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Toms Shoes 1-for-1 formula

example · retold in 5 talks

For every pair of shoes you buy, another pair goes to a child in need, the formula lets consumerism present itself as philanthropy, so the more you consume the more virtuous you are.

2009: 4 talks 2010: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 5

“you may engage in consumerism because the more you do it, the more also those who are excluded profit by it”
“the sin—if you pay a little bit more for the sin, you can buy way of sinning. At the same time buy your own redemption already.”
“one for one one act of consumerism but included in it you pay for being redeemed of it”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

Its cast and sources

populated by
alongside works

Every retelling 5

For every pair of shoes you buy, another pair goes to a child in need, the formula lets consumerism present itself as philanthropy, so the more you consume the more virtuous you are., illustrating cultural capitalism,pseudo-activity
For every pair of Toms Shoes bought (at a premium), a pair is donated to a child in Africa. The consumer no longer has to feel guilty separately, the redemption is included in the price of sinning., illustrating ideology appearing as non-ideology,semantic density
An American company gives a pair of shoes to an African nation for every pair bought; Žižek uses this to show how one act of consumerism includes the payment for being redeemed from it., illustrating cultural capitalism,logic of chocolate laxative
Toms Shoes sells shoes on the promise that each purchase donates a pair to a child in need. Žižek reads the 'One for One' motto as the ideological mechanism of cultural capitalism: consumerism pays for its own sin and thereby legitimates itself., illustrating cultural capitalism,constitutive ideology
1:01:02 We’re Only Human2009-10-20 · 1:20:27
For every pair of shoes purchased, Toms gives a pair to a child in need, the formula that lets consumerism justify itself: the more you consume, the more the excluded benefit., illustrating cultural capitalism