Globalization & consumerism: Be a blessing and not a curse
Continued globalization of our economy is inevitable. Sometimes this is visible and obvious. You can choose to buy a foreign car or an American car. However, even such a visible distinction often isn’t representative of the entire picture. “American” cars may be made by American companies but built in Mexico. Another “American” car might be assembled in the U.S., but be comprised largely of imported parts. Conversely, “foreign” cars may be made by companies listed on a foreign stock exchange and built here in America, sourced largely with American-made parts.
Most new cars will have a label identifying which country the car was assembled in and percents identifying the major regions where the parts for the car came from. In some abstract sense you can know where and how your car was made.
Typically your clothes will have a label identifying what country they were made in. Have you ever thought about who made those clothes or in what working condition they were made with? It’s usually pretty hard to identify the factory it was made in, or in what working conditions.
What about the food we eat? In my hand I have an oats & chocolate energy bar. The label identifies 27 ingredients that make up this energy bar. I’m not sure what half of these ingredients are. What’s “maltodextrin”, “natural flavor”, or “color added”? I may be uncertain about what these ingredients are, but I have no idea where any of them came from. I can see that the bar is “distributed by” a company here in Minneapolis, but there’s no information on where the factory is that produced the bar or much less where the individual ingredients came from.
I recently learned that a significant amount of cocoa is harvested by children in forced labor (aka slavery) in West Africa. More specifically, 284,000 children toil in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa fields. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Many of my go-to snacks – like the aforementioned energy bar – contain chocolate. While surely some of the chocolate I eat contains cocoa that wasn’t harvested by child slaves, it is inescapable that I have consumed large quantities of chocolate that came from the labor of child slaves. Wow.
So, what can we possibly do about this? Can an individual really make a difference? Well, for one, I’m going to start by eating significantly less chocolate. For whatever reason, this is harder than it seems. My favorite expensive coffee drinks contain chocolate. My cheap (money and calorie-wise) go-to snacks contain chocolate. However, I’ll work on finding alternatives.
But what if there was an opportunity to turn this would-be curse into a blessing? You’re probably familiar with fair trade coffee. But did you know that there are a whole host of other things that can be purchased fair trade? There are fair-trade options for chocolate, jewelry, clothing, handbags, and many other items. Buying fair trade ensures that workers receive a sustainable wage.
As the preceding video said – if every “churchgoer” bought just one fair-trade item per year, it would lift 1,000,000 people out of poverty for that year. Suddenly, there’s an opportunity to make a difference. It can be overwhelming to think about where everything we buy comes from. And, short of making everything ourselves or buying everything locally, it’s nearly impossible to know with certainty that everything we buy and consume was produced with sustainable labor. However, we can all commit to buying a portion of fair-trade produced goods.
Doing so not only benefits the families and individuals that helped produce the goods, it helps to send a message to industries that we actually care about this. It’s no longer difficult to purchase fair-trade coffee – most coffeehouses and supermarkets have fair-trade coffee options for purchase. If enough people voice their opinion with their purchasing habits, imagine seeing fair-trade candy bars at your supermarket or convenience station in the not-too-distant future.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:05 am
I wasn’t going to comment — as I believe I agree with the the main point of your post. I have decided to chime in, however, after reading your facebook introduction to the post in which you stated: “Globalization is inevitable. Turn it into a blessing and not a curse.” Perhaps you worded it that way to entice more readers – but in case that is your basic stance, thought I’d say a few things
I agree that there are major problems with some of the goods we purchase from around the world. There are, sadly, very evil people in this world who are taking advantage of others — the child slaves one horrible example and we should do what we can – as little as it may seem – to bring this to an end. I believe, however, that “globalization” is not the curse that causes these things.
For every case that someone has been taken advantage of, I am certain there are countless others who have been lifted out of poverty by the onset of global free trade which has given them a whole world of people to buy their goods.
Just as families are richer and better off when they choose not to produce everything by themselves, and choose to cooperate and trade with their neighbors, and communities are richer when they cooperate and trade with other communities blessed with different natural advantages, so do nations get richer when they freely trade with the other nations of the world. An arbitrary political boundary doesn’t change the fact that we are better off by trade.
Anyway – I know the main point of your post was regarding buying goods produced by sustainable labor and that you are advocating buying fair trade (neither points of which I disagree with) – therefore I’m probably ‘arguing’ against a position you don’t even hold, but I got the sense reading it plus the fb comment that you are treating globalization as a necessary evil. I happen to believe it is rather a great blessing — one which is at times corrupted (like every good thing on earth) but is at its heart something that makes everybody (or least a lot of us) better off.
Thanks for the article! Very interesting as it’s always rewarding to think about such issues. My apologies if I misconstrued your views too much!
October 30th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Hey Neil-
Thanks for your feedback!
I guess I’m guilty of using a divisive or polarizing title to get people to read the post… My apologies.
The “curse” I was primarily talking about is not globalization or free-trade in general, but the specific curse of some people producing our goods in slavery. By making a few alterations in our purchasing habits, we can turn a would-be curse (supporting slavery or other exploitative working conditions, even if doing so unknowingly on our part) into a blessing by choosing to support goods that we know are produced with sustainable labor.
To clarify, I don’t think globalization is a “necessary evil”. I’m very supportive of many (perhaps even most) aspects of globalization and free-trade.
A few examples…
I prefer to buy Japanese cars (even if most of them have been made in America).
I have had a number of what I believe to be mutually positive and beneficial experiences with outsourcing IT labor in various capacities to developed and emerging economies — the UK, India, Argentina, Philippines, and Brazil are the main ones that come to mind.
And, I’m sure many more items I purchase every day are the result of positive aspects of globalization.
All I was intending to say is that sometimes unchecked globalization and free trade can lead to exploitative conditions. I don’t think that’s the default mode of operation, and I think in many cases free trade can provide great opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be available to those in poverty.
Unfortunately, it can become more difficult to know about or see exploitative conditions when they’re so far removed from us geographically. But where we know there are exploitative conditions we should stand up and stand against that. And if there are free-trade options pursue them.
In many respects I think there are numerous positive aspects to globalization. I’m sorry my polarizing title misrepresented my views – and thank you for commenting so I could clarify!
October 30th, 2009 at 1:27 am
One random related thought — hopefully as technologies like the internet spread to around the globe and even into poorer areas, these exploitative situations will be harder to hide.