5
OPINION

Thursday, May 30, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OPINION

S

ustainability goes further than 
typical policies and eco-struc-
tures learned about in environ-
ment classes; it is applicable to many 
facets of life. Recently, people have been 
examining a newer model for living 
sustainably: shopping consciously and 
understanding the impact that fast fash-
ion has on the world.
Fast fashion is commonly defined 
as clothing that is cheaply and quickly 
made in order to meet the demands of 
buyers as well as the rotating cycle of 
trends. Due to the unstoppable mar-
ket for popular clothing and styles, 
businesses like Forever 21 and H&M 
produce vast quantities of new clothes 
every month. The fast fashion industry 
needs to work on conscious alternatives 
to their production, or else consumers 
will need to avoid these models alto-
gether in order to help the planet. 
So how does this affect our ecosys-
tem? Typical consumers tend to buy 
an item that they like one moment and 
then discard it due to rapidly chang-
ing style trends. There are several 
methods to get rid of clothing; some 
eco-conscious ways are to donate to 
a thrift store, swap with friends or 
give to local shelters or charities. The 
most detrimental way to get rid of old 
clothes would be to directly throw 
them away, as they would then be sent 
straight to a landfill.
In the U.S. alone, there are about 11 
million tons of clothing thrown away 
every year. From this, the clothes that 
are cheaply made are contributing to 
heavy chemical seepage from dyes 
and fabrics into water systems and soil 
around the world. Furthermore, most 
fabrics take a long time to break down 
in a landfill and will release chemicals 
into the air.
Paying attention to the kinds of 
clothes you own is important. Take a 
look at the labels — are they composed 
of synthetic fabrics? If bought from a 
fast fashion retailer, the chances are the 
clothing items are made of some sort of 
blend of acrylic and synthetic materials. 
Through every laundry wash, micro-
fibers fall off clothing and are washed 
into the water system. Their small size 
allows them to get through water treat-
ment centers and into bodies of water. 
This is just another way cheap clothing 
is affecting natural environments.
The flow of microfibers into bodies of 
water can even directly affect humans. 
Reports are revealing that plastic 
microfibers are reaching fish that are 
processed for grocery stores and con-
sumption, meaning people are eating 
plastics stemming from our laundry. 
To fix this issue, individuals can either 
choose to buy fewer synthetic materials 
or purchase a special filter for washing 

machines that filters out microfibers. 
Hopefully we can begin to improve 
water quality and the quality of what 
humans consume in the long run.
There are fortunately several alterna-
tives to all of these fast fashion failings. 
The direct alternative would be to pur-
chase items from sustainable clothing 
brands. Some well-known and trusted 
sustainable brands to look out for are 
Everlane, Pact and Veja which special-
izes in low-impact, sustainably-made 
sneakers. These eco-friendly brands are 
on the rise and cater to a wide variety of 
customers and styles. Look out for com-
panies that market the fact they have 
transparent business models, sustain-
able materials and fair employment.
These types of business are help-
ing to recreate the fashion world into 
a place where working conditions are 
healthy and products are made con-
sciously with a small carbon footprint. 
Some brands use quality materials in 
their products, while others build their 
brand on reusing and revamping recy-
cled fabric. Companies may even solely 
rely on deadstock fabric, which is fabric 
that has been left-over from large textile 
mills or factories. This deadstock fabric 
is then reused in new garments instead 
of simply being thrown away. All of 
these creative approaches to sustainable 
fashion are thoughtful and eco-friendly 
sources for clothing. If individuals begin 
to primarily support corporations that 
use sustainable processes, then, hope-
fully, the rest of the market will shift 
toward prioritizing these values. 
Of course, the price for quality gar-
ments and business is typically much 
steeper than shopping at a fast fashion 
retailer. This economic standpoint is 
what makes fast fashion so appeal-
ing, especially for younger consumers 
who do not want to spend all of their 
money on clothing. If the higher prices 
of sustainable fashion deter you, there 
are ways to shop consciously on a bud-
get. The best option for this is thrift-
ing. Thrift stores are present in almost 
every town across the country. They 
bring in local donations and resell 
them for low prices, and most thrift 
stores carry clothing for everyone. 
Thrifting is a clear way to shop con-
sciously because the money does not 
go directly to fast fashion retailers. It 
is funneled into a charitable organiza-
tion that capitalizes on the values of 
recycling and reusing. Stop in at your 
local thrift shop and see what gems 
you can find. 

Consious consumerism

ANNE ELSE | COLUMN

Anne Else can be reached at 

aelse@umich.edu

Read more at michigandaily.com

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

A

uthoritarianism is a term 
that, 
historically, 
has 
evoked images of violent 
oppression and chaotic military 
coups, and with good reason. From 
Stalin’s Soviet gulags to Augusto 
Pinochet’s militaristic takeover 
of 
the 
Chilean 
government, 
authoritarians have traditionally 
used violence, power and strength 
to forcefully secure power and, 
subsequently, to silence dissenters 
and maintain a firm grip on this 
power. While these types of brutal 
regimes still exist today in places 
such as North Korea, they are less 
common than they once were.
In place of the traditional 
authoritarian regime, the 21st 
century has seen the rise of a less 
extreme, but more sophisticated, 
style of subtle authoritarianism. 
Often dubbed “illiberal democra-
cies,” these regimes take hold in 
democratic countries and rely on 
coercion, corruption and the rage 
of the electorate to gnaw away at 
the liberties and freedoms that are 
essential for a functioning democ-
racy. Using this softer approach, 
leaders in theoretically democratic 
countries such as Turkey and Hun-
gary have been able to push their 
respective nations towards authori-
tarianism, without the violence tra-
ditionally associated with it.
In their quest towards authori-
tarianism, most illiberal democra-
cies follow a relatively similar path. 
First, most rely on a central figure 
— usually a charismatic speaker — 
who declares that there is a fun-
damental problem in the country 
which they alone can fix, while 
whipping up rage among voters. In 
1999, an upstart politician in Tur-
key, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was 
jailed for four months after pub-
licly reading a nationalist, Islam-
themed poem. Two years later, 
Erdogan founded his Islamist AK 
Parti on the values of Turkish 
nationalism and devotion to Islam, 
and by 2003 the AK had a majority 
in Parliament. In Hungary, Vik-
tor Orban’s rise was quite similar. 
His Fidesz Party came into power 
in 2010, with a similar focus on 
nationalism and the “Hungarian” 
people. “I love Hungary, I love 
Hungarians, and I prefer Hungari-
an interests to global financial cap-
ital, or Jewish capital, if you like,” 
said one Fidesz parliament mem-
ber in 2009, explaining the views 
that propelled Orban into office. 
However, being elected is just 
the beginning. What separates 
wannabe-authoritarians 
from 

principled democratic leaders is 
their devotion to systematically 
dismantling institutions which 
protect democracy and limit their 
power. Within the government 
offices, this usually entails replac-
ing qualified bureaucrats, who will 
stand up for democratic principles, 
with loyalists who will rubber-
stamp whatever the leader asks 
for. Beyond that, it also includes 
making legal changes to expand 
the leader’s power. In 2017, a high-
ly controversial public referendum 
orchestrated by Erdogan allowed 
unstamped ballots to be counted as 
valid, expanding his powers mas-
sively. The referendum gave Erdo-
gan the ability to directly appoint 
top officials, intervene in the coun-
try’s legal system and declare a 
state of emergency.
In Hungary, Orban set out to 
enact a similar set of power-con-

centrating reforms. After Fidesz’s 
2010 parliamentary victory, Orban 
immediately gerrymandered dis-
tricts to increase his vote share 
going forward. Since then, he has 
expanded Hungary’s highest court 
in order to pack it with loyalist judges, 
fired civil servants in order to replace 
them with Fidesz loyalists and 
installed partisan supporters into cru-
cial roles such as election overseers.
In tandem with this, another cru-
cial feature of illiberal democracy is 
a shift towards authoritarian public 
oversight. This includes using various 
tactics to censor the press, demonize 
dissenters and ensure it is essentially 
impossible to lose power through 
democratic channels. For Erdogan, 
who has held power as Prime Min-
ister since 2003, creating laws to 
silence dissenting voices in the press 
has been an essential component 
of maintaining power. As part 
of his campaign for total control 
over the press, Erdogan has jailed 
319 journalists and shut down 189 
media outlets. If stifling the media 
isn’t enough to ensure complete 
control, sometimes illiberal demo-
crats decide to simply not accept 

democratic outcomes — something 
Erdogan has done. After a stutter-
ing Turkish economy propelled an 
opposition candidate into the Istan-
bul mayoral office earlier this year 
(this was particularly painful for 
Erdogan, who traditionally has had 
a strong base of support in Istan-
bul), Erdogan eventually ordered 
a recount. He cited vote-counting 
irregularities, yet the case for this 
being legitimate is beyond flimsy. 
Orban has followed suit with 
attacks on independent media 
outlets and democratic channels 
in Hungary. By 2017, it was esti-
mated that 90 percent of Hungar-
ian media outlets were controlled 
either by the government itself 
or by Fidesz supporters. Orban 
accomplished this by using his 
governmental powers to pres-
sure independent news organiza-
tions into selling their companies, 
primarily through financial and 
bureaucratic coercion — withhold-
ing advertising dollars, threatening 
to approve mergers that would hurt 
them, etc. Electorally, Fidesz has 
gone as far as creating fake opposi-
tion parties in order to splinter sup-
port among their opponents and 
retain power.
While these countries may not 
utilize the same overt, militaris-
tic tactics that many 20th century 
authoritarian governments used, 
that does not make their end goals 
any less dangerous. In tandem with 
their repressive policies, illiberal 
democracies are also careful to cul-
tivate the appearance of — at least 
moderate — fairness. For instance, 
Erdogan’s 
aforementioned 
2017 
presidential powers referendum 
didn’t pass with 90 percent of the 
vote, as often happens in authoritar-
ian regimes, but instead a mere 53 
percent. This is exactly what makes 
illiberal democracies so hard to 
push back against: Theoretically, 
it is possible an opposition party 
could win elections in either Tur-
key or Hungary, even if it clearly 
won’t happen. Furthermore, this 
movement has been empowered 
by a global expansion of illiberal 
democracy with varying levels 
of success by state. However, as 
long as prominent global leaders 
like President Donald Trump say 
“People have a lot of respect for 
this prime minister (Orban),” it’s 
exceedingly unlikely that the pow-
ers of illiberal democracy will be 
effectively reigned in. 

Authoritarianism, rebranded for the 21st century

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu

In their quest towards 
authoritarianism, 
most illiberal 
democracies follow a 
relatively similar path 

