Question

Identify any item you have purchased in the last year and describe;  

1. Who benefited from you buying it?
2. Who may have been exploited through its production or distribution?
3. Did you consider the above questions or broader patterns of global inequality when you bought the item? And if so how?
4. How has what you learned in this course affected whether you would buy the item again?
5. Do today's forms of ethical consumerism and fair trade go far enough in addressing the problems of neoliberal globalization?

Answer 1

A few months back I bought a LG OLED TV.

As a corporation and manufacturer, LG benefitted from it. The dealer, the distributor and the salesman were also direct beneficiaries of this purchase.

The TV is manufactured in India. Some parts required for manufacturing might have come from other places such as China, Taiwan, Japan etc too. During the manufacturing, the people who are most likely to have been exploited are the assembly and manufacturing workers- who might have needed to work long hours under gruelling conditions for very little pay. The distribution wouldve required transport workers who drive non stop for long hours to make deliveries on time and with products intact.

To be fair, I did not really consider the condition of the workers and other people who were involved in making and getting this product to me.

The course has taught me about many hidden stakeholders in a product process. Many of these stakeholders have very little voice and power in the process and do not get their due share. It has made me realize that as a consumer, my choices matter in voicing for those people. I must be more aware and vocal about what I will buy and how its affecting people world over.

Today's forms of ethical consumerism and fair trade definitely do not go far enough in addressing these issues. Big corporations exploit cheap labor in developing countries while very few consumers care enough to matter. The whole supply chain is buily in a way which makes it very difficult for even the most aware consumer to make sure that they are not buying something that was built by exploiting cheap labor. There is a lot of money involved and both the corporations and the local governments in the developing countries are complicit in perpetuating this.