From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 08 2005 - 21:56:48 GMT
Hi Ant
Well we can all try to make quality choices,
but the logic of buy as cheap as you can
when your own life is economically insecure
has a very warping effect on the quality of decisions.
Looks like market forces keep going towards their
well known end. Is there an alternative? Once again
I recommend Roy Bhaskar.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ant McWatt" <antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 10:46 PM
Subject: MD Where the ads take aim
At the end of his November 6th post, Matt Poot asked our opinion about the
high percentage of mass produced consumer goods available in the West made
in China and other countries with (relatively) low quality working
conditions:
>What do you think guys (gals)?
>
Matt,
I think what you observed in your tour of Toronto shoe shops was quite
disturbing. And I'm afraid to say that if you made a similar excursion in
any typical UK town, I highly doubt it would be too different.
This is why I think developing a critical attitude towards advertising and
the mass media in general is so important whether it's in the form of a
(non-relativist?) social sciences degree, visiting exhibitions such as Ed
Burtynsky's "Manufactured Landscapes" or reading books such as Naomi's
Klein's "No Logo". In fact, the latter has now spawned a dedicated website
at: http://www.nologo.org which addresses a number of the central issues
(summarised below):
1. Why do people work in sweatshops if the conditions are so bad? Aren't
jobs in sweatshops better than traditional farming jobs?
People take jobs in sweatshops because working in a sweatshop is better than
watching your family starve. But what sort of a choice is that? What sort of
standard of human dignity does it represent?
People who work in sweatshops. frequently come from communities that used to
subsist by means of communal and traditional farming methods. Free trade
agreements have displaced them, or their land has been expropriated as
governments have altered communal land ownership laws to make their
countries more appealing to foreign investors. Without land, and without
communal infrastructure to support them through difficult farming cycles, it
ceases to be possible for families to sustain themselves by farming. The
social fabric of the community is also torn and damaged.
Many workers would much rather farm long and physically gruelling hours
because that would preserve their community's capacity for economic and
political self-determination, their access to their land. However, when that
ceases to be an option, they can only survive if family members, often young
women, take jobs in sweatshops..
2. Is there a website that has a complete list of bad corporations, and that
documents labour and environmental abuses perpetrated by each one?
There are a number of very informative sites (but none that are entirely
comprehensive).
www.transnationale.org is a "citizens" portal on brands and corporations".
You can search for the profile of one of over 9,500 companies in the
transnationale data-base. Profiles list the subsidiaries or parent companies
of the brand, their social and environmental records, the numbers of jobs
they have cut and their human rights abuses.
www.corpwatch.org features news, analysis and exposes about various
corporations with records of environmental, labour, or social injustices. It
also highlights specific campaigns. It does not have a vast data-base of
information about corporations, but the reports and exposés it does publish
can be very useful. The site also has a guide to doing on-line research on
corporations.
corporatewatch.org.uk should not be confused with the US-based Corp Watch
cited above; the two are independent of each other. The Corp Watch UK site
does have a database of profiles of some well-known environmental and labour
offenders. Corp Watch UK is a research and publishing group that focuses on
corporations. In addition to the website, it puts out a bi-monthly
newsletter. It is also a workers' co-op.
3. How can I consume ethically, since it is almost impossible to buy
anything that hasn't been produced under poor labour conditions, for
slave-wages or by companies with poor environmental records? Is it best to
boycott the biggest or most famous labour and environmental offenders like
Nike, Gap, Shell or McDonald's?
Big question. It highlights the deep limitations of consumer activism.
Our economic system makes it almost impossible to consume 'ethically', since
everything that is produced within it is produced through the exploitation
of human labour and of the environment.
Free-market capitalism is founded on one value: the maximization of profit.
Other values, like human dignity and solidarity, or environmental
sustainability, are disregarded as soon as they limit potential profit [i.e.
social values immorally taking precedent over intellectual values].
For example, if you own a manufacturing company in a market system that puts
you in competition with other manufacturers, one way you maximize profit is
by trying to produce things at lower cost than other companies. If that
means reducing the wages of your employees - so be it. And if people in one
country won't work for less than you're paying them, you can move the
factory to a locale where farmers displaced from their land by the
construction of trade corridors or other industrial investment plans will
work for slave-wages..
Advocates of 'ethical consumption' and consumer activism believe the
capitalist myth that free-markets ensure that production conforms to
freely-made consumer choices. In fact, our choices are frequently
manipulated by companies with multi-million dollar marketing budgets that
they spend to increase demand and justify surplus production..
That said, to critique consumer activism isn't to say that consumer boycotts
are always a bad tactic. In fact, consumer boycotts that target particular
corporate offenders give activists a chance to really illuminate the
oppressions that capitalism allows and encourages.
But capitalism, and the colonialism and imperialism that found it, can only
be challenged if we understand ourselves as people and as political agents
struggling against a web of interconnected systems of domination - not
merely as consumers trying to make the least evil choice. Real political
change can't be bought by the dollars wealthy people can spend on niche
markets. Our political power does not reside in our capacity as consumers,
but in our capacity as human agents fighting on many fronts for the justice
and dignity of all people. [And being a pragmatist, I think that also
includes philosophy and, in particular, the analysis of values].
4. How can I get involved in the movement for global justice?
Look around you and think about the causes of the injustices staring you
back. Look at your food and recognize the exploitation of migrant workers
who grow your food, or at your clothes and see the enslavement of the
sweatshop workers who sew them. Look at the homeless person down the street
and figure out how many people have been the evicted in your town because of
rising rents and cuts to welfare.
Build solidarity between local movements by drawing connections between
issues that are perceived to be discrete. Draw parallels and make links
between the struggles you're involved in locally and similar struggles
taking place internationally.
-----------------------------
In other words, dare I say it, take a more enlightened broader view of
things (as summarised nicely by Marsha's Wombat found at:
www.globalcommunity.org/flash/wombat.shtml).
Best wishes,
Anthony.
P.S. Here's a more complete version of the light hearted description of
advertisers by Bill Hicks mentioned in DMB's excellent introduction to this
subject on November 4th:
"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself.
Thank you, thank you. Just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds.
Maybe one day they'll take root. I don't know. You try. You do what you can.
Kill yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. No really, there's no
rationalisation for what you do, and you are Satan's little helpers filling
the planet with filth and bile, kill yourself. I don't care how you do it.
Suck on a tailpipe, swallow some pills, borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy,
but kill yourself... OK? Kill yourselves, seriously. You're the ruiner of
all things good. Seriously, no, this is not a joke. 'There's gonna be a joke
coming...' There's no fucking joke coming, you are Satan's spawn, filling
the world with bile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill
yourselves, it's the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself, kill
yourself now. Now, back to the show."
(http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives/2004/05/who_was_bill_hi.php)
.
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Messenger 7.5 is now out. Download it for FREE here.
http://messenger.msn.co.uk
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Nov 08 2005 - 23:17:47 GMT