Okay. Out of work now officially with the last installment of pay from ASU. Oh well.
Worked for the last week at Costco, working one of their roadshows. Baskets. Not like baskets with handles, or stout wicker baskets you could use for, say dirty clothes. Not the kind of basket that ends up being useful, you know, the kind for storing your seeds or grain, or for carrying fruit to market. Such a basket would, of course be something of an oddity in our time. No, these baskets are decorative. You hang them up on the wall, put them up on a shelf. They're pretty.
"All hand-made," I would tell people who stopped to look at them, with their shopping carts full of like 5000 paper plates, hundreds of pieces of Bazooka Joe bubble gum, or gallons of liquor. Hand made in Pakistan. I ususally don't tell them they were made in Pakistan unless they ask though, because that brings up all kinds of questions that I didn't want them to think about, because I wanted them to buy baskets. I was ultimately surprised at how few of them even asked about things like, "are these baskets made by little kids," or "how much of this $30 I'm spending on this 14 inch diameter basket actually ends up in the hands of an impoverished Pakistani basket-weaver?"
I was surprised because these are the exact questions I thought about when I was shown these baskets for the first time. To be honest, I didn't know any of the details of their manufacture, and I'm not entirely sure that I really care. No, that's not true, I do care. But there is something about it that isn't as clear cut as it simply being a matter of exploitation of people in Pakistan. It's not that I'm a bad person, but I am a poor person, and somehow, I am caught up in this same system of selling my labor for as much as I can get for it, and while I realize that exploiting another (indirectly at best) is not excusable by the fact that I'm exploited, I'm hoping that my part in this circle of global trade isn't too morally condemning. Does this kind of a globalized capitalism condemn everyone who is a part of it. That's kind of a scary thought, I'm not sure I want to deal with that one.
Worked for the last week at Costco, working one of their roadshows. Baskets. Not like baskets with handles, or stout wicker baskets you could use for, say dirty clothes. Not the kind of basket that ends up being useful, you know, the kind for storing your seeds or grain, or for carrying fruit to market. Such a basket would, of course be something of an oddity in our time. No, these baskets are decorative. You hang them up on the wall, put them up on a shelf. They're pretty.
"All hand-made," I would tell people who stopped to look at them, with their shopping carts full of like 5000 paper plates, hundreds of pieces of Bazooka Joe bubble gum, or gallons of liquor. Hand made in Pakistan. I ususally don't tell them they were made in Pakistan unless they ask though, because that brings up all kinds of questions that I didn't want them to think about, because I wanted them to buy baskets. I was ultimately surprised at how few of them even asked about things like, "are these baskets made by little kids," or "how much of this $30 I'm spending on this 14 inch diameter basket actually ends up in the hands of an impoverished Pakistani basket-weaver?"
I was surprised because these are the exact questions I thought about when I was shown these baskets for the first time. To be honest, I didn't know any of the details of their manufacture, and I'm not entirely sure that I really care. No, that's not true, I do care. But there is something about it that isn't as clear cut as it simply being a matter of exploitation of people in Pakistan. It's not that I'm a bad person, but I am a poor person, and somehow, I am caught up in this same system of selling my labor for as much as I can get for it, and while I realize that exploiting another (indirectly at best) is not excusable by the fact that I'm exploited, I'm hoping that my part in this circle of global trade isn't too morally condemning. Does this kind of a globalized capitalism condemn everyone who is a part of it. That's kind of a scary thought, I'm not sure I want to deal with that one.
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