Chris Brauer Media Project [BLOG]

IDEAS FROM POP CULTURE TO POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, BUSINESS, MEDIA, SPORT, AND LIFE

This is my personal blog for friends and family.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

The sweatshops of our mind

One can only imagine the horror on the faces of the organizers of the Make Poverty History campaign when they learned that the white armbands at the heart of the campaign were being manufactured in sweatshop conditions in China.

The news came as delicious irony to those who see such organized movements as fruitless but speaks more to the challenges of management than ethics. Of course we can assume the movement would never have used the armbands if they were aware of the conditions at the manufacturing source. But the fact that such a massive undertaken could be duped after all the manufacturing and shipping is complete speaks to the challenges of not just supporting ethical enterprise but practicing it.

Such are the challenges of working within a system to change the system. By the sounds of the explanations it is as simple as not enough research going into the source of the manufacturing in order to save a buck. Classic economics and it is immeasurably difficult to make yourself immune from opportunism when participating in the market.

But sweatshops can come in all shapes and sizes, or not. Wired contributing editor Julian Dibbell wrote about 'virtual sweatshops' for the magazine in January, 2003 but later questioned whether more evidence could be produced of their existence. It seems that by their very nature sweatshops are a dirty secret or an embarrassing mistake for those who employ them. Discreet little enterprises feeding the culture of consumption in rich societies.

Now you see them, now you don't.

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