are there high quality brands out there that leave it as terry fabric? it’s not only the preferred of many (i’m “many”) but all some of us (i’m also “some of us) will wear. Sensory issues 🥲

fewer corners to stub your toe on

Reputation laundering is the smokescreen of Doing Good to distract from your sins.

Ethics laundering is the smokescreen of Contracting Out your sins to a less-ethical business.

both are beloved by real companies across the globe, not just the fictional Wonka Industries. don’t buy into either.

“How is this different from reputation laundering?” Don’t worry, Wonka does reputation laundering too. Wonka regularly donates large sums of money to important charities doing important work. Their employees run charity drives. They give back to the community, massively.

THAT’s ethics laundering.

because it sure seems to me like all Wonka has done is handed its dirty work of oppression to Known Unethical Companies, who treat their enterprise customers like kings & their workers & anyone not wealthy like shit. Umbrella & Stark are Wonka’s sin-eaters.

But are they? If Wonka is allocating resources meant for support & infrastructure over to unethical corps, how is that any different from hiring those same workers & buying the same infrastructure (w/o overhead) and paying&treating them the same as Umbrella&Stark, then gifting the leftover $ to U&S?

….sure, Umbrella Corp and Stark Industries collude with Soylent and Acme on the reg, but they don’t step on Wonka’s toes (& keep this contract quiet, too) & Wonka’s investors are happy about the rising stock prices. And customers are delighted to support an Ethical Company. One of the Good Guys.

Wonka has paid their money towards unethical companies, sure, but now they can compete against Soylent and Acme! And that’s important, you see! Because Wonka is a GREAT place to work. Good to its employees. Reducing its carbon footprint. Innovating a better, chocolate-coated world. They r Good Guys.

BUT LOOK. Stark Ind. has an *ALRIGHT* name (even if it’s got shite working conditions & bribes govt officials) and Umbrella Corp doesn’t call its support contracting arm anything Umbrella-y. And Wonka now is more profitable than last year, and all its employees are still treated great.

Wonka has to stay profitable. They realize that outsourcing to other ethical companies is quite spendy, in-house management is a little less spendy but more risky & isn’t streamlined, and… the price is right when it comes to Umbrella Corp and Stark Industries.

They sign with Umbrella & Stark.

Wonka Ind. also is having to choose between providing customer support and tech infrastructure in-house, hiring a couple small & spendy (but ethical) companies to do infrastructure & support, or porting infrastructure to Stark Ind. on the cheap & support to Umbrella Corp.

Unfortunately, Wonka Ind.’s competing in a market that also includes Soylent Corp and Acme Corp, both of which are highly unethical & employ horrific working conditions overseas to keep profit margins high. They also engage in unethical govt lobbying to keep in corrupt leaders’ good graces.

Wonka Ind. prides itself on its ethics. It treats its employees well & early on even quietly saved a whole bunch of green haired dudes from a g*noc*de (which became known & won their founder a Nobel-style peace prize). W. Ind. makes a lot of its money & name on this image as “one of the good ones”

“what does ethics laundering look like?” glad i pretended u asked! Say u have 5 big businesses: Acme Corp, Soylent Corp, Umbrella Corp, Stark Industries, and Wonka Industries. They have varying standards of business ethics, and from what you understand, pretty much only Wonka Industries is ethical.