4 ms·

I'm not sure about that though. Ready to wear clothing is obviously inferior to tailored clothes, and it's not clear to what extent it's actually cheaper, and h

I'm not sure about that though. Ready to wear clothing is obviously inferior to tailored clothes, and it's not clear to what extent it's actually cheaper, and how much it abuses cheap labor. There may be an optimal scale for everything, and you start losing once you exceed it.

jakewins 3y ago
Tailored vs ready-made is a rounding error in the economies of scale involved in making clothes - both will use factory made fabric, dyed with factory dyes, woven from factory thread, made from factory farm cotton, grown from factory fertilizer, made from massive scale fracked natural gas, produced with millions of tonnes of factory steel, mined from factory mines.. The economies of scale that put food on your table and mine and clothe our kids - for all the horrors - will not be replaced by artisans doing small batch t-shirts from yard-grown cotton using hand made tools.
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  "will not be replaced by artisans doing small batch t-shirts from yard-grown cotton using hand made tools." That isn't what I'm talking about. There is a lot between that and transporting everything multiple times across the globe just for the sake of making it as large scale as possible. What is the gain after you can reliably feed a few looms? There are no better tools by the way. It's people sitting behind sewing machines, just on the other side of the planet.
  - jakewins 3y ago
    Sorry I’m having a crap day; you’re totally right there’s a ton of gradients between “one mega factory makes all t-shirts” and “we all make clothes ourselves with hand made cotton thread.” I think my argument was mostly like - don’t throw out the baby with the bath water; economies of scale are a real thing that brings us real benefits, and that should go in the scale too.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kombookcha 3y ago
  You're framing the above poster as an anarcho-primitivist for saying that we would be better off with 5 global conglomerates controlling t-shirt production than 2. I don't think obfuscating "there is a dropoff point in size where economies of scale stop being better for humanity and start getting worse" with "we must switch to artisinal backyard t-shirt making" is really steelmanning here.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    No he's pointing out the poster hasn't defined any of their terms accurately enough to really be saying anything. The sheer size and scale of the economy we live in, and it's benefits, is so big that people tend to make sweeping pronouncements without really understanding their impact. The point about industrially produced cotton is exactly right: people pick some niche thing they view as "wasteful" and vastly over estimate it's importance or impact.
  - ric2b 3y ago
    The poster is against oligopolies but is using the term "economy of scale" instead, which is incorrect and causes confusion.
    - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
      I wasn't talking about "oligopolies". I was saying that economies of scale doesn't imply that bigger is better, but there is an optimal size that may not really be that big for most kinds of business.
exe34 3y ago
Why stop at tailoring? How about the loom? Or spinning? Or collecting the cotton? Or growing it?
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  Yes. How big do you need to go for that? When will the cost of transport and distribution overtake any gains? What is there to gain after all that gets big enough to produce a reasonable assortment of fabrics?

jakewins 3y ago

Tailored vs ready-made is a rounding error in the economies of scale involved in making clothes - both will use factory made fabric, dyed with factory dyes, woven from factory thread, made from factory farm cotton, grown from factory fertilizer, made from massive scale fracked natural gas, produced with millions of tonnes of factory steel, mined from factory mines.. The economies of scale that put food on your table and mine and clothe our kids - for all the horrors - will not be replaced by artisans doing small batch t-shirts from yard-grown cotton using hand made tools.

Anotheroneagain 3y ago
"will not be replaced by artisans doing small batch t-shirts from yard-grown cotton using hand made tools." That isn't what I'm talking about. There is a lot between that and transporting everything multiple times across the globe just for the sake of making it as large scale as possible. What is the gain after you can reliably feed a few looms? There are no better tools by the way. It's people sitting behind sewing machines, just on the other side of the planet.
- jakewins 3y ago
  Sorry I’m having a crap day; you’re totally right there’s a ton of gradients between “one mega factory makes all t-shirts” and “we all make clothes ourselves with hand made cotton thread.” I think my argument was mostly like - don’t throw out the baby with the bath water; economies of scale are a real thing that brings us real benefits, and that should go in the scale too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kombookcha 3y ago
You're framing the above poster as an anarcho-primitivist for saying that we would be better off with 5 global conglomerates controlling t-shirt production than 2. I don't think obfuscating "there is a dropoff point in size where economies of scale stop being better for humanity and start getting worse" with "we must switch to artisinal backyard t-shirt making" is really steelmanning here.
- XorNot 3y ago
  No he's pointing out the poster hasn't defined any of their terms accurately enough to really be saying anything. The sheer size and scale of the economy we live in, and it's benefits, is so big that people tend to make sweeping pronouncements without really understanding their impact. The point about industrially produced cotton is exactly right: people pick some niche thing they view as "wasteful" and vastly over estimate it's importance or impact.
- ric2b 3y ago
  The poster is against oligopolies but is using the term "economy of scale" instead, which is incorrect and causes confusion.
  - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
    I wasn't talking about "oligopolies". I was saying that economies of scale doesn't imply that bigger is better, but there is an optimal size that may not really be that big for most kinds of business.

exe34 3y ago

Why stop at tailoring? How about the loom? Or spinning? Or collecting the cotton? Or growing it?

Anotheroneagain 3y ago
Yes. How big do you need to go for that? When will the cost of transport and distribution overtake any gains? What is there to gain after all that gets big enough to produce a reasonable assortment of fabrics?