It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam. I couldn't taste the difference between two kinds of whisky if you put a gun to my head but it doesn't mean other people can't or that it's some kind of status game in disguise.
What the hell does that mean? 'human drones'
> It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam.
“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”
― Eduardo Galeano
But luxury handbags and other "fashion" items are inexcusable, because they are literally assembled in sweat shops by slave labour and then sold for four/five/six/seven figure price tags to vulgar stupid people.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90279693/did-a-slave-make-your-s...
The point of this kind of luxury isn't utility or quality - it's pure status display, combined with narcissistic indifference to the fate of the unfortunates whose work is being displayed so ostentatiously.
A modern minivan is faster than a classic Porsche in virtually every metric. That doesn't lessen the appeal of the Porsche; speed isn't the point.
What's the 'bad' kind?
> logic needn't go out the window in pursuit of an outlet for that anger
Many of these watches are Swiss. Switzerland is (or was) a known tax-haven...
It's our inability to connect the dots that baffles me sometimes. Where else do the wealthy elites get the kind of cash needed to buy these watches?
Yes, we're part of the Global North. We have a relatively high standard of living now, due to not having blown ourselves up twice last century, before which we were considered poor in relation to our neighbours. Compare Heidi. (Iodine in salt may have helped immensely, too.)
[1] the brits may still be salty that our bankers did to them what Soros did to thailand. Someone's gotta make sure The Market stays efficient, innit?
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23975900
How are worker protections in your jurisdiction? Solidarity is an ideal invoked here even by the pro-free trade pro-small business centre-right party.
(One way our rich flex amongst themselves is on the Züri equivalent of Groundhog Day: they ride horses around a giant wooden snowman with explosives in its head after it's been set on fire. The faster it goes boom, the better the summer will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reuJ8yVCgSM&t=58
One can tell the Zürchers are a bunch of capitalist pigs who'll be against the wall when the revolution comes[3] because although the holiday is celebrated on a Monday evening, some of them don't even get the day off.)
[3] at the end of Cold War I, we learned we'd had a secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind unit active on our soil. This was a scandal, because we are not a Nato member. Thank you, UK!
If we are going to avoid Switzerland because it's a tax haven then we should probably avoid doing any commerce with any country, including the one you probably are in now (unless you're in NZ or something).
And with regards to your update - no one is talking about faux luxury consumer goods here; in fact an argument can be made that the _only_ sustainable mode of consumerism is the kind practiced by these luxury watch makers if antrhung.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/style/international/what-...
I don't really have a dog in the race when it comes to whether or not such veblen goods should exist. I agree they are often only sought after as status objects, but I also can't discount the possibility that some people really do appreciate their craftsmanship.
As opposed to "a sweatshop in a low cost geography by some human drones", like another person who replied wrote?
You do know that the Global North is hoarding IP, and that another world of Commons-based peer production is possible, right? We could all be 'well paid craftsmen' if we shifted to that. In my eyes, you're showing an incredible privilege here, being aware of, and talking about, Patek watches.
Uppppper class. [1]
I mean, there are human beings who are making these ridiculously overpriced vanity watches day in, day out, in a miserable factory somewhere. All I see when I see these ads for Patek Phillippe, or similar, is a hopeless human doing work that they won't benefit from.
I wish rentier capitalism would end now, so we’d all live in a Commons-based peer production life where everyone was fed, instead of this ‘some people will buy a Ferrari and a rolex today, and some children will die from malnutrition’-world.
Luxury is a scam. The ultra rich (read: dominators) are just as anxious as the Precariat, scared to lose it all. Not to mention their kids are often ruined and unbearable people. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maWdDl_OjlQ
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Edit: when I write "Patek or similar" I am really talking about any type of 'luxury good', like a Prada bag, or a cheaper-than-Rolex Michael Kors watch etc.
The people 'defending' Patek are missing my point (or I am missing them?) My point is that living in a world with artificial scarcity-creating systems is disturbing to me (Rentier Capitalism by Prof Guy Standing)[1]. It constantly surprises me how our priorities became the way they are with many of us in chains, and a few rolling around in a pool of blood-stained gold and diamonds. [2],[3]
[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
[2] https://vimeo.com/242569435
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7iv1fef6qo