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"Like it or not (and it is something about which most policy makers and economists are in deep denial), weakly regulated markets give free rein to economic invasive species and hence tend towards monopoly."
March 2007 Archives
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Another little piece I wrote
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Bruce Sterling offers a video looking at Belgrade, and the future of cities.
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Like the experience of watching 38 Bergman films in a row, the article is a little repetitive, but worth the time
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"Their stateliness and funereal attire could be seen as comically serious, especially as the band builds song suites and concept albums and the such. But at the heart of the Arcade Fire is a palpable sense of spontaneity and fun, some of which comes from
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"Shara is blessed many times over. Hers is a voice that effortlessly traverses time and form. I can’t help but be completely overawed as she thrashes her body across the stage, narrowly missing her fellow performers. Yet for all her classical training a
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"The difference between the French obituaries of Jean Baudrillard, who died last week, and the Anglo-Saxon ones was really remarkable. The Anglo ones seemed to be written by people trapped in exactly the sort of spectral, consumerist cage that Baudrillard
Back in the UK for a few meetings and some flat hunting, I've been experiencing first hand the way that Fair Trade has become a mass consumer movement over here in the few years since I left. As a long-time supporter of fair trade it's gratifying to see such a plethora of products readily accessible, but a discussion at my parents' church this weekend also got me thinking about the trade-offs involved in such a movement going mainstream.
Several years ago, your average fair trade coffee drinker was a committed activist relatively well-versed in the outline of global finance and reading stories about (or even visiting) the producers of the coffee in their mug. That was a fundamental component of the fair trade approach. Since the industrial revolution we have become increasingly detached from the food (and other) systems that bring us what we need to survive, and since World War II (as globalisation of such consumption has really taken hold) few of us have had any real connection with those systems. Fair trade didn't do much to re-localise those systems, but it did try and foster understanding of and involvement in them.
Once the fair trade label becomes a commodity, those relationships once again begin to break down. There is still a core—quite possibly a significantly larger one#8212;of supporters who will seek to be engaged in the systems of production that fair trade works through, but there is a much larger grouping that are simply making an isolated consumer decision. It's arguably a better consumer decision as the money is more equitably distributed, and it may model better practice for businesses that support a sustainable standard of living, but it still doesn't address the core problem that in a globalised society we need new ways of connecting production and consumption.
This issue is, to my mind, more fundamental than the political change that also needs to follow from fair trade if it is to have any serious impact. Political change can begin to undo the injustice that is currently sewn into the fabric of global trade, and perhaps to address the significant distortions and inefficiencies introduced when IMF advice to developing countries not only pushed them towards an unsustainable emphasis on cash crops, but also to a reliance on the same cash crop (compare the collapse in the price of coffee with the timeframe in which such advice was given to see how disastrous such intervention was). Political change can begin to redress the balance, but building a more sustainable approach cannot occur purely on a political level.
Financial markets can, at their best, do a decent job of representing a certain monetary value placed on goods and services, but their models are rife with externalities, concerns which are not accounted for in the price. Whether that be the carbon or other environmental impact of the production process, the human conditions of the workers, or the social impact of that particular mode of production. We can begin to address that with carbon taxes, clearer labelling, and other structures but none of them will be sufficient, and at some point consumers run out of time to examine every label of every product.
To resolve the situation we need a combination of methodologies: new rules for global trade are vital, at the very least to level the playing field, but also to provide protection for nascent or fragile economies; clearer information for consumers to enable us to at least have a rough idea of what the implications of our purchases are; taxes which take into account not just capital flows but also resource usage. Most vital is real engagement in the systems of production and consumption of which we are a part.
I'm hesitant to make a full throated call for entirely local economies. When a true price is derived, with all the social and environmental factors included, locally produced food is often the most responsible choice, but we also have a responsibility to producers in other countries who are dependent on the west for markets. Besides, there is nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy the products of those cultures if we do so in moderation and are striving to find technologies that will make shipping them much less of an environmental misstep.
For a few years I've been trying to weigh up whether I want to place more emphasis in my thinking on farmers' markets or on fair trade. I'm not going to abandon fair trade, but as time goes on I'm realising that the human connection of farmers' markets is probably a much more powerful long-term investment than the ability to pick a label marked 'fair trade.' If we get the local connections right, perhaps that will show us how to make the global ones a bit better?
Tags: Fair Trade
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An article I wrote. Probably only of interest to the technically inclined.
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"In other words, traditional media like the cinema aren’t dying out. No art form that has been devised across the history of humanity has disappeared. Movies didn’t kill theater, and TV didn’t kill movies."
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"For the past five years, artist Jackie Sumell has been helping Herman Wallace, who has been in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary for the last 34 years, design his dream house, a house that will probably never be built."
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"For now, the working title of the book is "Corporatism: How we surrendered values for value, meaning for markets, and citizenship for customer service." But that's really a placeholder for a more precise"
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"This is the sort of movie you'll recommend to friends and they'll go, "Six hours! Are you nuts?" and then call you up and thank you in the middle of the night. You don't need to thank me, though. Like Matteo and Nicola, I'm just doing my bit to make the
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Baudrillard vs. Captain America
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Been really enjoying the son lux record. Looking forward to seeing him/them in a few weeks' time
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"Win Butler ain’t mad at God, just his PR team."
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Interesting interview about e-advocacy, GIS, and other use of technology by non-profit groups. Also interesting commentary on the digital divide and internet use amongst North American ethnic minorities
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Our friends Brian and Fiona Baker recently moved from Grand Rapids to Scotland, and are documenting it on a blog. Naturally, we're following with great interest!
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Kate's moved her blogging from EvangelicalExpat to this new site, hosted by Culture Is Not Optional
Back around the 2004 Presidential Elections, I read an article published in what I think was The Atlantic reporting on a roundtable discussion between a number of key political thinkers. They were exploring the state of the two-party system in US politics and the possibility for a third party.
To my surprise (coming from a point of view where both major parties in the USA seem to be of the right) they were arguing for a third party to appear in the middle of the US spectrum. But as I thought about it more, and have come back to it over the past few years, that makes a lot of sense. A serious third party in the middle would force the Democrats and Republicans to refocus. It could suck away those on the central fringes of each party who drag the others to more moderate positions, and it would be taken seriously in a way that no third party has been here for a long time.
So I was interested to see Surprise Party by Joshua Green in the January/February issue of The Atlantic. The article looks at Unity 2008, a new party being launched for the 2008 elections by seasoned political strategists tired of the way campaigning has worked lately. They're looking for candidates prepared to break ranks to form a mixed ticket, and they're trying to innovate around how they select that ticket to reduce the cost of presidential elections.
It's hard to tell how far they'll get. The US political system is tied up by the two main parties to a ridiculous degree, and finding candidates who will so publicly and fundamentally break ranks may be hard. I'm also not sure whether I want this to happen now. The country certainly needs real debate and renewed engagement, but that needs to lead to significant changes in domestic and foreign policy. Nevertheless, Unity 2008 could be that movement envisioned in the aftermath of the 2004 debacle.
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Likening the future of exurbs to the alternate Hill Valley in Back To The Future II. Most interesting if you read the comments too
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All about percussion
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A nice, if brief, overview of Baudrillard's life and interests
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"Once you’ve written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel. In this manner, you may know where the story begins, but you’ll never guess where (or even if!) it ends."
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"The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when—if you look at the actual casualty numbers—the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is
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Jamie got his own conferece
For a while now I've been realising that there are many, many links that I want to list here but don't have time (or inclination) to write about in any detail. So as of today, I'll be using del.icio.us to automatically post a summary of any links I've deemed blog worthy each day.
Hopefully the blog will continue to contain more than just those postings, but during those times when I'm not writing much, it should still give me an easy way to flag up interesting, amusing, or otherwise diverting web content.
As we plan to move back to a big city, something I'm very much looking forward to, I really enjoyed this piece about an older couple who abandoned the suburbs for downtown Seattle.
Obviously the couple in question are affluent enough to enjoy a very particular kind of urban lifestyle, one that perhaps not many could sustain, but after a recent weekend spent in the midst of an ex-urban landscape, I'm happy to take any story I can get of people abandoning that world.
Another FFM promo spot is now up on youtube, and even though some detail is lost in the compression needed to get it onto youtube, I think it's well worth a look whether you can make it to the festival or not.
Enjoy!
There are many things about the current administration that are hard to believe. Their nomination for Ambassador to Belgium. It seems he was a major ($50,000) donor to the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" group that attacked John Kerry during the last presidential election.
From Salon's coverage:
OK, then, Kerry asked, so why did you give money to a group that tried to do just that? "When we're asked, we give," Fox replied. He said later that he couldn't remember who had asked him for the contribution. And while he said that he thinks 527s should be outlawed and that he'd never give money to any group "if I thought what they were printing was not true," he also said that he "personally" would have "no way of knowing" whether a group's representations will turn out to be true at the time he's giving it cash.
I can't decide whether my reaction should be some sarcastic comment about how he'll make a good ambassador if he just gives away whatever is asked of him, or a request for a meeting to request money for some of my preferred causes?
