My mother used to go to great lengths to be an ethical shopper. Some of this happened organically, because she had very little money to spend, and would buy second-hand whenever she could, and the money would stay right in her little town, no problem.
But some things need to be purchased new, and she decided that she would not buy anything made in China. She did not want to materially support the human rights abuses so rampant in Chinese factories. So, she simply stopped.
This wasn’t merely inconvenient, it forced really broad changes in how she shopped and lived, because she didn’t have the luxury of just spending more money (and more time) on goods that were ethically produced.
So, she ended up wearing clothes she didn’t like, just because they weren’t made in China, and having to budget very severely so as to be able to afford domestically made goods for the house. She even had to give up the satisfaction of buying some presents that she knew her beloved grandchildren would love, and settling for something that wasn’t as perfect, because the perfect ones were made in China. It was a sacrifice.
It’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I am pretty maxed out just keeping my kids in clothes and supplies, and most times, I don’t even look at the label. We do buy used goods whenever we can; but for the most part, I’m looking for something in my budget that isn’t overtly offensive in appearance, and that keeps me busy enough.
I do have a few rules, though; I swore off shopping at Temu or Shein (or other retailers that are so cheap, they cannot possibly be paying their workers actual wages), and I swore off buying anything that says Nestle on it, because they’re so openly evil toward the poor in developing nations. Sure, it’s kind of random, but it’s what I’m doing right now.
My approach is not actually that much different from my mother’s, although she was stricter with herself. We both have a very clear idea of what we’re trying to achieve, and we both understood that it isn’t a David vs Goliath situation, where someone small could take down someone mighty. There wouldn’t be any taking down.
My mother understood that goods from China were only one kind of unethically produced goods. Just being part of modern society, even if you live simply and are halfway a Luddite, means you will be unwillingly complicit in all kinds of oppressive and exploitative systems. Life is just like that, nowadays.
And one person opting out of one very specific form of unethical shopping is not going to send a message or disrupt any profit-making.
But “I can’t change it” doesn’t mean “I don’t have to do anything.”
After I sat down and read about how those cute, super-cheap clothes on Shein are made by near-slaves or actual slaves, I realised I couldn’t do it anymore. So, I stopped. I am very aware that when I buy a sweatshirt from Walmart, it’s pretty likely that it, too, is being made by some poor soul working fourteen-hour shifts in a stifling hot factory with poison air, and barely getting paid for it.
And I know that it’s not hurting Shein in any way to lose out on my business of one or two cute, ridiculously cheap pieces of disposable fashion once every six weeks or so. It’s only hurting me, because getting those little packages was fun. I’m not doing it because I think my little personal boycott is making a difference to them. It’s only making a difference to me.
It is true that, if you get enough people together to boycott something, you can, in theory, make a difference. Well-organised boycotts sometimes work. They shame or starve an unethical company into changing its practices (or maybe just into making it look like they’ve done so).
But at least in the United States, the most popular boycotts tend to get organised over the stupidest, pettiest of trendy outrage. And people’s social media bubbles are so impenetrable, it’s hard to know if a company is actually responding, or pretending to respond, or whether they even notice a boycott, or whether someone is lying and pretending the company has changed when it hasn’t.
It’s less David vs Goliath and more David vs one of the countless faceless conglomerates that oversee a vast network of organisations that comprise an international consortium of money market accounts loosely associated with Goliath Brands, LLC, and they don’t even have any real customer service, just bots.
So, you can boycott if you want. I think you should. Some of the things you can spend money on are just horrible, and you should avoid it if you can.
But understand that the real value of your effort lies in your personal sacrifice, not on any global difference you’d like to make.
Here’s another secret; The real value of “everything” in your life, not just your shopping habits, comes down to how you spend your time, day to day, minute to minute. It makes no sense for most of us to try to fight grand, enormous battles. It’s a waste of time and energy and makes us feel proud of all the wrong things. It distorts our sense of what time and energy are for.
What does matter are the little things we do for each other; the little sacrifices we give so as to opt out of making things worse. So, for me, no Shein, no Temu. It’s not everything; but it’s a lot more than nothing. All I really have to work with is myself. That’s all I can really change.