Ryan Mickle Blogs Here

During the holidays, in my family, we exchange gifts, decorate a tree, and lose ourselves in conversation with each other, catching up for any lost time. A couple times during the holiday season, I indulge in Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks. What makes the way we celebrate a bit untraditional could be our Christmas trees, which usually stand a foot or two tall, or our wish lists, which contain inexpensive items such as new running shoes for myself, a new hand vacuum for Nana (to replace the one we gave her a decade ago that has since died), maybe some new clothes.

When I see holiday advertisements that tell me that the only way into the hearts of those I care about is through diamond-laden jewelry (does “Every kiss begins with Kay” ring a bell?), or a new Mercedes with a big red bow on it, it makes me wonder less why consumers seem to be buying less each year, and why traditional advertising just isn’t effectively moving products any more. At some point, didn’t we all have to wake up and ask ourselves “do we really need all this crap?”

It was recently discovered that a Wal-Mart supplier has been employing sweatshop labor to satisfy the enormous demand of Americans for holiday ornaments. Would it have been a big story if the supplier didn’t sell to Wal-Mart… say, perhaps Ace Hardware? Probably not. But despite all of Wal-Mart’s efforts to ensure that its products are supplied from producers that can make cheap products, without breaking ethical rules, clearly this story has shown that their work isn’t yet done. Thanks to cell phone cameras, a brave factory worker, and the internet, we’re able to see firsthand why it is so important to encourage socially sustainable manufacturing. [See more pictures, video, and even what a sweatshop paycheck looks like here (hint: they bring home less than $1000 a year.)]

So what? Well, this week I had a chance to hear Warren Buffet talk about why he cares so much about investing in social equality. He said that each of us, in the beginning of our lives pull our ticket in the “ovarian lottery.” The ticket we select decides nearly every aspect of our lives–our gender, race, social status, the community in which we are born. If each of us were forced to pull a new ticket, we’d sure as hell want know that everything possible was being done to provide the same opportunities to live healthy, happy lives, to all of us, regardless of which ticket we chose. So, I am not, after all, telling you to boycott Wal-Mart. Just focus on what is most important this holiday–the people you care about, the spirit of expressing our affection for them, and the knowledge of how fortunate we are to have pulled tickets that have afforded us with everything we could possibly need. Do that, and maybe leave the crap that will end up in next year’s garage sale or at Goodwill anyway on the shelf, if you are so inclined.

Happy holidays!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Life, Worldchanging biz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.