What Is The Human Liberty Index?
The Human Liberty Index (HLI) allows you to see what is likely the most impacting pricing variable for shaving products, the freedom of the workers assembling these products. Globalization has normalized the costs of raw materials and the technology required to build shaving products and many other products like them. In almost all cases cheaper products are made in locations with cheaper labor. Often the quality is just as good, the unseen cost is most often the liberty of the workers that made the razor you hold each morning.
Below we will outline the reasons we have decided to continue to sell products from countries that are on the bottom of our Human Liberty Index, and why we prefer that consumers buy products from countries that are in the Top 50 of the HLI.
How is the Human Liberty Index calculated?
The Wet Shaving Club has created a blended index using the data compiled from other similar existing indexes. By using an average of these indices, we can leverage the hard work of other specialized studies, while trying to stay neutral to any specific organization/agenda. The indices currently being averaged (with equal weighting) are below:
- The Human Freedom Index – Cato Institute
- Measures factors such as freedom of religion, freedom of movement, security and safety, freedom of expression and others (Source Here).
- The Democracy Index – The Economist Intelligence Unit
- Measures factors such as the electoral process, pluralism, functioning government, civil liberties and more (Source Here)
Both indices above assign a score to every country based on their own respective categories, and then rank those countries based on the “overall score”. Our index, The Human Liberty Index, takes the average of these sources to provide you more information for your buying decision.
Why Do We Recommend Using The Human Liberty Index?
As a new retailer (see our About Us), we have spent countless hours on sourcing goods from distributors, wholesalers, or even direct from manufacturers around the globe.
What we have found is not profound. For the most part, there is an inverse relationship between the price a good can be acquired and the freedoms (or liberties) of the individuals who are creating them.
This spurred a desire in us to educate consumers and to bring more awareness to the plight (or relative fortune) of those producing these products.
Simply put. Most often, the cheaper the good, the lower the laborer’s liberty.
You Don't Agree With Our Rankings?
We don’t agree with our rankings either. We believe the United States is the best country on earth, and therefore should be ranked #1. But we have never been to New Zealand (Ranked #1), and we know little about it. Therefore, as stated above, our index is an index of indices. More importantly, if you look at the Top 50, we believe residents from all 50 countries could make arguments for why they should be ranked #1. In the end, that is not important. I think we can all agree, that we would prefer to live in those Top 50 countries, as opposed to the Bottom 50 Countries.
Our suggestion is to focus less on whether you would place one country higher than another and focus more on the overall point of the index. Which is to help you, the consumer, understand where the products you are buying are made, and the cost of human liberty in those places.
We Sell Products Made In China.
Therefore We Don’t Judge Those Who Buy Them.
There is a fair debate on whether purchasing goods from these countries will make them less free, or more free in the long run. There is also a debate on whether their lives would be worse, or better, if we stopped buying goods from them. Would this push their governments towards a more free society? Or would this push their governments towards harsher authoritarian tactics? We don’t pretend to know the answer to that question.
We carry products made in China, and made in other places that are ranked poorly in our Human Liberty Index. We carry them because there is a consumer demand for them. If we are willing to make money on these products, it would be hypocritical for us to judge those that are willing to buy them.
Our goal is to inform the consumer, and let the consumer make the decision based on their own moral standards.
Top 20 Countries - Human Liberty Index
Bottom 50 Countries - Human Liberty Index
Full List
