Building the U.S Middle Class

I was surveying the home in which I reside today and looking out onto my neighborhood, and a few of my more frequent thoughts resurfaced.

How many hours of labor would it take for each individual in my family, and the families of my neighbors to make the things they own and purchase? Even when recognizing that the machine industry makes some of this easier, I see a huge discrepancy between our lifestyles and the amount of real labor we do. The thousands of hours it likely took to make the materials needed to build the house, make the material goods within it, pave the road, extract the metals and organics from the earth needed even to begin the process. The food grown to feed the people making it, the fuels in the manufacturing process, to ship the materials, and then on top of that to heat the house itself. It probably took thousands of people to create the contents of a few rooms, let alone the whole neighborhood, or state or country. How do I think this is possible, that our possessions exceed our productivity?

I think the answer lies in our role as a global empire. Exploiting whatever energies, laborers and materials we can. Throughout the world are developing nations whose exports we buy at low prices, and whose cheap labor we exploit. (more on this later) This habit of taking from the impoverished is true in our country as well, looking at the labor force, and poverty rates. I see our consumerism, and it is something that in a lot of ways disgusts me. Now, I am not exempt from wrongdoing, as my lifestyle is one that is more in line than not with the majority of the American public. (The idea of the U.S as an empire was also discussed briefly on democracy papers look there for especially worthwhile commentary from a person known to me as Professor Doctor Silas..) I would like for a reference that you look at this map showing percent of U.S population in poverty, there are many factors in this, but I think it is a good visual representation. http://www.raconline.org/maps/mapfiles/poverty.jpg

I look in particular at mass produced goods like clothing, and see where the manufacturing takes place. At the rates we pay, it is a guarantee that the money made by workers is insufficient to survive and support basic human needs. For now I will ignore the environmental complications involved in mass manufacturing. This consumer greed is personally disappointing, because in many ways it is not on purpose. When people buy these things, they are often considering their personal wellbeing, and the wellbeing of their families, and trying to save money. But in doing so they are condemning the people who make these things to compete with one another until the prices are even lower. We often hear of things like nike sweat shops where children and whole communities are forced to work under terrible conditions, there might be a slight uprising in the consumers, like they will switch to another manufacturer, but I do not see people divorcing the system altogether.

I think maybe we should. Within our own country, we should be looking at the wellbeing of all citizens, and only supporting companies which provide a the makings of a good lifestyle (to be defined by the citizens, not me personally) to the people they do business with and employ, if we support large companies at all. If a company is not doing well by its community, there should be some sort of responsibility check, to ensure that the company is not parasitic. Some large companies already have sustained efforts to improve their communities, by supporting schools and other non-profits, and some of these are merely pulling PR stunts to cover up larger issues, and long term damage. There needs to be some sort of regulation on profiteering in masse.

In companies who have the majority of their manufacturing done overseas, I attribute the public apathy to a few key things,
1) the welcoming of low cost no matter how it is achieved (examples could be seen in part of wal-mart the high cost of low prices)
2) Lack of awareness, do they know where their products were made, and who benefits most
3) the belief that outside this country there live a lesser people. (Immortal Technique put it rather well in "the poverty of philosophy")

these of course are largely dependent on greed, and our societies' tendency toward serving their own interests.


The conclusion I've reached so far, is that if possible, I will reduce my participation in this exploitation now and in the near future. I already avoid purchasing fresh clothes, and choose instead to buy clothing that was rejected by consumers or otherwise sent to goodwill. I do not like owning excessive things, and so do not purchase non-food goods very frequently. I hope to find a way to directly encourage companies that meet my goals for the global and local community regarding the wellbeing of workers.
With this I still have much more research and other considerations to think about, but it is something I want to know more and thought people could contribute to.