Susana Aguilar
Ms. Marcinkowski
English 205
30 August 2014
Analytical Essay on Personal Consumerism My favorite brand that I am absolutely crazy for has to be NIKE, but very recently I have learned the truth about their process of production and their very tangled ways of using people with no voice for a higher profit. They have closed down and changed the location of their factories more than four times, because when workers would become more productive, and their wages rose, many workers would move on to higher paying jobs so NIKE would just close down and re-locate to a different location that would enable them to continue operating at a low cost. They’ve moved from South Korea, to Peoples Republic of China, to Taiwan and finally to Indonesia. They are always looking for places where the people are pushovers/desperate and are the quietest for the longest time. I believe this has got to come to an end. We need to start looking at the labels of the goods we buy because people are being treated harshly/exploited for the production of these goods. In addition the government has a low-wage strategy plan to in fact lower our wages in the long run if we let this sweatshop outrageousness proceed, and furthermore we will eventually end up destroying mankind with these immoral ways of treating others.
Globalization is defined in the Global Issues Local Arguments book by June Johnson as the “increasing interconnectedness of all parts of the world in terms of communications, business, trade, politics, travel, and culture.” (1). However the way corporations and large firms are handling this interconnectedness is not the most adequate. Thousands of laborers from China, Philippines and other parts of Asia are flown to a tropical island in the U.S part of the Mariana Islands promised that they will have a good American job and later make them sign a shadow contract saying that they will get deported if they don’t do what they say. These people are put into work almost immediately into nearby factories and sheltered in the “labor camps” were they put up to twelve people into small rooms, divided by gender. “They are not good conditions” she says, wrinkling her nose and pointing to a mildew filled hallway strewn with litter. “If we complain, then our bosses will send us back to China and take away all of our money. Our families need the money." (The Moyers on America). Having to stand these poor living/working conditions because you’re barley making the necessary money for your family to survive on has to be the worst experience ever. You can see the extent to where your purchases have come from, deep in the Mariana Islands someone out there is making a pair of shoes that you are going to buy next week and you don’t even know what they are going through. This is precisely why it is important to be aware and start looking at the labels of the goods we buy to stop exploiting these poor factory workers that have been threatened and lied to.
Another reason why we should begin to make it a habit to examine our purchases is that if we do start to actually realize what we’re buying we are reducing the possibility of the government’s attempt to lower our wages in the long run. “Canadian’s should be more concerned but not because they want to help miss treated workers overseas but to help themselves… the exploitation of cheap foreign labor is part of a vast global strategy defined ultimately to force wages down in Canada and other Western nations.” (June Johnson 30). Here Johnson elaborates on the government’s long term plan to lower our future wages by testing the resistance of peoples voice from third world countries first, and then slowly but surely coming on to us.
In addition if we don’t put a stop to this sweatshop, exploitation, take over the world non sense imagine our mankind behavior in the future and how destroyed our environmental resources will be in a few decades. "There are many major crises we face today because of sweatshops —
