Consumerism and greed
by Julia Smucker, Orodara, Burkina Faso
I appreciated the articles by Valerie Weaver-Zercher and Katie Funk Wiebe in the Oct. 21, 2008, issue. Instead of feeding judgment or guilt trips, both provided refreshingly positive and applicable advice on ways to resist pressures toward unhealthy overconsumption and to begin to free ourselves from our desires by owning up to them (living in Africa does not render me immune to such pressures or desires).
Yet immediately following their well-balanced advice, Al Doerksen seems to counter it with a call to extravagant or even self-indulgent living built on the assumption that all consumption automatically benefits the producers—therefore, the more the better.
Doerksen makes a valid point when he states, “Fair trade is a good thing but only works if people consume.” But a more important point is the inverse: Consumption is a good thing but is only just if goods are fairly traded. Otherwise, rebuttals to “anticonsumption rhetoric” can become a naïve self-justification for indulging every material desire while attempting to clear the conscience of the responsibility to weigh the potential positive and negative impacts on one’s own life, the fragile biosphere or an underpaid producer.
Go ahead and buy that nice work of art or bag of coffee from Ten Thousand Villages or another fair trade store, where you can be assured that the person who made it is indeed
benefitting from your purchase.
Associated Issue: Consumer desire - Oct. 21, 2008
Associated Article: Do you have pleonexia?
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