June262009
“raw, unencumbered capitalism is a wonderful engine, but how we mistook it for social framework, for how to build a just society and interpret it as that is just incredible.” - david simon, creator of the wire
A few days ago, I saw a film about immigrant workers called “Made in L.A.” The story followed the lives of three women working low-wage jobs in a garment factory, struggling for an opportunity to improve their lives and to provide for the most basic needs of their families. In this particular case the apparel company, Forever 21, contracted sewing manufacturers to produce garments for as little as a dollar or two a piece. Keeping productions costs extremely low had allowed the retailer to sell fashionable garments at prices so cheap that the teen and college aged masses would keep coming back for more, giving it an edge in the industry as the “fast food of fashion”.
Churning out such cheap clothing was only made possible by the exploitation of the workers who would labor for 80 hour work weeks sewing the garments in factories under deplorable conditions. The workers, mostly women, were paid far below the minimum wage, earning as little as $3 a day and they were not paid for overtime. When one woman spoke out against the injustice, she was immediately fired. Fear of deportation for those who were undocumented and fear of losing their jobs had kept many women laborers quiet. With the help of community organizers, a small group of women workers did band together to write a formal letter to the CEO of the company. He took no responsibility for the conditions, blaming the contractors instead. A law suit ensued along with a community organized campaign of protesting which lasted three years.
This story provides us with an example of how “unencumbered capitalism” has perpetuated the injustices leading to the growing gap between rich and poor. In the case of the garment company, it valued the bottom line above any considerations for the welfare of its workers and the greater community by sacrificing human dignity, denying them their rights to economic self-determination and social development.
While watching the film, I tried to wrap my mind around how this community attempted to remedy the injustice before them, whether there was a better approach, or whether theirs should be regarded as the best approach given the flawed systems they are working within. Their tactic was to make themselves a more powerful entity by uniting their community in political action and protest. They called attention to the problem, took the company to court, boycotted the store, encouraged others to do the same, and had some pretty confrontational experiences with the President and store managers along the way. Eventually the court ruled in favor of the workers.
Although this particular community experienced victory and should be celebrated, the problem is much larger and can only be solved through a universal recognition (promoted by all world leaders) of the dignity of every human being on the planet. Without this universal recognition, we witness how frequently the law in one country might hold a corporate entity accountable for human rights abuses only for that entity to simply pick up and move its operations overseas where it can replicate the injustice elsewhere. Sooner or later these actions do have (and are having) their ripple effect on everyone in this, our increasingly interconnected world.
Consider this quote:
“The second attribute of perfection is justice and impartiality. This means to have no regard for one’s personal benefits and selfish advantages…It means to see one’s self as only one of the servants of God, the All-possessing, and except for aspiring to spiritual distinction, never attempting to be singled out from the others. It means to consider the welfare of the community as one’s own. It means, in brief, to regard humanity as a single individual, and one’s own self as a member of that corporeal form, and to know of a certainty that if pain or injury afflicts any members of that body, it must inevitably result in suffering for all the rest.” Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization
Tags: /capitalism /made in L.A. /immigration /justice
January272009
On my shelf: The Border, Exploring the US-Mexican Divide
David Danelo, a former military man turned journalist spends three months traveling “the world’s most traversed national frontier”, a 1,952-mile line separating the United States and Mexico. He begins this journey at the southernmost tip of Texas, and ends where California meets Baja California. Along the way Danelo crisscrosses between border towns and makes an eager attempt to understand a number of complex issues by talking to locals, coyotes, border patrol, business owners, politicians and migrant workers. Unfortunately, when Danelo is able to dip south of the border, his ability to investigate and present his readers with equally substantial viewpoints from the Mexican side are severely limited due to his inability to speak or understand more than a meager handful of words in Español. Consequently, most of his interviews are on the US side and the analysis reads and feels unjustly lopsided.
Yet I give Danelo credit for not attempting to oversimplify the issue. He does a great job, in fact, with problematizing “the border”, and his observations probe all kinds of issues that go well-beyond the highly politicized crossings of illegal immigrants. Danelo looks at economic and emotional incentives: the vast differences in poverty, opportunity, and safety from violence and lawlessness from one side to the other. He looks at the emotional, economic, and historic ties between border towns on either side, some with origins well before the line was drawn. Danelo discovers differences in subcultures from one border town to the next and shifting attitudes towards “the other” from hostile extremes to perfectly harmonious relations of mutual dependence and respect.
But that’s not all. Add to the mix political corruption plus drugs and you have just opened yourself one whopping can of tequila worms. The enormous black market (thanks to soaring American demand) for illicit drugs has fueled a raging fire of instability, violence, civilian killings, human smuggling, and unlawfulness in Mexican border towns (and beyond) for decades. Although those who light up a joint in the United States do not easily (or ever) make these connections, they have directly contributed to empowering some of the most vicious drug cartels responsible for a total breakdown of law and order in entire Mexican cities, costing dearly not only in terms of innocent lives lost and generations destroyed, but also in terms of the rapid deterioration in security for both countries.
Danelo’s final message is this: There is nothing simple about “the border”. Any hopes for diminishing the rising tide of narcotics-fueled violence, illegal immigrants and anguish surrounding “la frontera” is going to take the cooperation of two nations. Such cooperation will ultimately rest on the recognition of the interdependencies which exist between them, and an understanding of what is at stake if Mexico’s social and economic development is allowed to plummet.
