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sophiaserpentiaThe Gap has gone into full PR-damage control mode after it was revealed that one of their vendors was selling them clothing made by literal child slaves.
They have plausible deniability of course, because they buy from vendors who hired subcontractors to make their clothing. And they probably are actually appalled by the problem itself, not just by the criticism they're facing. They never told anyone to purchase children as slaves... they just gave their business to whoever could come up with clothing at the lowest price.
The Marxian term for the process at work here is commodity fetishism, which is a distortion in social priorities brought about by putting price tags on things. It's a distortion which blinkers us to the causal effects of our decision-making, the long-range or distant ethical ramifications of continuous cost-cutting and profit-maximization.
One aspect of this distortion is the devaluation, and subsequent discarding, of children.
In the agricultural and pastoral economy, children are a boon and blessing; in the urbanized economic model, they are (economically speaking) a burden. It is not a simple matter of children working on farms and ranches but not working in markets or factories - throughout most of history (including the present), children have occupied a place in the urban division of labor. No, the real issue is that in an urban economy people are separated from the wealth they create. They make things or perform services, for which they receive a wage which is not - which is never - equal to the average revenue product of their labor. What that means, in plain language, is that a person is never paid a wage equal to the value their labor creates.
That extra value is sucked up by the upper class. This is how it is that the gap between rich and poor tends to grow, and this is part of what i have, for two years now, referred to as slow-motion cannibalism.
Simply by virtue of existing in an urbanized society, an individual wage earner can statistically expect their net value to decrease over time. Some people manage to improve their lot; for every one who does, there are two or three who sink further into the whole. This is reflected in our financial life by perpetual debt; unless one owns property and capital, one is in debt forever to landlords and to banks. And to a poor family which has little of worth to give a child upon their birth, a child is an economic drain from the instant she or he is born.
It is a drain that people are willing to bear because of love. But being in debt makes you vulnerable. And a family that starts out with a margin of zero is on very thin ice indeed. Any kind of mishap - an illness, a drought, an inopportune death, and suddenly the unthinkable becomes the inevitable.
There are certain realities that are not altered by economic or political philosophy, and one of these realities is that the survival and caretaking of an individual human child represents a tremendous investment, of time, energy... even of love.
However, because of the way commodity fetishism works, this investment is not recognized as such. It is not recognized as an undertaking which creates value, even though it does. Viewed through dollar-sign-colored-glasses, the investment of raising a child is invisible, contrasted with the investment of buying a new piece of factory equipment.
When bankers run into problems, other capitalists and the government rush to prop them up. But when parents run into problems, they are on their own, a problem exacerbated by the urban breakdown of the extended family. On their own, with no prospects of aid or rescue, a desperate family will turn to horrific measures to survive - selling a child into slavery, or prostituting them, or killing them.
As an alternate vision, imagine a society that does recognize and give value to the investment of child-raising. Imagine a society where parents who run into difficulty are able to draw upon assistance based on the capital of their investment in the future. This would have to be a society where people ask, "How does this benefit us?" instead of, "How does this benefit me?"
We are only a state of mind away from it.
They have plausible deniability of course, because they buy from vendors who hired subcontractors to make their clothing. And they probably are actually appalled by the problem itself, not just by the criticism they're facing. They never told anyone to purchase children as slaves... they just gave their business to whoever could come up with clothing at the lowest price.
The Marxian term for the process at work here is commodity fetishism, which is a distortion in social priorities brought about by putting price tags on things. It's a distortion which blinkers us to the causal effects of our decision-making, the long-range or distant ethical ramifications of continuous cost-cutting and profit-maximization.
One aspect of this distortion is the devaluation, and subsequent discarding, of children.
In the agricultural and pastoral economy, children are a boon and blessing; in the urbanized economic model, they are (economically speaking) a burden. It is not a simple matter of children working on farms and ranches but not working in markets or factories - throughout most of history (including the present), children have occupied a place in the urban division of labor. No, the real issue is that in an urban economy people are separated from the wealth they create. They make things or perform services, for which they receive a wage which is not - which is never - equal to the average revenue product of their labor. What that means, in plain language, is that a person is never paid a wage equal to the value their labor creates.
That extra value is sucked up by the upper class. This is how it is that the gap between rich and poor tends to grow, and this is part of what i have, for two years now, referred to as slow-motion cannibalism.
Simply by virtue of existing in an urbanized society, an individual wage earner can statistically expect their net value to decrease over time. Some people manage to improve their lot; for every one who does, there are two or three who sink further into the whole. This is reflected in our financial life by perpetual debt; unless one owns property and capital, one is in debt forever to landlords and to banks. And to a poor family which has little of worth to give a child upon their birth, a child is an economic drain from the instant she or he is born.
It is a drain that people are willing to bear because of love. But being in debt makes you vulnerable. And a family that starts out with a margin of zero is on very thin ice indeed. Any kind of mishap - an illness, a drought, an inopportune death, and suddenly the unthinkable becomes the inevitable.
There are certain realities that are not altered by economic or political philosophy, and one of these realities is that the survival and caretaking of an individual human child represents a tremendous investment, of time, energy... even of love.
However, because of the way commodity fetishism works, this investment is not recognized as such. It is not recognized as an undertaking which creates value, even though it does. Viewed through dollar-sign-colored-glasses, the investment of raising a child is invisible, contrasted with the investment of buying a new piece of factory equipment.
When bankers run into problems, other capitalists and the government rush to prop them up. But when parents run into problems, they are on their own, a problem exacerbated by the urban breakdown of the extended family. On their own, with no prospects of aid or rescue, a desperate family will turn to horrific measures to survive - selling a child into slavery, or prostituting them, or killing them.
As an alternate vision, imagine a society that does recognize and give value to the investment of child-raising. Imagine a society where parents who run into difficulty are able to draw upon assistance based on the capital of their investment in the future. This would have to be a society where people ask, "How does this benefit us?" instead of, "How does this benefit me?"
We are only a state of mind away from it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 06:50 pm (UTC)My mother's Uncle Henry worked for himself his entire life. He locked up his hardware store at lunchtime and went home for lunch every day. He retired when he was 80. He was active during his 80s. He broke his hip falling off a ladder in his late 80s. The docs told him he would never be able to walk without a walker. That gave him incentive to prove the docs wrong, which he did. His health did not begin to fail until his early 90s. His mind was sharp until the very end.
I had an ancient Aunt who ran a family farm when she was over 100. I only met her once when I was a young teen. Her body was very frail, but her mind was sharp enough to manage the farm, which her adult sons and grandchildren physically worked. I knew a number of old farmers who worked on family farms their whole lives (back when I was a teen and a member of the Grange), whose minds were sharp and their bodies healthy in their 70s and 80s.
OTOH, People I have known who gave away huge portions of the wealth of their labor to the ruling class either as wage slaves or salaried people with no overtime pay have all had declining mental and physical health as they aged.
For my entire adult life I have predominantly worked for myself, either in partnerships or being self-employed for *exactly* the reasons I delineated above.
So your post really hits the nail on the head! Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 08:11 pm (UTC)Suffice it to say that Empire runs on starvation and addiction.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 05:41 am (UTC)