A Last Word...Perhaps

I cannot, with a straight face, pretend that I have kept up with this website. Nor, I imagine, have you. For this I offer the following reasons: one, that other work, especially in the educational sector, has multiplied in quantity and quality; two, that I have become more interested in a sports capacity, and have moved on to different internet communities; three, that the sheen of the undiscovered wonders of the internet has largely worn off, which is perhaps not a positive. Nevertheless, I’ve been struggling to get an idea out of my mind, and seeing it as an opportunity to use this site for that purpose which it was originally designed: to offer my own half-assed opinion. Thus, to whosoever may pass by, I ask this question simply as a point for reflection:

I think there is a strong sentiment, amongst the more politically attuned of us, to villainize the Corporation. By this I mean, to render the corporation as a faceless, cruel monster to which we all fall victim – to make it the villain. I am by no means an ardent supporter of MNCs (those who know my political views would know that I am hardly ultra-capitalist), and to some extent this is true. But can we absolve ourselves, the consuming public, of all blame?

There is always a desire to attack corporations for acts that appear quite clearly to be wrongdoings. We condemn the Exxon Valdez for negligence resulting in environmental catastrophe; moreover, we raise the point that double-hulled ships should have been considered necessary. We berate companies for the use of sweatshops and other methods of cutting cost by cutting the quality working conditions. Most obviously, we despise the Bush regime for its apparent economic motives for wars in the Middle East.

Those are all, I hope you agree, terrible things, and I do not argue that such a desire is necessarily misplaced. Anyone who doubts our complicity in these actions will argue that hardly any member of the consuming public would have wished such things to occur, and I can only agree. Complicity can be found in a number of other ways, but again, we can point to fixed elections, limited purchasing capacity, and covered-up information to remove ourselves from the equation. It is these evil corporations and governments who are to blame, and not us. We are two, separate, distinct entities. At least, that is a common attitude.

However, we are inextricably linked. It is naïve, I think, to believe that we are enslaved to these institutions, and that the relationships are not at all reciprocal. After all, as much as we provide funds for them, they are to provide services and products for us. And it is the desire of the vast majority of Western society, I would think, to live as decadently as is possible in our respective incomes. We want to be able to get as much as possible – a result of this is that we, for the most part, demand as low prices as possible. If products A and B could be purchased when manufactured in Country Y for the same price as only product A when manufactured in Country X, the majority of us would want the former. Part of this materialism stems from the relentless advertising of corporations, but more still stems from basic human selfishness.
It is, therefore, not necessarily with great malice that corporations go into third-world countries for manufacturing purposes or raw materials. The Exxon Valdez used a single-hulled ship not out of hatred for the environment but for the desire to offer as low a price as possible: these low-as-possible prices originate from our desire to be able to afford more. The result is that other things: the environment, the third world, etc. end up paying the difference.

The Exxon Valdez, I think, is a good example, because our way of life is entirely predicated on cheap oil, and cheap energy. Suburbia is made possible by it. The ability to have international products and food transported to us is made possible by it. The ability to heat our houses in the winter and cool them in the summer, to power our electronics, to keep our food refrigerated: all of this is made possible (or fueled, to use a pun) by cheap energy.

In this way, in this relentless demand for as low-as-possible prices, we are made indirectly but ultimately very directly complicit. To be sure, much of the wrongdoings of corporations originate from their desire to turn a buck, but a large part of this is to fulfill the demand of low costs to the consumers: because, for the most part, we want to live as decadently as possible, so long as we aren’t directly wronging someone. Out of sight wrongdoings, however, are out of mind.

It is for this reason that I roll my eyes when well-meaning souls muse that they wish everybody had it as good as they do. The polarization of the world is not coincidental or a case of us simply not printing enough money for the other 80%: our standard of life is predicated on the poverty of the rest of the world. I do not feel that blaming the corporation or placing more restrictions on them is a way of solving this issue. We have to take a good look at ourselves. What this means is reduced consumption (alternative forms of energy, for all they’ve been lauded, may not make up for the peaking of oil), and more ethical consumption when we do consume.

Ethical consumption does, of course, mean increased prices. This is a sacrifice we must make if we have any real desire to improve the other man’s lot. Corporations pursue minimum production costs (and thus, largely limited ethical production) because we have dictated that what we desire are minimum prices. If the consuming public should suddenly up and demand more ethical means of manufacturing – in exchange, of course, for a bit more dough – then any moderately intelligent corporation will listen to those demands.

A good example of this idea is the recent phenomenon of “selling green.” A sizeable portion of companies have bought into this, advertising products that make the consumer believe that they are doing something good for the environment. Another, if less wide-spread phenomenon, is that of Fair Trade, a foundation on which Bridgehead has seen a meteoric rise, at least in Ottawa.

This has not been a final solution, however. Companies still often have one small segment of a product be “green,” but market the product as though it is entirely so. This reminds us that many companies remain a part of the problem. But this is a solution that requires us not merely to make ourselves seem the victim, but recognize our role. We must do much of the work. Otherwise, we will continue to close our eyes as we fire bullets into the rest of the world.