As we all struggle with the responsibilities and challenges of everyday life, many of us are unaware of the exploitive modus operandi that underpins the economy both at an international and a national level.
No Logo, by Naomi KleinThis year marks the 25th anniversary of the iconic book No Logo written by a young Canadian, Naomi Klein. She exposed the shocking reality behind the glitz and glamour of globalisation. With forensic reporting she revealed the unbelievable corporate greed that has hijacked the manner in which capitalism should work.
Books like No Logo show us that the interests behind the brand names and transnational organisations have no concept of basic business ethics.
Klein portrays how large companies have abandoned any link with their communities and countries of origin and farm out work to countries where laws safeguarding workers’ rights are weak or non-existent. The description of how they operate in so-called Special Economic Zones is not for the faint-hearted. In a scramble to share in the outsourcing of business, host countries offer tax free regimes and allow the most blatant exploitation of the vulnerable workforce, which are denied the most fundamental legal frameworks protecting labour rights and the environment.
We are brainwashed by the corrosive advertising that enslaves us to a model of unbridled consumerism that is unsustainable at every level, both political and social
Since the book was written, matters have only got worse, with the Western world seeing its industrial and manufacturing sectors being decimated on the altar of corporate profits harvested by commercial interests that have a disproportionate power over the political development of the democracies of the West. In turn, such misguided economic activity favours despotic and corrupt regimes who operate outside jurisdiction that would and should safeguard and promote the real, wholesome political and social development of their people.
Despite our pretensions of being emancipated, we are brainwashed by the corrosive advertising that enslaves us to a model of unbridled consumerism that is unsustainable at every level, both political and social.
In this worrying scenario, the most overlooked sector of the much-vaunted global economy is that of the merchant seamen who are crucial to the ferrying of raw material and finished goods. Over one million seafarers, recruited from the poorest parts of the world, hold these miserable jobs with few rights and few safety mechanisms in what is often a highly dangerous working environment akin to slavery.
In short, our much-trumpeted increasing standard of living is realised at the expense of outrageous exploitation.
Thanks to its social teaching, the Church has been a powerful voice aspiring for global justice. One of its most notable encyclicals was the 1967 Populorum Progressio. The calibre of experts who inspired the encyclical is simply breathtaking. One need only mention the better known, such as the French Dominican priests Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar, the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac, the legendary Brazilian bishop Dom Helder Camara, the Belgian priest Joseph Cardijn, as well as lay people like Jacques Maritain and Barbara Ward.
Besides its prophetic teachings, the Church has always been in the forefront of reaching out to many of these exploited people and has done its best to administer to their immediate needs, both material and moral.
As Christians, we cannot be indifferent. We must do our utmost to be informed of the stranglehold unrepresentative commercial interests have on our political development. No Logo was one attempt to sensitise public opinion to what is really afoot.
We owe it to ourselves and future generations to take stock and act.