Where's Our Government?
I was thinking about the Global Village and International Capitalism and I realized that, while capital can now move around freely, people still can't. And this disturbs me because I can see how all the capital in the world could end up going to where all the labour in the world is trapped.
Like in the developing world. You know, that part of the world that is about to explode into production. Then I started thinking about the hallmarks of the developed world. And what's our number one problem right now? Yup. The effects of all that production on the environment.
Garbage, waste, pollution. So I guess while we're buying carbon emission credits to offset our success, the developing world will...
HEY - WHO IS THE DEVELOPING WORLD GOING TO BUY CARBON CREDITS FROM WHEN IT'S DEVELOPED?!
But I don't need anybody to tell me that developed countries are guilty of having polluted the world's environment. What I don't understand is why we're STILL doing it when we know that government regulations would force an end to it. And I'm not even talking about a suspect scheme of questionable benefit except to a select few international moneymen - like the buying and selling of carbon emission trading credits. I'm just talking about the garbage that is still produced and left to be our collective problem when I'm not sure we get any benefit at the other end, either.
Which makes me wonder - why do we bother having government if it doesn't act in the interests of its citizens over the long haul?
I mean, it's not as if you couldn't simply go to one of our suburbs to see the problem. Cookie cutter houses that are over-sized and open-concept that come with central vacs and air-conditioning systems and two-car garages and green uniform lawns requiring lots of water and pesticides. And it's not like you can choose a nice little bungalow with no garage and no lawn, instead. You take what you can get and that's all there is - the cookie cutter house.
Or take a cruise around a supermarket - if you've got three hours to kill. What happens to all the produce that doesn't sell? Food banks don't take fresh produce and the dumpsters are too big for the divers. Imagine, too, all the pesticides and wax used in producing those uniform apples of every variety from everywhere in the world except the local farms in the area.
We know all this, we live the wasteful lives that citizens are practically required to live if they are in any way a part of this society. So much of what we consume, many of us would rather not. For instance - wax on apples. Do you really want to be eating a waxed apple? No, of course you don't. But if you shop at one of our mega-supermarket-city-states, you really don't have much choice. Which is ironic because capitalism is supposed to offer all kinds of choice.
Yup. Every kind of waxed apple from everywhere except the farm just outside your city is on offer at the supermarket.
Now, I've read of various reasons for this and it's mostly do to the tendency to buy in bulk. Why? Who benefits from all this bulk purchasing? Because I know for a fact it's not the consumer. And it's certainly not the citizen.
So, where is our government to step in and say, "Enough. If the benefits to the citizens don't outweigh the costs, this government will not allow it."
Because don't forget, with all the bulk buying comes the waste and we all have to deal with the waste. For instance, I have lived a freezer free adult life because I grew up in a house with a freezer and I well remember my grandmother saying she had no idea what was in the freezer anymore and every once in a while a whole bunch of questionable meat would head out to the curb in a silver garbage can. Nowadays, of course, it heads out to the curb in a non-reusable, non-biodegradable green garbage bag because it was in the interests of a few to produce something that had to be disposed of so you'd have to keep buying the product.
It just wasn't in the interests of the many.
And isn't that what so much of what we call progress that we are bringing to the developing world really is? Just pointless excess that will benefit a few (and in the case of the developing world, a few CEOs who would probably rather gouge out their own eyes than actually live there) but ultimately cost the many and reduce product choice to "you have to buy this product now" or you can't live here anymore? Green garbage bags don't save time, money, effort. Nothing. But they are what we all use because somebody invented them and now, if you were to put a garbage pail, a metal garbage pail, out on the curb on garbage day it would probably sit there for all eternity and you would be asked to hit the road.
Garbage Day. Oh the irony that we who think we are so advanced a civilization actually have to have a garbage day to get rid of all our garbage THAT WE BUY!!! We buy garbage. I mean, it is to laugh that we are even discussing carbon emissions trading credits when we STILL BUY GARBAGE!!! When we are, in some cases, forced to buy garbage if we want to live as part of this society.
So why hasn't the government stepped in on that front to save us from garbage we don't want, didn't ask for, can't stop our neighbour from buying even though his garbage is also my problem in terms of water pollution, land use - you name it? How hard would it be to outlaw packaging for can openers, for instance? Would the opposition parties actually vote against a bill suggesting that producing unnecessary packaging for a new product be considered a criminal offence? Has the government even made the slightest effort to put a stop to this mad packaging craze we've been on for the past few decades? I mean, it insisted that warnings be put on cigarette packages and that meant going up against the big bad scary tobacco industry, so why can't it say to everybody else - "Enough with the packaging, waxing and just general overall unwanted garbage".
Because I don't know anybody, left, right, or center, who wants all this packaging. I don't know anybody who would prefer a waxed apple over a non-waxed apple, either. Although I know a few people who probably don't even realize they are eating waxed apples. So this isn't something that government couldn't tackle for fear of alienating voters. I'm guessing it's something government hasn't tackled because government responds to business, not citizens, because government is so alienated from what really matters NOW that it is part of the problem. For instance, what about the amount of garbage the government itself is forced to deal with. Eh? Can you imagine the landfill needs of our Federal Government?
I any event, I simply can't think of a reason for not banning waxed apples and can opener packaging. I mean, that we still have Garbage Day, like some sort of modern Sabbath, in 2007, once a week, is pretty pathetic on the part of governments everywhere, in my opinion. It's not like I WANT to be buying garbage. Honest. I've missed Garbage Day and I'm a very light consumer.
How about you? Are you deliberately buying garbage? Or do you find you really have no choice in this wonderful capitalist society of ours.
