Sweat Shop Kids: Make Everything You Own (Signed Copy)

Sweat Shop Kids Make Everything You Own... A Supply Chain Transparency Report For The Conscientious Consumer

Every object you own has a backstory. Your shirt. Your phone. Your shoes. Your phone case. Your second pair of shoes. All of it arrived via a supply chain that the packaging did not detail and the price tag implied was not worth asking about. This book asks about it. This book follows the supply chain to the place where the supply chain begins, which is frequently a building in a country with different labor standards and several small children who are very good at this by now. This is the provenance report. This is where your stuff comes from. The cartoon art is very cheerful about it.

This adult parody book is dark humor about global manufacturing economics, which is a subject that most consumers would prefer to remain abstract and which this book renders concrete with illustrated cartoon art and the specific cheerfulness of a guided factory tour where all the guides are small and the hours are long. The kids are good at their jobs. The jobs exist because you have a phone. These two facts are connected. The book makes the connection visible in the way that cartoon art makes things visible without being possible to look away from.

This Book IS For:

• Consumers who have occasionally thought about where their stuff comes from and then actively decided not to continue thinking about it
• Fans of dark comedy that uses cartoon art to make economic systems visible rather than keeping them conveniently abstract
• Anyone who works in supply chain management and has a complicated relationship with their professional knowledge
• Gift-givers who want to hand someone something that is funny and also a complete supply chain audit in illustrated form

This Book Is NOT For:

• People who have done the work of understanding their supply chain and are making changes and do not need the book
• Readers who find dark humor about labor exploitation insufficiently attentive to the real harm regardless of the satirical intent
• Anyone who has their clothes specially made by local artisans and wants their choices acknowledged as sufficient
• Supply chain executives who have legal concerns about the accuracy of illustrated cartoon art about their industry

Appropriate For:

• Gag gifts for the friend who has described themselves as an "ethical consumer" and is still learning what that means
• White elephant exchanges among people who own things, which is everyone, making this universally applicable
• Gifts for anyone who has ever complained about the price of ethically sourced products while holding an alternative
• Anyone navigating the specific cognitive dissonance of caring about labor practices while owning a smartphone

Why Buy This

The items you own cost what they cost because of an arrangement that this book illustrates more honestly than the brand's marketing materials were going to. That is not a comfortable fact. The cartoon art makes it slightly more comfortable by being charming about a subject that the raw data presents less charmingly. The book is not calling you a bad person. The book is providing a tour. The tour is illuminating. The kids are good at their jobs. You can decide what to do with the tour information.

For the cost of roughly one item that appears in this book's supply chain report, you get a document that describes where everything you own came from. That is the most accurate purchase you will make today. Buy it. The kids made everything else you own. They didn't make the book. The book is the exception. The book is available now, at a price the supply chain made possible.