[Soup] The answer to "What does it change if you are alone?"

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translates New York Times columns from soup and provides detailed commentary on the background and context. Taking advantage of my experience in eagerly reading, unraveling, and delivering events, news, and discussions in the United States and outside of Korea, I will diligently write so that even if it happens in distant places, it is easy and fun to read. (Words: Editor-in-Chief of News Peppermint Song)

Clothing, clothing, and clothing. Clothing, food, and shelter are three basic elements of human life.

But if you think about it, in modern society, humans produce and procure clothes, food, and homes very differently. Let's start with the last item: home. Of the three, the house is the most local in production and use. Basically, it is real estate, which means property that cannot be moved, so it is natural. Even when investing or trading in real estate, money and people come and go, but the house does not move.

Food is more mobile than home. However, depending on the item, if the freshness is not maintained, the value of the product may decrease. Moving food while maintaining freshness is expensive, so food from across the water can be expensive. So, while "Shinto Buddha" is good for your health, it's also often a way to save money.

Finally, what about clothes? Now, let's check out where the clothes that readers of this article are wearing come from. More people are wearing clothes produced in other countries than clothes produced in Korea. Not to mention the fabric of the clothes and the origin of the raw materials. Even if the brand is a domestic brand, it is true if you consider where the clothes are made.

Clothes are much easier to move than at home, and you don't have to worry about spoiling like food. Naturally, clothing is the most globalized item in the supply chain from production, distribution, and consumption. Imported ingredients are usually more expensive than domestic, but foreign-made clothes are usually cheaper. It's cheap and convenient, so there's nothing wrong with that?

▶ Read the New York Times column: The real cost of making a 1,5 won T-shirt

E. Benjamin Skinner, who has exposed the pervasive forced labor and human rights abuses throughout the apparel industry's supply chain, says in a column above. On the contrary, Skinner points out, the fact that we can buy clothes at a much lower price than we did 30 years ago is a serious problem because we have maintained them at the expense of workers' basic rights and, in worse, at the cost of their lives.

The 24th marked 1 years since the tragedy in Bangladesh in which a garment factory called Rana Plaza collapsed, killing more than 10,<> workers. The day before the accident, serious cracks were seen in the building, and workers who felt the building tremble and shake strangely as usual, notified the company, but many people were outraged when it became known after the accident that the company completely ignored them.

If we divide the response phase into two main phases after a tragedy, the first is to find out the facts and punish those responsible, and the second is to put in place a system to prevent a recurrence. It goes relatively well to determining why an accident happened and punishing those responsible. Especially when it comes to buying the world's merits, like the Lana Plaza disaster. Seldom, however, do they succeed in the second task—putting in place systems and mechanisms to prevent similar accidents.

Global supply chains where agency issues are more prominent

The apparel industry rolls within a huge global supply chain. As a result, it's difficult to find accountability when something goes wrong somewhere in a wide, complex supply chain. This is why the "agent problem" in economics is more prominent in the apparel industry.

Apparel brands that place orders in factories in Bangladesh and other countries that rely on cheap labor to process orders and make clothes only need to receive their orders on time and on time. In addition, subcontractors only need to receive money from the brand they order. Since the entire industry relies on cheap labor, everyone but the workers does not want to see labor costs rise.

When problems such as forced labor or unfair labor arise in blind spots beyond the reach of government regulation and influence, an independent audit firm is selected to conduct an investigation, and no one wants to bear the cost. While the brand that ordered the product may ultimately be responsible, the cost of selecting an auditor is customarily paid by the subcontractor, not the apparel brand. It is very unlikely that an auditor (agent) who receives money from a subcontractor who benefits in many ways from covering up the problem rather than finding the truth and finding a real solution will conduct a proper audit.

Let's compare it with home or food one more time, shall we? If you build the wrong house and something goes wrong, the builder who built it is responsible. When food has a problem, you just have to look for the cause in the supply chain. Compared to clothing, food supply chains often don't leave the community or the country, making it relatively easy to find the source of the problem.

In addition, if there has been an unfair labor act, such as forced labor or non-payment of wages in a farm or food factory employing foreign workers, for example, the authorities can uncover it and punish the employer. Of course, the process of implementing regulations in practice may not be smooth, but at least in theory, there is little chance of agency issues. There are many times when you don't need a representative, such as an independent auditor.

Can "ethical consumption" create a new trend?

Solving the underlying problem doesn't seem easy unless we change the principles or structures of the entire supply chain rolling. Skinner proposes "ethical consumption" by individuals as one of the ways to change the principles of the apparel industry supply chain. Discussions about consumption that refer to anything other than price or product quality are not new. Concepts like fair trade, good consumption, and eco-friendly/labor supply chains have been around for quite some time.

What if we changed the structure of the apparel industry and supply chain in terms of the agent problem we looked at earlier? Suppose a subcontractor, a garment factory, encounters the issue of forced labor. In this case, the cost of auditing the factory to ensure that it complies with working conditions and environmental laws is borne directly by the original contractor or the brand that placed the order instead of the subcontractor. The agent, the auditor, then has an incentive to investigate the issue more thoroughly and actually identify the one that is complying with labor laws according to the needs of the brand.

The problem is that no one can force a clothing brand to bear this cost. It is often useless for individual regulators to order apparel brands from other countries to pay certain costs. That's why Skinner cited changing the behavior of individual consumers as a way to give apparel brands "both a cause and a good sense to act."

In the immediate aftermath of the Lana Plaza disaster, condemnation of the fast-fashion trend, which was cited as the culprit of structural problems, intensified by fashion brands pledged to improve working conditions and strengthen safety inspections in Buryaburia. Since then, working conditions have improved somewhat, but the basic physiology of the apparel supply chain hasn't changed much. Criticism and condemnation continued against the landlords and factory owners directly responsible for the accident, but over time, consumers soon began to buy cheap and convenient clothes again.

If consumers really think about the human rights of the workers who made them when choosing clothes—if "ethical consumption" becomes a trend, then apparel brands can't help but care about how their branded clothes are made.

What if "ethical consumption" is a fiction?

Skinner's argument is based on the assumption that as consumer perceptions change, so will the structure of the supply chain. On the flip side, this is a somewhat pessimistic prediction that if consumers' thoughts and behaviors don't change, nothing will change. Skinner points to the changing perceptions of younger consumers, especially millennials and Gen Z, citing various survey results. Most young people are willing to buy ethically, environmentally conscious, law-abiding food and manufactured goods, even if they are a bit expensive.

However, just looking at the comments in the column, a reasonable counterargument stands out. It's one thing for people to say they're going to behave in a survey and what they're going to do when they actually encounter it.

(The rest of the story is from the soup)