Is it just me, or does this article seem like a better-researched version of this:
(There’s another anti-drug PSA that’s specifically about the pot-terrorism connection, but I can’t seem to locate it).
Buy a fake handbag and the terrorists win? Give me a friggin break.
It should go without saying that I don’t support terrorism or child labor. But you’re kidding yourself if you think that Al Qaeda is lining its pockets with funds from your fake Louis. And if you think that counterfeit bags are the cause of child labor, well, I’d suggest you look at your GAP t-shirt and most of the clothes you bought on the cheap.*
I’m not sure which part of this op/ed is my favorite. There’s this:
What can we do to stop this? Much like the war on drugs, the effort to protect luxury brands must go after the source: the counterfeit manufacturers.
Yes, the incredibly successful War on Drugs is an excellent model to follow.
Then there’s this:
So it comes down to us. If we stop knowingly buying fakes, the supply chain will dry up and counterfeiters will go out of business. The crime syndicates will have far less money to finance their illicit activities and their terrorist plots. And the children? They can go home.
I may be a heartless bitch, but I felt nothing but contempt when I read those last two lines. Child labor is disgusting, but the and the children crap is, well, total crap. If you get those kids out of fake handbag factories, they don’t get to go home to their My Little Ponies — they get stuck in some other factory making some other piece of clothing that those of us in wealthier nations want for cheap; or they find themselves in some rich person’s house serving as a domestic worker; or their family starves.
Which isn’t to justify the use of child labor or to suggest that we shouldn’t try to combat it, it’s simply to point out that the issue is more complicated than, “If we shut down the fake bag factories, the kids will be out flying kites all day.”
And while the author of the op/ed gives the luxury market a break, luxury items certainly aren’t always produced with the highest human rights standards in mind. Further, it’s the luxury market (and capitalism, and arguably human “keep up with the Joneses” nature) that helps to create the demand for counterfeit handbags in the first place. So the handbag designers that are selling bags for twelve times their production cost? Not exactly blameless.
I’m all for making responsible consumer choices. But your fake Spy bag is not killing babies by the busload — or at least, not any more than dropping $2,000 on a real one is. Because even if you drop that much cash on a real bag and opt out of the counterfeit market, you’re doing your part to uphold the idea that luxury-name-brand items are desirable — the very idea that fuels counterfeit bag production in the first place.
Which, to be clear, isn’t to guilt anyone for buying a real or fake handbag. My bag is from H&M, so I certainly have no moral high ground to stand on here. But it’s the moral superiority of the anti-counterfeit argument (not to mention the class issues) and Thomas’s utter intellectual simplicity that get under my skin. It’s also the use of the “terrorism” buzzword to combat the enemy du jour — weed or fake handbags, for Christ’s sake — that makes me totally unsympathetic and entirely skeptical of her argument.
If we want to get serious about ending child labor, the answer is not to parrot the talking points of the luxury goods industry, nor to come up with simplistic moralizing messages about pot,** fake handbags and terrorism. It’s to look at how we’ve shaped our current systems and global markets, and to really be willing to accept the economic and social realities of a world where child, slave and low-wage labor is nonexistant. Among about a million other things.
*And I include myself in this “you.”
**Although if you’re a heroin and/or opium addict, you probably are giving the Taliban a bit of financial backing; and if your cocaine habit is raging on, you’re probably throwing at least a few bucks at some less-than-savory characters in Colombia. Of course, if we just dropped the whole drug-illegalization thing, we wouldn’t be throwing quite so much money at drug traffickers and terrorists. But then the terrorists win. Except, technically, they lose. But we have fewer people to put in jail, which means that we… lose? Win? And now my head just hurts. Someone get me my DARE t-shirt and a slurpee.