Primark’s products are undoubtedly extremely inexpensive. Whereas the thought of a Primark ‘bargain’ excites some people, whenever I see a Primark shopping bag, I become quietly impassioned. There is a reason why Primark is so cheap - exploitation.
Primark Shopping Bags, Oxford Street store
Exploitation
The main sort of exploitation is that of those who make the clothes. The production of Primark’s products uses exploitation of labour. An exploitation which is morally repugnant.
My words are insufficient to communicate the gravity of this exploitation. You can either watch the video below, read a report by War on Want about sweatshop-made clothes, or watch the BBC investigation into child labour and Primark.
Actions and Consequences
The production of Primark’s goods exists because demand for them exists. By buying clothes from Primary, you are sustaining the prosperity of a company which abuses and exploits. More importantly, though, you are sustaining abuse and exploitation. It’s quite simple.
A friend of mine once insisted that in buying Primark products, she was simply quite innocently participating in the free market - if she is able to and wants to buy things of appropriate quality at a good price, she will buy them: a matter of cost and benefit, supply and demand. Yet, in this cost-benefit analysis was forgotten the moral cost of buying from Primark. She was not conscious of this cost, or at least denied its existence.
Child labour - a consequence one can live with?
Moral conciousness
Indeed, it is this lack of moral consciousness that seems to be the ultimate and fundamental problem of most, if not all, Western capitalist states currently.
In his most recent article, John Pilger, journalist, who needs no other introduction, mentions this issue of moral consciousness. I would wholeheartedly urge you to look at his article. All of his articles are easy to read and beautifully crafted; they’re all deeply profound.
Don’t shop at Primark. Just don’t.
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I deeply disagree.
First, the production cost is only a small fragment of overall price of a product. Exploitation of any kind will not guarantee such a massive difference in selling prices.
Second. Nor will ignoring Primark guarantee less exploitation in the industry.
Third - what is the proof that Primark ‘exploits’ and others don’t? A video on youtube?
Fourth - what job did these people have before being offered working under these terms? Do you really believe they work despite having opportunity to work under better conditions?
Fifth - if we ignore Primark, the next day there will be another chain on the high street doing the same. Ignoring one company is obviously no solution for this problem.
Of course no one wants to see child labour. We are talking about
- someone has been looking hard and found some children working in the industry
- Primark then fired those companies involved in child labour
- Bangladesh is a country of young people; 18 is the age seen very differently than here in terms of economic viability, sexual/physical/marital maternity
- of course parents are responsible for their children; if anyone ruined their future, it was their parents, not Primark
Second:
Please look around. Child labour has always been around us. We have all worked for money as children - the only problem is that in poor countries the pressure for families to send children to work is higher. Of course the primary goal is to make these countries richer. Closing down businesses will definitely not help. Let’s concentrate on following certain rules and principles based in legislation and inter-company agreements.
OK, first, many thanks for your comments, as always, Martin.
I will answer your points in roughly the same order as you posed them.
First, the production cost (i.e. labour and material costs of the clothes’ production), is, of course, little of the recommended retail price. This is without doubt true, and the exact point I was making concerning exploitation. People are, for instance, having to work inconceivably long hours (e.g. 14hr working days), people are not allowed to break for a long time, and people are even locked up to stop them from leaving. If the clothes manufacturers paid the workers, let’s say, for instance, one hundred times more, than they could work one hundred times fewer hours, therefore, wouldn’t be exploited. The situation whereby they are so easily made desperate to work such long hours is prevented, because there is not such a need. So, of course, it is a small cost, that is part of the very problem of exploitation.
Second, ignoring Primark, as you put it, will guarantee less exploitation in the industry, because less clothes will be produced in an exploitative manner. Moreover, the consequent economic pressure on the manufacturers of clothes (i.e. foreign clothing production firms) will mean that there is an incentive to clean up their act. This will have an industrywide effect. Moreover, if there was any consumer action, i.e. boycotting, political and social pressure would cause economic pressure for all the companies involved (Tesco, Asda, GAP, and Primark).
It’s exploitation because there is no choice, because there is no other opportunity, Martin. Therefore, no, I believe they are complacent with the terms of labour because they have to work there to earn enough money to survive.
Well clearly Primark is a major player in the market, and an effect on Primark would affect the market, therefore. As I said before, the media arousal and consequent social and political pressure would lead to industrywide awareness and foreseeably therefore change.
I should reaffirm one point: Primark is not the only perpetuator. The clothes in Primark are virtually the same clothes as some of those stocked by Tesco and Asda. Primark charges less than the others, therefore, is in fact not as bad as the others ethically because it makes less profit proportionally per transaction. I am ‘targeting’ Primark because people should understand that the reason it is ‘so cheap’ is because it is capacitated by the exploitation. It’s an easy way to highlight the issue because people are so often astounded by how the prices are so low.
Indeed, no one wants to see child labour but sure it is difficult to find cases of child labour because the people who are the child labourers are living in slums sitting down, working and stitching in their one-room homes. Perhaps it would be more convenient for my argument if they were more obvious and perhaps sat outside Primark in Oxford St..
Bangladesh is, I’m sure you’re right, a country of young people. However, that doesn’t mean that those that are infants should be working manually in such a way. It might be a young country, but it for sure isn’t a country of infants. You are absolutely right in saying that the pressure to utilise the children in ones family is therefore greater, but if the parents weren’t being economically exploited, there wouldn’t be any need, would there? Therefore the infants could be in education, where they belong. If the primary goal is indeed to make the countries richer, than for sure the infants should be up-skilling in education, rather than executing manual labour at such a young age.
You make an absolutely extraordinary remark in saying that ‘if anyone has ruined their future, it was their parents’. You clearly are not aware of the general lack of choice and opportunity these people in question have. They have no choice to work anywhere else, they have no choice to work fewer hours, they have no choice but to, indeed, as you say, let their infants work, because if they didn’t, well, then they’d all starve to death, for example. As far as I’m concerned we can assume that the dilemma between choosing to work under any conditions versus dying of starvation automatically falls in favour of working under any conditions. Parents don’t ruin a children’s future as you say. Indeed, those that buy from Primark, one could even argue, ruin a children’s future, by perpetuating the existence of this sort of exploitative employment, for without it, wages would be appropriate and human, and provide actual economic choice for the workers.
Child labour has always been around us. Indeed, there is a fantastic book I have on international child labour, which documents vividly and in enormous detail the sort of child labour that is around us and has been around us in the past, in many, many countries. We have all worked for money as children, but at least, ‘we’, in Western relatively privileged societies have also had the opportunity to get an education. The people of which we have been talking about do not have that elementary opportunity to be educated as well as work. You have to make this comparison too, which highlights a completely different sort of situation.
Indeed, the primary goal of everyone should be to want to makes these countries (i.e. their population) richer [as that is not exactly the same thing as making a country richer, of course], and the best way to do that is to trade with them fairly and ensure that those labourers involved in economics we do with them are fairly paid.
Let us concentrate on the rules and principles inherent in humanity, I would advocate, and open our eyes to the moral consequence of buying the goods in these shops (like Primark).