Am I financialy enabling child labor in 3rd world country by buying second hand fast fashion from Thrift shop and Vinted? Because I am not the one who originally bought the clothes from Shein. But buy buying it again from someone else I still use it uhhuhh this is complicated.
tldr; no, you aren’t.
I learned about this a couple years ago.
My friend is a factory liaison who connects all of those factories(not 3rd world, that’s a defunct, demeaning political term) with markets around the world: Walmart, apple, Microsoft, Safeway, and has explained to me the volume and production method of every company of any size in any industry are all operating the same way fast fashion does.
If you buy anything these days, from nearly any company, you’re technically financially enabling some sort of unsavory labor, but there are several things to keep in mind, primarily that your individual choices do not cause and will not affect the systems of production in place.
Fast fashion in particular is going to produce produce produce, it doesn’t matter how much people buy, they will keep producing absurd amounts of clothing because the markets don’t know how truly cheap fast fashion is to produce and so the profit margin is and has been worth massive overproduction for years. The majority of fast fashion products can instantly be thrown away and become mountains of trash and those factories will still be turning a profit.
If you are buying second hand, you are less responsible for that production, and that’s really all you can do. Nobody except greed was really responsible for overproduction in the first place.
You literally wouldn’t believe the capacity, production, and near zero cost these factories produce all items in.
Fast fashion is not unique. If you buy an air fryer, or a smartphone, or dishes, blankets, literally anything, it’s the exact same type of factory.
You probably don’t have the option to buy handmade dishes, blankets, and you definitely don’t have the option to buy handcrafted electronics, and that is not your fault, that is the system that mercantilism leading into industrial capitalism facilitated.
Buying secondhand is the best you can do to not participate in an unhealthy economic system, and in practice those factories are operating on such wide margins that they will produce regardless.
And this is why we all go to the bad place.
No matter how complex or inefficient the orphan grinding machine, if you buy something second-hand and the person you bought it from buys a replacement with your proceeds, you are contributing to that sale and thereby funding the orphan grinding machine.
Secondhand is a very good way to not participate in that system.
They’ve decided to produce orphan-grinding machines regardless of the sales/proceeds.
Your responsible secondhand purchase has nothing to do with someone else purchasing a new product.