Capitalism & The American Dream.

“Americans may be the only pure capitalists left in the world. Adam Smith’s ideas of an unfettered marketplace where individual sellers and buyers compete to maximize their property holdings is the primary playing field for living out the American Dream. Were the capitalist arena to be seriously compromised, the American Dream would suffer. That’s why Americans are so fiercely loyal to the tenets of capitalist theory. They are they alpha and omega of our way of life, without which the American Dream would be an impossibility.” – Jeremy Rifkin in the European Dream

Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

Here’s another story from the margins. That you won’t hear about in the marketing campaigns that flash across our screens and sell our magazines.

From Samima.

My name is Samima Akther. I am twenty-one years old. I have been working in garment factories for three years. Since February I have been working in Shah Makdhum as a sewing operator.

I produce shirts including Disney’s “Pooh” label. My operation is joining the side seams of the shirt. In my factory, each line has thirty-three machines. Each line produces 120 shirts per hour, a total of 1,320 shirts a day if we work eleven hours.

Until recently, I had to work from 8 am until 10 pm each day. We get only two days off a month. I walk to work and back because I cannot afford to take a bus or bicycle rickshaw, which would cost 450 taka a month. In dollars that would be $7.84 or 27 cents a day. The factory is three kilometers away, and it takes thirty minutes to walk. I normally get home at 10:30 pm.

I get a regular wage of 1,650 taka a month, not counting overtime. In dollars this comes to $28.75 (a month), or 14 cents an hour.

Because we have to work very long hours, seven days a week, we have no family life, no personal life, no social life.

If the last sentence doesn’t remind you of slavery, then you’re blind. Samima is nothing more than a cog in a machine that produces “fluff” for us. We buy our kids toys. We buy ourselves toys. We buy ourselves clothes to make ourselves look good. Meanwhile, people . . . real people work 28 days a month, 12 hours a day, for $28. Meanwhile Disney’s shareholders and executives reap insane profits.

Perhaps both the consumer and the producer are just cogs in the machine.

[tags]Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Disney, Colonialism, Sweat Shop Labor[/tags]

Hot Dogs, Big Screens, & Excess.

So if you weren’t paying attention yesterday . . . in the midst of flag waving and fireworks . . . Joey Chestnut ate 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, shattering the world record by 9 and beating 6 time champion Takeru Kobayashi. The title of world’s biggest hot dog eater is safely back in American hands. Thank God.

There is something terribly wrong in the world when a group of people can get together to eat massive amounts of food in a short amount of time and get televised on national television . . . when over half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. Only in America.

But just so everyone realizes what a hypocrite I am . . . for the past 2 weeks I’ve been considering buying a flat-screen HDTV. I haven’t yet because I keep wrestling with that pesky Jesus. Truth be told, it’s a great price at $534.99. But do I need the tv? Not really. The main reason I want it is so that I can have better graphics when I play my video games. So I’m essentially contemplating a television for the sole purpose of having better picture when I play video games and watch the one tv show worth anything . . . LOST. Is that worth $534.99? It probably is. Again, it’s not a bad price. And it’s not like I have tons of other things that I buy. I’m really good about the clothes that I buy, only buying things at the thrift store or sparingly elsewhere. I check out books from the library. I don’t really have any hobbies. We give to some very cool groups. So technically it’s probably not that excessive for us. But is it? Would my life be any less entertaining if I didn’t have it? What could that $534.99 buy? What could it be used for?

Buying televisions for video games when I should really be reading a book anyway.

And don’t get me started on the iPhone. I had a dream about it the other night. My high school chemistry teacher (don’t ask) had one and was holding it out for me to to let me touch it and when Anna woke me up. I was about 6 inches away from it. I know it’s creepy and sad and weird. But it is so beautiful. I want it. I must have it. It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

It’s a shame that as a culture we are so used to excess that we don’t even recognize it anymore.

And it’s a shame that I’ll probably wrestle with this decision for another month. The entire time talking about ethics and Jesus and taking the moral high road. Feel good about myself. And then break down and buy it.

I’m a hypocrite.

New Podcast With Ariah Fine.

We’ve got a new podcast up. It’s a short little conversation between Ariah Fine (pronounced a-RYE-ah) and myself about corporate responsibility. It’s sort of a continuation and development of some of the themes that we discussed in our collaborative blogging effort called Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

This will also be a new monthly feature where we will devote a whole podcast to a conversation between Ariah and myself. We’ll try to highlight companies that have practice sustainability while hosting conversations between various entrepreneurs and companies that are playing a positive role in the world.

Ariah is also an active and thought-provoking blogger who lives in intentional community in the city of Nashville. He’s a Wheaton grad, former Americorps, and a good podcaster in his own right.

In this episode we briefly share how we are trying to integrate the spiritual into all of our lives, including our spending and purchasing habits. Within the last week, Ariah also became a father, and shares some of the obvious and not so obvious tensions and fears with raising a kid in by the ethics and values of simple living. So stop by and introduce yourself to one of my new friends and the newest member of The Nick & Josh Podcast family.

Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

Here’s a short 1 minute video of Jenrain’s story that I made last week. Forgive the cheesiness of my voice-over reading.

And here’s another story of a worker who makes things she can’t afford and can’t enjoy so that we can have excess. Sadly, this is what would be considered an “above average” work life in an overseas factory.

I don’t share these stories as a pompous detached white boy. But rather to show you how full of contradictions I am. For example check out the first four photos from our Sunday house cleaning session. We have a table full of stuff. Made 2 trips to Goodwill. Threw away 2 garbage bags. And have 7 rubbermaid tubs full to the brim. And that’s just what we cleaned out of our cabinets and closets. That’s just the stuff we don’t use on a regular basis, i.e. 6 months or so. And we only live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. Less than 1500 square feet. Talk about embarrassing gross excess.

Anyway . . .

From Samima.

I cannot support myself with the wage I am getting. I have rice and lentils for breakfast, rice and mashed potato for lunch, and for supper rice and vegetables. I eat chicken once a month when I get paid, and maybe twice a month I buy a small piece of fish.

If we want to use the bathroom, we have to get permission from the supervisor, and he monitors the time. If someone takes too long for any reason, the supervisor shouts at her and humiliates her, calling her names. If someone makes a mistake, the supervisor docks four or five hours of overtime wage, or lists her as absent, taking the whole day’s wage.

In my factory there is no day care, no medical facilities. The women don’t receive maternity benefits. The overtime is mandatory, but we are always cheated on our overtime pay. The supervisor makes us sign two separate payroll sheets. One tells the truth – that we worked four or five hours of overtime each day. The other says that we only worked two hours of overtime each day, as our labor law requires. That is the one they show to the buyers.

Our lives have been stolen. We are treated like animals, and any workers who attempt to get together a union are fired immediately and may be blacklisted. We feel that we have been born only to serve the needs of the owners.

[tags]Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Colonialism, Sweat Shop Labor[/tags]