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Comment by atlasunshrugged | Hacker News Reader

Really interesting having just come back from a project in Kenya (and a vacation in Uganda) and one of the really striking things was how many older American/EU clothes were on the street (e.g. sweaters from smaller colleges, shirts referencing mid-sized sporting events for american football). I asked a few of the people I was working with about it and they were quite negative, along with cheap Chinese imports, it has really hurt the domestic textile market to the point where it's basically been wiped out of existence because they can't compete with these imports.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-markets/af...

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I couldn't help thinking of this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/11/250200378/we-f...

That is true of the European textile industry as well, although Italy still makes clothes. Made by Chinese that moved there.

I'm disappointed by the shuttering of textile industries in east Europe. It's not just the manufacturing of finished garments; the raw fabrics that used to come out of there were above and beyond what I can find today even in fancy stores. It's like fabric manufacture centralized behind the scenes until everyone has access to the same thin, cost-optimized material and just puts their brand name on it.

Not sure about that. I knew a few people working in textile, and most of if was made in Eastern Europe because the delays were shorter. They were high-end brands though.

Do you mean that if people there only had access to more expensive clothing they would be better off?

Fair price locally can generate more work for local people, wealth and redistribution. Overall, more expensive clothing could also help reducing waste. Cheap fast-fashion fails to significantly improve my life (and, from post, negatively impacts lives).

How does banning the import of secondhand clothing reduce waste?

Unless you can prevent westerners from getting rid of clothes in the first place this really seems like paying people to dig and refill holes. Work for the sake of work.

I didn't mention banning import of secondhand clothing, so I leave it to you.

One way to prevent "westerner" from getting rid of clothes is by having them buying quality products at a fair price, including waste treatment. Now how that would be implemented, no idea. We all know any change will have side effects as we are in a complex economy and that doesn't mean we cannot try. Just to keep the discussion open on reducing waste, some random ideas: tax fast-fashion, ban disposable clothes, prevent waste export (non-wearable clothes qualify as waste).

Ok, but this is literally a thread about how cheap second hand clothes coming from western countries affect the local industries of African nations so I don't really know what you're on about

> Unless you can prevent westerners from getting rid of clothes in the first place

I tried to reply on this.

It sounds like you are oversimplifying this to cheap second hand clothes. This is also about pure waste and landfills. How people are profiting from clothes donated to charities, hurting local businesses, keeping local population in poverty and creating an environmental disaster.

Many African countries actually prevent import of second hand clothing. They can produce clothing locally for quite cheap with local labor (that is cheap), but having literally FREE clothing showing up actually decimates your local industry.

That's why you have anti-dumping laws in the western world.

But can they even compete with first hand clothing made in south/Southeast Asia?

I haven’t seen anything “Made in Africa” in North America.

The idea is that "Made in Africa" clothes costs less locally in Africa than clothes made in Asia and shipped to Africa. Giving out free clothes in Africa puts "Made in Africa" out of that business.

What costs less for you in America may not be the same as what costs less in Africa, because of transport costs.

What's the transport cost on a t-shirt in a container? 7 cents?

My guess is that these countries have protectionist duties, which just makes goods more expensive for locals. Textiles aren't a very strategic industry. (Yes, everyone needs them, but it's not hard to find a selling country).

There could be protectionist duties. These are sometimes justified due to the cost of loosing jobs. A trade-off.

I'm just not sure of relevance of the cost of asian versus african shirts in the U.S. It's not just shipping containers, but the rest of the transport network, how many trucks are available, the retail networks, and the middle-men to facilitate the trade, the different labor and cost of living, currency exchange rates, regulatory stability, etc.

Seems like there are a lot of confounding variables and it would be difficult to draw on what t-shirts currently cost in the U.S.

The reason why you have anti-dumping is for the government to protect jobs at a certain sector (and hence buy votes), at the expense of consumers.

Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime...

What is more humane. Having them depend on the charity and free goods of others, or building their economy to be self sustaining

Why should they do meaningless work?

Um not to be crass but like most of the work everyone does on this form is probably close meaningless and often times redundant. I don't mean it in a derogatory way.

And the adjective you should have used is redundant work. Clearly the work has meaning if it keeps people employed and building skills.

But you are advocating against sending free clothes with the goal of creating a scarcity so that people work to produce clothing, which they’ll essentially buy back. This is macabre.

They are advocating not crashing a local industry. How would you fair if your own industry or other local businesses was suddenly destroyed because China decided to give your work away for free in massive overabundance? With zero guarantees that they wont randomly stop supplying on an irregular schedule.

I don't know if that's fair. It could be said that you are advocating for putting people in Africa out of work, messing with local economies, and people's livelihoods.

It seems these trade-offs are involved whenever talking about free trade versus tariffs, helping one group and hurting another.

Yea that's true, I am making a strawman too.

Whatever we do, it's bizarre to plan "poor people's economies". Whether it's creating internal economies, or sending some aid and wishing an external economy will materialize (but not compete with ours!), the truth is that we are at the same helping and exploiting the third world.

Because doing "meaningless" work is a necessary step toward meaningful work.

Learning & internalizing showing up to work on time, following directions, doing what's needed (even if unpleasant), completing tasks, etc is vital to becoming entrusted with the worthwhile.

Whether individual or national, inability to produce basics prevents realizing future potential. Sure, truckloads of clothing is free - so no need to produce it ... but then nobody knows how to make clothing worth selling/exporting, and remain dependent on truckloads of free donated clothing. Apply same to most other skills & industries, and the country becomes, and stays, an economic basket case.

because I do not believe it is meaningless??

Why do you think learning a skill, providing value, and learning how to function in an economy are "meaningless"...

Why don't we let people decide for themselves whether they want the cheaper clothing or they want to pay more? Who are you to decide how poor people should spend their money to clothe themselves?

Yes, because it builds local industry, and textiles is often a key industry in industrialization. It is "easy" automation, builds local tooling and machining demands, and still requires significant further labor to finish which is cheap in that area.

It certainly isn't the only way, but textile production often one of the first industries to get build in industrialization.

I mean, it’s a pretty common media story that these cheap imports are hated by the local textile shops. Weird you claim It like it’s your discovery.

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