I am deeply saddened to read the news today of the 87 deaths following the collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh. It is doubly sad that I am not surprised; these events are all too frequent and have many causes. Simplistically we could suggest that the causes are down to unscrupulous builders or inadequate building controls but at the root of the problem is vanity and globalisation– let’s take them in turn.
Vanity – in the west we consume greatly in excess of our true needs. We need to follow the latest fashions, have a new outfit, shop for the pure fun of it; in fact the average women in the UK has 14 items of clothing in their wardrobe that they have never worn & think they will never wear (men are only marginally better!). But not content with our overconsumption we are constantly voting with our feat and demanding lower and lower priced goods.
Globalisation is the key tool that has delivered us reducing shop prices for durable goods over the last 20 years. Particularly in clothing with the removal of trade restrictions clothing retailers are quite rationally moving their sourcing around the world to the country that can supply their goods at the cheapest possible price. Of course it stands to reason that the factory that can produce the cheapest clothing might offer the lowest wages to its staff; make them work in the most basic of conditions; even in the most cheaply built buildings – sounds like sweatshops doesn’t it.
So the combination of globalisation and our vanity are leading to such events as we sadly see today. When you see a pair of jeans for sale for £5 and look at the amount of work that has gone into producing them it is clear to see that corners must have been cut somewhere. It was a factory used by Primark that collapsed today, some will use that as an opportunity to suggest that ultra low price retailers like Primark have more questionable provenance than others, but in reality we can’t be sure there will be many more up-market brands that operate in similarly questionable ways.