Does Donating Clothes Hurt the Poor?

New York Times Magazine: Does Donating Clothes Hurt the Poor?

For years, I’ve donated old clothes to charity. Then I learned that many of these garments are shipped to poor countries where they are sold, devastating local industries and thus creating more poverty. The recipients do get inexpensive clothing, and my local charity makes money, but I fear I’m doing more harm than good. Advice? — Georgia Vogelsang, Baltimore

Randy Cohen Responds:

Even benevolent acts can have unintended consequences. Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Fund, says that the used-clothing trade “has contributed to the decimation of local garment industries, and therefore contributed to unemployment in Africa.” He suggests you ask your local charity what it does with used clothing and that you give only to charities that bypass middlemen and distribute donations directly to people in need, particularly to people in your community. This seems wise, maximizing the good and minimizing the ill done by your old “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt.

And yet. . . . Eric Stubin, executive vice president of Trans-Americas FSC, an exporter of used clothing, asserts that these are the only clothes the world’s poorest people can afford, and that companies like his “provide thousands of jobs while providing the essential clothing that has actually become part of the culture of Africa.” Stubin argues that as a country’s economy develops and its people are able to earn more, the used-clothing trade recedes. Until then, he says, the trade’s net effect is benign.

Alas, much that has “become part of the culture of Africa” is lamentable. But when experts clash over the facts, what is a civilian to do? She is to learn more. Doing good requires not only good intentions but due diligence — exhausting but unavoidable. [Emphasis mine.]

Action to help poor people must have one primary measure: Does it actually help them! It has been my experience that a considerable amount of charity and social justice efforts are performed based more on how it makes the donor/activist feel about themselves and the bragging rights it gives them (if only to themselves) about how compassionate they are towards poor people, than it is about a careful analysis of what will most benefit the poor. Analysis that might seem counter-intuitive, particularly that might lend support to market solutions, is resisted intensely because of the donor/activist’s anti-market predilections and suspicions. The desire to help poor people is thoroughly entangled with an ideology that prevents them from embracing the best solutions as much as the market enthusiasts they are critical of for not entertaining non-market solutions. They make poor people as much a political football as those they proudly distance themselves from.

A modest proposal for helping poor people: When we take action to help poor people, let’s take action that helps the poor people.

(Related: Free trade and the ethicist by Dani Rodrik.)