Craft capitalism: Just do it yourself

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE—The declaration from the Handmade Consortium materialized on a Web site called buyhandmade.org in late October. “I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me,” it said, and you could type in your name to “sign” on. Within weeks, more than 6,500 people had done so.”Buying handmade is better for people,” a statement on the site read in part, and “better for the environment,” because mass production is a “major cause” of global warming, among other things. There were links to an anti-sweatshop site and a Wal-Mart watchdog site.The pledge echoed the idealistic language of an environmental advocacy group, but actually the consortium’s most prominent member was the online shopping bazaar Etsy, a for-profit entity. Etsy is an online craft fair where individuals from all over the world sell things that they have made.How many such people can there be? At last count, more than 70,000 – about 90 percent of whom were women – were using Etsy to peddle their jewelry, art, toys, clothes, dishware, stationery, ‘zines and other objects. Each seller has a profile page telling shoppers a bit about themselves, and maybe offering a link to a blog or a MySpace page or a mailing list. Read article.