I just don't see the big mystery here. I mean, how do you rationalise purchasing goods you suspect were derived from the exploitation of Third World labour on exploitation wages, or - closer to home - contributing to the demise of solid local/domestic businesses (which may serve a number of valuable purposes) by choosing cheaper foreign suppliers (which may not) - even though the difference in price is easily within your budget to cover etc?

She didn't. just like I explicitly did not say otherwise. Didn't stop you going off on one though, did it!?

I think Germans score well, like John Lewis (apart from their flooring / carpeting section) score well because they do the job properly. They charge relatively highly so can afford to pay suppliers a little extra. To operate in this fashion you need to know your particular market well and cater for it. Not all businesses can fulfil the same niches. Some how to go lower end (where most "consumers" are). These sort of businesses survive largely on price and probably can't afford the knobs and whistles of extra costs without their customers suffering.

The last time I bought new clothing, apart from socks & underwear, was a Crombie suit from Army & Navy Stores, nearly eight years ago. My wardrobe is now supplied through various charity shops and car boot sales and consists of top-end European (mainly British), manufactured suits, shirts and shoes. Although it's difficult to determine the provenance on the raw cotton used for the shirts, I'm more confident that the end product has a far greater ethical content than anything on the rack in most British supermarkets or fashion chains. I can't imagine sweat-shop conditions persisting in a Swiss cotton mill or Swedish factory (where my Eton shirts come from), or a Northampton shoe & boot maker, or a Savile Row tailor.

Proper little Dandy aren't we!

Yes and it is even more satisfying knowing I paid £3 for a £120 shirt and even better when I have a number of £3k+ suits & coats that cost around £10 each

Actually, no. Per WikiP's 'definition' you may be obsessed with appearance and your leisure activities, but "refined language", I think not!

I think it far more likely that JLP's competition are reliant on institutional shareholders, who tend not to take anything like a long-term view and are only interested in quick, high returns. So the businesses have to look to source the cheapest raw materials and labour available. Most supermarket prices, apart from supplier-funded BOGOFs, can be matched or beaten in any high street, usually with locally sourced provisions.

Here's the difference between Tesco & JLP Night shift: Job Seeker's Allowance + expenses? HTF can JobCentrePlus be advertising slave labour like this?

Here's the difference between Tesco & JLP Night shift: Job Seeker's Allowance + expenses? HTF can JobCentrePlus be advertising slave labour like this?

I don't. If I had specific reason to suspect this in a specific case then I wouldn't. OTOH such is the sheer weight of numbers of goods which are now manufactured abroad, that you could spend your waking day researching the specific origin and labour conditions of the source of every product you may be interested in, still only get through a small percentage, and still be little the wiser since companies that pay "exploitation wages" wouldn't tend to publicise this. You'd be relying - in such cases as there seemed to be information - often on information of debatable origin and so with a very low confidence in its accuracy.

You'd also be relying on some random person's definition of "exploitation" and you'd be assuming rather rashly that by not buying product X, on the basis of a suspicion that it might be produced by workers who, if I looked into it and made a specific assessment, might be paid less than I may think they should be, I could somehow make a positive difference, as opposed to making one small step to making these workers' lives worse (on the basis that I suspect if sales go down, exploitative producers are more likely to force their workers to take even lower wages, so they can drop the price even further, and regenerate demand).

And I'd be assuming that working in an exploited job was not preferrable, from the perspective of the worker who may be exploited in your terms, to no job at all, often in places where that means starvation rather than any dole.

So no, if I had convincing reason to think particular goods were the product of gross exploitation such as child labour, I personally wouldn't buy. But on levels below blatant and gross exploitation which is well known and information can be relied upon, I'm not sure that I can set myself up as a world's moral authority on the degree to which producers may or may not exploit their workforce.


Closer to home I tend to choose wherever possible to buy locally produced goods, and then British produced goods, on nothing more than the vague notion that locally produced goods benefit the local community i.e. where I live (so clearly discriminatory but hey) and tend to have a lower carbon footprint; and that by buying British it's a tiny step in improving the economy of the country in which I happen to live (as there are enough people out of work here already). But by doing so, aren't I restricting the demand for imported goods, and thus putting the squeeze on foreign workers and putting at risk such jobs as they have?

In general, is it better for 10,000 UK consumers to buy Prodkt X from Country Y, even though it's made by the villagers of village Z working for £1 a day; or if we all decline to buy Prodkt X, thus directly putting everyone in village Z out of work, have we done good, or bad?

Which circuitous route takes me back to the point I was trying to make. If village Z was the place in Indonesia where that binman worked, and if my posh house was on his round, then (whatever the residents association going rate was) I personally would slip the man whatever was the decent going rate for the work he did for me. I would try to convince the association, and other residents, to do the same. Hard situation but ATEOTD only his government can ultimately put the situation of him and others like him right, and I'd rather that situation than him being out of any job at all. So the difference being that I would KNOW (not vaguely suspect) that he was being exploited, and wouldn't be prepared to exploit him myself.

But should I refuse to ever buy anything made in Indonesia, now that I know how dreadfully they let their binmen, and people who live in rubbish tips, be exploited? Perhaps the government should impose an "Exploitation Kitemark" - but who would set the bar and who would judge?

Would you agree that in general terms the millions of pounds-worth of money spent in trade with, in particular, third world countries, is a good thing rather than a bad thing for their populations? I'd love to be able to drill down and verify and insist that each and every retailer or manufacturer within those countries who gets a slice pays their workers fairly and does not exploit them but I recognise that personally I cannot actually do this.


I hesitate to say this, and its all very relative; compared with binmen in Indonesia we're all millionaires, but the fact is that times over here are by our standards pretty firkin hard and I'd guess the huge majority of budgets are pretty firkin tight.