Sustainable Menswear?

[FlyingMonkey]

Private property is the solution to these problems. Commons can't sustain large use.

Sorry but this is incorrect. Read (Nobel prize-winning) economist, Elinor Ostrom, on commons. Garrett Hardin was entirely wrong and didn't even understand what a 'commons' actually was/is and as a result generations of people reading him have been misled by 'the tragedy of the commons', which has become a cliché without having a firm foundation. Clue: it doesn't mean a free-for-all. And your solution (which historically was called 'enclosure') is exactly what led us to the environmental disasters we are currently facing.

 

[Nobilis Animus]

Just pointing something out: the issues of practice/harvest sustainability are separate from whether the actual material is sustainable.

Wool may be a sustainable source for clothing, but it can also be harvested in such a way that its production becomes unsustainable for that particular region - though not necessarily for the entire world.

 

[Nobilis Animus]

I wonder whether cashmere can be produced in other regions? I know the goat is native to Mongolia/China, but couldn't their coats grow just as well in other cold and mountainous places?

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Sorry but this is incorrect. Read (Nobel prize-winning) economist, Eleanor Ostrom, on commons. Garrett Hardin was entirely wrong and didn't even understand what a 'commons' actually was/is and as a result generations of people reading him have been misled by 'the tragedy of the commons', which has become a cliché without having a firm foundation. Clue: it doesn't mean a free-for-all. And your solution (which historically was called 'enclosure') is exactly what led us to the environmental disasters we are currently facing.

no one is implying it’s a free for all. But like the prisoners dilemma, one herder doesn’t know if the other will cheat or take advantage of the situation.

A true private property situation, where the government doesn’t interfere with or manipulate the market, would actually establish a baseline on which herders would cooperate. Because now that you’ve overgrazed your land, you’re out of business because your neighbor has taken better care of his.

it’s not to say that the government, industry (again, Loro Piana was ahead of the game on this) and NGO’s don’t have a role to play in providing technological support and sustainable farming in order to allow goats to eat and not destroy the pastures. And yes, it may mean that some of them are killed or perhaps sold off.

By the way, the “cooperative and collective sharing” which sounds idyllic, warm and fuzzy is just another term for a cartel. And we see how well OPEC has worked.

 

[Nobilis Animus]

By the way, the “cooperative and collective sharing” which sounds idyllic, warm and fuzzy is just another term for a cartel. And we see how well OPEC has worked.

This is the other side of the coin. As much as I sympathise with the grass shoots, turning the harvesting into a Soviet farming commune is just about the worst possible solution.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

By the way, the “cooperative and collective sharing” which sounds idyllic, warm and fuzzy is just another term for a cartel.

I have taught both environmental management and environmental economics at a major university so 'warm and fuzzy' makes me laugh here. If you are going to try to school me, you will need to advance your understanding a bit first.

You don't seem to see that you are doing the old 'whig history' thing of retroactively designating the ordinary governance arrangements which have characterized human communities over millennia as 'wrong' because they don't conform to a load of self-serving theories designed to prop up the very beneficiaries of their destruction. This is exactly why I brought up the history of 'enclosure'...

Given your lack of understanding of commons / common-pool resources, you clearly haven't read Elinor Ostrom, and I don't think you can really comment on this further without having done so. I suggest Governing the Commons as a start. And yes, she addresses the simplistic game theory approaches you reference in her books too...

 

[FlyingMonkey]

This is the other side of the coin. As much as I sympathise with the grass shoots, turning the harvesting into a Soviet farming commune is just about the worst possible solution.

That's not what commons are either. Come on, people, stop talking about things your don't understand! Please...

 

[rasmusp]

no one is implying it’s a free for all. But like the prisoners dilemma, one herder doesn’t know if the other will cheat or take advantage of the situation.

OP referred to Elinor Ostrom who spent a good part of her career documenting examples of communities where institutions enabled cooperation "despite" potential short-term gains from deviating (see e.g. her book governing the common which covers a lot more than just this; it's a nice read).

Martin Nowak looks at spatial and evolutionary game theory and find support for cooperation boosting lifetime utility (see e.g. evolutionary dynamics).

Cooperation could be established in repeated non-cooperative games. In the prisoner's dilemma, gangs that are able to play the socially optimal equilibrium when caught will ultimately get out of prison faster and can thus get back to robbing banks sooner, thereby increasing their total wealth and success.

By the way, the “cooperative and collective sharing” which sounds idyllic, warm and fuzzy is just another term for a cartel. And we see how well OPEC has worked.

I don't see the equivalence. A cartel is body of independent entities fixing e.g. prices, irrespective of their internal management. They can be quite fragile, as exemplified by the US entering the oil market (OPEC has much less influence these days with Russia and the US being outside of the network).

 

[Nobilis Animus]

That's not what commons are either. Come on, people, stop talking about things your don't understand! Please...

I was referring to collective or cooperative-type operations, not the commons in general. I know very little about that particular conversation.

What I do know a bit about is that the idea of collective economic arrangements as being ordinary for human society is still a controversial theory. It is difficult to prove without reliable historical records, and archaeological interpretations are tentative. We do, however, have evidence both for centralized control of common resources and privatization in complex (or advanced) societies since antiquity. Whether either arrangement is right or wrong is another thing entirely.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I’m not going to pretend to be one of those internet know-it-alls but I know enough to say when you throw some Nobel Prize winning economist at me, I am confident I can find another who disagrees. Social scientists are wonderful at employing sophistry in order to back up their claims so I’m not really that impressed with name dropping.

I do know this:
1) the consumer is not to blame for whatever is going on with cashmere and the Mongolian pastures.

2) being that cashmere is the chief export of Mongolia, the government needs to develop a sustainability plan that keeps the herders working, the supply stable and the pastures viable. It might be a tall order but sustainable farming and animal husbandry techniques are employed throughout the world and perhaps could serve as at least the start of a roadmap.

3) regarding cooperation within specific cultures, it starts with the assumption that those cultures have some tradition of it. One could cite the mafia in NYC as a relatively effective model. Perhaps that culture doesn’t exist in Mongolia some measure of government control is needed. The US does this with fishing and lobster.

 

[Don'sStyle]

Oh for Gods sake! ******* sustainable?

Cotton is a crop. Sustainable.
Wool/cashmere? Sustainable.
Leather? From cows. Sustainable and given the recent fetish regarding cow farts and global warming, I’d say buy more leather.
Silk? Pretty sustainable last I checked.

I’d argue 90% of clothing is made up of these such things.

What’s not sustainable, the labor used in sweat shops and Chinese concentration and prison camps to produce this stuff.

Conventional cotton actually is not sustainable... it's littered with pesticides which destroy the soil (which prohibits the soil from pulling carbon out of the air) and requires a ton of water to cultivate the crop... additionally the cotton farmers all get sick from exposure to the pesticides. ORGANIC cotton on the other hand is more sustainable, recycled/upcycled cotton even more so. Hemp is also sustainable as it's naturally organic and helps build top soil.

Polyester is the most used fiber in the fashion industry and it's helping to destroy our planet. It's plastic, and is a by product of the oil industry, plus it sheds microfiber into our waterways when we wash it.

90% of clothing is NOT sustainable...

 

[Don'sStyle]

I found these brands: https://jungmaven.com/ all made with hemp and organic cotton. Styles are a bit limited, but some good essentials

I also just found this brand which looks new: https://tactandstone.com/ Have a lot of good essential styles, and from a materials perspective looks like they're pretty innovative, a lot of recycled materials.

Thoughts?

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Hemp is also sustainable as it's naturally organic and helps build top soil.

oh please, stop with the hemp. It’s legal now so go get high. You don’t have to pretend anymore about how we can make clothes and rope from it.

 

[Don'sStyle]

oh please, stop with the hemp. It’s legal now so go get high. You don’t have to pretend anymore about how we can make clothes and rope from it.

It's actually a good fiber for clothing. I have a couple hemp pieces and they are durable and have a good feel to them. Don't knock it before you try it. It has nothing to do with weed when used in this application. Keep an open mind about how we can have a positive impact on our planet and people through our fashion consumption.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

It's actually a good fiber for clothing. I have a couple hemp pieces and they are durable and have a good feel to them. Don't knock it before you try it. It has nothing to do with weed when used in this application. Keep an open mind about how we can have a positive impact on our planet and people through our fashion consumption.

thanks man. I’m going to do some bong hits now.