Standalone Essays · Society and Culture

The Hidden Cost of More, More, More

At one point, the International Labor Office estimated that over twelve million people were trapped in forced labor globally, generating as much as thirty-two billion dollars each year. This is the brutal, hidden reality behind many of the products we buy.

It would be easy for us to shrug and say, “business is business.” Yet history shows that the privileged often yield to their dark nature, abusing those under their power for profit. It would be facile to assuage our consciences by saying, “they get the salary they contracted for.” We could even try to twist our ethics into supporting this view. Yet an exploitative contract is not consent. Sometimes the poor agree to terms that don’t even provide a living wage, simply because the alternative is no income at all.

We crave more, more, more but don’t want to pay a fair price for well-made goods. We’d rather buy a cheap, inferior, ill-gotten product of enslaved labor, and replace it over and over again, than pay a bit more for higher quality goods manufactured by workers making a fair wage. We have a moral and ethical duty to ensure justice for all workers, regardless of where they live.

The danger of simple solutions

We cannot afford to be simple-minded in our approach to modern slavery and sweatshops, however. On several occasions in the 1990s, well-meaning people who opposed sweatshops unintentionally increased child prostitution because there was suddenly no other work for the children to do. In some cases, children starved to death.

So our answer cannot be to simply boycott every product from the developing world. Our activism must be intelligent and well thought out, pushing for fair trade and demanding a living wage, rather than accidentally removing the only available income.

A call to intelligent consumption

We must ask ourselves, “is this something I really need?” The vast majority of the products of slavery are cheap, low-quality extras. In today’s global society, where multinational corporations and their shell companies buy and sell each other at dizzying rates, it’s difficult to know the origin of every product. Given this complexity, we must approach the market with caution, researching carefully not just for economic value, but for a product’s contribution toward justice. Many prefer not to look, but in this case, ignorance is definitively not bliss.

While we can’t be omniscient, we must not willfully blind ourselves. If we don’t have specific knowledge that a product is tainted by slavery, we are free to purchase it. However, once we know that a particular product is enriching abusive people at the expense of the poor and oppressed, then we are obligated not only to boycott that product but to use our voices and actions to change those conditions.

The last human freedom

Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote that those who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Frankl’s profound insight is a lens through which we should view our own lives. While most of us will never face the horrors of a concentration camp, we all share in the fundamental human condition: we are all mortal, and we all carry some form of brokenness. The truth is, we are all just counting time until death comes knocking. This awareness should motivate us to treat every conversation as if it could be our last.

It is also true that every one of us has our own unique set of challenges. Regardless of our individual wiring, good people step forward to help others, strengthening the weak and lifting up the struggling. They participate in society to the best of their abilities, contributing their strengths and working to mitigate their weaknesses. To pass this responsibility to others is to subject oneself to a form of slavery, a refusal to engage with the world on your own terms.

To live a meaningful life, we must cultivate our inner selves. Making mindfulness and meditation a regular part of our routine is essential. We need to get in touch with our better selves and whatever divine spark in which we believe. Only then can we practice things like compassionate hospitality and positive detachment in a healthy manner. We must all work on our character to become competent counselors for one another, offering our unique perspectives to provide windows of clarity.

Our responsibility to the world

These actions, however, are useless if they are not performed out of compassion and guided by ethics. As we move through our community, feeding, comforting, teaching, learning, and guiding, we must be motivated by humble, grateful joy at the opportunities afforded to us. We must keep the long view in mind: we are simply singular stitches in the vast, interconnected tapestry of humanity.

If we allow ourselves to erode, whether through incompetence, self-doubt, habitual negativity, or bitter jealousy, we weaken the entire fabric. Our lives are not just our own; they are part of a greater whole. It is our responsibility to practice the last human freedom, the freedom to choose our attitude regardless of our level of brokenness, and find our unique way to serve.