[Wolves] activists linux...

[Chris Owen]

OK, so now I understand myself as a person and a political agent
'struggling
against a web of interconnected systems of
domination'.

::WAITS::

No - nothing has changed, but I'm OK now because I understand myself.

Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: fizzy [mailto:fizzyorguk@yahoo.com]=20
Sent: 18 September 2003 07:59
To: wolves@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: RE: RE: [Wolves] activists linux...

 --- Chris Owen <Chris.Owen@wmro.org> wrote:=20
> Confucius he say:
>=20
> 'When you want to build a new house, its best not to
> knock down your old
> one first, otherwise you get very wet and cold for
> six months'
>=20
> Chris

Naomi Klein, she say:

""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.

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.

(For practise imagining a different economic system,
take a look at the Participatory Economics Project.)

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.

Besides, even if our consumption choices were freely
made and had the power to shape a more humane economic
system, the basic "one dollar, one vote" principle
underlying most forms of consumer activism would still
be inherently unjust. 'Ethical alternatives' like Fair
Trade coffee, for example, or organic food, or shoes
made in workshops by artisans who get a "fair" wage
for their work, generally cost at least two or three
times as much as "regular" products. So it is easier
for wealthy people to choose the "clean",
"environmentally friendly" or "ethical" alternatives
that the market does offer than it is for poor people
who can't afford to pay. The "one dollar, one vote"
principle that is the basis of most consumer activism
accepts without protest a strategy for change in which
poor people have less power to shape a just economic
system than wealthy people. In other words, consumer
activism marginalizes those who are already most
marginalized by the current economic system, even as
it attempts to reform that system. Any such strategy
is bound to fail and result in continued injustice.

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."

fizz

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