We still have a Saturn that we bought brand-new not too long after the company began manufacturing. At 130,000 miles, it’s not exactly going strong, but it’s been a good car.
I have to admit that we bought it as much for sentimental reasons as any kind of hard-bitten consumer evaluation of price or quality. Meaning that we liked the promotional language about reinventing the relationship between labor and management, about rethinking the work process of car production, and about getting rid of the unsettling environment in car retailing where salesmen try to figure out how much they can get away with in setting a price.
I remember too that we used to buy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream not just because we liked it but also because we liked what we heard about their wage scale.
What’s curious is that of all the ethical commitments that liberal-leaning consumers with discretionary income try to maintain today (dolphin-safe tuna! locally-sourced food! environmentally-safe detergents!) the circumstances of workers rarely if ever figure into the imagination, and yet, it’s not been so long since the treatment of workers did have a place at that somewhat trendy table. Now? You can see the banners at Whole Foods that mark off the company’s ethical commitments and not expect to see anything about its laborers or even about the labor conditions at the point of supply. That’s not just that the owner of the company is something of an infamous asshole about labor and regulation, it’s par for the course. Apple moved to deal with rumbles about labor conditions among its Chinese suppliers before they became a major issue, but it’s hard to imagine consumers making this a major part of their brand preferences or even foregoing certain products entirely. I don’t say that as an accusation against others: I can’t imagine myself not having a mobile device or desktop computer out of scruples about the workplace ethics of the producers.
What I can imagine is that I might be willing to pay more for a product that came with guarantees about workplace conditions. That is more or less how “ethical consumption” operates in general: as a form of upscaling. That’s where there’s a standard that’s going strong: fair trade. But it’s interesting to see how the application of fair trade branding has been both deep and narrow to certain product categories, and how little the standards have changed the overall picture.
Ethical consumption built around labor standards runs into the same wall that similar kinds of branding efforts encounter: that they mean absolutely nothing without a trusted independent auditor who has extensive access to all parts of the production process or some other kind of extensive and transparent access to information about the manufacturer or supplier. A lot of products that are labeled as green or organic turn out to be little more than just that: labels.
I know that many activists are deeply suspicious of ethical consumption as a concept, indeed of consumption as a domain of meaningful agency or worthwhile causality. That’s a big conversation that I’ve been involved in for my entire life as a scholar. I’ve never accepted this disdain for consumption. But the time has come perhaps for different campaigns to come together to push for a general change, and labor issues should be the major reason for that banding together.
Our legal system insists that investors in public companies are entitled to information, and that the same information should be available to all of them at the same time. We also believe as a matter of policy that consumers are entitled to some information about finished products (nutrition, expiration dates, location of manufacture) but on the whole, consumers have much less available to them unless the manufacturer subscribes to an independent audit. That’s what should change. Every product I buy, whatever it is, should come with a small scannable tag that contains full disclosure of its site of manufacture, the supply chains for its components, the labor conditions in those manufacturing sites, the materials in the product, and so on. Falsifying that information should be a crime and expose the manufacturer to civil penalties.
In a digital age, keeping that tracking information associated with a product should be little additional burden to a company (I hope none of them would pretend that they themselves don’t really know where products are coming from or how they’re made?). If the companies can track me around the web, it’s only fair that I should be able to track them in turn. The only reason not to share it is that you don’t want it known by consumers. If I’m content, like Matthew Yglesias, with the proposition that poor countries not only do but should have lax safety standards, then that’s fine: I can go ahead and buy clothes made in those countries without hesitation. If I’m not content and actually think, unlike Yglesias, that there is something I can and should do about that situation, it would be a good thing to actually know that I’m looking at a pair of jeans made in Bangladesh rather than waiting for the brand name of those jeans or of the retail outlet that sells them to show up in the rubble of a collapsed building. Even libertarians (supposedly) believe in information, right?
There are still some examples of products which are promoted based on labor practices, but most of the ones I can think of are food related. For example Equal Exchange and Organic Valley co-ops both let you enter a code on the website to find out which farm produced a specific item.
I’m not sure why food is a focus; whether it’s because activists have successfully promoted the idea that there are health & safety benefits to having a more transparent food system, or if food is relatively cheap so people are willing to pay a higher percentage premium (I, for one, am happy to buy the milk I like even if it’s 40% more than the competition, but I probably wouldn’t pay a 40% premium for a locally sourced car).
So, we do some of this with RedLaser already, by integrating data from Good Guide ( http://www.goodguide.com/ ). This data isn’t nearly comprehensive, however. As far as I can tell, the only place where this kind of information is reasonably widely available is for food (and that’s mainly because people care about organic, animal conditions, etc.).
After the Bangladesh factory fire, I’ve been hearing a lot of commentary about this issue. It sounds like one of the biggest problems is that, outside of the very largest retailers (e.g., Walmart, Target, Apple), companies don’t have the resources to police their supply chain, and it is very common for suppliers to subcontract work (and subcontract it again and again).
American Eagle (or whoever) probably *doesn’t* know who the vast majority of its actual suppliers are.
I hope none of them would pretend that they themselves don’t really know where products are coming from or how they’re made?
As Miles S says above, subcontracting probably means a lot of them *don’t* know. And even the ones who do know (or could find out) will be quick to hide behind the “we don’t know” excuse.
If the companies can track me around the web, it’s only fair that I should be able to track them in turn.
I can already hear them howling about “trade secrets.”
What’s curious is that of all the ethical commitments that liberal-leaning consumers with discretionary income try to maintain today (dolphin-safe tuna! locally-sourced food! environmentally-safe detergents!) the circumstances of workers rarely if ever figure into the imagination
I think it’s because workers have the unfortunate quality of being able to speak and behave in ways that don’t lend themselves to idealistic notions of beneficence toward the mute and helpless, nor does helping them contribute to the personal well-being of ethical consumers in the same way organic farming does, where the rhetoric is as much about avoiding poisons as it is about helping small farms. (And those small farmers are celebrated as the antithesis of the big industrial farms, while workers are pretty firmly bound into the industrial complex.) Workers can be difficult, hard to romanticize, and have their own agendas, which frequently do not include making liberals feel good about themselves and their consumption.
“I think it’s because workers have the unfortunate quality of being able to speak and behave in ways that don’t lend themselves to idealistic notions of beneficence toward the mute and helpless…”
Indeed, let’s not forget that prior to 1972, the Democratic Party was in favor of both workers and racism. If George Wallace hadn’t been shot he’d probably have been President. (This is not a comment on the modern Democratic Party, but a historical observation about the inconvenient attitudes of actual laborers versus the platonic Labor.)
“A lot of products that are labeled as green or organic turn out to be little more than just that: labels. ”
The USDA does have an “Organic Certification” program, so that “organic” label does mean something now.
“Even libertarians (supposedly) believe in information, right?”
Sure! What happens when everything in the world is made by Foxconn? You cannot buy an “ethically-produced labor-friendly” smartphone. There is no such thing. Foxconn is the best-case scenario for production of advanced electronics like that. If you don’t want a smartphone produced by exploiting underprivileged laborers, then you do not get a smartphone.
That’s one of the reasons I pay more for Apple, because I believe they are attempting to take care of their workers all the way down. Same with buying coffee from places like “Larry’s Beans” in NC. Thanks for the post. We need more transparency in this regard.
Pleasantly stumbled upon your blog and couldn’t agree more with this post.
I fear that many companies would have a disincentive to reporting this, but it’s a fantastic idea. Perhaps an independent company or non-profit that can aggregate and post this data to the web would be a viable model.