My step-daughter has a very distinctive sense of style, part Goth, part Emo, part anime, part steam-punk, part Asian, part her. She is also very petite, and finds it hard to find the clothes that she likes in her size. We recently realized that we can often find things that fit her if we order them from China. And they’re so inexpensive. For her most recent birthday, we got her a yellow faux leather jacket—under twenty dollars and free shipping! She loved it, and of course, we loved making her happy.
But after the deed was done, I didn’t have a good feeling in my gut. In the process of buying the jacket, I had noted–and then silenced–the curious voice within me that wondered how such a quality product could be available at such a cheap price. There has been evidence for decades that products exported from China are produced in forced labor camps, in prisons, and through the use of child labor. Although there are laws on the books in both China and the US to prevent the production and export of such goods, there is little will to implement them. A case in point, the US Tariff Act of 1930 prohibits goods made through any type of forced labor from entering the country, but still contains a giant loophole. It contains a “consumptive demand” exception, which allows goods, even those which are made by prisoners, to be imported if they are short in supply in the U.S. In other words, if, say, the Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 108 years and create a huge and sudden demand for all things Cubby, US importers can get the products from any sweatshop in the world. All efforts to plug this loophole have failed.
In parashat VaEra, God commands Moses to tell the Israelites that “Adonai will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt.” (Ex. 6:6) One of the great leaders of Hasidism in Poland, Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha, interprets this verse in the following way. Using word play, he substitutes the word savlanoot-patience, for the word sivlot-burdens. He posits that although they are enslaved under terrible conditions, the Israelites, having suffered for so long without hope, have become “patient” with their situation. Rabbi Bunim argues that God chooses this moment to intervene because the Holy One realizes that if the Israelites become any more patient with their plight, they will be beyond redemption.
Indeed, when Moses comes to his people with God’s offer, they refuse it. As God feared, their spirits have been too crushed by slavery to hope. And when God then tells Moses to go to Pharaoh to speak truth to power, he also refuses. If my own people don’t believe me, he pleads with God, why would Pharaoh? And don’t forget, he adds, I have a speech impediment. Choose someone more qualified for the job!
It is estimated that less than 1% of clothing on the US market could be understood as ethically made. But the problem is actually much bigger than the loophole explained above. And we can’t fix it by boycotting name-brand American companies. As it turns out, that tactic of previous decades no longer works. First of all, America and other developed nations are making up a smaller and smaller percentage of the world market, which reduces our leverage in a boycott. And secondly, the clothing industry—indeed, the entire global manufacturing apparatus—has changed. Goods are produced piecemeal in millions of homes, sweatshops and factories; many are fly-by-night operations impossible to audit or regulate. They are managed by mega-conglomerates—manufacturing middlemen—who change suppliers at the drop of a hat. Even companies like Nike or Walmart have little idea where their goods are actually coming from. It can change day to day, making inspections, audits and boycotts ineffectual.
Faced with the enormity of the problem, and the savlanoot—“patience” born of generations of suffering, poverty and hopelessness—of workers worldwide, what can we do? If they cannot rise up, how can redemption come? Like Moses, we are slow of speech. Each of us feels inadequate to the job. Michael Hobbes argues in his excellent 2015 article The Myth of the Ethical Shopper that, in the end, we have to do it the same way that Moses eventually did. We have to go to Pharaoh, and make it too costly to do business the old way, both in terms of dollars and public opinion. We have to support governments to create stronger laws and regulatory oversight, and we have to provide examples of ethical and sustainable manufacturing alternatives. It can be done—Hobbes illustrates this with an example from the Brazilian charcoal industry. But it is a long, hard, and complex road, requiring a different kind of savlanoot. It requires endurance.
If we want to create a world where manufacturing does not rest on the backs of children, slaves, and the poor, a massive overhaul of the way we do business is required. We have to set the example in our own country, and to continue to create transparency here and abroad about the true cost of cheap clothing. (For a creative approach to doing this, check out this 2 minute video) We have to commit ourselves to a marathon, not a sprint. In the meantime, I don’t think I’ll be buying my daughter any more jackets online. But there’s a great consignment shop around the corner….
Rabbi Marjorie Berman is a Spiritual Director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, PA and teaches at Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia. She lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania with her husband, Rabbi Daniel Swartz, and her step-daughter Alana.