For me, the really illuminating aspect of this piece is her willingness to talk about the actual costs of materials and labor. We've been running into this while we shop for home furnishings, too. If you want to, you can furnish your home really cheaply with stuff that's made mostly out of fiberboard and polyurethane foam, and your home will *look* nice, but those materials degrade quickly, have a large carbon footprint, and possibly a negative impact on interior air quality. If you want furniture made out of traditional materials -- wood, wool, etc -- the same way we might look for clothing made of high quality natural fibers, the cost shoots up, and it's directly related to materials. If I wanted to build my own bed or sofa using wood, wool, hemp, latex, buckwheat hulls, whatever, it would be more expensive than buying from a green furniture company, because I'm not connected to the supply chain and I can't scale up. This was an eye-opener for me. I keep chickens and bake my own bread, and (especially if you factor in labor) there is NO WAY for me to produce my own food as cheaply as I can buy it at the grocery store. It's literally a labor of love.
There are a lot of glib people out there who encourage opting out, who say, "Well, if you don't like the way the factories do it, then make your own ____." Clothes, toys, furniture, food, etc. I definitely fall into that trap, because I'm an idealist and a perfectionist, and sometimes I just get so fed up with the produce-buy-consume-discard cycle that I find myself looking for a way out. But "just do it yourself" -- that's a ridiculous proposition. On the whole (in the US at least) we're working more hours than ever and not seeing an increase in the pay we bring home. The vast majority of Americans aren't in a position to even ponder the idea of making their own clothes, or buying $200 shirts from Elizabeth Suzann; ethics aside, it's just not materially possible. And even if it was possible, it wouldn't be a solution. As Rachylou says, the ball of wax is so much bigger than that. So it's going to take community solutions, real organized actions that are bigger than individuals in their homes. The alternative has to be capable of the same scale and reach as the current system, or it won't work. So, one middle-class American making her own clothes as a hobby -- not too scary for the garment industry or for global capitalism. A group of factory workers, in say Cambodia, deciding to make clothes for their families and neighbors, and refusing to export? That might be more of a problem.
I see the conversation about transparency, sustainability, and conscious consumption to be a really good starting-off point for talking about ways to live better, globally, in a more macro sense. Like, "What if we ALL had less stuff and got to work fewer hours? What if we were ALL able to jump off the hamster wheel?" Because right now, just being able to talk about opting out or dabbling in doing it differently is a privilege.
