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<BODY BGCOLOR="#000044" TEXT="#FFFF00" LINK="#FF9900" VLINK="#FF11FF "BACKGROUND="images/bkgnd.jpg"><IMG SRC="images/why_tag.gif" ALT="Why!" WIDTH=217 HEIGHT=60 BORDER=0><BR><BR> <FONT SIZE=+1 FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA">Background Information</FONT><P> <TABLE> <TR> <TD WIDTH=350> <FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA"> <P> The anticonsumer message is not about just recycling etc, but encompasses issues to do with global trade, resource depletion, pollution, and inequities between the developing and developed worlds.<P> <B>Advertising and Forced Consumerism</B><BR> Advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry world-wide, with one main job of pushing product information in front of an audience and manipulation of consumers' needs and desires. We believe that advertising abets overconsumption by causing people to feel unfulfilled with what they have, and playing with many personal insecurities, manipulating people into buying more. The advertising industry has recently replied to such accusations that they increase cigarette or alcohol consumption with the retort that they only create brand awareness and brand shifting. But why then do we sometimes end up with products that we have no use for, or already have something which already does the job? Why do we need to have constant turnover of cars, larger televisions and computers, more and more clothes and shoes. Why do we need the useless items that are sold via instant phone numbers on advertorial television? Where do these desires come from?<P> <B>Global equity and world trade</B><BR> As large producers strive for lower wage content in products (and increasingly in services), production shifts out of the consumer countries to low wage areas of the world. Our ministers of trade and foreign affairs tell us that trade is trade and politics is not involved. But politics are inevitably involved; in tax concessions the company is often given; in the suppression of trade union movements which mean workers are unprotected in their jobs and can be forced to work long overtime hours at short notice in factories with poor safety standards that can be hazardous to health; in the lax control of regulations because governments need to encourage foreign investment to pay back their world bank loan.<BR> If politics and trade are separate then why do trade and business journals follow the politics of countries they invest in with so much vigour? Why has the World Trade Organization such a deep involvement in the current World Food talks?<BR> When companies move production to a country, it can be seen that they look for countries which have weak environmental and labour laws, governments which give tax and other concessions, restrict the formation of unions, and limit peaceful demonstration with strong security or military intervention.<BR> The reason we can get cheap goods from China, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Mexico and others, is because those countries allow, either lawfully or by lax regulation control, use of children, political and other prisoners to produce the goods in factories which have a reputation for long hours with few breaks, factories where workers are sometimes locked in (and which sometimes burn down, killing many trapped people), factories with dangerous chemicals, damp, low light, unsafe machines which all put workers at risk of injury. While all factories don't have all of these problems, the fact is that many have inadequate conditions, and while some companies keep costs down in this way, others are forced to compete to keep their costs down.<P> <B>Resources, waste, and recycling</B><BR> Obviously excessive consumption creates more waste. Even if you are recycling the packaging and product, if there was no need to purchase it in the first place then it adds to waste. While some economists seem to have a theory that market forces make resources infinite, we don't have so much faith in the "science" of economics to trust them to that sort of extent. What if market forces don't produce a solution to the billions of barrels of oil the world needs or the precious metals used to build semiconductors, or worse, the food needed by an increasing population. What if market forces don't force scientists to reduce escalating pollution quickly enough. Perhaps the market can force solutions to be developed to imminent world problems, but to blindly depend on them and use it as an excuse to continue wasteful processes is foolhardy in our opinion.<P> <B>Degradation of community</B><BR> Heightened consumerism goes hand in hand with the shopping mall, large supermarkets, and large discount stores. Community shops are sidelined in the process. These are often congregated in the same block so that convenience is helped. Local essential item shops, which can be the basis for local communities, are forced to compete with the bulk buying power and larger ranges of much larger enterprises, which they are unable to do. <BR> Local shopping areas can foster community by providing a meeting place for locals, and for local events. Once these shops close and are taken over by luxury item shops or become branches of larger enterprises, and if the owners are not local, the community is not served in the same way.<P> </FONT></TD> <TD VALIGN="top"><BR><BR><BR><IMG SRC="images/he_who_dies.jpg" ALT="He who dies with the most toys, dies" WIDTH=343 HEIGHT=41 BORDER=0></TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY>