Real cost of things we buy...
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Written By navshot - 29 October, 2008
Bangalore
Analysis
Economy
Economy
capitalism
costs
I always wondered what is the real cost of things we buy. I realized, you can buy an LED torch for Rs. 25! How does it work out? Bill of materials should be less than Rs. 10 and labour another Rs. 5! Wow!! We usually push it aside saying "Chinese", as though its a complete explanation. But is the real cost of the product? I always wondered there has to be more to it - the hidden costs.
Then I stumbled on this website:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
which has a very interesting animation/video that explains the hidden costs involved, and the reasons.
The recent film, 'Across the Border', I think the name was, showed inhuman conditions & exploitation of women labor in Mexico, where many women work late hours, are molested & go missing.
This was based on existing conditions in the various hi-tech industries in Mexico (including IBM), just across the border from the US - an American journalist, in the guise of a laborer, investigates how & why they disappear.
The reality is that liberalization & the so-called globalization is a tough trade-off for people from developing countries like India. On the one hand, we have very poor human capital, in search for improvement & craving to achieve some degree of self-sufficiency, slogging it out in extremely difficult conditions, ending up supporting the capitalistic west to grow richer.
It is true that we also benefit, but I think the UN must play a larger role in bringing about some standards for these sort of situations.
On the one hand, the west tom-toms about quality premises & better standards, but in reality, it's business as usual.
The animation/video in the link in above post also throws light on western (US, to be more specific) capitalism and how its hunger for profits cost us very dear.
We may not (atleast not yet) be so bad, but the direction seems to be that... a spending-oriented economy.
-- navshot
Navshot,
What is not taken into account is the human cost that goes into producing "wealth" for capitalists and cheap goods for us. Barely subsistence wages for starters and inhuman working conditions.
Just recently there was a story in the times about a garment factory in peenya about what such working conditions do to people.
Read Naomi Klein's No Logo and Windows and Fences and you will see what the SEZs mean to people working in them in Indonesia, Vietnam and other such countries.
Srivathsa
Yes, I think its human costs and also equally importantly, irreversible environmental costs/damage.
Read this BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7696197.stm
This also reiterates what I have said elsewhere - there is no such thing as sustainable energy source in particular; there is no such thing as "sustainability" in general.
Sadly, it looks like capitalism (atleast the western version) is too costly. Without that, can we bring ourselves out of poverty? What is the right balance? Is there a right balance? It all looks like a paradox.
-- navshot
Navshot - nice link.
Sri, I have gone ahead and reserved my copies at the local library for the two books (joys of state welfare in UK where one gets full value for the council tax one pays).
ASJ
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