Here’s the conundrum. Ask members of the buying public a question like, “Do you want brands to pay their workers a living wage?” and the majority of people say yes, they do want that. It may only be a bare majority; a recent survey sponsored by the Changing Markets Foundation and Clean Clothes Campaign found that 51 percent of U.S. consumers would be disinclined to buy from brands that do not pay its workers a living wage. Or so they say. Because it’s definitely not the case that 51 percent of shoppers in the United States are boycotting brands on that basis. If they were, the Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles wouldn’t have needed to launch its new campaign calling out the likes of Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, T.J. Maxx, Charlotte Russe, Marshalls, Ross, and Windsor for contracting with factories that paid about a $5–$6 hourly wage. Those factories aren’t in Bangladesh or Cambodia, mind you—they’re in L.A. Workers in other countries have it far worse, and they’re making a vastly greater quantity of our clothing. (Ross, for instance, manufactures only 5 percent of its apparel domestically, according to Garment Worker Center reps.)

So, are the members of the buying public hypocrites? I don’t think so. Are they merely misinformed? Perhaps. I’ve written before of the difficulty in figuring out where or how any of our garments were made, given that the modern, globalized supply chain is a huge Rube Goldberg contraption designed to obscure. I won’t repeat myself here, except to note that brands, themselves, can be oblivious to the source of their goods—and if they don’t know what’s up, how should we? (Case in point: Walmart was reportedly quite surprised to find its labels amid the Rana Plaza debris.) Calls for transparency are worthy, no matter what—that way lies accountability—but would perfect information serve to change the way we shop?

Let’s conduct a thought experiment. There’s total transparency in the supply chain, and I, Maya Singer, consumer highly motivated to shop “ethically,” am planning a purchase. Let’s say I want to buy a new pair of running shoes. I’ve spent two years rehabbing a bum knee and I’m champing at the bit to start training again. Do I buy one brand’s shoe made entirely from sea garbage, but in a sweatshop in Southeast Asia? Or do I buy from a brand with no environmental commitments, that produces in a unionized factory here in the USA? What if the brand that produces domestically is led by a CEO with #MeToo complaints? What if there’s another sneaker brand that’s signed a deal with Colin Kaepernick, and I like Colin Kaepernick? My point is, values compete. And ethical values lose some of their charge when they’re thrown into contention with the elemental shopping values, i.e., function, style, convenience, price. Another hypothetical: Let’s say I’ve discovered the ethically perfect running shoe. It costs $800, there’s a six-month waiting list to get a pair, they come in one color, which is crap brown, and oh, by the way, I have to buy without trying them on, so I have no way of knowing whether these particular running shoes work for, you know, my feet. Might I be forgiven for throwing my hands up and just to heading to Foot Locker, ethics be damned?