In my last post, I echoed G.K. Chesterton’s notion that when
one loses their way it’s probably not best to keep marching forward until one
plunges over a cliff, but better to backtrack some until one returns to the
right path. We’ve gone horribly wrong somewhere when we settle for cheap shoes
that do not fit properly and cannot be resoled -- throw away.
That notion, of needing to back track, is certainly true
when it comes to our home food economy. The industrial food economy serves up
low cost, abundant and convenient calories to satisfy our incessant hungers. It
overloads us with carbohydrates, dietary fat and salt to the point where we
tend to be somewhat overweight, and prone to diabetes, hypertension and heart
disease. The solution of course is to keep marching forward and demand evermore
federal dietary regulation.
I wouldn’t say that. Instead, we have a choice. We can
accept and try to mitigate the damage the modern diet unleashes upon our
health. Or we can, borrowing once more Chesterton’s metaphor, return to that
place where we lost way and from there pursue a more sensible path. That place
would be the kitchen.
Similarly, the U.S. economy has lost its way. Just as the
industrial food economy allowed us to turn our backs to our kitchens, globalization
allowed us collectively to turn our backs to the sources of regional wealth. In
doing so we’ve abandoned economic health by ignoring proportion and balance.
Economic Heart Disease
The symptoms of the resulting economic ill health are only
now becoming distressingly apparent. Like heart disease resulting from an
industrial diet, it’s something that becomes manifest in a sudden and dramatic
way.
Counting those among us who have to settle for part time
work, who have simply given up looking for work or have joined the ranks of the
disabled, our national unemployment rate is in the neighborhood of fourteen-percent
and maybe as high as twenty-two. In looking at labor force participation rates
rather than “unemployment” rates, many believe this is the new normal. [FullText] Can you say Detroit? [Photo Essay]
Since the recovery officially began in June 2009, more than
9 million of us have dropped out of the labor force. And the labor force
participation rate has declined to 63.3% from 65.7%. [Full Text]
Meanwhile, I should dearly love to have a cobbler in my town
to make durable, comfortable shoes that fit my feet and that can be re-soled a
few of times. Shoemakers are a something of the past. Their place is somewhere
along the economic path from which we’ve lost our way.
I went to a Home Depot store today for a couple of
twenty-four inch bar clamps. I returned with a pair of Irwin clamps. Irwin has
long been a venerable name in hand tools. The product label informed me that
Irwin is now a Newell Rubbermaid brand and that the clamps were made in China.
I also looked at laminate trimmers. These are compact routers that can be held
in one hand. The sales associate told me these like most hand held power tools
were made in China. Am I to buy throw away hand held power tools?
Locally, Milwaukee Tool’s contractor grade power tools were
once made in Milwaukee. Oshkosh-By-Gosh bib overalls were once made in Oshkosh.
And Jockey underwear was made in nearby Kenosha. So it goes and so it’s gone.
Outsourcing and globalization has damaged my local economy.
I’m not sure the corresponding value of low cost consumer goods adequately
offsets the damage.
The Labor of the Poor
Worse yet, our consumer-industrial-global economy may be
morally bankrupting us. So now maybe, some fourteen year old girl is toiling
away for sixteen hours a day making my shoes and sewing my undies. So she is barely
earning a subsistence wage while sardined in a factory dorm and possibly being
sexually abused. And I’m supposed to be good with that.
In the True Cost of Low Prices:
The Violence of Globalization (2006, Orbis Books), Vincent Gallagher makes the
case that consumer driven globalization has indirectly turned all of us into
Twenty-first Century slave masters.
He points out:
“Harvard University. Women in Bangladesh are paid 1.6
cents for each $17 Harvard cap they sew. Their wages come to just one-tenth of
one percent of the retail price. U.S. Customs records show that the cap is
valued at $1.23 when it enters the United States. Then Harvard marks it up 1300
percent.”…
Harvard is good with that. He proceeds to bash Nike, then goes on:
“…Disney in
Bangladesh. Young women sewing Disney shirts are forced to work fifteen hours a
day, seven days a week. They are paid five cents for each $17.99 shirt they
sew. They are beaten, punched, and slapped, denied maternity leave and
benefits. When they reach twenty-five to thirty years of age, they are fired
and replaced by younger girls…”
Disney is good with that too. It’s
all about branding and profit centers.
Gallagher necessarily makes his
case with dramatic examples of human exploitation but those are not necessarily
the norm.
Nevertheless TACNA Services, an
outsourcing consulting firm, points out while the wages for a typical 48 hour
work week in Mexico are low but are livable. In China, 72 hour work weeks are
not uncommon, often the wages will not support a family and employees are
housed in factory dormitories. [Full Text]
Go the shopping mall, Gallagher
says, most everything there comes from poor people who labor in poor countries:
83 percent of all of
our clothing is produced in poor countries;
95 percent of our shoes,
sporting goods and computers come from less developed countries;
80 percent of our
toys are made in China; and
100 percent of
televisions and 80 percent of consumer electronics sold in the U.S. are made in
poor countries.
Maybe there is little difference
in a Mexican garment worker earning a modest but a livable wage and his
American counterpart pretty much doing the same. And maybe the garment worker’s
wage in Mexico is far more important to the overall Mexican economy than the
American garment worker’s is to our economy. Similarly, it could be the best
the Chinese economy can do, as it develops, is offer workers a 72 hour work
week, and in return receive a dorm room and a modest wage to help them support
their rural and impoverished families.
If that’s the case, any moral
pangs I might have about exploiting poor people in poor countries are pretty
much assuaged. I am off the hook. Our outsourced jobs are, in the long run,
benefitting the developing nations to which we send them. I can shop with
reckless abandon and in fact, my family room filled with outsourced and pricy
but cheap consumer electronics is not the heart of darkness. My $300 Nike
stylish athletic shoes are okay.
Unfortunately the moral calculus
of the global economy isn’t quite that simple and there is a moral dimension to
our cultural hyper-consumerism. Since the late 1980’s, individually and
collectively, we’ve endeavored to borrow our way into increasing prosperity,
and to stave off the consequences by exporting our labor.
A Deal with the Devil
Specifically, writes David
Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s President budget director from 1981 to 1985, in the
New York Times: [Full Text]
“ …What became
known as the “Greenspan put” — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step
in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stock-market crash — was
reinforced by the Fed’s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long-Term
Capital Management.
“That Mr. Greenspan’s loose
monetary policies didn’t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for
goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of
Asia.”
And there is our deal with the devil. Stockman continues:
“By offshoring America’s
tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but
also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial
assets. Mr. Greenspan’s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history,
with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000
dot-com bust.”
From the late 1980s on we’ve
offshored entire industries in order to maintain what appeared to be a thriving
economy and avoid the crushing burden of inflation. In doing so we’ve turned
our backs to the value of work. And we’ve turned our backs to the source of
native wealth.
In our economy there is work for
the clerks, cashiers, fast food workers and custodians and all types low skill
jobs at the bottom; and work for technocrats and bureaucrats of all sorts at
the top. What’s left for workers in the middle? The number of jobs available
for working and middle class Americans has declined and continues to shrink. In
that same period of time, the number of Americans not in the work force has
increased from a little over 60 million to almost 90 million. [Full Text]
What Had Been an Integrated Economy
Disintegrated
All of this brings me back to the
subject of shoes. I would like a neighborhood cobbler to make them. If that
were the case I would be able buy properly fitting quality shoes, made to my
preferences. I would be able to honor my cobbler’s craft by directly paying him
a fair wage. And the shoes would be a product of an integrated local economy.
Not long ago locally raised dairy
and beef cattle provided the raw material that supported local tanneries. The
tanneries supplied leather to a thriving local leather goods industry. Most of
that is gone.
A few small tanneries remain, but
most of the hides are shipped to tanneries in China and return in the form of
poorly made, ill-fitting shoes. Often they are not made in half sizes and come
in only two or three widths. These are a throw away product that cannot be
re-soled and are not leather lined.
A few local shoe companies
remain. Allen Edmonds is a local company that makes premium men’s dress and
casual-dress shoes. With the exception of one pair, in my entire adult life
I’ve owned their shoes. Maybe I’ve been spoiled. These shoes wear like slippers
and with two or three rebuilds can be worn for years. But they too have off-shored
the production of their lower cost casual line of shoes to the Dominican
Republic.
Rugged outdoor sport and work
shoe and boots are another story. In my entire adult life I’ve only owned three
pair of satisfactory boots. Most boots are made either medium or wide. An
honest medium is a “d” width. I’ve narrow feet. Those made in China tend to run
large. They sort of float around on my feet, sometimes causing me to trip.
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| http://qualityctrl.com/?p=2420 |
A friend of mine solved the
problem. He had a pair of Russell Moccasin hunting boots made, and raved about them.
He liked them so much that he had pair chukkas made for daily informal wear. (Click on the photo link for a fascinating photo essay.)
Based on his experience, I
ordered a pair of their chukkas for year round walking shoes.
Russell Moccasins are “locally
made” (within 70 miles of my house), custom sized to individual foot
measurements. They are priced from around $200 for a simple moccasin to more
than $500 custom hunting boots. My chukkas fell about mid-way in that range.
Pricey, but worth it.
For that: they are sized to my
feet (the circumference of the ball of my right foot is an inch larger than my
left and my heels are unusually narrow); they feature double vamp construction
of a waterproof leather and kangaroo uppers; they are glove leather lined; have
a sole of my choosing; and can be factory reconditioned.
It’s not that there isn’t room
for cheap ill-fitting shoes from China is our economy. There is. The problem is
that we’ve almost turned away from even considering well-made domestic ones.
Russell Moccasin is a more than 100 year old remnant of an integrated economy.
The company produces around thirteen-thousand pairs of shoes and boots a year.
The lead time for them is almost five months. There is hope in that.
While Russell Moccasin is a remnant
of Wisconsin’s historic integrated economy, it’s global. Anyone anywhere can order their shoes or
boots. Their “brand” is hugely popular in Japan. Maybe that’s how a local and
regional economy can now bleed into the global market.
The Issue Isn’t Price
Nike owns between 40 and 50% of
the U.S. sneaker market. Its high end styles retail for around $200 and more.
These status sneakers might cost $20 to produce in Vietnam or Thailand. The
greater costs are in branding, promotion and distribution. It demonstrates the
degree to which real work in too much of America isn’t about making things.
It’s about branding.
Unlike Nike sneakers, Russell
Moccasins are promoted mostly by word of mouth. The price reflects materials
and labor. Advertising, marketing, promotion and distribution comprise a small
fraction of their price.
In our consumer economy we have
to make room for a consumer ethic that values the quality of the product and
the human labor that produced it. It is an ethic, for example, whereby I can
take great satisfaction in my shoes, knowing that they will not be thrown away
after a year or two and knowing the price I paid for them fairly represents the
cost of the materials and a fair wage for a day’s work.
With that I’ll close on a
positive note. That sort of consumer ethic seems to be emerging in the farmer’s
market, the local food and slow food movement. It’s expanding to other consumer
products.
The Challenge of Reinventing a
Regionally Integrated Economy
But even with a consumer ethic
that values the local economy, a fair wage and the quality products from it,
there are obstacles. Financing is tough. Often local, state and federal
regulations are too overwhelming for small economy enterprises to be viable.
And finally, there are arbitrary “consumer” standards that simply don’t make
sense. These are embedded in a politically correct, somewhat snobby and almost “catholic”
like doctrine of “local.”
This gauntlet of challenges is
illustrated by problems Jim Mansfield has encountered. Mansfield, a Kentucky
farmer, along with a dozen other farmers raise lambs for the regional wholesale
market.
In an essay for The Front Porch
Republic, Katherine Dalton observes: [Full Text]
“The
challenge is not supply, either. Mr. Mansfield says some of the farmers he
works with would gladly increase the size of their herds, if the demand was
there for the meat.
“No: the
main challenges remain 1) price, because with a smaller scale comes higher
costs, and even though New Zealand lamb travels eight thousand miles to get to
Kentucky, it is still cheaper, and 2) access to capital for investment. Mr.
Mansfield would like to expand his business, but he is too big for
“alternative” ag loans in this state, too “alternative” for traditional ag
money, too small for a venture capitalist, and the banks don’t know how to
assess the risk of what he is doing, because around here his model is still an
unusual farming business.
“But he
mentioned a third challenge to me the other day, and I thought I’d mention it
here, given that a certain number of our readers make an effort to buy local
food. I’ll put it as a series of questions: are you buying local to save on
energy use and shrink your carbon footprint? Or are you buying local in order
to increase the network of food suppliers in your area, so that there is
actually a local food economy, with local producers? Or both? What if one goal
gets in the way of the other?
“Let’s say
we define “local” as within a hundred miles, as many do. What if a food
marketer/farmer needs a bigger circle than one with a hundred-mile radius in
order to get his business on a solid footing? How do you feel about regional
food?”
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