In this article we take a look at the global cause and effect of consumerism. Parents are going wild at christmas knocking out other people’s kids for gadgets & toys. Meanwhile in the workshops of modern day slavery of supply for a demand gone too far, children deprived of life’s basic necessities are still being ignored. As a child I didn’t realize why society tends to place materialism over more caring human values. In 2017 wealth is poorly distributed, low income earners are buying expensive goods made by even lower income earners who can’t afford the goods they are producting. The production of these goods, cheap & expensive, can have hazardous processes affecting workers, consumers and the environment. Around the world places like China, Japan, U.S., UK, Germany, France, Dubai, are powerhouses for brands advertising jewelry, fashion, electronics, cars, and other products. A strong recognition with “the dream” lifestyle can lead to human slavery, over expectations of status, blinding limelight personas and other external sources of fulfillment, when lack of self knowledge trades spiritual values for material values, that is when our spiritual bondage to the materials occurs. Through advertising and other mainstream media brainwashing, identities can become out of balance but it's not too late to learn the nature of ourselves, to value our surroundings. Then teach our future generations we are more than birth certificates and free ourselves from ownership and control. Righteousness.
Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the industrial revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to an economic crisis: there was overproduction – the supply of goods would grow beyond consumer demand, and so manufacturers turned to planned obsolescence and advertising to increase consumer spending.[1] Early criticism of consumerism was in the works of Thorstein Veblen in 1899, which examined the middle class emerging at the turn of the 20th century,[2][need quotation to verify]which came to fruition[citation needed] by the end of the 20th century through the process of globalization.[citation needed] - Wiki
Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, was on the Committee of public information in WW1. When the war ended he was employed by corporate America to use his propaganda skills to sell stuff and call it, public relations. In 1928 American Tobacco company hired Bernays to persuade society that cigarette smoking wasn't just for men and despite it being frowned upon was great for women too! In efforts to better profit of poison the campaign paraded a float staging attractive women smoking. A press tip off was made to publicise the smokey marketing scheme, feminists even showed up to show their support, empowered by the choice of cancerous death sticks. With much more trickery under his belt Maybe we can call Eddy the grand daddy of Advertising industry strategies designed to sell stuff to people on a subliminal level.
Materialism
a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.
Emarketer revenue estimates
“US paid media ad spending will grow steadily in 2017, on the heels of a strong 2016 boosted by the Rio Olympics and the presidential election. A focus on mobile will fuel growth, pushing total media spend to more than $206 billion this year—a moderate increase of 6.1%.”
“Uncertainty caused by last year’s Brexit vote has evidently had just a minimal impact on UK ad spending so far. eMarketer expects total media ad expenditures in the UK will reach £18.80 billion ($25.37 billion) this year, up 5.5% over 2016”
Sweat shop brands
Apple use a company called Foxconn to assemble their products. Foxconn city, in China, is a complex of factories run by Foxconn technology group who employ 235,000 workers, microsoft, dell & hp have used their services. A Foxconn factory employees entry level salary in china is £180 a month. Yes, in these Chinese tech sweatshops workers earn as little as £1.19 p/h piecing together apple products to the west. Foxconn factories have suicide nets around their perimeters to prevent depressed workers from falling to their death in attempt to escape terrible working conditions. These are the kind of unfair circumstances urging me to finish this article and ever-progress in steps to change.
Fashion kills, Animals for skin and fur, people murdered for clothing & jewels, sweatshop workers dieing, there is nothing wrong with clothing we should just take a humane approach to these types of things.
H & M have been found guilty of exploiting cheap labour in Bangladesh, unwilling to implement proper fire and other safety requirements, 1129 died in a factory that sourced the retailer. Factory workers stitching Nike together are giving low wages to workers who find it hard to live, transportation, rent, food & water are the basic costs a single employee would scrape by with.
There's a gold rush in Ghana the government have sourced mining work to chinese investors, the contracts, have not benefited the lifestyle of the average ghanaian. Also the Water pollution from the gold mining process involves mercury and cyanide poisoning the water supply & killing fish and desperate workers in danger. in some chinese mines site the local ghanaians are doing the most dangerous work. I watched a news report where In one case an assault victim told cameras it wasn’t uncommon for police to be bribed by chinese miners.
Illegal Gold mining dug $2.3 billion from Ghana while it earned $3.2 billion in exports in said the minister 2016. Digging destroys plants, wildlife, as well as agricultural land which could be used for cocoa. Ghana have relied on china for billions of dollars via loans and trade.
These Gold mining circumstances also occur in Mali, the philippines, Latin America .where even more children mining instead of studying yet again deprived from education. All these children like those in Ghana Mali who can't be educated due to gold mining probably don't know the selling price of the gold they’re digging up in some circumstances not even being paid.
Mica Mineral can be found in, cosmetics and household appliances. India is a big exporter of the mineral, here children as young as 12 are known to work in illegal mines carrying heavy loads working in hazardous conditions. The link between cosmetics and child labour was made over around 2007 the link between child labour and car paint is more recent. Also in India On the 4 Jan 2017 200 children found working in a brick kiln.
Brazil is the world’s largest coffee grower Nestle admitted that in their coffee made in brazil was produced with child labour, the country faces problems with non existent work contracts.
Country
60 kilogram bags
Metric Tons
Pounds
Brazil
43,200,000
2,592,000
5,714,381,000
Vietnam
27,500,000
1,650,000
3,637,627,000
Colombia
13,500,000
810,000
1,785,744,000
Consumers, “world Leaders” and brands should demand the supply chains to record where goods came from, making it easier to implement the proper codes of practices globally.
The united nations convention right of the child, Relevant article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 32(1): “States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”
child labour
the employment of children in an industry or business, especially when illegal or considered exploitative.
THE ILO SAYS, “Global number of children in child labour has declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million children. More than half of them, 85 million, are in hazardous work (down from 171 million in 2000).
Asia and the Pacific still has the largest numbers (almost 78 million or 9.3% of child population), but Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest incidence of child labour (59 million, over 21%).
There are 13 million (8.8%) of children in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the Middle East and North Africa there are 9.2 million (8.4%).
Agriculture remains by far the most important sector where child labourers can be found (98 million, or 59%), but the problems are not negligible in services (54 million)and industry (12 million) – mostly in the informal economy.”
Child labour among girls fell by 40% since 2000, compared to 25% for boys.
There are environmental effects of materialism Mass production is leading to long term environmental damage, mountains of waste sit in Landfill sites. Electronics from EU, U.S. Australia, South Korea, Japan ending up in Nigeria the rich making dumpsites out of poorer countries. Basel Action Network (BAN) aims to provide information regarding toxic trade, advocate for international policy, and conduct field research.
Chemical waste oceans aquatic life Poisonous waste affecting water and food supply
Farming fuel emissions are enormous and in some countries theirs carbon dioxide levels are monitored. Fuel cell cars emit H2 & O2 making them an efficient alternative for the future.
When people's beliefs are challenged they can become upset and tangent from the real issue. I'm not writing this to make anyone feel guilty, i too am part of this hypocrisy, Refreshing is what comes with pursuing a progressive path to a fairer world with a market. Please comment!
Thank you for reading fellow steemians.
