Lies and Levis

Karl Marx  points out in Capital  that we have a "fetishism" with the commodity. And, Naomi Klein reiterates that point in her work, No Logo, when she says that society has an obsession not with the product, but with its branding. We see a logo on everything, and it is because of that that we want the product. What it costs to get there doesn't matter; we are just following the trend that society has set.
Levi's Strauss and Company is an example of a famous corporation well known for their name and logo in the jean making industry. It one of those "big-time" companies that makes tons of money because of the fact that people want their brand. However, what exactly are we advertising by wearing these brands?

Oh yeah... this is what we are advertising

In the early 90's, Levi's withdrew from dealings with contractors in China because they could not guarantee that suppliers would follow their codes of conduct, mostly concerning a "pervasive violation of human rights" (according to the Wall Street Journal). During the second half of the decade, Levi's began a series of drastic employment cuts. First, they closed down 11 plants in North America and laid off approximately 7000 workers, which according to Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics, was about one third of it's employees within the United States in 1997. Then, in 1999, Levi's announced that they would lay off another third of their domestic employees - another 6,000 jobs were lost and 11 plants were closed down. All of this was under the pretense of keeping production levels at its current percentage, because competing companies had much lower labor costs than they did. Bruce Raynor, the vice president of the union said that "he did not believe it was feasible for Levi's to expand domestic production since most of its competition abandoned the U.S. market for cheaper labor costs years ago" (176-177).

The truth is that at this time, many multinational corporations were going into developing countries looking for the same cheap labor that Levi's refused to be apart of in the early 90's. A lot of this kind of cheap labor came from sweat shops and such, that subjected those poor and desperate for work and underage children in developing countries to dangerous conditions, being underpaid and forced to work extremely long hours without rest. Additionally, they are forced to comply with high production rates under the fear that they may lose their jobs and their only source of income for their families. Other labor, as we ironically refer back to Focault, came from prison labor and those under workplace abuse.

Despite all of this, Levi's began to feel the pain of their initial withdrawal from China. Almost five years after they left, in 2001, they claimed that there were suppliers in China that could be found that would follow human rights, child labor and counterfeiting laws and announced that they would return. Chinese dissident Henry Wu criticized their decision saying, "human rights conditions have not improved, only the business climate had". We could say that Levi's just gave in to the demand of the economy, that they really tried their best in serving their international employees. However, when we look at the fact that Levi's is now following a new trend, I think its because they were longer able to keep up with the good publicity that high labor costs gives them.

According to the New York Times, Levi's is now, in 2012, trying to minimize it's water usage in jean production, as a typical pair of jeans "consumes 919 gallons of water during its life cycle". Their goals are to be both environmentally friendly and to prevent the possible scarcity in cotton that may be caused by climate change and result in the jeopardy of the company. However, with the sudden peak in sustainability as an interest, its really no surprise that Levi's is following other giant retailers in this direction as it did in the past. In 2005, large well-known brand companies like Gap and Adidas founded the Better Cotton Initiative, to "promote water conservation and reduce pesticide use and child-labor practices in the industry". Countries like India are at a risk for shortages and companies that aren't trying to help preserve "precious" water, are given bad publicity.

So, lets look at this for a moment. Their plan for preservation of human rights didn't work out too well (I guess that trend wasn't powerful enough to improve sales). But, being eco-friendly has become primary importance. My "hippie" friend, as she likes to be called says to me as we discuss this fact, "That's right. I'm not interest in human rights; I'm interest in eco-rights. That's what I look for when I pick out my jeans". Is that the new trend now? Who cares about human beings when we can be preserving the planet?

Really, I'm in awe here. What causes hundreds of large corporations to change their ideology from human rights to saving trees? Both Marx and Klein tells us the answer. It's because society is obsessed with the commodity, they are obsessed with brand and trends. Making money is what is important; if good publicity brings the corporations their profits, they will do what they must to obtain it. And society, having this fetish with the brand of the product, is just supporting it. This sounds familiar - are we looking at an ideology here?