Consumerism In The True Cost

Szazs and Meuser (1997, 111) argue, “Environmental inequality is a global phenomenon routinely generated by the normal working of international political economy”. For many years, there are a lot of transnational corporations have located in some places and they obtain the profit from labor and pay them with a low wage. As we can see in the movie titled “The True Cost”, the fast fashion named H&M and Zara employ some workers for the development country without any security such as health insurance, a safe place to work, or even certainty of working hours. Another case about the power of the transnational corporation is the fair trade coffee in Guatemala. I see this fact because of the development of globalization which makes us living in neoliberalism

Every food, clothes, gadget, shoes, and other goods are usually produced by the transnational corporation which controlled by the market. As what Lisa A. Neilson says, “buycotters are identified by their response to the question of whether or not they had deliberately bought certain products for political, ethical, or environmental reasons. In contrast, boycotters were identified using a simple question of whether or not they had boycotted.” So, reflect to the movie “The True Cost”, when one person decide to not purchase products from the fast fashion company, at least we minimize forced labor and interfere the expansion of fast fashion and the market. What the company do to the labor is not only bring a social issue to the people, and the economy, but also on the environment. So when our reaction and movement refuse the production of fast fashion then we support the sustainability in every aspects because as I figure out, in the sense of that movie, there are many chains related to the poverty, profit, business, market, and other issues. Those fast fashion items that sold at a bargain price is friendly for our wallet but prejudicial for humanity. But, there is also a contradiction about labor life potrayed in the movie. It is unquestionable if they are exploited by the capitalist but on the other side, although they are low paid and

The goal of the fair trade is to fight the poverty, in this case, poverty and hunger are two main problems in Guatelama especially in some rural communities. So, fair trade expects to fill the gap of environmental injustice that has been arise there. Sarah Lyon argue, “beyond these economics benefits, fairtrade market-access helps ensure the land security of cooperative members and enables them to educate more of their children for a longer periods of time”. But along the process to make their life prosperous, fair trade also excogitate the farmers in a system where they are utterly relying on the regularity and they become powerless. In theory, consumers support local goods, in this case, coffee with the fair trade labelled on it. In practice, we only identify the benefit of fair trade to the local farmers in the surface and we have no idea how our action strengthening the local people. So, when we purchase the coffee,

In conclusion, as citizens, we have to be aware and assured that every outcome that we make is bring an impact continuously to the whole aspects. It is not about the clothes from the transnational corporation that we purchase, but it is about the people who works for that. To ensure sustainability and to fight the environmental