The Weekly Weigh-in -- Slavery and Suburbia

Earlier this week, this BBP Observer observed an episode of The Daily Show wherein Jon Stewart interviewed journalist John Bowe about his new book Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy. Now, I wasn't able to gather from their brief chat a very clear idea of the book's contents -- though it seems to focus on particular cases of slave labor (or labor conditions very very close to slavery) in the US and the US territory of Saipan -- but in any case it reminded me strongly of some of my own musings on the issue.

When we consider bonded child labor in India's silk industry, child slavery in West African cocoa production, and slavery in various industries in the Brazilian Amazon, and when we further consider that the products of those slaves' labor is primarily consumed in the rich countries of the world, then we can have no doubt that slavery is, in some sense, certainly alive, if not well, in America today. Bowe's book and similar reports, of course, show that slavery is occurring clandestinely within America's borders, but in some respects, globalization has rendered the exact geographic locations in which slavery occurs less relevant than ever before. In the sense that most matters, the moral sense, it doesn't matter where the slavery occurs if we are benefiting from it -- whether it is in our backyards or some backwater country around the world, we become culpable for it, culpable in the enslavement of other human beings, when we consume the products of slave labor.

But let me revise that a bit. Actually, it does matter where the slavery is occurring inasmuch as that affects very much the stomach we as consumers have for it. Indeed, we do not have slavery anymore out in the open in America -- where it does exist, it is done in secret -- because American consumers, in general, decided long ago that we could not tolerate seeing such ugliness right before our eyes. If the slavery is occurring far far away, however, it is another matter -- out of sight, out of mind. The American public and the American government are far far more tolerant of slavery in the Third World, where it is unlikely to put a damper on their evening TV viewing. In some ways, it as if America, uncomfortable with slavery at home, has simply exported it around the globe.

Oh, but perhaps I will come across as too cynical (though I sometimes wonder if there is such a thing). The truth, to be sure, is that the vast majority of American consumers don't even know that some of the products they consume are tainted by slavery. Or, at the worst, having seen or read one of the rare news stories on the subject, they engage in a kind of convenient self-delusion, "forgetting" what they've learned when they want some new silk sheets, a box of chocolates, or a hardwood floor of Brazilian "teak."

And that gets at one of the very real dangers of globalization and the truly global supply chains that it entails. If I buy a product that has passed from a slave to a slaver to a middleman to a processor and on and on along the supply chain until it comes around the world and winds up in some mall down the street, then it can, indeed, be quite difficult to know of its sordid provenance. If I am being utterly honest, then I have to admit that even though I have learned far more about these labor abuses than most people and have made a strict effort not to purchase products that I know to be tainted by them, there are quite probably still products I do purchase that are tainted in some way, if only because I do not know where they all are coming from. It is so difficult for an individual consumer to know the origin of every product he or she purchases, much less every ingredient within those products -- it would require an almost encyclopedic intellect.

Ah, but here we return again to our old, ugly friend the BPP. Individuals are not capable of regulating such things, but governments, with all their resources, certainly are, or should be. And the US gov't, in fact, has laws on the books prohibiting the importation of products produced with slave labor. But does it enforce them? Hardly, not with all the corporations that would lose billions of dollars if they were enforced, and not with all the money that politicians receive to make sure those slave-tainted goods keep rolling in.

But then again, what is government if not a collection of individuals, a collective reflection of all of us? By no means am I suggesting that we as consumers can abdicate our responsibility by saying that the gov't should take care of it. Certainly, the gov't should, but it is up to us to force the government's hand. It is our hand, in some way, after all. And maybe, just maybe, if we try hard enough, we can someday end this scourge that has stained the collective soul of humanity since time immemorial.

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But speaking of grim situations that afford only the faintest glimmer of hope, it would be remiss not to mention the ongoing uprising in Burma (Myanmar). For now, suffice it to say that our thoughts are with the Burmese people, and though we fear the worst, we will hope for the best.