My answer to How should Beyoncé respond to recent allegations that her clothing line is manufactured in sweatshops?
Answer by Desmond Last:
It is not quite as easy as paying a higher labor rate. I am totally opposed to the current economic systems, which do not equalize labor value. But we need a new system of comparative exchange to ensure relative value is maintained. This will take into account living costs etc in each country. Beyonce will probably have no idea that such low wages were being paid. Does she care? I imagine so. But does she care enough – no. Why does she not care enough – because the world does not either. If the world did it would not buy clothes unless they had a verified marking that guaranteed fair wages were paid. Did the world stage a protest? Did you all go on strike? Did you all sit down outside Downing Street until a fair wage agreement was reached? No. Did you overthrow the government? Did you say to Marks and Spencer and other clothes retailers we will not buy clothes made by cheap labor and blockade their store entrances? No. It is a bit like the ‘God is Great’ ads on the side of London Double-Decker's. Are those signs going to stop a woman being raped, a child abused, a refugee drowning in the Mediterranean – No. The rhetoric of the West against wage exploitation is always the same; long and loud but changing very little. There is a man who came up with a new economic system to equalize wages. Not by simply and impractically paying the same wage as developed countries but by comparing relative values. Then then he came up with a Global Quality system that included Climate Change, wages, resources use, Human Rights, waste, working and living condition etc. His name is Desmond Last and for 8 year he (me) has tried to improve those wages and conditions . But the whole world has watched as my own Human Rights have been abused and still the UK media do not report me . So how serious
are all these so-called Human Rights advocates if they do to me what they so loudly object of to others.
So what Beyonce should do is say to her critics ‘ Well if it is that important to all of you why have you censored Desmond who would have introduced a new systems(s) so we all know how fair the system of manufacturing’. She should then seek the global adoption of my new system.
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