I get why people want to buy goods from their own country to support their own economy, but what I don't get is why people assume that something made in China is necessarily bad and that a lot of people think it supports child labour and stuff
Like Designer_homme said, you get what you pay for, firstly you might be getting a bag that costs less than one produced in Europe. Due to the working culture in Asia, people work longer hours, but often for the same or a lesser wage, and so designers can cut costs that way. In France, which was pushing for a 35-hour working week a while back, you're not going to get that kind of "efficiency" and so with less volume produced, but still as many workers to feed, each bag will naturally cost more. It's one thing for a bag to be cheap simply because workers efforts cost less per bag, and it's quite another if the materials are actually worse. That said, of course I wouldn't deny that there are cheap products made of inferior materials all over the world. What I am trying to say is that cheap does not necessarily mean badly made.
And then we come to the question of worker's rights and such. It seems that if a worker is willing to work for what people in the U.S. might regard as pittance, there must be a reason behind it. Maybe it's because everything costs less in China, so their wage actually manages to support them adequately. Maybe it's because any other job in China would pay them something similar, so there's no point in being choosy. Maybe this job offers them a way out of the countryside, where even if people aren't poor, they live without many modern conveniences. These people aren't stupid, and nobody is pointing a gun to their heads - they might be making the best choice available. People can't just look at someone's life through their own eyes.
I'm all for people wanting to support their own country, but I guess it gets on my nerves if people make assumptions about what I guess was my ancestor's country too. Sorry for the rant.
Like Designer_homme said, you get what you pay for, firstly you might be getting a bag that costs less than one produced in Europe. Due to the working culture in Asia, people work longer hours, but often for the same or a lesser wage, and so designers can cut costs that way. In France, which was pushing for a 35-hour working week a while back, you're not going to get that kind of "efficiency" and so with less volume produced, but still as many workers to feed, each bag will naturally cost more. It's one thing for a bag to be cheap simply because workers efforts cost less per bag, and it's quite another if the materials are actually worse. That said, of course I wouldn't deny that there are cheap products made of inferior materials all over the world. What I am trying to say is that cheap does not necessarily mean badly made.
And then we come to the question of worker's rights and such. It seems that if a worker is willing to work for what people in the U.S. might regard as pittance, there must be a reason behind it. Maybe it's because everything costs less in China, so their wage actually manages to support them adequately. Maybe it's because any other job in China would pay them something similar, so there's no point in being choosy. Maybe this job offers them a way out of the countryside, where even if people aren't poor, they live without many modern conveniences. These people aren't stupid, and nobody is pointing a gun to their heads - they might be making the best choice available. People can't just look at someone's life through their own eyes.
I'm all for people wanting to support their own country, but I guess it gets on my nerves if people make assumptions about what I guess was my ancestor's country too. Sorry for the rant.
