Believe it or not I was having a very deep conversation about the above on Mumsnet, of all places.
It started in a topic section called ‘Am I Being Unreasonable.’ The topic is pretty much what it sounds like. The person asks ‘Am I being unreasonable to blah blah blah’ and people tell them they are or they aren’t. Usually quite forcefully and with a lot of ‘you morons’ and things like that. It can be quite bitchy and actually a lot of fun.
So the thread title was ‘Am I being Unreasonable to shop at Primark?’
For the non-UKers in the audience, Primark is a very very cheap clothing store well known for using 3rd world suppliers and paying them small wages to keep their prices down. Prices like £2 t-shirts and £5 jeans.
So, is it wrong to shop there? Is it really better to shop at M&S or Next or some other high street shop and spend a bit more?
Nope. Because the truth is that those clothes are (usually) made in the same 3rd world country sweat shops as the Primark stuff. The high street retailers just spend more money on advertising and fancy stores so charge you more. Oh and make more of a profit.
The truth is that we are all privileged to live in the so called 1st World. Our kids don’t have to go out to work to help us put food on the table. But you know what? It wasn’t so long ago that they did.
If you look at the history and reason behind child labour laws, which really only came into being at the beginning of the 20th Century, they weren’t only to protect children but also to ‘even the playing field’ among the classes. My son, the son of a University Teacher, probably wouldn’t have had to go up chimneys. But your son, perhaps the son of a dock worker here in Belfast, probably would have had to join his father at the docks as soon as.
So my son got an education and your son built the Titanic.
It’s how the world was.
It’s also true that children weren’t considered precious less than a 100 years ago. Another child meant another mouth to feed, an excellent thing when most people lived on farms and needed all hands. And those hands started working very, very young. Once the move to cities began, children became less necessary and more of a burden. Unless you could send them up the chimneys, down the mines or to the docks.
But I think the real issue with first world privilege is the 1st world’s assumption that the 3rd world resents sending their children and themselves out to work for what, to us, is a pittance. But we don’t know for this is true. Sure, we can watch documentaries and be shocked by the conditions and the low level of money. But we aren’t there. We aren’t living their lives. Maybe the pittance they earn is better than no pittance at all.
For the record, I do support Fair Trade. I buy everything I can that is marked Fair Trade. I only drink Fair Trade Coffee and eat Fair Trade Chocolate. I buy M&S Fair Trade cotton T-shirts. I am not a monster or unfeeling to how some other kid on the other side of the world is treated.
But I am also going to continue to shop at Primark for cheap, not too badly made, clothes.
I completely enjoy my First World Privilege. And am honest enough to say so.
