I think the economics 101 posts are wrapping up now that the economic guru of the god-blogosphere Dr. Mark Byron has weighed in.
There is a great deal of food for thought.
As a consumer I try to be ethical in my buying. It is a difficult thing, because in the maze of goods, and tangles of companies there is a lot to weigh including information.
What surprises me about this news piece is not the slavery, but that the Brazilian government is taking a stronger stand.
839 workers were freed from a coffee plantation in the Amazon this week. Many of them are ill. The owner has been ordered to pay all he owes them and transport them safely back to their regions.
To fully assume greed drives the market is to acquiesce to a low level despair for most of us. Dr. Byron says:
It isn’t right, but greed does work. Greed gives people a reason to do something better, to make new products and to take risks on a new idea. Greed also gives people a reason to cheat, to make unsafe products if safety’s too expensive, to pollute if cleaning it up is more expensive and to fire people if they aren’t helping to maximize profits.
connexions echoes my uneasiness with those realities.
I’m not at all happy that we should accept that greed just “is”. I mean, of course we need to recognise its presence in all of us, but that doesn’t mean it should be accepted unchallenged. Laziness and violence are also present in human nature, but it would surely be a mistake to ecourage them!
Greed and self-interest are not the only motivators, and they needn’t be the most powerful. Contentment, service to others, personal satisfaction are just some of the things which may motivate us. But if those things are not encouraged and valued, it is not surprising that greed gets the upper hand. And I don’t think that there is any denying that it has got the upper hand in our culture.
I cannot weigh in on this debate for I have no degree and little knowledge.
But, if I have a cup of coffee today, I can pause and thank God the Brazilian government sees fit to value human life on it’s plantations, and I can pray for those so desperately poor, they go into forced labour. I can forfeit my want for a cup of coffee, and give that money to an organization working to improve the fallout from our/my greed.
Starbucks – HaidaBucks
Starbucks has taken a hard PR hit on this one. They went after a small native owned seasonal resturant on BC’s Queen Charlotte Islands.
What HaidaBucks calls the “brew-ha-ha” started in March, when Starbucks’ lawyers sent a “cease and desist” notice and then threatened a suit trying to force HaidaBucks to change its name.
Attorneys for Starbucks, a worldwide conglomerate of over 6,500 coffee shops, said the “bucks” part of HaidaBucks’ name was “a clear association with our client’s trademark.”
A grass roots campaign got the company to back off.
An interesting sidenote to all this…LivingRoom is on a tour, and ponders the difference between consumption and connection. He’s experienced both.
Thanks again for the link BD. Don’t hold back though – since when has “little knowledge” stopped anyone on the internet? ;o)
Seriously, what I’ve written doesn’t come from any claim to know much about economic theory. It’s my reading of the Bible, my “gut instinct” and my experience working in co-operatives that drives it. I’m not claiming any great expertise.
…since when has “little knowledge” stopped anyone on the internet?
Ouch…truth hurts.:^)
expertise=wisdom/discernment? No. Nice when they do go hand in hand though.
You are welcome. Blog on!
I’ll echo Richard’s comments. Don’t worry about the lack of schooling; Econ’s mostly applied common sense, something you have a goodly supply of. I don’t have any formal training in theology beyond Bible studies and Sunday school classes, but I’m not afraid to go toe-to-toe with a pastor like Richard on theology.
Thank you Dr. Byron, that was kind of you.
My hope here was that linking a good discussion would help readers with limited knowledge and expertise think through what and why they believe through blogs and their comment sections with bloggers that respond with kindess and courtesy.
I enjoy the fact you are not afraid to go toe-to-toe with Canadians about our policial system which often lacks common sense! Blog on!
Contentment, service to others, personal satisfaction are just some of the things which may motivate us.
That may be so. And in the free market I’m motivated to make money, because I will find contentment (though not spiritual contentment) through money. In the free market, I’ll make money and use it to provide for my family (when I have one)…so that I may be of service to others. In the free market, I’ll make money, and find much more personal satisfaction through making that money myself than I would if the government merely gave me money (or goods, or services, or whatever).
i think an extract from John Wesley’s Sermon XXIII: Text Matthew 6: 19-23
“Lay not for yourselves treasures upon earth … for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” might be in order. Indulge me this once, BD?
“With regard to most of the commandments of God, whether relating to the heart or life, the Heathens of Africa or America stand much on a level with those that are called Christians. The Christians observe them (a few only being excepted) very near as much as the Heathens. For instance: the generality of the natives of England, commonly called Christians, are as sober and as temperate as the generality of the heathens near the Cape of Good Hope. And so the Dutch or French Christians are as humble and as chaste as the Choctaw or Cherokee Indians. It is not easy to say, when we compare the bulk of the nations in Europe with those in America, whether the superiority lies on the one side or the other. At least the American has not much the advantage. But we cannot affirm this with regard to the command now before us. Here the heathen has far the pre-eminence. He desires and seeks nothing more than plain food to eat and plain raiment to put on. And he seeks this only from day to day. He reserves, he lays up nothing; unless it be as much corn at one season of the year as he will need before that season returns. This command, therefore, the heathens, though they know it not, do constantly and punctually observe. They “lay up for themselves no treasures upon earth;” no stores of purple or fine linen, of gold or silver, which either “moth or rust may corrupt”, or “thieves break through and steal.” But how do the Christians observe what they profess to receive as a command of the most high God? Not at all! Not in any degree; no more than if no such command had ever been given to man. Even the good Christians, as they are accounted by others as well as themselves, pay no manner of regard thereto. It might as well be still hid in its original Greek for any notice they take of it. In what Christian city do you find one man of five hundred who makes the least scruple of laying up just as much treasure as he can? — of increasing his goods just as far as he is able? There are indeed those who would not do this unjustly; there are many who will neither rob nor steal; and some who will not defraud their neighbour; nay, who will not gain either by his ignorance or necessity. But this is quite another point. Even these do not scruple the thing, but the manner of it. They do not scruple the “laying up treasures upon earth,” but the laying them up by dishonesty. They do not start at disobeying Christ, but at a breach of heathen morality. So that even these honest men do no more obey this command than a highwayman or a house-breaker. Nay, they never designed to obey it. From their youth up it never entered into their thoughts. They were bred up by their Christian parents, masters, and friends, without any instruction at all concerning it; unless it were this, — to break it as soon and as much as they could, and to continue breaking it to their lives’ end.”
Couldn’t have put better myself! ;o)
As a native of Brazil myself, and with utmost respect for the economically disadvantaged I would suggest you do have your cup of coffee, giving that mere dollar to an organization wouldn’t help actively.
I have many ideas to share with you if you care… unfortunately I have no time today, and once I had written a huge comment here and suddenly it never appeared on your display. It was about your post against fundamentalist Christians.
WIll come back asap
God bless
Jackie
Hi Jackie:
Sure thing, next time the comments burp, send an email and let me know.
i’ve come to this late but if for anyone passing by who is interested in issues relating to slavery you may want to view the film RABBIT PROOF FENCE. i left details here