2 ms·

Because it's inequitable. You rely on an impoverished underclass to prevent your waste, while harming their ability to change the situation.

• brightlancer 3y ago
  > Because it's inequitable. I presume you mean "inequitable" as in "unfair", and that's just life: life is unfair. And as peoples have very different ideas of what is "fair", we should be very careful using _force_ to try and make things "fair". > You rely on an impoverished underclass to prevent your waste, while harming their ability to change the situation. As a practical matter, letting poorer nations develop their own manufacturing and become wealthier is almost always better for everyone. A rising tide lifts all boats. The problem is that developed nations like the US have argued it's "unfair" for poorer nations to ban imports of second-hand clothes while getting certain preferential treatment to export new clothes to the US. For example, Rwanda banned imports of second-hand clothes and so their manufacturers face higher taxes (than other "developing" nations in Africa) when exporting clothes to the US, which puts Rwandan businesses at a disadvantage. What's the "equitable" solution there? Who decides what is "equitable"? What if peoples disagree? Instead, an appeal to self-interest should tell us that letting Rwanda and other poorer nations engage in _some_ economic protectionism against developed nations is likely to work out better for the developed nations.