Went with my younger son and his girlfriend to our regional centre. We were wandering around in Kmart and they went off while I went to the home wares section. I grabbed a toasted sandwich maker for our campervan. When I re-united with the kids I said 'guess how much this is?', holding up the sandwich maker. 'Twenty bucks' son ventures. 'Eight dollars', I reply. He is totally shocked at the low price. 'That actually makes me feel sick' he says. I put the sandwich maker down on a stool near the shoes aisles and we leave. What is the real environmental and humanitarian cost of an $8 sandwich maker?
All you have to do is go out into the car park and breath the air, go have a look at the local 'river', check out the farmers walking off the land, have a look at the starving folks in the third world countries, check the news on the factory collapse in Bangladesh, etc. And you soon get a pretty good picture of the real cost.
Wonder what it cost before it was unloaded of the ship , when it costs $11 to ship a tiny parcel from Qld to Sth Aust . Probably 50c.
I can if you really want me to but I think this is a valuable discussion. I have some clothes that I bought at a market last year and was congratulating myself on avoiding a big chain store. And they were cheap. But now I can't stop thinking about whether they came from a garment factory in Bangladesh. I'm going to renew my commitment to buy only second hand. Does that mean I avoid the karma associated with the initial manufacture? I don't really what to have to weave weeds together to clothe myself ethically.
Capitalism works best when there is a slave component free polluting is a god send to share holders too.
the real cost MITH, all i know is everything that is manufactured has behind the scenes cost riven by greedy moguls paying slave wages off shore, their message is aussie works work for a starvation wage or all jobs go off shore, that is a cost, renewable energy components start with mining and smelting lots of transportation, that sandwich maker it started with mining, shipping, smelting, and once mad packaging and then shipping to point of sale through many levels, is $8 the real price or the price paid by the community where they are made? might take a lifetime to work it out, but on the surface we can't break from fossil fuels, lots of hype about on that issue, people need to be able to afford to live down at the lower socioeconomic levels any extra cost put on manufacturers and employers immediately gets passed onto end users and always at a higher level than the added cost/tax ie.,. the CO@ tax industry. go figure a simple toaster and kettle do us, no accolades for us they have their mark on the planet. and now if we stop or curtail buying poor people will not be able to earn money and the moguls and their leech shareholders will look elsewhere. almost like how long is a piece of string len
A price on pollution and a fair wage should be non negotiable. The end product will be a toaster that lasts for many generations and can be repaired or a bit of bent wire and a fire Both options don't work under a wasteful use of resources regime that is required in the constant need for growth of a capitalist framework
When you start looking into it you find a world of subsidies, poor wages, environmental degradation, cultural traditions and big corps making hay while the sun shines. i remember a few years back there was a big backlash about kids in pakistan making soccer balls for nike. Nike stopped the practice and then the families all complained because their children could no longer contribute to family income. No easy answer here folks. Manufacturing will go where the costs are less, disregarding the economic, social and environmental consequences. That is the global economy. It will see saw over time. Where there is a buck to be made, it will go to the place where it can be made cheapest. While in the western world we may think this is bad, if it gets down to feeding your family with no other obvious alternative, that's what you will do. People die, get poisoned, live in poverty and the cycle goes on.
The fact that you left the sandwich maker near the shoe isle was rather poignant, given that the latter is also responsible for the enslavement of people together with the exploitation of their labours, and in some cases, even their deaths. I think the broader question you ask can be answered by studying the concept of 'embodied energy': Holmgren (1994) Energy and Permaculture