Consumerism – bad for somebody else’s health

A sobering piece by Johann Hari in today’s Independent, exposing the cost of consumerism at the sharp end.

It exposes the horrific conditions under which Chinese workers labour to produce the mechanical toys that Western consumers enjoy – an environment in which it is estimated that 600,000 people per year die of overwork.  Hari points to the fact that wages have fallen as a proportion of GDP in China every year from 1983 to 2005; sobering indeed.

But it also shows how Chinese workers are fighting back, through organising into trade unions.  The Chinese authorities have been forced into making concessions, proposing to allow limited trade union rights – but Western companies are lobbying hard to prevent this.

We in the West must recognise that this is our struggle too – not just because we consume the products that are produced by this exploitation, but because, crucially, the organisations that are resisting change are here in the West.  This is not about China; it’s about capitalism.

Swine flu – a very capitalist illness

Swine flu is, for some people, a highly profitable business. A report in yesterday’s Times pointed to the business bonanza coming on the back of swine flu. Other, less mainstream sources have pointed to the commercial interest that some producers of flu remedies might have in stoking up the panic.

But there is an increasing sense that the disease itself may originate in capitalist farming practices. Johann Hari, writing in the Independent, argues that factory farming, in which vast numbers of animals live together in conditions that greatly increase the risk of destructive strains of viruses developing, quoting in particular a report by the Center for Computational Biology at Columbia University which has been tracing the ancestry of the current outbreak.

He also describes how factory farming is dependent on pumping animals full of anti-biotics, while keeping animals in an environment in which bacteria can develop in ways which make them resistant to those anti-biotics.

It’s a horrifying scenario, and it’s not surprising that capitalist agriculture is deep in denial. And the fact that swine flu in the UK has not really (so far) lived up to the advance billing makes it that much more difficult to generate the sort of public concern that might shake the political class out of its complacency. We’re still waiting for the big one, and no government or regulator is going to want to be seen to raise the price of meat and especially cheap meat products unless the call for change is deafening.

But it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that cheap meat in the shops comes with a much higher and deadlier price tag than most people imagine, and that, as so often, the drive for corporate profit may have the deadliest of consequences.

Dump the bottle

Some months ago, I posted about Elizabeth Royte’s book Bottlemania - a book that not only exposed the idiocy of the bottled water cult, but the damage that it does to the environment.  I see that Johann Hari has a piece in today’s Independent, announcing his intention to give up bottled water for the new year; it’s a useful reminder of one very simple way in which affluent Westerners can make just a little bit of a difference.

Hari also exposes the practices used by Coca Cola in its third world operations – again, an opportunity just to say no.

Talking sense about crime

There is no subject that gets the British tabloid press going more than crime and punishment.  Day after day, readers are battered with stories illustrating how official Britain is “soft” on crime – despite the fact that imprisonment is at record levels, and that the levels of many categories of crime are actually falling (although that may well change as recession bites).

The argument that more criminals should be locked up for longer is trotted out more often than the claim that Britain’s prisons are no more than closed holiday camps.  So it was good to see a powerful rebuttal by Johann Hari in the Independent earlier this week.

And, as a counter to the increasing tabloid and political hysteria about knife crime, here and here are two powerful articles from Socialist Worker by Jackie Ranger, whose son Leon was stabbed to death (I am grateful to this post from The Enemies of Reason for the links).  These pieces tell a story that you won’t hear in the mainstream media, but seems to me to be vital to understand what is happening on the streets.  But it’s not the sort of story that sells newspapers to the comfortable middle classes.

Hari’s and Rainger’s pieces speak for themselves, but the question I want to ask is this.  Who is really soft on crime – the red-faced tabloid editor ranting for revenge, based on a set of simplistic moral prejudices, or the rational person coolly asking pertinent questions about cause and effect, and about what can be done?