“In 2005 Bono and his wife Ali Hewson set up Edun a clothing range that was going to prove there is a different way to end poverty. It was going to be a non-corporate and of course ‘sustainable’.
At he time MSNBC said it would be ‘clothing with a conscience’. Vogue magazine said Edun was going to ‘flip capitalism on its head’.
But now it seems that Bono has now discovered that big companies with their big carbon footprints are useful if you want to keep paying the wages and produce the goods and sell them. Last week the rock star announced he has sold out to LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. Announcing the deal Bono all but admitted that his touchy feely version of capitalism and development just didn’t work…
Neither side felt it necessary to say how much Bono got for selling half the company to LVMH. Edun has, in the past, made much of the company’s transparency. However it seems that the transparency only extends to poking our noses into what the workers earn. Bono and his wife are exempt from such questions. But good luck to them. It is really not important to know how much money they have.
But it is important for them to stop keeping people in poverty in the name of sustainability. We used our resources – we burned coal and oil and chopped down our forests. We drove our cars and flew our planes. We have used capitalism to conquer disease and poverty and as a consequence our children are the best-educated and healthiest in history.
But it seems that now some of these children want to stop the poorest on the planet from having what we have. Bono loves sustainable development but only for other people. U2’s latest album was recorded in separate sessions in France, the UK, Morocco, the US and Dublin. The band is now going on a worldwide tour to promote it.
This is not ‘sustainable’ but it is necessary to keep people in work and to keep Bono’s bank balance healthy. And this is a good thing. U2 will provide employment for hundreds if not thousands through selling the album and going on tour. But it is being done the old fashioned way – through unsustainable but wealth creating capitalism.
If it is good enough for Bono and his band of Irish multi-millionaires then it should be good enough for the poorest on the planet.”
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