cool nerdland

Verdict

2006-06-23T11:08:00.000-04:00

Nope. I just reread it and it doesn't really make sense the way it is written. In fact, I can hardly even tell what I'm talking about, especially in the first paragraph.

Back to the drawing board!!

Does this make sense?

2006-06-22T21:26:00.000-04:00

I wrote this regarding "cheap labor" just now:
"There is a difference between labor and other commodities that are paid for, that a deal is sought on. Whereas goods are inanimate, manufactured for a price including the cost of the materials (also goods), the cost of the energy it takes to produce them, the cost of the resources it takes to package and deliver them, taxes, and a profit for the manufacturer, labor is a commodity, and in that sense a “good” or a product, that differs from all others. It is the product of the human being’s body, his/her physical and mental energy, and by extension his or her entire life, even outside of working hours. And yet, when discussing worker’s rights with regard to wages, the issue is whether or not workers are receiving the minimum wage that is their due. Assuming that the minimum wage is also a liveable wage (a generous assumption since that is not always the case), and that it is calculated according to the same set of costs as the price of other goods, it should include the cost of food (energy it takes to produce labor), cost of clothing and transportation (resources for packaging and delivery), income tax, and a profit for the laborer. This is generally what income is used for. But what about the cost of the “material” itself, that which labor is comprised of, i.e. the intangible costs of the output of the human life that it takes to produce labor?

When humans are overworked in sweatshop conditions, when they are treated as “cheap labor” to be bid for and bought at the best deal possible, this latter cost of the production of labor is ignored (and the other costs barely covered, if at all). The mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that ensues after weeks of 15 to 20 hour days with no rest days is the result of exploitation not only of the workers’ capacity for labor, but of the intangibles that require cultivation in order for a worker to live as a human being. Exploitation of workers as “cheap labor” is most cruel because it treat the person as though s/he is a machine – unsuccessfully striving to transform him/her into a machine. The cost that is not covered by a minimum wage, and is not calculated into what may be a “liveable” wage – because it is not calculable – is the aspect of a worker’s life that takes place outside of his/her employment.

It is relationships with other humans, nurture of one’s spirit, time for thought and reflection, care for one’s physical health, time for beauty and for relaxation, for introspection and working toward one’s self-fulfillment through understanding of oneself and through contribution to the self-fulfillment of other beings. Few minimum wage standards offer a worker the opportunity for these things, unless s/he is capable of somehow escaping the physical circumstances that their monetary situation places them in, and the pursuit of “cheap labor” denies the worker these necessities."

Too airy fairy? Does it sound like it makes sense? What do you think? Pull no punches, please.

ridiculous

2006-06-21T22:05:00.000-04:00

This is getting ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!! I can NOT work today!!! But I have to!!! I sat down at this infernal machine at 11:30 to start, and since then have typed one and a half single-spaced pages. So much for my delusions of grandeur about finishing this chapter today. I don't know what it is that is bothering me about this section. I feel like I'm missing something, or that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Really, I don't know what I'm talking about. I've read 3 or 4 articles that sort of discuss neoliberal economics / the free market theory and now I'm including an argument about it in my paper. How naive is that. I'm just believing what these people are saying, when really I don't have a clue. But the way they describe it is fairly consistent -- consistently summarizing and then problematizing it, which makes me think that if I just were to read about what it is in a textbook -- dryly, how is it supposed to work -- it would probably be quite a bit more complex than what I've gotten. But I do not have time for a crash course in economics, so this will have to do. I take comfort in the fact that one of my profs, when I confessed my fear that one day my utter academic incompetence and bullshitting would be found out, told me that everyone feels sometimes like they don't really know what they're talking about and are just fooling everyone else. So, I will take that to it's pep rally extreme and talk about something that I actually really don't know anything about.

I guess the worst that could happen is they call my bluff and pass me a pile of books that completely contradict the essays I found because somehow my quackery magnet was turned on full power while I was researching. And then when I refuse to recant, they kick me out of school and I become a gardener and live happily ever after.

Maybe I should become a gardener and get out of this sickening bog while I still can. I guess I always can, if I want. Ok. OK. Just FINISH!!!

moment of panic

2006-06-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

Having moved most of my things on Saturday, even though I am not actually leaving this apartment 'til the end of the month, all of my carefully arranged piles of papers had been transferred from their usual places on the kitchen table, chairs, and floor, to the bedroom bookshelf that will meet the garbage men pretty soon.

I managed to keep most of the pile-themes intact, I think. Except, I misplaced my outline. This is the only outline that I have for this chapter, and it has many arrows, and things scribbled out and transitional ideas and etc. -- i.e. one that there is no way in hell I could replace from memory.

I nearly shat my drawers. But, I found it. Holy of holies, hallelujah, mercy me. Now I will type it.

god i have to finish this thing.

doin' it to me one more time.

2006-06-16T14:01:00.000-04:00

In certain ways I think my thesis is kind of juvenile. But it's true that people are being treated very badly just so we can have cheap t-shirts. But gay for me for writing a thesis about it. Big wanking deal.

chinteresting...

2006-06-16T00:25:00.000-04:00

This is pretty interesting. I just learned that China doesn't really have an official minimum wage. Which makes sense, since it's so huge it's economy would be massively different from area to area. The minimum wage varies between provinces, which makes sense -- or, at least, is familiar, since Canada's does too -- but it also varies between regions, cities, and even areas in cities, according to the dictums of local officials! Even full-time work is paid differently per hour than part-time work; or, full-time work isn't paid hourly, it's paid monthly, I think.

Anyways, these are the couple articles I read:
People's Daily
and Financial Times.
The first one seems weird to me. I think it is some "official" Chinese news source. Also, the website of China Labor Watch isn't working anymore, which I find strange. I hope they didn't get censored or something. Maybe they ran out of money. That would also be too bad.

I'm cool

2006-06-15T21:50:00.000-04:00

ok I fixed the "wrong time" problem. Thank god for me.

is the right time

2006-06-15T21:19:00.000-04:00

I hate it when the night is coming but not quite all the way here yet. I never feel quite as solitary and alone in this project as at that time -- which is right about now. I always feel a sharp need for some company, just someone else in the house, maybe reading or getting ready to sleep, or anything, and not only is no one there but no one is coming and the hour is passing when it's too late to go anywhere or for anyone to come over. All that is ahead of me for the rest of today is 5 hours of concentration, cigarette smoking, and the night slowly growing quiet outside my window. I guess 5 solid hours for concentration is good. Maybe the sad feelings I get at this hour are the adjustments from daytime multi-tasking to nighttime focus. Maybe I'm just sad that one more day is gone. I think really what happens is the reality of my serious aloneness hits, and I am kind of tired, and I feel very very lonely. Homesick. Familiarity-sick. That plus the stress of having to write write write and I am overwhelmed. Usually around 10:30 it is mostly past.

Incidentally, the time that shows on these blogs is all wrong. It is actually 9:22pm right now. I don't know how to fix the time. I'm sure I could figure it out easily, but maybe later.

Anyways, here is a snippet of what I wrote today, pardon me if it's garbled or misspelled or whatever. It's the rough draft:

"The power of the retailer stems from a variety of factors. Buying power, as outlined in the previous section on Wl-Mt’s relationships with its vendors, is one of these. Major retailers are today “also major importers. Among the top one hundred importers of apparel, retail chains controlled 48 percent of imports [to the U.S.] as of, roughly, 1995…”, and as of 2004, six retail chains sold “more than half of all apparel bought in the Unites States…”. Due to their movement of vast amounts of product, “a few large retailers can almost unilaterally determine price, delivery time, and quality for manufacturers and ultimately for thousands of tiny competing factories.”

Manufacturers contract with firms that, though headquartered in specific countries, use factories set up in a variety of locations. These factories, run by local bosses, are highly mobile in that they require little to open and can be shut down and re-opened elsewhere, with a new local boss, at short notice. Location and movement of production depends almost solely on accessing the cheapest labor pools and lowest import/export tariffs possible. Even domestic manufacturers that supply American retailers have begun to outsource their production in order to be able to compete with foreign-based manufacturers because it is more to their competitive price advantage to send materials for assembly to low-wage factories abroad and then re-import them to the U.S. than to assemble them at home. The size of manufacturers places factories at their mercy since “any one of [their] orders might utilize a given factory’s annual output…”.

Wl-Mt, as the world’s largest retailer, “maintains an extensive global network of 10,000 suppliers. Whether American Bangladeshi, Chinese, or Honduran, Wl-Mt plays these producers against one another in search of [the lowest possible prices]. […] Overseas manufacturers are forced to engage in cutthroat competition…” in order to keep their contracts with the retailer. An integral part of this competition is the movement of production according to costs. In this way, the manufacturer channels the buying power of the retailer into its own buying power over factories. This, in actuality, is buying power over the labor and trade laws of poorer nations, and buying power over the wages of workers. (The issue of purchasing legal laxity will be further explained shortly, in the section on Export Processing Zones.)

Thus, rather ironically, it is the price determined by the retailer that determines what the actual cost of production will be, rather than the cost of production determining what will be charged the consumer. Pricing “doesn’t start at the bottom, from the real costs of making the garment. The retailer can always go down the street and find someone who can make it for less. The manufacturers and contractors are stuck. Everyone down the line is squeezed” by the retailer. Everyone also wants to make a profit and enough to keep their business running, and so the worst squeezed is the laborer."

Wowee wow, aren't I smart. There are a bunch of footnotes that go w/ this but I removed them because they looked dumb. If anyone who I'm quoting comes across this, don't worry, I'm sourcing you in my thesis, and if it really bothers you that I didn't source you here, I can change that. Ok? Thanks.

And it's back to China for me. Yippee!

time keeps on ticking... into the future

2006-06-14T19:36:00.000-04:00

You'd think that, considering I have only 4.5 weeks to finish at least the rough draft of this thing, I'd have motivation to spare. Alas, all I feel like doing is sleeping. This is a counter-productive impulse.

the double P

2006-06-10T00:57:00.000-04:00

Oh yes, and I had a nice long talk w/ my mom today. At the end I was going to go back to writing and told her I was ready to roll, "fortified w/ a bag of pretzels and 2L of diet P!"
She scolded me and told me that that is "no way to eat!" Upon which I protested that I ate a giant bowl of vegetable chili for dinner and that this was just instead of coffee, I don't live on it.

She continued to scold me and reminded me to take care of myself. My mom is prejudiced against soda, it appears.

As I sat down w/ my delicious P and P delight (plus a cigarette, for excitement and danger), I realized that I have been using the same study food since I started university-style studying oh so many starry nights ago at tender age 17. And that I will probably continue to use it until I don't study anymore, i.e. die. And that it's funny, sweet, and typical that I'm 29 and live far from home, yet mom worries aloud about my eating habits at the end of our conversation. And finally, that my mother will always be 21 years older than me and so probably scold me every time she hears about it.

I wonder how much electricity an idling jet printer uses.

2006-06-10T00:50:00.000-04:00

Apparently leaving your computer running is like having 7 non-fluorescent lightbulbs on. That sentence took me a long time to type. I am very tired. I will work for 40 more minutes, then pick my belly button for a while, inspect my toenails, and go to sleep.

In the meantime, here is a section from an article I found today about guest workers aka foreign contract workers aka indentured servants:

“To secure work at the Motorola subcontractor, which is in Taiwan, Mary had to pay $2,400 to a labor broker in her native Philippines. She didn't have that kind of money, so, as is common, she borrowed from a local money lender at an interest rate of 10% per month. That payment, however, got her only as far as Taiwan. A second labor broker met Mary at the Taipei airport and informed her of his separate $3,900 fee before delivering her to the new job.

Before she left the Philippines, Mary rejoiced at the $460 a month she would be earning in Taiwan; it was a princely sum, more than five times what she could make doing similar work, if she could even find it, in her own country. But once in Taiwan she began to realize that after the brokers' fees and other deductions, she would be left with almost nothing. Out of her monthly check came $215 to repay the Taiwanese broker, $91 for Taiwanese income tax, $72 for her room and board at the factory dorm, and $86 for a compulsory contribution to a savings bond she will get only if she completes her three-year contract. After 18 months she will have repaid the Taiwanese labor broker. But she still must contend with the Philippine debt and its rapidly compounding interest.”

<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/01/20/335632/index.htm> [Accessed June 10, 2006]

I wrote something I like!

2006-06-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

Today I finally wrote a paragraph that makes me excited! It's the concluding paragraph of the "template business" section, that also segues into introducing what the next 2 sections -- the core of the ethical dilemma I'm addressing -- are about. It's still in rough draft, so hopefully it will smoothen out after a few rewrites, but here it is anyways, because this is my thesis-showing-off blog.
ahehehem!

"In sum, "W-M is a reflection of a new form of capital accumulation... a global commodity chain and logistics operation. In contrast to the large enterprises of the Fordist era, which... at least tolerated, the regulatory hand of an intrusive welfare state, W-M and other labor-intensive retailers have abandoned the Keynesian projection and now seek complete flexibility to employ labor and source their product within a hightly segmented and inequitable world." [Lichtenstein, 161-162] As such a template company, W-M has introduced a new set of social relationships in North America and abroad, as well as between citizens of developed and less-developed countries. While certainly some of these changes are and have been advantageous to many, in particular the working poor of many communities, as well as the struggling industries of developing nations, far too great a part of these advantages are built on the establishment of unjust and coercive "social relations that re-create and perpetuate inequality" among humans. [Tabb, 152-4, 157] The two forms of unjust social relation to be discussed in this paper, and then examined according to the ethical thought of Tillich and Niebuhr, are those existent in the use of sweatshop labor and in the poor treatment of W-M employees themselves. Each situation is, at base, dehumanizing. Each situation transforms the fulfillment-seeking human being into the euphemistically-termed aspect of consumer culture, "cheap labor," and makes complicit all participants in consumer culture."

Ta daaaa!

template business, pt.A

2006-06-01T14:11:00.000-04:00

for some reason, though I have been working on it for 2.5 hours so far this "morning", my thesis is really failing to entertain me today.

That's basically it. I just feel like whining about the fact that even though it is a pretty interesting topic, I just am not interested in the particular aspect of it that involves writing pages and pages explaining why it is interesting, relevant and important.

Today's task? Explain why I chose "W-M" in particular as the focus for the practical application of the theories. The real reason is, why not? It really doesn't matter what I chose, and I figured there would be lots of information available about W-M, since it has such a controversial reputation. Also, I had nebulous negative ideas about that store, so I thought I would take the opportunity to see if I was just subconsciously influenced by the foamy-mouthed liberal/hippy-wire of the psychic cosmos

Tangent: [incidentally, I seem to have some sort of burning need to make sure that my ideas about what is good and bad are not misconstrued as inferring any sort of penchant for tie-dye, pot-smoking, bongo-drumming and dreadlocks or for volvos, non-fat decaf soy lattes, world-beat music and L.L. Bean or Mountain Equipment Co-op. Not that all of these things in themselves are so terrible (except bongo drumming and world-beat music), in fact I drink soy and don't drive and try to be environmentally responsible; but, blah blah blah punk rock. Anyways, you get the stereotypes. I think that the reason I repeatedly disavow the labels "liberal" and "hippy" is because of the frequency that the opinions espoused by those stereotypes are emotionally rather than informationally-based, and supported with statements like, "that's fucked up" or "we're all one" or various invectives against "the man." And that is bullshit shit. Get over yourselves, or go starve on the streets. We're all culpable and always have been. I think I'm afraid that what I'm really saying, if you boil it down, is "we're all one; damn the man." And I don't believe that it's possible to be entirely objective; there is always some personal motivation behind what one does, at least behind what ones interests are -- so where does the subjectivity end. Could someone be doing the exact same research as me and come to entirely different conclusions? Am I researching to support forgone conclusions or am I being open, rational and as objective as possible? I think that everyone, even the most polemic, unsourced propagandist thinks s/he is doing a good job, and that scares the patchoulis out of me.]

or if there really was something wrong w/ W-M. Also, I find/found the whole "Wal-Mart culture" very creepy and thought that maybe I could find some religion/faith parallels in there that would be useful for my project considering I am in Religious Studies. How unprofessional to talk about the topic of research as "creepy."

But officially, the reason that I chose W-M as my practical focus, the reason that it is the best choice, is that it is "a template business."

And now I'm tired of writing. To be continued. Wait 'til you hear what's coming next.

but I do have self-contradictory tendencies

2006-05-31T13:10:00.000-04:00

and this feels like a nice clean start, compared to all the detritus and baggage that is attached to my diaryland diary and my myspace blog. Too much attention, that's really not even that much, and I become audience conscious and it all becomes very strained, constrained and restrained. Not to mention watered-down and a little overcooked.

I cooked eggplant for the first time ever yesterday. It was very very good. I still have some left that I think I will roast today, w/ another vegetable, if I have one, and have on salad. Yes yes yes.

Maybe I will write all about my thesis in this blog. I feel awkward ranting about humanitarianism and injustice on my other forums because they are really more jokey, and I don't think people are really interested in a lot of information that would cause them to have to rethink what they do everyday. Not that that necessarily should stop me from saying those things, but I feel like I'm being really self-righteous, even though they are my friends and I am sharing information. It's still me saying basically, I think you don't know this and I think you ought to know it and I think that once you know it you ought to think about it and why it's happening and what your part is in this big crazy mean mess that is the human web around the globe.

My thesis is about dehumanization in consumer culture, with a focus on how dehumanizing conditions at one end of the production process are really dehumanizing for everyone involved, but particularly for the person who purchases goods produced exploitatively.
Right now I am working on the section about the chain of production that underlies the convenience of the abundance of affordable goods available at Wal-Mart Supercenters. Note that I did not say, "belies" the convenience. Though I started out w/ a big chip on my shoulder toward W-M, I had to let my guard down and try to evaluate both the positive and negative versions of the W-M story, effect, or what have you. This resulted not in the disappearance of the chip, but in the changing of its shape, and me no longer being able to blame people for shopping at that store. It's really cheap. A lot of people are poor.

What it's turned into now is concern for what people are unwittingly doing to themselves and other people by purchasing products at W-M; and also many other places. It turns out that consumer culture is infused w/ serious harm and violence toward a lot of human beings. Anti-corporate and anti-consumerism people always talk about the commodification of humans into consumers, money-spending, desiring automatons who can never get enough and are groomed by advertising to be pistons in the corporate money-making machine wherein their entire lives are lived and by which their entire lives are constructed. These are not bad points, but they're so paranoid and airy-fairy and college-hippyish; worse, they're really hard to explain to people who don't already have some inkling about things being fucked up. Not that that means the issue is not worth talking about, but it does mean that it's not attention-grabbing, it's easily (and often) mocked and satirized, and it's not something that sticks in people's minds and craws in a lasting or meaningful way.

What does do that is pictures and testimonies of humans 1/2-way around the world, sewing items of clothing that you paid the store $20 for, and getting paid 6 cents of that $20. Or less. 30 cents an hour, from which they have to pay for food and lodging, provided by the factory in which they work. It's so bad. I can't stop wondering now, everytime I get dressed, who made this stuff. What did they look like? Were they in a good factory or a bad factory? Was it 2am at the end of a 15-hour shift? Were they hungry? Or was it the last shirt of the day, before they clocked out at 5pm and went home for dinner?

Anyways -- I'm trying to link the relevance and importance of these questions, and the fact that it is nearly impossible to know the answers, with ethical theories of power, domination, choice and dehumanization, focusing on the work of 2 Christian theologians/philosophers: Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Sounds fun, hey? Very entertaining stuff. And why I don't write about it on my other blogs has just come home to me again.