Am I financialy enabling child labor in 3rd world country by buying second hand fast fashion from Thrift shop and Vinted? Because I am not the one who originally bought the clothes from Shein. But buy buying it again from someone else I still use it uhhuhh this is complicated.
You must exist. You must exist within your means. You’re doing your best to minimize the impact. It’s fine. You’re doing good.
Also, increased demand at thrift stores doesn’t increase the supply of thrift from donations and doesn’t increase the consumption of fast fashion. At most it decreases the amount of things the thrift store throws out. So that’s a win too.
As for appearance? 🤷♂️ I stopped caring about stranger’s opinions long ago. Not sure how people survive otherwise. I remember it being stressful and exhausting.
Yeah the supply and demand thing is key here. People in developing countries are exploited because there is a financial incentive to exploit them. That financial incentive comes from people buying their products directly, because that is how they generate revenue. But there is no way they can generate revenue if you only buy their products second-hand, so its not incentivizing them to maintain their sweatshops or whatever.
The most damage buying second-hand can do is by generating revenue for these companies indirectly. For example if OP was in position where wearing these items contributes to fashion trends that cause others to buy the items directly. But unless OP is an Instagram influencer it something (which is doubtful, given that they’re on lemmy) then these indirect, second-order effects are very unpredictable and hard to measure.
no.
tldr; no, you aren’t.
My friend is a factory liaison who connects all of those factories(avoid “3rd world”, that’s a defunct, demeaning political/economic epithet) with markets around the world: Walmart, Apple, Microsoft, e’erbody, and has explained to me and shown me product orders and shipping manifests regarding the volume and production method of every company of any size in any industry; they are all operating the same way fast fashion does: overproduction and profit margin obscurity.
If you buy anything these days, from nearly any company, you’re technically financially enabling some sort of unsavory labor, but there are several things to keep in mind, primarily that your individual shopping choices do not cause and will not affect modern systems of production.
Fast fashion in particular is going to produce produce produce. It doesn’t matter how much people buy, they will keep producing absurd amounts of clothing because the markets don’t know how truly cheap clothing is to produce; the profit margin is and has been worth massive overproduction for years. The majority of fast fashion products can instantly be thrown away and become mountains of trash and those factories will still be turning an enormous profit.
If you are buying secondhand, you are participating less in that system of production, and that’s really all you can do and it is a laudable choice! Nobody except greed was really responsible for overproduction in the first place.
You literally wouldn’t believe the capacity, production, and near zero cost these factories produce all items in.
Fast fashion is not unique. If you buy an air fryer, or a smartphone, or dishes, blankets, nearly anything from a factory, it’s the same system and method of production.
You probably don’t have the option to buy handmade dishes, blankets, and you definitely don’t have the option to buy handcrafted electronics, and that is not your fault, that is the system that mercantilism leading into industrial capitalism facilitated.
Buying secondhand is the best you can do to not participate in an unhealthy economic system, and that’s a great choice. Factories, however, are operating on such wide margins that they will produce regardless.
No matter how complex or inefficient the orphan grinding machine, if you buy something second-hand and the person you bought it from buys a replacement with your proceeds, you are contributing to that sale and thereby funding the orphan grinding machine.
Your secondhand purchase incurs no responsibility for someone else purchasing a new product.
Secondhand is a very good way to not participate in the system of overproduction.
