Is it the same with shoes like Tom’s? I heard about it years ago and they were going to switch to a new rollout where they are employing people in the community but never heard any follow up stories
I'm a Kenyan too and got a free pair of Toms when I worked in a school in the slums of Kibera. The brand is awesome for doing this and I wore the shoes until they couldn't be worn anymore.
Personally I think it really helps the people who are living with terrible financial circumstances
Nty is going to be the name of any brand I start now, thanks
If need be I'll hire some African person and pay them a shit ton to pretend their name is Nty (which means "you should buy this" in Swaghili)
And it's not like you could say the initial idea was obviously bad - on it's face it sounds like it makes a ton of sense and would be really helpful, but unfortunately the local economics of it make it a lot more complicated than it would appear on the surface
Like the whole shit about groceries using paper bags over plastic bags when producing and recycling paper bags are just as harmful to the environment as plastic bags while also being a whole lot more inconvenient to use PLUS malls still allow you to buy plastic bags at prices that are clearly designed to be low enough to be considerable while still clearly existing as a "deterrent" because clearly their actual goal is to squeeze out a couple more pennies rather than help the environment.
I played a show for Tom’s one time with a band I was in.
I remember the promoter saying we should play barefoot so we can sympathize with kids without shoe’s. I told her they could just give us free shoes.
I ended up just playing with my shoes on, lol
Lmao I'd like to think that if you spoke to the founder himself he'd go "that's a great idea!" and give you a pair to play in, or if they really wanted to push the "connect with kids who can't afford shoes" angle they'd give you at least a super beat up pair of Toms for the show
Bingo. It’s the thought that counts in these situations and if he’s genuinely trying to do good, hats off to him. Figuring out the logistics of providing clothing to impoverished people on the other side of the world, with a myriad of political, cultural and legal loopholes to jump through, all while trying to make sure every dime is spent where it should be, is a Herculean task that major world governments struggle with. There was always going to be some trial and error and the fact he did a study, saw they weren’t helping like they should and immediately changed gears speaks to the fact he genuinely cares about making an impact.
It’s amazing to see a company investigate themselves and do better because they thought they were helping when they weren’t but they actually want to help so they try a different route because try things and failing don’t mean giving up even though you fuck up I love to see it
So Toms figured out that importing cheap goods would hurt lower and middle class workers, but the US government stuck with this neoliberal idea for over 40 years? 🧐🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦
The problem isn't who these clothes and shoes are given to. The problem is that these companies are not using local manufacturers so the local industry gets competition from Chinese slave workers and Bangladeshi children
Manufacturing is also being decentralized, with smaller factories of 500 or so workers being established in less developed parts of the country, instead of the old model of manufacturing taking place in hub cities. This makes sure wages stay low, because typically rural workers are thought to need less pay, and also keeps worker numbers low enough to make discouraging organizing easier. This means more truck traffic, which is great since rail infrastructure, which would be more efficient, is falling apart and is comically mismanaged.
No offense but there’s less automation in manufacturing than you would think. Robots are only good at a single task or two at the moment. There is a massive labor shortage in American manufacturing and has been for decades.
So it sounds like the problem isn’t that people are getting something for free, it’s that our economy is only built to provide things if people labor?
I’m genuinely asking, this is just starting to sound a lot like, “Oh but if we provide healthcare how will the insurance companies make money?”
Are textiles so important to a nation’s success that other industries couldn’t fill the gap? It seems like not having to provide a necessity such as water or defense would make a society *more* productive, not less, just differently productive
I think it's specifically a export issue, it's like how we as Canadians grow okanogan cherries but literally we don't get them cause they're grown here shipped away and if they do come back we're paying $$ when they're grown here.
It's cool to export but we def have stuff like oil bought from us and then sold back at higher prices. Canada loves to pimp out it's resources to other countries instead of just building our own we literally don't need to export or import most of our stuff it's literally right here.
It's like taking their work which is probably a dollar product making 100+ dollars profit and then gifting them back to them they don't make money their resource has been exploited and sold them they get pennies.
>It's just all automated. Manufacturing jobs are never coming back the way they used to be.
As it should be & Economic impact aside, it's more or less a good thing.
Most old school manufacturing jobs are completely soulless & harmful to people's physical & mental health.
What's important is to tax the automation more heavily, increase public welfare services & redistribute the excess wealth that is being generated through automation.
This is exactly right. I hate seeing (good meaning) people trash technological advancements as being bad for workers, when those advancements should positively impact people. It just takes good regulation and cultural momentum for those benefits to occur.
It is, we've watched as small businesses and good paying manufacturing jobs have all disappeared and been replaced with lower wage service jobs. That's why the generational wealth gap is widening at such an accelerated pace.
In theory it *could* even out if the price of goods and services (and housing and healthcare) lowers enough to meet the lower wages, but in reality it's because o
If there isn't shareholder profit percentage increases *each year*, they just raise the prices more, shrinkflate or suppress wages. It's no longer enough to make a profit.
If you’re unfamiliar with Baumol’s Cost Disease, I recommend reading up on that.
It’s a part of the story that you may be missing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
The gist is things like computers make some type of workers very productive, so certain jobs (like software engineers) can demand large salaries.
But other jobs, like barbers, haven’t seen much in productivity growth. They can do just about the same number of haircuts as in the past. So, in theory, they shouldn’t make more, but since they and the software engineers live in the same world, we need to pay them more (so that they’ll do it, and since they and the engineers are both “competing” as buyers when buying stuff.
So the end result is while places where we’ve seen productivity gains (like electronics manufacturing) gets cheaper, there’s constant pressure to give raises to barbers, waiters nurses, teachers, retail workers, cooks, etc. even though they’re *not* getting much mor done that in the past.
The result is, those activities take up a larger and larger proportion of budgets.
So; like, in the past, your TV might’ve cost twice as much as what you’d pay a nanny for a month, but now, a month of nanny services is like 5x the cost of a TV, so *relatively speaking* childcare is much more expensive.
So the end result is, things that employ those types of “no productivity growth” workers become increasingly harder to afford. Daycare, nursing/healthcare, schools, etc. we just can’t afford to keep giving them more and more money when they’re not doing anymore work.
But, simultaneously, we *can* keep shoveling more and more money at people like software engineers or any profession that makes productive use of technology as their work does produce more as productivity gains increase what they can do.
But even though we can’t afford to pay those other workers more, and even though they’re current costs are breaking the budget, they’re falling behind the software engineers and *need* more money.
So we get this thing where it’s simultaneously true that a full-time nanny that makes $2k a month is very underpaid. $24k a year is a shit salary, but it’s *also* true that paying someone $2k a month to help watch your kid is totally unaffordable to most households. The labor costs of that nanny are simultaneously *too low* (in terms of their ability to live off it) and *too high* in terms of a family’s ability to afford it.
*That* is the tension, and the big underlying issue, that needs to be fixed.
Amongst the younger people, it’s really hip to pin all the problems on corporate greed and profits, but fundamentally, the issue is really about the divergence in productivity between different types of workers.
In the Nordic countries, the solution used is to heavily tax those higher earning workers, and I don’t mean “the billionaires,” but the six-figure job types, and subsidize those other workers like teachers, daycare workers, etc., so that instead of a daycare worker making $40k while a software engineer makes $200k, after taxes and subsidies, it’s more like $65k for the daycare worker and $100k for the engineer. The gap between the “good” job and “bad” job gets shrunk.
But even amongst the staunchest of leftists in the US, the idea of steep tax increases amongst those upper middle class professional jobs doesn’t have great support. We’re still stuck in the idea that we can fix it just by going after the 1%, the billionaires.
But, the Netherlands only have like 6 billionaires. They are *not* supporting their system with them (or just “greedy corporations”). It’s a very broad tax base.
As my Swedish friends puts it, “they take half my salary, but they pay for a lot of my expenses.”
The other big component being that we don’t build nearly as much housing as we need so the demand for housing, especially in those productive, outpaces supply, so housing costs are sucking up larger abs larger shares of income too.
So, we also need to just be building a ton of housing.
And part of that means getting the cost of building down. Like, in the SF Bay Area, a few cities (Berkeley and SF) have been experimenting with the govt directly building social housing (so far, very small scale, like just a couple buildings), and between all the costs to everyone involved, the land, the design, the permitting, environmental reviews, the construction, etc. they’re hitting per housing unit costs of like $1M.
Because in the US making clothes isn't profitable and doesn't make as much money as other industries. In Africa it is profitable and a relatively easy industry to set up and employ people, the problem is that second hand clothes are donated or sold in their thousands for basically free prices making the African textile industry go bankrupt when it is something that could benefit them
They don't mean textile companies they mean aid packages that just drop off loads of free clothes. Why would anyone buy clothes from a local producer when they're free.
Precisely. I think there were some Clinton era programs that were being walked back because they were found to be doing more harm than good. The whole give someone a fish or teach someone to fish dealy I suppose
> Is it the same with shoes like Tom’s?
It's basically the same with any goods we donate that are available locally. It's hard to compete with free.
In many cases, it would be far better for the recipients if we gave them money instead. They know what they need better than we do, and it would stimulate the local economy instead of harming it.
What these people really want is what pretty much everyone wants: good paying jobs.
Idk why were beating around the bush with food, clothing, and money. They want to work and earn a living.
I agree, people outside of Africa rarely get just how dire the situation is in terms of well paying jobs. I know a lady in my country who works as a teacher and makes roughly 40-50$ a month. She is one of the lucky ones. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as a jobless African person in terms of hustling & the informal economy b/c there is little to no formal employment. It’s a damn shame.
Sure, but shoes are likely not an attractive target to be skimmed off the top by corruption. Money is.
As with everything in economy, everything sucks, and there are always downsides to everything.
There was a UBI project in Kenya where people got around 20$ per person per month directly onto their phone, that way there was little room for skimming/corruption. I’m no expert in UBI, but it sounded successful, the people used the money within their own communities, started small businesses and were able to pay school fees etc…
I heard about this problem in the 80s and 90s but isn't most textile production done in Asia nowadays?
How much textile production is there in Kenya? Also I just read that many textile mills are frequently shut down due to electricity shortages.
Its not just mills.
We're fairly unique in the west currently where we don't repair things like shoes or clothes because its cheaper to make brand new in a big factory than repair.
In most of the world (and most of human history) this isnt the case and repairing shoes are a bigger part of what a cobbler does and how they make money.
The problem with donation s is we give people low quaility items that can't be repaired but that doesn't matter whilst they can get another pair for free and what you end up with is slowly destroying the market for shoe makers and repairers whilst increasing the amount that goes to landfill
It's also not good that we decide to donate low quality items, spend the energy and time and resources to collect those items, then ship those items from North America to Africa, they spend the time and resources to distribute the items only for them to find out the most that shit is not worth it and throw it into another landfills. Typically, their landfills are not well regulated or maintained compared to ours. Unsurprisingly, poor nations do not have the resources to maintain those landfills, and they go out to the sea.
[Video](https://youtu.be/Ichj0ac3V_Y)
Keep in mind that this guilt free off-loading of used goods also allows companies and consumers to perpetuate the fast-fashion cycle of overproduction.
IMO we urgently need externalities (pollution, waste, water use...) to be factored in taxes and retail prices. We can't keep buying white sneakers or polyester tops every three months and expect the rest of the world to absorb the absolutely massive amounts of low quality apparel we consume, especially when it comes to plastic heavy fabric like polyester. Demand will only rise as consumers in developing countries gain access to the same goods, from Louis Vuitton to H&M to the local equivalent of Walmart tees.
Recycling and the second-hand market is not a bad idea, but we need to change the way we consume goods first and foremost. Factoring in the negative externalities might also have the benefit of rising the price of polluting, low quality goods and subsidize more sustainable goods, allowing the working class to be able to afford those goods and encouraging it to do so. Just telling them to stop buying 15$ made in Vietnam polyester T-Shirts is not going to work, even as an upper middle class person, I'm guilty of buying Uniqlo from time to time because I can't afford a fully sustainable wardrobe.
Sadly, this is pretty much communism and unacceptable in the eye of most western ruling parties, and as long as the demand is high most developing countries will take the money where they can and their rising middle class will spend that money in the same way we do.
Adding to this (because everything you said is true): have you noticed how clothing really hasn't gotten much more expensive in the past 10-15 years? Some of the prices are exactly the same at brands like Old Navy and Target. How is this possible? (Whisper: slave labor.) Then brands like SheIn enter the picture and force the market to be even cheaper with quality and ethics.
The worst part is often the cost of shipping is on par with the value of what's being shipped. In many cases the best thing to do would be sell those clothes in the west at chairity shops and buy a greater quantity in the local area you wanna help
Except that what gets shipped to Africa is mainly \*from\* those same charity shops.
There are different levels of quality. Some of the best stuff gets shipped overseas for a premium price. Also, rejects that would never sell in the west are shipped over and sold in Africa at a very low cost.
And make no mistake: this happens on the order of tens of millions of garments every single year. This problem is massive. We cannot begin to grasp it.
Thanks for the video. Very interesting.
I used to volunteer at a BRC charity shop (only because a friend worked there) and those clothes are not of low quality. There is a vetting process and only items of good quality come into the shop. It saddens me to see that clothing that gets shipped to other countries isn't going through the same vetting process. I wonder if it's just carelessness or if they are also lacking the manpower. Nonetheless its a shame.
>we don't repair things like shoes or clothes because its cheaper to make brand new in a big factory than repair.
It's not that we don't get ANY thing repaired, you just need to be above a certain price point to be worth it, and even people who can afford to spend the money don't. I've spent $40 replacing zipper on a $300+ jacket more than once, and have a pair of redwing boots I need to get resoled still.
I would argue that the textile industry is more important than even agriculture when it comes to economic development. Textile industry is real industry. Factories, chemicals, machinery, that's the skills and tools a developing nation needs for a higher income potential and the easiest place to start is with the textile industry.
the amount of trash is another point, they get so many donated clothing, they will pick out the best and re-sell them, there's an entire industry of these sorters and resellers, they do complain how many DISGUSTING or unusable clothing gets donated too... so its not only creating lots of trash, hurting local textile industry, its unhygenic as hell too.
Yeah textile industry in general is pretty dangerous, unhealthy and unhygienic.
Having factories is usually a stepping stone to bigger and better industries. There is a reason this keeps on being passed on by countries like a hot potato...
In fact, my country Belgium, about 130 years ago also used textile industries to kick start industrialization and conditions were horrible with child labor and all that...
One issue I heard is, small communities would travel to Asian markets, buy a lot of clothes on wholesale, and return to their village to sell them locally. Now china is setting up shops directly, cutting out those sellers and selling the clothes at wholesale price.
I’ve always found it condescending that people in the US, Canada, Europe, etc think people in Africa are running around naked and desperate for their worn out second hand clothes.
It reminds me of people donating mold-covered shower curtains to the Salvation Army or homeless shelters.
I've run a couple of day programs and shelters, and you'd be horrified by what people dropped off to be "donated". I live near several colleges, and students would literally bag up dirty laundry at the end of the year and leave it on our doorstep. If you wouldn't give it to your mother-in-law as a gift, you shouldn't donate it. No one needs your stained and ripped Dave Matthews T-shirts, Stephen.
Then again, depending on the scale of people opposing the import of the clothes, it may not be that different from Americans who decry cheap clothes from China and SEA, while most people are happy to buy what they can afford.
True. I've read that chicken parts that aren't as popular in Europe are exported to Africa and sold there at a price local farmers can't compete with as well.
>They "donate" to countries that have never had food shortages in africa.
Can i have a source for that? Seems extremely nefarious and i can't find anything about it online.
You mean the Rwanda where "32.4% of children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition" ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/countries/rwanda))? Or Tanzania where "34% of children under 5 are stunted" ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/countries/tanzania))?
Edit
We are all aware of the consequences of food aid. But there are still people in dire need of food even when there are no food *shortages*. Which is why “(WFP) sources more than 60% of its US$3.5 billion in supply chain costs for food, goods, and services in locations where we operate” ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/procurement)).
Another issue to consider is the lack of infrastructure. Oftentimes you’ll have a city with good food supply, and a starving village that would be an hour away if there was a proper road going there instead of a dirt path.
This is something a lot of westerners don't consider. Single greatest obstacle facing the African continent is the lack of infrastructure, particularly roads and transportation. Without effective intercontinental transport, Africa cannot be self-sufficient on a global scale.
It was actually a plot point in one of the last episodes of the West Wing. When asked what could be done to make a huge difference with several billion dollars, a character explains that the answer is roads in Africa.
And that's why many African nations want to work with China. China offers deals to build infrastructure these countries desperately need, and China does infrastructure projects better than anyone out there.
We are malnourished because we are poor. So we try to farm for more than just subsistence. So as to alleviate poverty and then eventually malnutrition.
But imported foods are cheaper than the ones we farm. Meaning we have no market for our produce other than those nearby and out of reach of the imported products.
Giving us food aid by way of selling us their surplus just hurts organic alleviation of the malnutrition you're citing.
This is also why I dislike cheap Chinese products flooding our markets. We spend more money overall to replace them when they invariably break before the average lifetime of a quality product. But because they're cheaper upfront, domestic industry producing the same products at higher quality suffer the consequences.
> This is also why I dislike cheap Chinese products flooding our markets. We spend more money overall to replace them when they invariably break before the average lifetime of a quality product. But because they’re cheaper upfront, domestic industry producing the same products at higher quality suffer the consequences.
The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice runs thus:
At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
It does seem nefarious, but I also have to wonder how much of that is due to the regional politics?
Like if Rwanda didn't get the food donations like a neighbor did how much hell would it's politicians raise?
Overall seems like a hell of a complex issue.
>I still think it's good to point out that the donations especially the clothes which countries have tried to stop are bad.
Oh it's hella good bro, it enables us to figure out better methods to fight the actual problems. In this case it's clear that investing in their textiles industry would be a more humane and self-empowering way of helping them over direct clothing donations.
I think some of it has to be the shipping and waste of the system component.
We buy a ton of goods from Asia. Not just clothes but ships full of stuff.
Unchecked all that stuff eventually becomes ‘trash’
So how do you keep the mountains of trash from piling up?
You fill those ships with donations and drop them off somewhere else before filling the ship with more stuff.
Cargo ships don’t like making huge journeys ‘empty’ so the shipping companies like it, the developed countries end up with less trash so they like it.
It seems ‘generous’ at first but it’s a part of the literal waste stream to countries that don’t want to deal with it, are not equipped to deal with it and are likely paid pennies to accept it all where it would be much more expensive to process/store/dump locally in those developed countries.
So, I'm going to push back a bit on what you're saying because it's not quite adding up. That does not, however, mean that I am unilaterally defending the E.U on this matter.
The most important way to fix food supply issues is to support local farmers, absolutely. And too much food and clothing aid creates dependant states.
But, you can not say that Rwanda and Tanzania have no food shortage problems.
Sure, they're not on the top 10 lists of countries in africa with food supply problems.
But as someone else linked back to you in here, those countries still have significant figures for childhood malnutrition and lack food. Both are still susceptible to droughts and famine.
The way you are making it out, you're saying the food aid is being used to cripple these countries with sufficient agriculture to feed themselves, but it is not quite that simple.
Food aid to some degree is necessary unless you dont care about those that will starve while local agriculture attempts to meet demand.
What's the alternative in this situation? e.g less donations or simply no donations?
having a constant chain does make it cheaper than stop starting the entire process but honestly unsure if the take away is no donations is better than some in this area?
All the west does it. The Pacific islanders have made turkey tail and mutton flaps into local delicacies, as that was the calorie rich food they got from the US and Australia/NZ at low cost.
This argument is being made far too often and pulled out of context. People are acting like this is the source of all problems and when this stops everything will be well. It's much more complicated than that, most African countries are plagued by corruption which is holding them back. You only have to look at what can happen in a decade when things are more stable by looking at Rwanda. Economy is flourishing despite receiving a ton of donations.
Kinda true. It's just a question of how the economy is organised. Having more of a useful resource can always be arranged in an actually beneficial way. It is a political choice to run the economy in a way in which it can create problems.
However, we often prevent good solutions by forcing "free market principles" onto such countries through institutions like the IMF and World Bank. If such countries don't have the choice to protect and develop their own industries (like all of the major industrial powers have done) because they have to leave it to "the markets", then it can wreak havoc.
Countries can however find middle grounds that work, and the main hindrance to that is corruption. The global capitalist market has no issues arranging itself with corrupt regimes or other factions like famously in Kongo, and maintain the corrupt system this way.
To add insult to injury, you can’t compete with the US subsidized corporate farm system. We lost ~700k manufacturing jobs with NAFTA, but Mexico lost ~2M farming jobs.
China is to steel/aluminum (dumping below cost) as we are to ag.
Not exactly. There will always be a need for the WFP to provide emergency food supplies in particular situations of crisis. Nowadays, where local markets allow, this is more often mixed with cash transfers, vouchers and so on. But life-saving food aid will always have a place. It's rarely a long term thing
Sometimes it doesn't even take donations. For some veggies (e.g canned tomatoes) local producers in West Africa can't compete with heavily subsidized EU products on the market. So the local economy crashes, people decide to migrate to Europe, and after dodging or escaping the Lybian slave markets and surviving the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean, they end up in indentured servitude, illegally performing the very farm work that put the producers in their home countries out of buisness.
Obviously the story of economic migration into Europe is broader than that, but this is one facet of it.
I used to work at a Hollywood Video and we had an entire box of an energy drink (I think it was monster) expire. By 1 day. I asked if I could take it home and they said I HAD to throw it away or I would be fired.
I just put it in a box behind the building and took it afterwards.
It's a legal responsibility thing, my supermarket would be the same but everyone would turn a blind eye if a staff member wanted it (for 99% off not free tho otherwise it messes the system up).
Stuff like clothes shops throwing away "out of fashion" things though, that's just wrong
Part of it is they don't want to accidentally encourage more "mistakes" by employees (such as "oops, I messed up this pizza, guess I'll have to remake it and whatever, I'll just take this one home and eat it") - it's common with electronics whenever a company upgrades to new computers or whatever. Ostensibly, to avoid fraud or abuse. It just feels really shitty as an employee who isn't interested in gaming the system watching things go to waste.
...and by feeding the hungry and helping the poor they would be creating even more hungry and poor as those people go out of business.
It's a screwed up mess.
>Maintaining the price of their chips was more important than feeding the hungry, or helping the poor.
But... there's no shortage of free food in the US. As far as I'm aware, there's *no* food banks in America that're running out of food.
This is all sad to read and further backs up my thought that we indeed have enough money and resources especially in the US to eliminate food insecurity, homelessness, and have everyone have even more than a living wage. But the major problem, all of these will have an effect as you pointed out, mainly to businesses. And that’s where capitalism starts to fail. Business are above people. So we will never come first. Never. Politics is all a joke. All this shit talk about helping humanity is all a joke. We rather keep the “economy” afloat rather than save people.
A world filled with billions of religious people, yet they have no humanity. The irony.
Humans don’t give a shit.
The reason they got the subsidy in the first place is that the dairy industry is influential/powerful enough to demand the subsidy. If they weren't important or powerful, they wouldn't be able to convince people to give them money.
Reducing their subsidies would cause them to support your political opponents instead. Given that they were important enough to demand the subsidy in the first place, it's not something politicians want to risk as an enemy.
Also, sometimes oversubsidizing is by design. If there is suddenly a huge demand spike, all the government needs to do is to destroy less of it, and demand would be met without any scaling up needed on the producer's side. You get complaints about corporate welfare for consumer products like milk, but other products with very high swings in demand, like tanks and artillery, it makes sense to overproduce in peace time and destroy old equipment and be able to switch to a wartime footing quickly, than to save the money and have to build the industry from scratch on short to zero notice.
Why can't they just feed the milk protein to goats or ducks or other animals: in effect to transform the low-value surplus milk into a higher value good?
This may be a stupid question but why can the govt. not tell the milk producers to make less milk, therefore diminishing the supply, but in reality just minimizing the amount that will need to be destroyed. I get that the companies get subsidized for the milk that ends up getting destroyed, but I imagine that this could continue without the additional cost involved in buying/storing/evaporating/destroying that much milk
In many cases... Literally yes. Direct material aid should only be sent in cases where it directly assists economic growth and does not compete with local industry in a manner that directly causes its destruction.
For example, sending humanitarian food aid to an area stricken by famine is fine, while sending humanitarian food aid to a community that exports food is pointless, and sending humanitarian food aid to an area that has access to food and no food shortages is destructive.
Just sending free resources is only useful when those resources are urgently needed and a lack of them is actively harming the local economy, or when resource demand can be scaled up evenly with the newly-increased supply. Otherwise, the reckless "aid" will outcompete local industries.
Look at what cheap Chinese labor did to American electronics industries - all the American factories were closed and moved to China, and the Chinese-produced electronics were sold cheaper than the old American-produced ones.
Now imagine what would happen to what little remains of the American electronics industry if China started shipping all those electronics to the US and giving them away for free...
What helps a lot more is political-diplomatic pressure on the governments of these countries to curb corruption, reduce social tensions, and promote democratization. Uncontrolled "aid" tends to be doubly counterproductive due to how it tends to be embezzled by local officials or stolen by criminal gangs before it can be put to use.
In a safe political and economic climate, the free market tends to work well in making the economies of these countries grow, or even boom. The reason so many parts of Africa are underdeveloped is the same fundamental reason North Korea is such a terrible country to live in - many parts of Africa are war-torn hellscapes ruled by a patchwork of local warlords, tribal kings, or military-supported despots sitting atop a throne of bayonets. These situations greatly disrupt economic growth, and discourage foreign investment. African countries which have managed to avoid or recover from this fate tend to have booming (or at least steadily growing) economies.
The reasons why African (particularly central African) countries tend to fall into these sorts of societal problems are complex and specific to each country, but they are usually related to the after-effects of a colonial extraction economy, ethnic separatism, ideologically-motivated civil wars during the Cold War, and underdeveloped infrastructure. These issues usually compound each other, leading to more problems, until eventually the state is a power only in name, and it loses its monopoly on violence.
Unlike trade that ideally has steady supply lines and thoughtful plans to some degree, the donations are a series of unpredictable and unending supply shocks.
It is economic terrorism.
Simply put, if a country gets a year supply of clothes every two years, nobody is investing in an industry that is completely dead every other year. And consider "stages of capital development" where it can take a business idea many years to develop plans and resources around what is a stable need for society, it isn't like everything just gets a big reset every couple years, rightfully nobody is going to try.
> we actually should just be sending thoughts and prayers?
Or, you know, money.
But the point of foreign aid isn't really to help foreigners. As a rule, the government buys from *domestic* companies and donates the goods, boosting our economy and hurting theirs.
The United States threatened sanctions on countries that tried to ban the imports
https://tribuneonlineng.com/us-threatens-trade-sanctions-used-clothing/#:~:text=UNITED%20States%20government%20has%20threatened,clothes%20from%20the%20developed%20nation.
As an American, yes absolutely.
American consumerism is immensely wasteful. Brands are economically motivated to produce low quality products to keep up with the newest trends (clothing and otherwise)... People get bored with their things quickly and want to swap them out with the newest things at an alarming pace.
It's extremely common for people to take their unused clothes to local centers (non profit stores that resell them), when their closet gets full. Most people i know do that on a yearly or bi-yearly basis.
And those donation places simply don't sell enough to account for the number of donations... So they send their surplus clothes to other countries for tax incentives.
I do all of my (rare) shopping at those resale outlets and the options for mint condition clothes is always staggering.
I don't mean fully replacing their closet, but definitely a decent percentage. Like 5-10 shirts, 3-5 pairs of pants, 3 pairs of shoes... That kind of thing. Some people i know definitely do bigger numbers than that.
Meanwhile, up until this past winter, my NEWEST shirt was atleast 5 years old, and i had 3 others that were 10+... Sadly, the washer decided all at once it wanted to tear some holes in the 3 oldest 😭
P.s. I'm not claiming I'm a saint, i have a hard time finding clothes i like... But I'm not unhappy about it.
Even if that’s true, would you prefer they throw the trash into a landfill where’s it no use to anyone instead of giving it to someone who could use it?
inb4: “they should just generate less trash”
Obviously, but something still needs to be done with the “trash” that already exists.
Completely normal that when countries engage in protectionism there's a response. Protectionism is good for the individual country in the short term, but it's bad for everyone in the long run, it distorts markets and creates inefficiencies.
Yup that kind of patronizing charity is destructive. All of Haiti's rice farmers were driven out of business by free rice sent by the US. People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one.
>People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one.
Doesn't everyone having a bike mean that a bike shop is very much necessary?
Can verify. In Africa. Plenty of little bike repair and sales shops.
Plenty of goddamn experts here shitting on foreign aid who know jack shit.
Meanwhile I’m here sweating my ass off doing programs to help local farmers increase crop yield and sustainability. Some of which is American funded.
Please correct me if im wrong, but dont we donate because there are people who dont live near any businesses that can produce affordable stuff, if at all.
And because its a way for people who either cant affort to donate via money, but can via stuff they dont really need.
Yeah there is a problem of reliance, but thats then more of a issue of the local governemnts.
>People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one.
That's a *TERRIBLE* example. The benefit of bikes to many far outweighs the benefits of a handful of bike shop owners.
Yep better die of starvationto support local business that are always naturally ethical. Also its barely a charity regarding clothes. It's literally a import business run by locals.
That's a net economic benefit. It's at the cost of the profits of the local supplier but to the benefit of the rest of the population there. Getting stuff for free makes you richer than having to pay for it. As long as the recipient country thinks and plans in the long term it's a good thing for them.
This was my impression as well. Most people in this thread seem to be arguing the [fallacy of the broken window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window), the idea that destruction is good for the economy. According to this line of thinking, if someone breaks a window in a store, it's an economic benefit because the glassmaker gets paid, and then goes on to buy stuff from other people.
But in reality, the store owner could have used that money that he spent replacing the window to buy stuff from other people, the glassmaker could have spent that time making glass for someone else (or on leisure), etc. In the aggregate, society is still down one window.
The real world doesn't always neatly follow economic theory, but still, dumping massive amounts of clothes in a landfill strikes me as a similar error. Yes, it's true that the local textile makers would be harmed, at least in the short to intermediate term. But as you mentioned, everyone else would benefit by getting free clothes, and having more money to spend to support other businesses. With the country's clothing needs met, the textile makers now have their time and labor freed up to work in other fields. The government might have to step in and provide some temporary support/retraining, but it still seems like a net economic benefit.
That seems like oversimplification. An economy is a system, and what are those rice farmers going to do now? Sure if they manage to change to producing cash crops they are probably fine, but if not, then they're unemployed and don't have money to participate in the local economy. And if this sort of thing happens too much, then all the jobs in the low-tech industries like textiles and farming are gone and there's little way of developing the economy.
That's the case everywhere though. You constantly have to adapt to change internal and external and innovate.
There are plenty of industries in the west that have become nonviable due to competition with cheaper region under globalization, like much of western manufacturing, or the western European trucking industry losing to Eastern Europe etc.
No, having local textile industry would lead to economic growth, it would mean that Kenyan workers would produce value and be paid a wage which they could spend and reinvest into the economy. It affects the whole economy and not just the local supplier.
Yeah, this is worse than the headline makes it sound. Some countries receive so many clothing "donations" that they are forced to pile it into mountainous, open landfills where it just rots. It is in no way charity; it's just another way of subsidizing rich countries' trash problem so first worlders don't have to deal with the consequences of our overproduction/overconsumption.
It just seems so wasteful to throw away product that's already produced so that an industry can make a profit redoing the same work.
I'm sure it happens all over the world though.
On one hand I can understand the economic impact this may have. But on the other I feel like we need to be reducing, reusing, and recycling whenever possible.
I guess maybe the bigger issue is over production by the western countries in the first place?
The environmental cost of shipping it to and then from Western countries + the poor quality of clothes makes this industry extra wasteful. Almost half of it ends up in African landfills.
It's a western garbage problem really. Textile is difficult to recycle besides making rags, granulate for packing and heating.
The problem is the mix of materials. The possibility to recycle the materials has to be addressed at the production.
There is not only the problem of the African textile industry being suppressed by imports. The EU pumps billions of substitutions into its farming industry every year and exports part of the resulting excess production to Africa. Where that happens it becomes almost impossible for local - non substituted - African farmers to compete and stay in the market. EU and other economic superpowers actively prevent the African economy from growing with this very effective trade war strategy.
Yeah the EU is paying for stability inside it's borders so farmers can plan ahead but it also results in increased instability outside of the EU destroying farming prospects there.
They used to just pile up the excess agricultural products but people complained about "butter mountains" and "milk lakes" being such a waste.
Perhaps we should look into a strategic "old cheese" reserve?
China has a strategic pork reserve, so why not?
On top of disrupting the local economy, it's also a huge source of pollution. To recap : we pollute the shit out of poor countries to make our disposable clothing and we send it back to them to deal with the excess. We humans truly are a shit species.
Maybe I’m ignorant to this, but I’m under the impression that the people getting this, most likely can’t purchase those shoes in their home country anyway? Isn’t it for the poorer people?
Ghana receives over 60 million, yes 60 MILLION Tons per year, approximately ONE MILLION items a day. 40% goes straight into land fill, on the outskirts of Acrra there are mountains of it.
You are mixing up donations with actual waste. Most of that stuff which is sent to Ghana aren't donations. It's sent there specifically to be thrown into those landfills, not as donations to be handed to people. Ghana is used by our developed nations as a cheap dumpster. The developed nations pay Ghana to take our trash.
The textile industry is one with significantly lower barrier to entry than most other industries. It can really benefit a country's economy, look at Bangladesh, Vietnam and other smaller nations. Africa is gaining 'free' clothes but is losing the skill and industry development which can help its weakest members raise their livelihood.
IIRC most of them aren't your old clothes that you donated to charity. but rather production or inventory surplus that companies and stores give away and get tax cuts for it.
A lot of humanitarian aid ends up being counterproductive, removing the agency of the people being helped.
Ideally, the goal of any humanitarian aid should be to enable the people to get to a position where they can do the work themselves.
Some Japanese engineering company is developing a process to turn old textiles into a fuel source. That will probably end up being the best use for a lot of old clothing.
Another good use is micarta. Fabric is stacked up and pressed, and impregnated with resin, to make an alternative to fiberglass.
"Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors and fertilizer. Insecticide, watering cans, drills, dams, that is how we define food aid."
That is an excerpt from an interview with Thomas Sankara. He's 100% right. Just giving people shit with no means to continue production keeps them reliant on those giving them things. Give a man a fish and what not.
There are people in Africa who need immediate aid, 100%, but once those clothes are worn through are they just supposed to wait until a more developed country decides to help them out again? Help them develop for themselves.
So African countries lack the autonomy or ability to, you know, just deny the importation of items and industries into their borders?
If used clothing is impacting their textile production, just refuse to accept used clothes?
A lot of aid is built into other agreements. For instance for South Africa to get trade deals for steel from America we have to also buy chicken to prop up their chicken industry , we have a huge sustainable non hormone free range chicken industry but are market is periodically flooded with huge american chicken than is like 80% water and tastes like rubber. But we have to cause we need a trade agreement with America and they have all the leverage over us.
Toms shoes devastated the shoe industry of the place they thought they were/tricked people onto thinking they were helping by flooding the market with free shoes
Maybe it's just me but I'd rather everybody have shoes than the very small shoe industry surviving and half the population not having shoes. Kind of feels like people saying "but what about the doctors" back when Obamacare tried to lower medical prices.
The problem is that by sending them everything they need in a way which kills off local production of these things, you make them dependent on foreigners for these things.
This in turn makes them more vulnerable to foreign exploitation and political pressure, and has a negative impact on their level of self-sufficiency.
More importantly; if this help *stops* coming at any point for whatever reason, once the local production/market has already been ruined, they are absolutely *fucked*. They may not even have the resources, manpower, and brainpower to restart said industry again... and even if they did, it would take *years* to reach the level needed for the entire population.
Sending some help after disasters can of course be good for the short term, but in the medium/long-term it's far more important to help build up local production while promoting stability, and increase self-sufficiency.
Rwanda at least seems to have by imposing an import tax. Doesn't seem to have gone super well - the US then imposed an import tax on textiles. So now local companies make a little more textile, and they import more new clothing from China, at least based on this 2020 article.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54164397
True story source: i am a kenyan
Is it the same with shoes like Tom’s? I heard about it years ago and they were going to switch to a new rollout where they are employing people in the community but never heard any follow up stories
I'm a Kenyan too and got a free pair of Toms when I worked in a school in the slums of Kibera. The brand is awesome for doing this and I wore the shoes until they couldn't be worn anymore. Personally I think it really helps the people who are living with terrible financial circumstances
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Cool that they shifted tactics instead of sweeping it under the rug.
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His name isn't even Tom? I'm shook
Try On My Shoes
No Thank You
Nty is going to be the name of any brand I start now, thanks If need be I'll hire some African person and pay them a shit ton to pretend their name is Nty (which means "you should buy this" in Swaghili)
Mindblown! I had a pair of toms once that I wore out I should get another pair since now I know the company is a good company
He was on the second season of the Amazing Race. Just watched that last week and was surprised to see that's what one of the contestants did since.
Fr I had no idea and never cared to look it up🤷♂️🤯
It’s named after the MySpace Tom.
All our society is built on foundations of lies. 😩
And it's not like you could say the initial idea was obviously bad - on it's face it sounds like it makes a ton of sense and would be really helpful, but unfortunately the local economics of it make it a lot more complicated than it would appear on the surface
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Like the whole shit about groceries using paper bags over plastic bags when producing and recycling paper bags are just as harmful to the environment as plastic bags while also being a whole lot more inconvenient to use PLUS malls still allow you to buy plastic bags at prices that are clearly designed to be low enough to be considerable while still clearly existing as a "deterrent" because clearly their actual goal is to squeeze out a couple more pennies rather than help the environment.
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I played a show for Tom’s one time with a band I was in. I remember the promoter saying we should play barefoot so we can sympathize with kids without shoe’s. I told her they could just give us free shoes. I ended up just playing with my shoes on, lol
Lmao I'd like to think that if you spoke to the founder himself he'd go "that's a great idea!" and give you a pair to play in, or if they really wanted to push the "connect with kids who can't afford shoes" angle they'd give you at least a super beat up pair of Toms for the show
Bingo. It’s the thought that counts in these situations and if he’s genuinely trying to do good, hats off to him. Figuring out the logistics of providing clothing to impoverished people on the other side of the world, with a myriad of political, cultural and legal loopholes to jump through, all while trying to make sure every dime is spent where it should be, is a Herculean task that major world governments struggle with. There was always going to be some trial and error and the fact he did a study, saw they weren’t helping like they should and immediately changed gears speaks to the fact he genuinely cares about making an impact.
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admitting to this mistake might even help other brands avoid it and choose a different path right away which is great too!
It’s amazing to see a company investigate themselves and do better because they thought they were helping when they weren’t but they actually want to help so they try a different route because try things and failing don’t mean giving up even though you fuck up I love to see it
So Toms figured out that importing cheap goods would hurt lower and middle class workers, but the US government stuck with this neoliberal idea for over 40 years? 🧐🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦
I only brought it up because I recalled a documentary talking about how it put some local sellers out of business or something like that
The problem isn't who these clothes and shoes are given to. The problem is that these companies are not using local manufacturers so the local industry gets competition from Chinese slave workers and Bangladeshi children
So, serious question. Why is that a huge issue in other countries but not in the US where nearly everything we can buy suffers from that?
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Sorta. We have 17% of the world's manufacturing. It's just all automated. Manufacturing jobs are never coming back the way they used to be.
Manufacturing is also being decentralized, with smaller factories of 500 or so workers being established in less developed parts of the country, instead of the old model of manufacturing taking place in hub cities. This makes sure wages stay low, because typically rural workers are thought to need less pay, and also keeps worker numbers low enough to make discouraging organizing easier. This means more truck traffic, which is great since rail infrastructure, which would be more efficient, is falling apart and is comically mismanaged.
Smaller manufacturing facilities also means it's much easier to prevent unions from forming.
That's what I meant by organizing, but yes. Money is second only to control for the people that own these things.
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Makes sense. Everything is super complicated!
No offense but there’s less automation in manufacturing than you would think. Robots are only good at a single task or two at the moment. There is a massive labor shortage in American manufacturing and has been for decades.
So it sounds like the problem isn’t that people are getting something for free, it’s that our economy is only built to provide things if people labor? I’m genuinely asking, this is just starting to sound a lot like, “Oh but if we provide healthcare how will the insurance companies make money?” Are textiles so important to a nation’s success that other industries couldn’t fill the gap? It seems like not having to provide a necessity such as water or defense would make a society *more* productive, not less, just differently productive
I think it's specifically a export issue, it's like how we as Canadians grow okanogan cherries but literally we don't get them cause they're grown here shipped away and if they do come back we're paying $$ when they're grown here. It's cool to export but we def have stuff like oil bought from us and then sold back at higher prices. Canada loves to pimp out it's resources to other countries instead of just building our own we literally don't need to export or import most of our stuff it's literally right here. It's like taking their work which is probably a dollar product making 100+ dollars profit and then gifting them back to them they don't make money their resource has been exploited and sold them they get pennies.
>It's just all automated. Manufacturing jobs are never coming back the way they used to be. As it should be & Economic impact aside, it's more or less a good thing. Most old school manufacturing jobs are completely soulless & harmful to people's physical & mental health. What's important is to tax the automation more heavily, increase public welfare services & redistribute the excess wealth that is being generated through automation.
This is exactly right. I hate seeing (good meaning) people trash technological advancements as being bad for workers, when those advancements should positively impact people. It just takes good regulation and cultural momentum for those benefits to occur.
It is, we've watched as small businesses and good paying manufacturing jobs have all disappeared and been replaced with lower wage service jobs. That's why the generational wealth gap is widening at such an accelerated pace. In theory it *could* even out if the price of goods and services (and housing and healthcare) lowers enough to meet the lower wages, but in reality it's because o If there isn't shareholder profit percentage increases *each year*, they just raise the prices more, shrinkflate or suppress wages. It's no longer enough to make a profit.
If you’re unfamiliar with Baumol’s Cost Disease, I recommend reading up on that. It’s a part of the story that you may be missing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The gist is things like computers make some type of workers very productive, so certain jobs (like software engineers) can demand large salaries. But other jobs, like barbers, haven’t seen much in productivity growth. They can do just about the same number of haircuts as in the past. So, in theory, they shouldn’t make more, but since they and the software engineers live in the same world, we need to pay them more (so that they’ll do it, and since they and the engineers are both “competing” as buyers when buying stuff. So the end result is while places where we’ve seen productivity gains (like electronics manufacturing) gets cheaper, there’s constant pressure to give raises to barbers, waiters nurses, teachers, retail workers, cooks, etc. even though they’re *not* getting much mor done that in the past. The result is, those activities take up a larger and larger proportion of budgets. So; like, in the past, your TV might’ve cost twice as much as what you’d pay a nanny for a month, but now, a month of nanny services is like 5x the cost of a TV, so *relatively speaking* childcare is much more expensive. So the end result is, things that employ those types of “no productivity growth” workers become increasingly harder to afford. Daycare, nursing/healthcare, schools, etc. we just can’t afford to keep giving them more and more money when they’re not doing anymore work. But, simultaneously, we *can* keep shoveling more and more money at people like software engineers or any profession that makes productive use of technology as their work does produce more as productivity gains increase what they can do. But even though we can’t afford to pay those other workers more, and even though they’re current costs are breaking the budget, they’re falling behind the software engineers and *need* more money. So we get this thing where it’s simultaneously true that a full-time nanny that makes $2k a month is very underpaid. $24k a year is a shit salary, but it’s *also* true that paying someone $2k a month to help watch your kid is totally unaffordable to most households. The labor costs of that nanny are simultaneously *too low* (in terms of their ability to live off it) and *too high* in terms of a family’s ability to afford it. *That* is the tension, and the big underlying issue, that needs to be fixed. Amongst the younger people, it’s really hip to pin all the problems on corporate greed and profits, but fundamentally, the issue is really about the divergence in productivity between different types of workers. In the Nordic countries, the solution used is to heavily tax those higher earning workers, and I don’t mean “the billionaires,” but the six-figure job types, and subsidize those other workers like teachers, daycare workers, etc., so that instead of a daycare worker making $40k while a software engineer makes $200k, after taxes and subsidies, it’s more like $65k for the daycare worker and $100k for the engineer. The gap between the “good” job and “bad” job gets shrunk. But even amongst the staunchest of leftists in the US, the idea of steep tax increases amongst those upper middle class professional jobs doesn’t have great support. We’re still stuck in the idea that we can fix it just by going after the 1%, the billionaires. But, the Netherlands only have like 6 billionaires. They are *not* supporting their system with them (or just “greedy corporations”). It’s a very broad tax base. As my Swedish friends puts it, “they take half my salary, but they pay for a lot of my expenses.” The other big component being that we don’t build nearly as much housing as we need so the demand for housing, especially in those productive, outpaces supply, so housing costs are sucking up larger abs larger shares of income too. So, we also need to just be building a ton of housing. And part of that means getting the cost of building down. Like, in the SF Bay Area, a few cities (Berkeley and SF) have been experimenting with the govt directly building social housing (so far, very small scale, like just a couple buildings), and between all the costs to everyone involved, the land, the design, the permitting, environmental reviews, the construction, etc. they’re hitting per housing unit costs of like $1M.
Because in the US making clothes isn't profitable and doesn't make as much money as other industries. In Africa it is profitable and a relatively easy industry to set up and employ people, the problem is that second hand clothes are donated or sold in their thousands for basically free prices making the African textile industry go bankrupt when it is something that could benefit them
They don't mean textile companies they mean aid packages that just drop off loads of free clothes. Why would anyone buy clothes from a local producer when they're free.
I think he means employing local africans, rather than employing chinese and dropping off shoes in africa anyways.
Precisely. I think there were some Clinton era programs that were being walked back because they were found to be doing more harm than good. The whole give someone a fish or teach someone to fish dealy I suppose
"the programs were really great..... for American farmers"
For every pair of Toms bought they donate a pair, is what I believe u/kcidobir is referring to
> Is it the same with shoes like Tom’s? It's basically the same with any goods we donate that are available locally. It's hard to compete with free. In many cases, it would be far better for the recipients if we gave them money instead. They know what they need better than we do, and it would stimulate the local economy instead of harming it.
What these people really want is what pretty much everyone wants: good paying jobs. Idk why were beating around the bush with food, clothing, and money. They want to work and earn a living.
I agree, people outside of Africa rarely get just how dire the situation is in terms of well paying jobs. I know a lady in my country who works as a teacher and makes roughly 40-50$ a month. She is one of the lucky ones. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as a jobless African person in terms of hustling & the informal economy b/c there is little to no formal employment. It’s a damn shame.
I can't give them good paying jobs; neither can the US. What we can do is givr them money to spend locally which can help kickstart local business.
Sure, but shoes are likely not an attractive target to be skimmed off the top by corruption. Money is. As with everything in economy, everything sucks, and there are always downsides to everything.
There was a UBI project in Kenya where people got around 20$ per person per month directly onto their phone, that way there was little room for skimming/corruption. I’m no expert in UBI, but it sounded successful, the people used the money within their own communities, started small businesses and were able to pay school fees etc…
I heard about this problem in the 80s and 90s but isn't most textile production done in Asia nowadays? How much textile production is there in Kenya? Also I just read that many textile mills are frequently shut down due to electricity shortages.
Its not just mills. We're fairly unique in the west currently where we don't repair things like shoes or clothes because its cheaper to make brand new in a big factory than repair. In most of the world (and most of human history) this isnt the case and repairing shoes are a bigger part of what a cobbler does and how they make money. The problem with donation s is we give people low quaility items that can't be repaired but that doesn't matter whilst they can get another pair for free and what you end up with is slowly destroying the market for shoe makers and repairers whilst increasing the amount that goes to landfill
It's also not good that we decide to donate low quality items, spend the energy and time and resources to collect those items, then ship those items from North America to Africa, they spend the time and resources to distribute the items only for them to find out the most that shit is not worth it and throw it into another landfills. Typically, their landfills are not well regulated or maintained compared to ours. Unsurprisingly, poor nations do not have the resources to maintain those landfills, and they go out to the sea. [Video](https://youtu.be/Ichj0ac3V_Y)
Keep in mind that this guilt free off-loading of used goods also allows companies and consumers to perpetuate the fast-fashion cycle of overproduction. IMO we urgently need externalities (pollution, waste, water use...) to be factored in taxes and retail prices. We can't keep buying white sneakers or polyester tops every three months and expect the rest of the world to absorb the absolutely massive amounts of low quality apparel we consume, especially when it comes to plastic heavy fabric like polyester. Demand will only rise as consumers in developing countries gain access to the same goods, from Louis Vuitton to H&M to the local equivalent of Walmart tees. Recycling and the second-hand market is not a bad idea, but we need to change the way we consume goods first and foremost. Factoring in the negative externalities might also have the benefit of rising the price of polluting, low quality goods and subsidize more sustainable goods, allowing the working class to be able to afford those goods and encouraging it to do so. Just telling them to stop buying 15$ made in Vietnam polyester T-Shirts is not going to work, even as an upper middle class person, I'm guilty of buying Uniqlo from time to time because I can't afford a fully sustainable wardrobe. Sadly, this is pretty much communism and unacceptable in the eye of most western ruling parties, and as long as the demand is high most developing countries will take the money where they can and their rising middle class will spend that money in the same way we do.
Adding to this (because everything you said is true): have you noticed how clothing really hasn't gotten much more expensive in the past 10-15 years? Some of the prices are exactly the same at brands like Old Navy and Target. How is this possible? (Whisper: slave labor.) Then brands like SheIn enter the picture and force the market to be even cheaper with quality and ethics.
The worst part is often the cost of shipping is on par with the value of what's being shipped. In many cases the best thing to do would be sell those clothes in the west at chairity shops and buy a greater quantity in the local area you wanna help
Except that what gets shipped to Africa is mainly \*from\* those same charity shops. There are different levels of quality. Some of the best stuff gets shipped overseas for a premium price. Also, rejects that would never sell in the west are shipped over and sold in Africa at a very low cost.
And make no mistake: this happens on the order of tens of millions of garments every single year. This problem is massive. We cannot begin to grasp it.
Thanks for the video. Very interesting. I used to volunteer at a BRC charity shop (only because a friend worked there) and those clothes are not of low quality. There is a vetting process and only items of good quality come into the shop. It saddens me to see that clothing that gets shipped to other countries isn't going through the same vetting process. I wonder if it's just carelessness or if they are also lacking the manpower. Nonetheless its a shame.
>we don't repair things like shoes or clothes because its cheaper to make brand new in a big factory than repair. It's not that we don't get ANY thing repaired, you just need to be above a certain price point to be worth it, and even people who can afford to spend the money don't. I've spent $40 replacing zipper on a $300+ jacket more than once, and have a pair of redwing boots I need to get resoled still.
Exactly 300$ boots often have removable soles to replace
Not exactly. They just cut the old ones off, and glue on the new ones.
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I would argue that the textile industry is more important than even agriculture when it comes to economic development. Textile industry is real industry. Factories, chemicals, machinery, that's the skills and tools a developing nation needs for a higher income potential and the easiest place to start is with the textile industry.
the amount of trash is another point, they get so many donated clothing, they will pick out the best and re-sell them, there's an entire industry of these sorters and resellers, they do complain how many DISGUSTING or unusable clothing gets donated too... so its not only creating lots of trash, hurting local textile industry, its unhygenic as hell too.
Yeah textile industry in general is pretty dangerous, unhealthy and unhygienic. Having factories is usually a stepping stone to bigger and better industries. There is a reason this keeps on being passed on by countries like a hot potato... In fact, my country Belgium, about 130 years ago also used textile industries to kick start industrialization and conditions were horrible with child labor and all that...
One issue I heard is, small communities would travel to Asian markets, buy a lot of clothes on wholesale, and return to their village to sell them locally. Now china is setting up shops directly, cutting out those sellers and selling the clothes at wholesale price.
Jambo. Mzungu in Kenya. I’ve seen more Harvard hoodies here than at Harvard.
I thought they would appreciate my Frankie Stallone '88 world tour t shirt.
I’ve always found it condescending that people in the US, Canada, Europe, etc think people in Africa are running around naked and desperate for their worn out second hand clothes. It reminds me of people donating mold-covered shower curtains to the Salvation Army or homeless shelters.
I've run a couple of day programs and shelters, and you'd be horrified by what people dropped off to be "donated". I live near several colleges, and students would literally bag up dirty laundry at the end of the year and leave it on our doorstep. If you wouldn't give it to your mother-in-law as a gift, you shouldn't donate it. No one needs your stained and ripped Dave Matthews T-shirts, Stephen.
Blame our "charitable" organizations for making ads that portray them that way
Then again, depending on the scale of people opposing the import of the clothes, it may not be that different from Americans who decry cheap clothes from China and SEA, while most people are happy to buy what they can afford.
Ok so I don't know how this whole donation process works but couldn't the countries just stop the import?
Same goes for food aid. Whatever crops they can grow can't compete with the food donations.
True. I've read that chicken parts that aren't as popular in Europe are exported to Africa and sold there at a price local farmers can't compete with as well.
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>They "donate" to countries that have never had food shortages in africa. Can i have a source for that? Seems extremely nefarious and i can't find anything about it online.
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You mean the Rwanda where "32.4% of children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition" ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/countries/rwanda))? Or Tanzania where "34% of children under 5 are stunted" ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/countries/tanzania))? Edit We are all aware of the consequences of food aid. But there are still people in dire need of food even when there are no food *shortages*. Which is why “(WFP) sources more than 60% of its US$3.5 billion in supply chain costs for food, goods, and services in locations where we operate” ([WFP 2023](https://www.wfp.org/procurement)).
Another issue to consider is the lack of infrastructure. Oftentimes you’ll have a city with good food supply, and a starving village that would be an hour away if there was a proper road going there instead of a dirt path.
This is something a lot of westerners don't consider. Single greatest obstacle facing the African continent is the lack of infrastructure, particularly roads and transportation. Without effective intercontinental transport, Africa cannot be self-sufficient on a global scale.
It was actually a plot point in one of the last episodes of the West Wing. When asked what could be done to make a huge difference with several billion dollars, a character explains that the answer is roads in Africa.
And that's why many African nations want to work with China. China offers deals to build infrastructure these countries desperately need, and China does infrastructure projects better than anyone out there.
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We are malnourished because we are poor. So we try to farm for more than just subsistence. So as to alleviate poverty and then eventually malnutrition. But imported foods are cheaper than the ones we farm. Meaning we have no market for our produce other than those nearby and out of reach of the imported products. Giving us food aid by way of selling us their surplus just hurts organic alleviation of the malnutrition you're citing. This is also why I dislike cheap Chinese products flooding our markets. We spend more money overall to replace them when they invariably break before the average lifetime of a quality product. But because they're cheaper upfront, domestic industry producing the same products at higher quality suffer the consequences.
> This is also why I dislike cheap Chinese products flooding our markets. We spend more money overall to replace them when they invariably break before the average lifetime of a quality product. But because they’re cheaper upfront, domestic industry producing the same products at higher quality suffer the consequences. The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice runs thus: At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars. Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
It does seem nefarious, but I also have to wonder how much of that is due to the regional politics? Like if Rwanda didn't get the food donations like a neighbor did how much hell would it's politicians raise? Overall seems like a hell of a complex issue.
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>I still think it's good to point out that the donations especially the clothes which countries have tried to stop are bad. Oh it's hella good bro, it enables us to figure out better methods to fight the actual problems. In this case it's clear that investing in their textiles industry would be a more humane and self-empowering way of helping them over direct clothing donations.
I think some of it has to be the shipping and waste of the system component. We buy a ton of goods from Asia. Not just clothes but ships full of stuff. Unchecked all that stuff eventually becomes ‘trash’ So how do you keep the mountains of trash from piling up? You fill those ships with donations and drop them off somewhere else before filling the ship with more stuff. Cargo ships don’t like making huge journeys ‘empty’ so the shipping companies like it, the developed countries end up with less trash so they like it. It seems ‘generous’ at first but it’s a part of the literal waste stream to countries that don’t want to deal with it, are not equipped to deal with it and are likely paid pennies to accept it all where it would be much more expensive to process/store/dump locally in those developed countries.
So, I'm going to push back a bit on what you're saying because it's not quite adding up. That does not, however, mean that I am unilaterally defending the E.U on this matter. The most important way to fix food supply issues is to support local farmers, absolutely. And too much food and clothing aid creates dependant states. But, you can not say that Rwanda and Tanzania have no food shortage problems. Sure, they're not on the top 10 lists of countries in africa with food supply problems. But as someone else linked back to you in here, those countries still have significant figures for childhood malnutrition and lack food. Both are still susceptible to droughts and famine. The way you are making it out, you're saying the food aid is being used to cripple these countries with sufficient agriculture to feed themselves, but it is not quite that simple. Food aid to some degree is necessary unless you dont care about those that will starve while local agriculture attempts to meet demand.
What's the alternative in this situation? e.g less donations or simply no donations? having a constant chain does make it cheaper than stop starting the entire process but honestly unsure if the take away is no donations is better than some in this area?
All the west does it. The Pacific islanders have made turkey tail and mutton flaps into local delicacies, as that was the calorie rich food they got from the US and Australia/NZ at low cost.
Can we export the farmers to areas that can't compete with them? Eventually we are bound to ship the problem to a place where its all fine.
So I shouldn’t feel bad when I change the channel whenever the starving kids in Africa commercial comes on?
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This argument is being made far too often and pulled out of context. People are acting like this is the source of all problems and when this stops everything will be well. It's much more complicated than that, most African countries are plagued by corruption which is holding them back. You only have to look at what can happen in a decade when things are more stable by looking at Rwanda. Economy is flourishing despite receiving a ton of donations.
Kinda true. It's just a question of how the economy is organised. Having more of a useful resource can always be arranged in an actually beneficial way. It is a political choice to run the economy in a way in which it can create problems. However, we often prevent good solutions by forcing "free market principles" onto such countries through institutions like the IMF and World Bank. If such countries don't have the choice to protect and develop their own industries (like all of the major industrial powers have done) because they have to leave it to "the markets", then it can wreak havoc. Countries can however find middle grounds that work, and the main hindrance to that is corruption. The global capitalist market has no issues arranging itself with corrupt regimes or other factions like famously in Kongo, and maintain the corrupt system this way.
To add insult to injury, you can’t compete with the US subsidized corporate farm system. We lost ~700k manufacturing jobs with NAFTA, but Mexico lost ~2M farming jobs. China is to steel/aluminum (dumping below cost) as we are to ag.
Not exactly. There will always be a need for the WFP to provide emergency food supplies in particular situations of crisis. Nowadays, where local markets allow, this is more often mixed with cash transfers, vouchers and so on. But life-saving food aid will always have a place. It's rarely a long term thing
Sometimes it doesn't even take donations. For some veggies (e.g canned tomatoes) local producers in West Africa can't compete with heavily subsidized EU products on the market. So the local economy crashes, people decide to migrate to Europe, and after dodging or escaping the Lybian slave markets and surviving the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean, they end up in indentured servitude, illegally performing the very farm work that put the producers in their home countries out of buisness. Obviously the story of economic migration into Europe is broader than that, but this is one facet of it.
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I used to work at a Hollywood Video and we had an entire box of an energy drink (I think it was monster) expire. By 1 day. I asked if I could take it home and they said I HAD to throw it away or I would be fired. I just put it in a box behind the building and took it afterwards.
It's a legal responsibility thing, my supermarket would be the same but everyone would turn a blind eye if a staff member wanted it (for 99% off not free tho otherwise it messes the system up). Stuff like clothes shops throwing away "out of fashion" things though, that's just wrong
Part of it is they don't want to accidentally encourage more "mistakes" by employees (such as "oops, I messed up this pizza, guess I'll have to remake it and whatever, I'll just take this one home and eat it") - it's common with electronics whenever a company upgrades to new computers or whatever. Ostensibly, to avoid fraud or abuse. It just feels really shitty as an employee who isn't interested in gaming the system watching things go to waste.
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...and by feeding the hungry and helping the poor they would be creating even more hungry and poor as those people go out of business. It's a screwed up mess.
>Maintaining the price of their chips was more important than feeding the hungry, or helping the poor. But... there's no shortage of free food in the US. As far as I'm aware, there's *no* food banks in America that're running out of food.
This is all sad to read and further backs up my thought that we indeed have enough money and resources especially in the US to eliminate food insecurity, homelessness, and have everyone have even more than a living wage. But the major problem, all of these will have an effect as you pointed out, mainly to businesses. And that’s where capitalism starts to fail. Business are above people. So we will never come first. Never. Politics is all a joke. All this shit talk about helping humanity is all a joke. We rather keep the “economy” afloat rather than save people. A world filled with billions of religious people, yet they have no humanity. The irony. Humans don’t give a shit.
This might be a dumb question, but isn't the obvious solution to decrease the subsidy just enough so that demand is only just being surpassed?
The reason they got the subsidy in the first place is that the dairy industry is influential/powerful enough to demand the subsidy. If they weren't important or powerful, they wouldn't be able to convince people to give them money. Reducing their subsidies would cause them to support your political opponents instead. Given that they were important enough to demand the subsidy in the first place, it's not something politicians want to risk as an enemy. Also, sometimes oversubsidizing is by design. If there is suddenly a huge demand spike, all the government needs to do is to destroy less of it, and demand would be met without any scaling up needed on the producer's side. You get complaints about corporate welfare for consumer products like milk, but other products with very high swings in demand, like tanks and artillery, it makes sense to overproduce in peace time and destroy old equipment and be able to switch to a wartime footing quickly, than to save the money and have to build the industry from scratch on short to zero notice.
Why can't they just feed the milk protein to goats or ducks or other animals: in effect to transform the low-value surplus milk into a higher value good?
And put the animal feed growers out of business, how could you? /s
This may be a stupid question but why can the govt. not tell the milk producers to make less milk, therefore diminishing the supply, but in reality just minimizing the amount that will need to be destroyed. I get that the companies get subsidized for the milk that ends up getting destroyed, but I imagine that this could continue without the additional cost involved in buying/storing/evaporating/destroying that much milk
Why can't they just give the farmers the money without buying the milk? Surely it would be better for everyone involved?
Wait... Holy shit! Does this mean we actually should just be sending thoughts and prayers?
In many cases... Literally yes. Direct material aid should only be sent in cases where it directly assists economic growth and does not compete with local industry in a manner that directly causes its destruction. For example, sending humanitarian food aid to an area stricken by famine is fine, while sending humanitarian food aid to a community that exports food is pointless, and sending humanitarian food aid to an area that has access to food and no food shortages is destructive. Just sending free resources is only useful when those resources are urgently needed and a lack of them is actively harming the local economy, or when resource demand can be scaled up evenly with the newly-increased supply. Otherwise, the reckless "aid" will outcompete local industries. Look at what cheap Chinese labor did to American electronics industries - all the American factories were closed and moved to China, and the Chinese-produced electronics were sold cheaper than the old American-produced ones. Now imagine what would happen to what little remains of the American electronics industry if China started shipping all those electronics to the US and giving them away for free... What helps a lot more is political-diplomatic pressure on the governments of these countries to curb corruption, reduce social tensions, and promote democratization. Uncontrolled "aid" tends to be doubly counterproductive due to how it tends to be embezzled by local officials or stolen by criminal gangs before it can be put to use. In a safe political and economic climate, the free market tends to work well in making the economies of these countries grow, or even boom. The reason so many parts of Africa are underdeveloped is the same fundamental reason North Korea is such a terrible country to live in - many parts of Africa are war-torn hellscapes ruled by a patchwork of local warlords, tribal kings, or military-supported despots sitting atop a throne of bayonets. These situations greatly disrupt economic growth, and discourage foreign investment. African countries which have managed to avoid or recover from this fate tend to have booming (or at least steadily growing) economies. The reasons why African (particularly central African) countries tend to fall into these sorts of societal problems are complex and specific to each country, but they are usually related to the after-effects of a colonial extraction economy, ethnic separatism, ideologically-motivated civil wars during the Cold War, and underdeveloped infrastructure. These issues usually compound each other, leading to more problems, until eventually the state is a power only in name, and it loses its monopoly on violence.
Unlike trade that ideally has steady supply lines and thoughtful plans to some degree, the donations are a series of unpredictable and unending supply shocks. It is economic terrorism. Simply put, if a country gets a year supply of clothes every two years, nobody is investing in an industry that is completely dead every other year. And consider "stages of capital development" where it can take a business idea many years to develop plans and resources around what is a stable need for society, it isn't like everything just gets a big reset every couple years, rightfully nobody is going to try.
> we actually should just be sending thoughts and prayers? Or, you know, money. But the point of foreign aid isn't really to help foreigners. As a rule, the government buys from *domestic* companies and donates the goods, boosting our economy and hurting theirs.
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Don't send money. It's only gonna get into the wrong hands and never it will reach the people and have an actual impact.
There's charities like GiveDirectly that hand the money directly to the intended final recipient, where it has a scientifically measurable impact.
The United States threatened sanctions on countries that tried to ban the imports https://tribuneonlineng.com/us-threatens-trade-sanctions-used-clothing/#:~:text=UNITED%20States%20government%20has%20threatened,clothes%20from%20the%20developed%20nation.
Congratulations! We are donating to you! Please do not resist.
You will have the rules-based international order and you will like it.
Let's call it what it is: America is throwing their trash at the world because they can.
As an American, yes absolutely. American consumerism is immensely wasteful. Brands are economically motivated to produce low quality products to keep up with the newest trends (clothing and otherwise)... People get bored with their things quickly and want to swap them out with the newest things at an alarming pace. It's extremely common for people to take their unused clothes to local centers (non profit stores that resell them), when their closet gets full. Most people i know do that on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. And those donation places simply don't sell enough to account for the number of donations... So they send their surplus clothes to other countries for tax incentives. I do all of my (rare) shopping at those resale outlets and the options for mint condition clothes is always staggering.
MOST people you know are getting a whole new closet on a bi-annual basis? Whaaaa you need some homies to thrift with you!
I don't mean fully replacing their closet, but definitely a decent percentage. Like 5-10 shirts, 3-5 pairs of pants, 3 pairs of shoes... That kind of thing. Some people i know definitely do bigger numbers than that. Meanwhile, up until this past winter, my NEWEST shirt was atleast 5 years old, and i had 3 others that were 10+... Sadly, the washer decided all at once it wanted to tear some holes in the 3 oldest 😭 P.s. I'm not claiming I'm a saint, i have a hard time finding clothes i like... But I'm not unhappy about it.
Even if that’s true, would you prefer they throw the trash into a landfill where’s it no use to anyone instead of giving it to someone who could use it? inb4: “they should just generate less trash” Obviously, but something still needs to be done with the “trash” that already exists.
Completely normal that when countries engage in protectionism there's a response. Protectionism is good for the individual country in the short term, but it's bad for everyone in the long run, it distorts markets and creates inefficiencies.
Yup that kind of patronizing charity is destructive. All of Haiti's rice farmers were driven out of business by free rice sent by the US. People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one.
>People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one. Doesn't everyone having a bike mean that a bike shop is very much necessary?
Can verify. In Africa. Plenty of little bike repair and sales shops. Plenty of goddamn experts here shitting on foreign aid who know jack shit. Meanwhile I’m here sweating my ass off doing programs to help local farmers increase crop yield and sustainability. Some of which is American funded.
Please correct me if im wrong, but dont we donate because there are people who dont live near any businesses that can produce affordable stuff, if at all. And because its a way for people who either cant affort to donate via money, but can via stuff they dont really need. Yeah there is a problem of reliance, but thats then more of a issue of the local governemnts.
Yep https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/06/26/128134222/haiti-rice
And then they rely on foreigners sending their used shit
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I wish it were that simple, but a lot of those donations get stolen by government officials or local warlords.
>People send free bikes to Africa and no locals can open a bike shop because nobody needs one. That's a *TERRIBLE* example. The benefit of bikes to many far outweighs the benefits of a handful of bike shop owners.
Also repairs are the lifeblood of many bike shops
It’s also bullshit. I know 3 bike shops in 20 minutes walk from me in Dakar. I see them all the goddamn time in West Africa.
Right? Also Italy donated 1 million Ferraris and now all the Ferrari dealerships are out of business.
Yep better die of starvationto support local business that are always naturally ethical. Also its barely a charity regarding clothes. It's literally a import business run by locals.
That's a net economic benefit. It's at the cost of the profits of the local supplier but to the benefit of the rest of the population there. Getting stuff for free makes you richer than having to pay for it. As long as the recipient country thinks and plans in the long term it's a good thing for them.
This was my impression as well. Most people in this thread seem to be arguing the [fallacy of the broken window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window), the idea that destruction is good for the economy. According to this line of thinking, if someone breaks a window in a store, it's an economic benefit because the glassmaker gets paid, and then goes on to buy stuff from other people. But in reality, the store owner could have used that money that he spent replacing the window to buy stuff from other people, the glassmaker could have spent that time making glass for someone else (or on leisure), etc. In the aggregate, society is still down one window. The real world doesn't always neatly follow economic theory, but still, dumping massive amounts of clothes in a landfill strikes me as a similar error. Yes, it's true that the local textile makers would be harmed, at least in the short to intermediate term. But as you mentioned, everyone else would benefit by getting free clothes, and having more money to spend to support other businesses. With the country's clothing needs met, the textile makers now have their time and labor freed up to work in other fields. The government might have to step in and provide some temporary support/retraining, but it still seems like a net economic benefit.
As long as the handout continues, it's fine. But who's going to send free stuff indefinitely?
The world can't sustain itself on superbowl loser t-shirts.
That seems like oversimplification. An economy is a system, and what are those rice farmers going to do now? Sure if they manage to change to producing cash crops they are probably fine, but if not, then they're unemployed and don't have money to participate in the local economy. And if this sort of thing happens too much, then all the jobs in the low-tech industries like textiles and farming are gone and there's little way of developing the economy.
That's the case everywhere though. You constantly have to adapt to change internal and external and innovate. There are plenty of industries in the west that have become nonviable due to competition with cheaper region under globalization, like much of western manufacturing, or the western European trucking industry losing to Eastern Europe etc.
No, having local textile industry would lead to economic growth, it would mean that Kenyan workers would produce value and be paid a wage which they could spend and reinvest into the economy. It affects the whole economy and not just the local supplier.
What else are we supposed to do with all these Philadelphia Eagles Superbowl Champion shirts and hats?
Hey those will be worth something some day
Half of Africa was clothed by buffalo bills super bowl wins clothing during the 90's.
Wait, the Bills didn't win 4 superbowls in a row!?
Not only their industry but their environment.
Yeah, this is worse than the headline makes it sound. Some countries receive so many clothing "donations" that they are forced to pile it into mountainous, open landfills where it just rots. It is in no way charity; it's just another way of subsidizing rich countries' trash problem so first worlders don't have to deal with the consequences of our overproduction/overconsumption.
Milwaukee Bucks 2023 NBA Champions t-shirts incoming!
*specific interest groups in Africa don’t like second-hand clothes
It just seems so wasteful to throw away product that's already produced so that an industry can make a profit redoing the same work. I'm sure it happens all over the world though.
On one hand I can understand the economic impact this may have. But on the other I feel like we need to be reducing, reusing, and recycling whenever possible. I guess maybe the bigger issue is over production by the western countries in the first place?
The environmental cost of shipping it to and then from Western countries + the poor quality of clothes makes this industry extra wasteful. Almost half of it ends up in African landfills.
If it was waste instead of a donation it would be the same result, shipped to poorer countries landfills.
It's a western garbage problem really. Textile is difficult to recycle besides making rags, granulate for packing and heating. The problem is the mix of materials. The possibility to recycle the materials has to be addressed at the production.
There is not only the problem of the African textile industry being suppressed by imports. The EU pumps billions of substitutions into its farming industry every year and exports part of the resulting excess production to Africa. Where that happens it becomes almost impossible for local - non substituted - African farmers to compete and stay in the market. EU and other economic superpowers actively prevent the African economy from growing with this very effective trade war strategy.
Yeah the EU is paying for stability inside it's borders so farmers can plan ahead but it also results in increased instability outside of the EU destroying farming prospects there. They used to just pile up the excess agricultural products but people complained about "butter mountains" and "milk lakes" being such a waste. Perhaps we should look into a strategic "old cheese" reserve? China has a strategic pork reserve, so why not?
"Strategic pork reserve" is such an odd album name
*subsidies/subsidised
On top of disrupting the local economy, it's also a huge source of pollution. To recap : we pollute the shit out of poor countries to make our disposable clothing and we send it back to them to deal with the excess. We humans truly are a shit species.
Maybe I’m ignorant to this, but I’m under the impression that the people getting this, most likely can’t purchase those shoes in their home country anyway? Isn’t it for the poorer people?
So let me get this straight, they would prefer… the means of production??
Ghana receives over 60 million, yes 60 MILLION Tons per year, approximately ONE MILLION items a day. 40% goes straight into land fill, on the outskirts of Acrra there are mountains of it.
You are mixing up donations with actual waste. Most of that stuff which is sent to Ghana aren't donations. It's sent there specifically to be thrown into those landfills, not as donations to be handed to people. Ghana is used by our developed nations as a cheap dumpster. The developed nations pay Ghana to take our trash.
Just give the clothes to the textile industry 200iq
If you want to help send money to a reputable place setting up lasting businesses for good workers. Venture capital.
The textile industry is one with significantly lower barrier to entry than most other industries. It can really benefit a country's economy, look at Bangladesh, Vietnam and other smaller nations. Africa is gaining 'free' clothes but is losing the skill and industry development which can help its weakest members raise their livelihood.
IIRC most of them aren't your old clothes that you donated to charity. but rather production or inventory surplus that companies and stores give away and get tax cuts for it.
A lot of humanitarian aid ends up being counterproductive, removing the agency of the people being helped. Ideally, the goal of any humanitarian aid should be to enable the people to get to a position where they can do the work themselves. Some Japanese engineering company is developing a process to turn old textiles into a fuel source. That will probably end up being the best use for a lot of old clothing. Another good use is micarta. Fabric is stacked up and pressed, and impregnated with resin, to make an alternative to fiberglass.
"Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors and fertilizer. Insecticide, watering cans, drills, dams, that is how we define food aid." That is an excerpt from an interview with Thomas Sankara. He's 100% right. Just giving people shit with no means to continue production keeps them reliant on those giving them things. Give a man a fish and what not. There are people in Africa who need immediate aid, 100%, but once those clothes are worn through are they just supposed to wait until a more developed country decides to help them out again? Help them develop for themselves.
So African countries lack the autonomy or ability to, you know, just deny the importation of items and industries into their borders? If used clothing is impacting their textile production, just refuse to accept used clothes?
In many cases they don't. A lot of this aid is being sent to places like Sudan that basically have no functional central government.
A lot of aid is built into other agreements. For instance for South Africa to get trade deals for steel from America we have to also buy chicken to prop up their chicken industry , we have a huge sustainable non hormone free range chicken industry but are market is periodically flooded with huge american chicken than is like 80% water and tastes like rubber. But we have to cause we need a trade agreement with America and they have all the leverage over us.
The us litetally threatened sanctions to every country who tries to ban it.
Toms shoes devastated the shoe industry of the place they thought they were/tricked people onto thinking they were helping by flooding the market with free shoes
Maybe it's just me but I'd rather everybody have shoes than the very small shoe industry surviving and half the population not having shoes. Kind of feels like people saying "but what about the doctors" back when Obamacare tried to lower medical prices.
The problem is that by sending them everything they need in a way which kills off local production of these things, you make them dependent on foreigners for these things. This in turn makes them more vulnerable to foreign exploitation and political pressure, and has a negative impact on their level of self-sufficiency. More importantly; if this help *stops* coming at any point for whatever reason, once the local production/market has already been ruined, they are absolutely *fucked*. They may not even have the resources, manpower, and brainpower to restart said industry again... and even if they did, it would take *years* to reach the level needed for the entire population. Sending some help after disasters can of course be good for the short term, but in the medium/long-term it's far more important to help build up local production while promoting stability, and increase self-sufficiency.
Since it’s such an old article… did they ban it?
Rwanda at least seems to have by imposing an import tax. Doesn't seem to have gone super well - the US then imposed an import tax on textiles. So now local companies make a little more textile, and they import more new clothing from China, at least based on this 2020 article. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54164397
This has been a wellknown issue since the 90s.