Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

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Sumptuary laws limited expenditure, these laws are intended to limit waste with the pressure applied to the producer and not the consumer.

Fast fashion put waste into overdrive, easily by a factor of two thirds as it specifically encouraged online ordering with free returns so that consumers ordered their size, a size above, a size below and returned two out of three purchases .. rather than sell "worn goods" returns went to land fill.

The mountain of excess production (consuming energy, resources, producing excess CO2, etc) that comes with the past decade of fast fashion brought little of real value and is a practice worth discouraging.

Let the consumer spend by all means, but at least reduce the litter that comes with every purchase.

"This law doesn't prevent consumers from buying X, it prevents vendors from selling X"

The bulk of your comment is just an explanation of why you think sumptuary laws can be good (which may be correct! Not arguing that), not a refutation of the idea that this is a sumptuary law

It doesn't prevent the sale of X - it incentivizes vendors from producing X + X^1 + X^2 + X^3 + X^4 etc with the additional production going to pure waste.

Look at the nature of production to meet demand before and after fast fashion .. there's been a sea change to not simply meet demand or provide a little additional choice but to over produce as a means of changing consumer behaviour to milk out every cent with a by product of magnitudes more landfill than has previously existed.

What, concretely, is the X in this case?

I used 'X' per se specifically because I am making a generalized example. The proposition is absurd for all X.

The law is clearly not preventing vendors from selling X, its preventing them dumping it if they can't sell it.

Not sure how people can't see this difference. Preventing companies dumping or disposing of their (harmful) waste (in an unregulated manner) is pretty common practise and generally agreed upon good thing.

Read the article, or any of the stuff I quoted. This is more widely-reaching than "you aren't allowed to throw things away" (which would also have a sumptuary effect, although more indirect).

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