The Ethics of our Choices
This is something I've been thinking about and the ideas haven't quite cohered yet, so think of it as a perspective in the process of development.
In a society with a division of labor, each person spends the bulk of her time doing one particular kind of work. We rely on others to create and supply the things that we need to satisfy our basic needs. We then exchange the money that we earn doing our one particular thing for the goods that others create. For example, a person might spend her time teaching and writing, and then exchange the money earned doing these activities for goods that others have created, such as food and clothing.
But in a system with division of labor, we no longer are directly involved in creating goods that satisfy our basic needs, and hence we no longer have direct control over their production, or the choices that are made during that process. We also no longer have direct knowledge of how those goods are produced. Furthermore, because we are so busy performing our work within the system or recovering from the stresses of that work, we don't have time to find information about how those goods are produced. In many cases, that information is not even available to us, as the process of production is hidden.
When a person produces the goods to satisfy one's own basic needs, one is able to determine whether or not the production process is aligned with one's ethics. When we out-source the satisfaction of those needs, that determination becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, due to lack of time, lack of motivation, and lack of access to the needed information.
Many of us want to live ethical lives and, to some extent, reflect on the goods available to us and their compatibility with our values. For example, someone whose place in the labor market requires that they travel a significant distance to and from work everyday might choose to buy a hybrid car, out of a commitment to consume fewer non-renewable resources.
But the place within the division of labor to a large degree determines the range of choices that are available. If I've been educated to fill a particular slot within the division of labor, and those slots are only available within a certain geographic area when I'm looking for a job, my choice of where to live is constrained. If housing within twenty five miles of my job is prohibitively expensive, I somehow have to get back and forth to that job every day, which means that more than likely I have to consume some fossil fuels.
But what if living that far from work and consuming fossil fuels through commuting are not aligned with one's values? What do we do in the case that none of the choices available to us are in line with our values? I suppose choose the one that is most aligned (such as buying a hybrid car, commuting, or taking public transportation), or attempt to change one's place in the division of labor, so that the choices available are more aligned.
Consider a different example: buying socks to wear under athletic shoes. Where I live, while socks and shoes are not absolutely necessary for survival, they are pretty important to protect the feet against the many sharp things that scatter their bits across the landscape, the stings of the venomous insects, and the skin-scorching temperature of the ground. The two pairs of athletic socks I have are very worn and having only two means that they're often dirty when I want to go for more-than-daily hikes. So, I more or less needed to buy new socks.
Yet in the news lately is the Bangladesh clothing factory that collapsed on workers, killing over 1,000 people. Wages in Bangladesh are amongst the lowest in the world and factory regulation is minimal, leading many clothing producers to locate their facilities there. Many brands of clothing commonly purchased by people in the U.S. are produced there. Workers' rights groups reported to CNN, for example, that the four garment contractors housed in the collapsed factory produced clothing for Walmart, Joe Fresh, and Dress Barn (http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/24/news/companies/bangladesh-factory-collapse/).
I don't want to be the cause, however remote, of practices that I regard as immoral. So when my first impulse when I want socks is to take a trip to the nearby Walmart where socks are cheap and easily accessible, I don't want to follow that impulse. I want to buy socks that were produced in an environmentally responsible manner and from a company that treats its employees and the larger community with respect, through the wages and benefits it offers, the working conditions it provides, how it treats the planet and its resources, and what it gives back to its local community.
But it's not so easy to do this, for reasons I mentioned above, all of which have to do with living in a society with a division of labor. No one I know know makes socks (except my mom; but she doesn't know how to knit heels so her socks are very uncomfortable for wearing under shoes, and she buys her yarn at Walmart) so I have to look farther afield, which means that I will have no direct knowledge about the company that produces my socks and its practices, the socks will be transported over a long distance, and I have to invest considerable time to gather whatever knowledge does exist about the practices of the company. Not to mention that the socks will be much more expensive than the ones at my local Walmart.
If I imagine that I'm working a full-time, minimum wage job, these limitations are virtually insurmountable. I would be unable to invest the time or financial resources to make ethical choices when I needed to obtain basic goods like clothing, food, and transportation. For example, after more than a few hours of searching online, I finally found a sock company that seems to be fairly responsible: Fox River Socks (http://www.foxsox.com/defaultEcomm.aspx). They disclose information about their manufacturing process and their efforts to limit environmental impact, their socks are made in the U.S., and the specific socks I bought are made largely from recycled plastic waste. The socks I bought were $9.99 per pair, plus several dollars for shipping.
If companies engaged only in responsible practices, they'd have to charge much more for their goods or cut their profit margin. The goods we buy now are relatively cheap only because employees and public resources are being short-changed. Socks are cheap at Walmart because they don't pay their employees decent wages, offer decent benefits, and their demand for low prices encourages their suppliers to engage in horrible practices that are harmful to workers and the environment.
I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which an individual cannot, within realistic conditions of daily life within that system, determine whether or not the basic goods consumed are produced ethically, and then obtain those goods (given that the person is performing work for others within that system's labor system).
I think companies should be required to behave in accordance with a set of publicly known and enforced moral standards in order to be able to manufacture and sell goods, and should pass the additional charges on to consumers. All goods would be more expensive but people currently buy many more things than they need, so this might rein in unnecessary consumption.
In a society with a division of labor, each person spends the bulk of her time doing one particular kind of work. We rely on others to create and supply the things that we need to satisfy our basic needs. We then exchange the money that we earn doing our one particular thing for the goods that others create. For example, a person might spend her time teaching and writing, and then exchange the money earned doing these activities for goods that others have created, such as food and clothing.
But in a system with division of labor, we no longer are directly involved in creating goods that satisfy our basic needs, and hence we no longer have direct control over their production, or the choices that are made during that process. We also no longer have direct knowledge of how those goods are produced. Furthermore, because we are so busy performing our work within the system or recovering from the stresses of that work, we don't have time to find information about how those goods are produced. In many cases, that information is not even available to us, as the process of production is hidden.
When a person produces the goods to satisfy one's own basic needs, one is able to determine whether or not the production process is aligned with one's ethics. When we out-source the satisfaction of those needs, that determination becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, due to lack of time, lack of motivation, and lack of access to the needed information.
Many of us want to live ethical lives and, to some extent, reflect on the goods available to us and their compatibility with our values. For example, someone whose place in the labor market requires that they travel a significant distance to and from work everyday might choose to buy a hybrid car, out of a commitment to consume fewer non-renewable resources.
But the place within the division of labor to a large degree determines the range of choices that are available. If I've been educated to fill a particular slot within the division of labor, and those slots are only available within a certain geographic area when I'm looking for a job, my choice of where to live is constrained. If housing within twenty five miles of my job is prohibitively expensive, I somehow have to get back and forth to that job every day, which means that more than likely I have to consume some fossil fuels.
But what if living that far from work and consuming fossil fuels through commuting are not aligned with one's values? What do we do in the case that none of the choices available to us are in line with our values? I suppose choose the one that is most aligned (such as buying a hybrid car, commuting, or taking public transportation), or attempt to change one's place in the division of labor, so that the choices available are more aligned.
Consider a different example: buying socks to wear under athletic shoes. Where I live, while socks and shoes are not absolutely necessary for survival, they are pretty important to protect the feet against the many sharp things that scatter their bits across the landscape, the stings of the venomous insects, and the skin-scorching temperature of the ground. The two pairs of athletic socks I have are very worn and having only two means that they're often dirty when I want to go for more-than-daily hikes. So, I more or less needed to buy new socks.
Yet in the news lately is the Bangladesh clothing factory that collapsed on workers, killing over 1,000 people. Wages in Bangladesh are amongst the lowest in the world and factory regulation is minimal, leading many clothing producers to locate their facilities there. Many brands of clothing commonly purchased by people in the U.S. are produced there. Workers' rights groups reported to CNN, for example, that the four garment contractors housed in the collapsed factory produced clothing for Walmart, Joe Fresh, and Dress Barn (http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/24/news/companies/bangladesh-factory-collapse/).
I don't want to be the cause, however remote, of practices that I regard as immoral. So when my first impulse when I want socks is to take a trip to the nearby Walmart where socks are cheap and easily accessible, I don't want to follow that impulse. I want to buy socks that were produced in an environmentally responsible manner and from a company that treats its employees and the larger community with respect, through the wages and benefits it offers, the working conditions it provides, how it treats the planet and its resources, and what it gives back to its local community.
But it's not so easy to do this, for reasons I mentioned above, all of which have to do with living in a society with a division of labor. No one I know know makes socks (except my mom; but she doesn't know how to knit heels so her socks are very uncomfortable for wearing under shoes, and she buys her yarn at Walmart) so I have to look farther afield, which means that I will have no direct knowledge about the company that produces my socks and its practices, the socks will be transported over a long distance, and I have to invest considerable time to gather whatever knowledge does exist about the practices of the company. Not to mention that the socks will be much more expensive than the ones at my local Walmart.
If I imagine that I'm working a full-time, minimum wage job, these limitations are virtually insurmountable. I would be unable to invest the time or financial resources to make ethical choices when I needed to obtain basic goods like clothing, food, and transportation. For example, after more than a few hours of searching online, I finally found a sock company that seems to be fairly responsible: Fox River Socks (http://www.foxsox.com/defaultEcomm.aspx). They disclose information about their manufacturing process and their efforts to limit environmental impact, their socks are made in the U.S., and the specific socks I bought are made largely from recycled plastic waste. The socks I bought were $9.99 per pair, plus several dollars for shipping.
If companies engaged only in responsible practices, they'd have to charge much more for their goods or cut their profit margin. The goods we buy now are relatively cheap only because employees and public resources are being short-changed. Socks are cheap at Walmart because they don't pay their employees decent wages, offer decent benefits, and their demand for low prices encourages their suppliers to engage in horrible practices that are harmful to workers and the environment.
I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which an individual cannot, within realistic conditions of daily life within that system, determine whether or not the basic goods consumed are produced ethically, and then obtain those goods (given that the person is performing work for others within that system's labor system).
I think companies should be required to behave in accordance with a set of publicly known and enforced moral standards in order to be able to manufacture and sell goods, and should pass the additional charges on to consumers. All goods would be more expensive but people currently buy many more things than they need, so this might rein in unnecessary consumption.
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