For the Economy...

[Christmascardsontheshelf]

I was just reading the second hand clothes thread and I came across a comment that comes up on mumsnet quite a bit:

The economy would come crashing down around us if we all started swapping and using only second hand.

I have seen and heard this argument loads.
Second hand is probably the only way we will get ourselves out of this mess. It really is. There is enough in the world for us all to live comfortably without making a single new thing again. I genuinely believe this. Should we carry on producing for the sake of the economy?

On a similar note, garden growing food, orchards and the like. If we all started growing a little and swapping with neighbours we would eliminate the need to mass farm food and fix the world essentially.

It has been proven that communities who grow together have decreased crime rates, which is a staggering thought when you think about it.

With so many people using food banks, receiving benefits and having to deal with increased food and energy bills, surely everyone should be moving to second hand and by extension, local home grown. (not saying poor people should buy second hand or grow their own food. I'm saying it seems to be the logical next step)

And if the economy does crash, well we will all be paying less for goods as the second hand market is cheaper than new, and our health would improve fixing the NHS and everyone could buy fruit and veg from their neighbours. Make jams and preserves, stuff like that. I just don't see how it hasn't happened yet. Is it because the rich can't get richer if the poor fend for themselves?

This is just idle thinking. Please don't scream at me via capslock. Thank you.

Who's saying a nurse has to hoe a field?
a nurse is a nurse.
I'm on about fucking off billionaires and millionaires.

Being deliberately obtuse isn't going to work is it

I do grow stuff, but it still works out a ton cheaper to buy from a shop. I tend to only grow things that are hard to find in shops anyway.

Ahh taxes. beautiful taxes.
yes I didn't think about that but I mean, not everyone can pay taxes and not everyone wants to. Jimmy carr and amazon, I'm looking at you! A small garden shop is going to pay more tax than a massive company who moves their money and exploits loopholes to pay no or little tax

No it doesn't. I'm pretty sure the income tax and national insurance contributions from the wages of everyone who works for Tesco adds up.

Shoes are terrible quality. I could afford to buy myself a good pair of clarkes shoes after I moved to second hand. And they lasted years. Never needed replacing. I just didn't know before.

Well, then you still need Clarks to be making shoes. And Grenson, Solovair, and Start-Rite. You cannot just stop manufacturing something like shoes which will eventually disintegrate.

@ilovesooty

It all sounds lovely in principle. I doubt if someone chronically ill, working two jobs on a zero hour contract, or living on the 12th floor of a tower block is going to be growing stuff and swapping jam with their neighbours though. Real life for the people living in deprived urban areas isn't like an episode of The Good Life.

Quite.

It's easy to say all of this when your only career prospects aren't a zero hours contract in the service industry.

It won't work mid or long term for our economy, which has been set up as consumer led. But it does work for ecological reasons, which is better long term for our descendants. Good luck selling it to the arseholes who'd rather have the short term riches over a planet that is sustainable.

I make jam with vast quantities of free fruit from olio. Participate in the local organic community growing group and the community orchard. I have a herb garden and grow food at home, chickens for eggs etc. Tbh it takes loads of time and except in summer/ autumn doesn’t contribute masses of food to the table. It’s nice but I think it only works in fairly well to do rural communities. No idea how it’d work in an urban area.

I’m always happy to pass around / accept bags of 2nd hand clothes but like a pp children’s shoes should be properly fitted.

@ilovesooty

It all sounds lovely in principle. I doubt if someone chronically ill, working two jobs on a zero hour contract, or living on the 12th floor of a tower block is going to be growing stuff and swapping jam with their neighbours though. Real life for the people living in deprived urban areas isn't like an episode of The Good Life.

Or have the time to go scouring through the charity shops. Some of us have to work full time as well as run the family home 🙄

Oh and I don’t have a garden to grow vegetables in. I’m sure lots of the wealthy yummy mummies in my town have plenty of garden space though (along with the time which I don’t have).

You do realise that if clothes shops shut tomorrow there would be no second hand clothes market? While I do think if you see something amazing second hand you should of course use it, please don’t do the smug well I can but all second hand thing because you can only do that IF SOMEONE ESE HAS ALREADY BOUGHT IT.

I agree that we should all be as self reliant as possible and regain as much power over our own lives as we possibly can.

I'm not sure your math is correct on small companies would pay more tax than companies who use legal loopholes to avoid it. Amazon paid £492m in tax for 2020, I don't think the local garden shop is ever going to do that in a year.

@Christmascardsontheshelf

Who's saying a nurse has to hoe a field? a nurse is a nurse. I'm on about fucking off billionaires and millionaires.

Being deliberately obtuse isn't going to work is it

Yet you are being thoroughly obtuse and failing to take into account the reality of people's lives. When the majority of the population lived by subsistence agriculture they had pretty shitty lives. Learn some history then come back to us with a bit less attitude.

@Christmascardsontheshelf

Who's saying a nurse has to hoe a field? a nurse is a nurse. I'm on about fucking off billionaires and millionaires.

Being deliberately obtuse isn't going to work is it

So do the billionaires hoe the fields?

Give Prince Andrew something to do I suppose

I’m sorry op but I can’t see a busy single mother working full time but still hard up spending £10 out on compost to grow lettuces on her 9th floor flat windowsill that her kids will probably turn their noses up at anyway.

I’m now thinking about the tiny terraced house where I grew up in Croydon, gardens contained large barking dogs, screaming kids, mattresses or dismantled motorbikes, not a hope in hell of living ‘the good life’ there.