge profit margins.
Do you think these factories were practicing sound environmental or labor practices?
Did the 'core' shoe companies care?
Have you smelled a warehouse full of 'core' shoes in the 1990s? It was like walking into a glue factory.
Looking back, a lot of 'core' shoes since the 1990s have been interchangeable product made for cheap with a logo slapped on for legitimacy. Everyone needs to judge for themselves what constitutes a well-made shoe.
I concede all that, I don't think there's anything better about the actual manner in which core companies manufacture their goods. However, If Nike were held accountable (not by skaters, but people with power or an overwhelming number of ordinary people) and forced to change its practices, you'd better believe Lakai would have to as well. Put differently: the whole reason why e.g. Lakai has such low standards for its labor and environmental practices is because an actor like Nike has succeeded at setting the bar so low for itself.
you're not paying attention to the textiles industry at all are you? nike has open factory lists, you can trace their entire process start to finish and i'm sure they have csr audits that are public. large factories, like the ones nike use, are very often the best factories simply because of their client list demands it. Lakai could demand way stricter policies and have them complied with- but you're the one who would be paying for it; and lets face it, we aren't willing to pay more money for Lakais and not even fucking lena dunham is going to help pull any significant amount of socially conscience customers...
Lol, you got me, I have a demanding career, a family, a household to keep running, other hobbies, etc., so my I haven't followed the textiles industry in as much granular detail as I have in the past.
Besides, I can admit literally all of that and it doesn't really reach my point. My point is that while those factories might be "the best" (however you're defining that), those operations are still large-scale labor abuse and environmental ruin machines. (So, not "the best" how I'm defining it.) If Nike were held to higher standards, then the whole industry would likely at least start to move in the same direction. Here's the real important thing, though, which I didn't make as clear as I should have:
this is extremely improbable because Nike sets its own standards, which it does not based upon how good something is for the environment or its workers, but upon what will maximize profits. The whole problem is that Nike is simply too powerful and too entrenched in the global economy to change without wanting to first. And changes in consumer's buying habits will likely never amount to as much as it would take to get Nike to want to change, even if a cultural force as universally admired and respected as Lena Dunham (not Lena Dunham!) threw her support behind it.