The Implications of Materialism

When I expressed my belief to people that a meaningful life is not a life of material pursuit but rather the opposite of it, I often elicit intense responses. A fair number of people think that I am unrealistic and a few angry ones think that I am imposing on others who are not as privileged as myself to pursue their material comforts. People often misunderstand that I am speaking of materialism merely as an individual choice or matter, not as a product of a system perpetuating injustice and exploitation.

Occasionally in mainstream media, we heard about scandalous news of people dying in collapsed garment factories in Bangladesh, or slave boats producing shrimps in Thailand. We even watched the movie ‘Blood Diamond’. These are not rare, sensational stories to draw audience, but represent the realities of millions of people every day. According to International Labour Organization (ILO), almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour. Among these, 19 million victims are exploited by private individuals or enterprises and over 2 million by the state or rebel groups. I suspect there are more who went undetected or not categorized as ‘forced labour’ but nevertheless work with indecent wages and hazardous conditions. Forced labour in the private economy generates US$ 150 billion in illegal profits per year – which means their products went to consumers. There are women, children, and the marginalized breaking their back with minimal or no return in dangerous conditions every day, some under gun point or abuse, and as a result, provide a range of services or products for our consumption.

Exploitation has occurred not only to people directly serving the production lines, but also those who are living in their vicinities. WHO estimated that 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment in 2012 – nearly 1 in 4 of total global deaths. Stories from the Niger Delta, where local communities are being devastated by repeating oil spill incidents, have persisted for years and started to fuel terrorism. Indigenous people worldwide had their home and way of lives taken away through deforestation and large-scale infrastructure projects such as hydro-power projects (to provide energy for industries). E-waste is infamously dumped in Ghana and had caused serious hazard and made international headlines. Those incidents continue till date. These often happen in the poorer parts of the world, partly because of corruption, but more certainly due to us as consumers in privileged societies who do not shoulder the true cost of the products we consume.

Therefore, as consumers in the age of globalization, we can never exonerate ourselves from the role we play in the system. Take the example of a smart phone. The very first step of acquiring its raw materials traces back to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum are mined under threats of violence by armed groups. Moving up the value chain, after processing these raw minerals into components, they are assembled in factories in China – where there are infamous scandals of workers abuse. The more items we purchase, the more intricate is our role in the global value chain system. That is how our environment is kept relatively safe and clean and our consumer products affordable – by exploiting others and their resources. For city dwellers, most products of our daily use are produced in conditions unknown to us. There is no reliable way to truly verify producers we patronize are upholding the minimal ethical standards every step of the way.

Some might argue, we consumers can demand for changes. Some companies are already making changes - look at the organic food, fair trade products and conflict free gadgets we have. However, anybody who has been working on the process of certification knows how complicated it can be. Small-scale producers and farmers are likely to be excluded. Also, for some products, it is simply difficult to ensure what we desire. For example, there has been a report that minerals are trafficked from illegal mines to certified ones – questioning the claim of conflict-free products by companies. People could work around laws through loopholes and corruptions – don’t we see how widespread are the illegal arms, drugs and human trafficking? Fundamentally, these ‘solutions’ did not change the power relationship between the workers and the capitalists, between the small holders and big corporates, and between the exporting and importing countries.

As corporates gain more competitiveness with strong capitals and favourable treatments from the governments, they naturally out-compete small producers worldwide with their low-cost, standardized products (especially we know for fact that corporates worldwide never pay the true cost for decent labour wage, use of natural resources, and pollution – these are instead imposed on the most marginalized and voiceless). The hostile effect of U.S. agricultural subsidies and dumping policies on the overall food security of Low Income Countries has been well-documented. Small scale farmers could not compete with imports sold at prices lower than the costs of productions. Many were forced to take on debt to purchase additional agricultural inputs or Genetically Modified seeds to enhance productivity, and when their produce fail and they could not repay the debt, they committed suicide. Tens of thousands of farmers committed suicides out of desperation every year in India. Many more are forced out of their roles as producers and joined the labour forces, infamous for abuse and exploitation.

The impact of global materialism is far reaching, affecting many other living creatures. Global extinction occurs at a rapid rate due to disturbance of their habitats and pollution. For those domesticated, lives are proven to be the most miserable. Cows, pigs and poultries were bred and raised for the sole purpose of our consumption. They do not only serve as our dinner but also used to make products from candies to cosmetics. Their living conditions are usually abhorrent and the environmental costs of keeping them are enormous - deforestation is required to make space for animal farms; cows’ fart which contains methane is notorious for global warming effect; grains which could be consumed by human were fed instead to animals (6 portions of grains in exchange of 1 portion of beef – meaning food/energy supply is reduced into 1/6 of the original amount) while hundreds of millions of people are hungry.

One might say we could not possibly produce all we use by ourselves (though there are movements attempting to achieve that). I agree that most of us have necessity to consume products using materials or technology from afar. But perhaps we can ponder a little before buying that additional gadget or pair of trousers? Even if we did decide to purchase them, could we not act so proud of ourselves while showing them off? In other words, can we not measure our status by how much we own – which could quite easily be translated as how much others have suffered for us? And since most material productions involve use of natural resources, and we know that what we consume already exceeds the earth renewable rate (look at Earth Overshoot Day), reducing consumption is a sensible way, regardless whether those products are produced ethically. In addition, there are issues of global food wastage and climate change which compel us to take actions.

We also need to start telling the real stories to people, not only to the consumers, but also to the labour forces and small-scale producers worldwide. In the developing countries, we are still building a narrative that we would all, through hard work, achieve the standards and qualities of lives as those in the developed world. When I was in Sri Lanka, the farmers I worked with, though have never accessed the Internet or traveled out of the country, are self-conscious of being ‘undeveloped’. It is evident that how strong the world is already imposing on rural communities that they are poor, and should aim for lifestyles of high consumption. The same force has pushed many into seeking for jobs as wage labour – some of them conned by human traffickers and went through enormous suffering as slaves or sex workers. Norberg-Hodge called the narrative a hoax to trick people into eroding their own social, economic and political autonomy, because our mother earth simply could not provide for all of us. In fact, it has been suggested that if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average US citizen, four earths would be needed to sustain them.

My favourite Ted Talk of all time

In industrialized societies, we are already seeing numerous localized movements aiming to reduce their externalities and enhance their self–reliance, such as the Transition Movement, the Minimalist Movement, etc. But there is a persistent gap between such post-material understandings with the majority of the developing world, which has been continuously brain-washed into believing the linear pathway to modernization, perpetuated by the media, government, and foreigners (both arrogant and well-intentioned ones). Looking at the multiple global crises created, it is irrational to insist that others should follow the old pathways. If we tell them the real stories, there is a hope that they can reinvest into their surroundings and take matters into their control, including how they want to extract, use, protect and market their produce, rather than giving up their ‘difficult, back-breaking’ subsistence livelihood and placing themselves at the mercy of employers or the ever-fluctuating world market.