Richard D. Wolff

Thank you for drawing our attention to this story. What a comment on capitalism as a system. This system makes it rational and reasonable for a profit-driven company (like Nike in this story) to intentionally destroy valuable merchandise because it preserves their profits. The story teaches that system change is what is needed because when everyone acts according to the profit logic of capitalism, the end result is behavior that clashes with our sense of human or social rationality. People without good shoes should get them rather than have labor performed first to produce and then to slash and destroy them so that people who need them but cannot afford them dont get them. Capitalism's results are crazy and that craziness argues for system change. It does not argue for "reforms" such as to allow producers to "donate to charity" since such an allowance leaves open the chance for the sort of irrationality documented by the article you sent in. System change not reforms is the conclusion. I will definitely compose a segment for our weekly "Economic Update" based on this story and the important lesson it teaches.