Stephon Marbury's Missed Opportunity

Stephon Marbury has gotten a lot of praise for his ultra affordable Starbury line of athletic shoes and clothing. Marbury was even featured on a Rachel Ray show segment concerning affordable kids clothing. The segment focused on a woman named Debbie and her son Elliot, who lamented, "If I don't have what other kids are wearing, they make fun of me and say I must be poor and don't have money," Elliots mom Debbie added, It's a social class thing now more than ever and I sometimes feel bad when I can't give what I want to Elliot because it's too expensive." Marbury expressed solidarity with Debbie and her son saying, "I grew up the same way. I wanted to have all the expensive shoes, but we couldn't afford them."

Surely, kid's clothes can get expensive, especially when kids crave $100 + sneakers in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. In light of this, Stephon Marbury and Steve & Barry's, the outfit that distributes his Starbury line, should be given credit for offering a low cost alternative. In fact, the entire line of Starbury shoes are sold for $14.98 per pair, and every piece in the Starbury clothing line costs no more than $12.98, including items such as basketball shorts, jeans and polo shirts. Prices such as these are vastly lower than the average competitor's prices, and Marbury has even pledged to distribute Starbury sneakers to every high school varsity basketball player in New York City.

However, the glaring weakness in Marbury's populist effort to give back to his community is the fact that his shoes and clothing are largely manufactured in China. In fact, 90% of the Starbury products are produced in China. In a recent Nation article, Howard Schacter of Steve & Barry's pointed out that his company is a member of the Fair Labor Association (FLA) in an effort to deflect criticism targeting Marbury and Steve & Barry's inconsistency. However, merely being a member of the FLA does little to ensure humane working conditions and fair pay to the Chinese toiling to produce low cost footwear and jerseys for American kids. The FLA is an organization created by and made up of the clothing and shoe companies themselves, and is merely an agreement by the companies to adhere to a code of conduct and to conduct internal monitoring. Being a member of the FLA in no way erases the fact that Chinese workers are treated badly and earn very, very little even when companies are adhering to labor regulations - which is what the FLA claims to work to ensure.

For all Marbury's bluster about "giving back" to his community, 15 dollar shoes do little to improve the economic conditions that cause people to require such cheap products in the first place. Beyond the glowing praise the mainstream media has heaped on Mr. Marbury, a closer examination of his retail operation exposes a very common dysfunction. We constantly hear low cost retailers such as Wal-Mart, and now Marbury and Steve & Barry's, justifying their selling out American workers in exchange for slave wage Chinese production operations on pseudo-populist grounds. For instance, retailers such as these often point out the demand for low priced products by consumers. However, the flaw in this argument rests in the fact that these companies draw an artificial distinction between consumers and workers. The truth is that the very consumers that require low priced goods made in China would benefit greatly if companies decided to keep their jobs in the US, where there are more than enough people who would be interested in working at, for instance, a Starbury shoe production plant.

Here lies the true method that Stephon Marbury should have chosen if he truly wanted to give back to his community. When Marbury, the Coney Island, Brooklyn native and star New York Knick point guard, decided that he wanted to help kids have what he did not, he should have started looking for a facility near his hometown in Coney Island. Coney Island - a largely impoverished section of New York City - could have benefited greatly from well paying factory facility for manufacturing Starbury shoes and sewing Starbury clothing. Going even further, Marbury could have empowered his neighborhood further by encouraging Starbury workers to unionize - imagine that.

Let us give Marbury some credit and assume that he considered this (although doubtful), and it became a question of viability. On this point Mr. Marbury has not a leg to stand on given his 20 million dollar salary, and the vast wealth he has no doubt accumulated over his 10 year NBA career. Given his stardom, Marbury could have easily garnered additional investment and community support for his idea of bringing the new hope of empowerment to his beloved Coney Island community. Instead, and sadly, Stephon took the easy route and partnered with Steve & Barry's to produce his goods in slave wage China. He decided to overlook the bigger picture of joblessness, job insecurity and general poverty that have lead to the deterioration of his native community, in favor of more shallow concerns, such as making sure kids have stylin' kicks and fresh cuts - that's right, besides low cost sneakers, Marbury has also contracted 7 Coney Island barbers to hand out free haircuts to local kids.

So, while many formerly poor athletes might leave their communities and never look back from their Jacuzzis, Marbury deserves some credit for at least making an attempt at caring. But in reality and despite his and Steve & Barry's posturing, Marbury's low cost shoes mostly amount to corporate opportunism. Where he could have done something revolutionary in taking part in a revitalization of Coney Island, Marbury instead did something ordinary - producing low cost goods in China to the detriment of American workers and his own community.