by Catherine Lerza, reprinted from YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Spring/Summer 1996, with permission
have to confess something: I like to shop.
Author and eco-feminist Luisah Teish shares a
Yoruba proverb, "The earth is a market place, but heaven is my home."
She explains that Yoruba culture, unlike our own, views life here on earth
not as a curse, a penance or the result of bad karma, but "the manifestation
of creation." The world is market place and each of us can bring "our
gifts, distribute and exchange information and experience, pay our dues,
and receive our reward." I envision a bazaar brimming with brilliantly
hued fresh fruits and vegetables, musky pungent cheeses, bitter and salty
olives, tangy spices and sweet smelling herbs, handmade soap, textiles in
every color of the rainbow, baskets, boxes, and jars of jelly. Bargaining
and trading go on - with lots of dramatics and laughter. Those who sell
are those who produce, or the friends and neighbors of those who produce.
I carry a basket or a string bag over my arm (and it's getting fuller by
the moment) and I come to this market on foot.
Okay. I'll stop. I know my vision does not describe
the global marketplace circa 1996. It is not Safeway or Wal-Mart or Price
Club. It is not the Home Shopping Network or the Lands' End catalogue. Certainly,
it's not Victoria's Secret. You won't find it in the strip mall that ate
up the farm on the outskirts of town. But it's one of my favorite visions.
And it's not just fantasy - I've been there - in Paris and Arles, France;
Castlebar, Ireland; Union Square, New York City; Mexico City; Philadelphia;
San Francisco; and Portland, Oregon - even in Washington, DC. This is "consumption,"
and I love every minute of it.
Doubtless, many of you can recall buying perfectly ripe
tomatoes in July from the farmer who grew them and perhaps you bask even
now in the remembered intimacy and communion of that exchange. Or recall
buying a work of art or craft from its creator. Perhaps you asked questions
about how it was made, or why. You learned something about art or craft
or culture; the physical presence of the object keeps what you learned alive
and present. In this transaction, producer and consumer value and respect
one another; they may even be neighbors and friends.
But sadly, this kind of consumption, the kind I love, is harder and harder
to find. I don't feel a sense of communion in the mall and I've never been
to a Price Club or a Wal-Mart (they scare me). The intimacy of commerce
has been replaced with the "efficiency" and scale of the big box
store and chain stores that allow you to buy the exact same thing in Washington,
DC, Tokyo, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, or Des Moines - not to mention what you
can buy through your television or your computer.
Those "exact same things" can be found
in every corner of the world. A recent Newsweek article described the phenomenon
of "barrel children." Thousands of West Indian children are now
left behind on the islands while their parents work in the United States
in order to achieve a materially "better" life for their children.
(Note: About one third of Jamaican adults now work in the United States.)
These parents send money and barrels of "things" home periodically
- like brand-name clothing and athletic shoes, as well as toys and other
objects glorified by our economy and culture. These children are often left
with less than loving relatives and, understandably, feel abandoned. According
to sociologist Claudette Crawford of the University of the West Indies,
parents are "simply forced to make a choice between satisfying their
children's material needs or their emotional needs."
Ultimately, they can do neither. The article goes on
to explain that barrel children become obsessed with status. As one 15-year-old
boy said after examining the contents of his mother's barrel: "Fila
[a brand of athletic shoe] is OK. But my mother is in the States. I should
have more than this."
For this child and his mother, the world is indeed a
marketplace, and they are among the commodities being bought and sold. Those
of us recoiling against consumption are in fact recoiling against the realities
of the global economy. We understand that the marketplace in which we all
live, to which we are all subjugated, is destroying us. And I mean "us"
in the Gaia theory sense - all life and the earth herself as one interconnected
entity.
My Luisah Teish-inspired marketplace is full of things
that have been produced locally or by workers: artisans who control their
own production processes. I go to the market because I need something or
because, to borrow Theodore Rozak's phrase, I want to experience "a
few things, beautifully made."
Everything in the market is unique - even the potatoes,
like snowflakes, are all different one from another. The cookies here are
not baked by Mrs. Fields. There's also a direct relationship between price
and supply. In July tomatoes are cheap; in August they're even cheaper -
by September, you may get a pound or two for free. But in November, they're
nonexistent. So I buy carrots or cabbage. Because I know the farmer or green
grocer from whom I buy, when she assures me fruits are organically grown,
I believe her. We have a relationship.
Now let's take a trip to the big box mall. Only a few
people work in the stores there, and many of them drive small fork lifts.
When I buy, I pick the cheapest and the biggest. If I have questions, too
bad. The people who work there are paid only to tote, lift, bag, and ring
up. They have no relationship with the big boxes or with me.
At the mall, I know exactly what I'll find: Athlete's Foot, The Gap, Victoria's
Secret, Casual Corner, The Limited, B. Dalton, Macy's, - you can add to
the list. But don't forget Hold Everything - you need someplace to put what
you buy, after all. Everything in the mall (except for the "upscale"
retail) is predictable. It is advertised on television or on billboards
or in magazines. You see it in movies or videos or Melrose Place.
Everything is relatively cheap and it's plentiful. And
it's almost always on sale. In the mall, I can buy things made in China,
India, Thailand, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Haiti. But you
know what? Everything looks the same, no matter where it's made. In the
bazaar, everything is unique and reflects the place in which it was made.
In the mall, everything looks like television situation comedies. And it
is too painful to really think about who made what is sold there and the
conditions under which that person works.
o here I am. I love to shop and I hate consumption.
I hate the fact that the world is being retooled into a giant system that
creates artificial needs (as in "I need that tee-shirt in pink")
and desires - concepts unknown before the advent of capitalism and mass
production/marketing.
I hate being deluged with things while being assured
that the opportunity to buy them will make me happy and stimulate a "healthy"
economy. What we buy is the proverbial tip of the economic iceberg. The
tee-shirt, the lettuce, the synchila parka, the car, all are simply a manifestation,
to borrow Luisah Teish's word, of the global economy.
Only about 1.7 billion of us here on planet Earth are engaged in "consumption"
as we know it in America - granted, we're buying things and spending money
(or our Mastercard's money) at an amazing rate. But most people in the world
don't have the resources (cash or credit) to consume as we do, nor do they
have access to the range of consumer goods that confounds us every day.
Yet, virtually every person on the planet is connected,
whether they want to be or not, to the global economy whose goal, as economist
Herman Daly puts it, is to make everything "cheaper, cheaper, cheaper."
I am puzzled. If all of us who care about sustaining this sacred planet
decided to consume less, to reduce our dependence on cars and non-renewable
energy, would our personal act bring about the systemic change that must
occur if we are to sustain this Earth? We might all lead better, healthier
and happier lives, but would the benefits of our action reach beyond our
own homes?
If we don't work to insure that the whole global system
changes, are we any different than those who opt out by living in gated
communities, protected from the world by barbed wire and armed private security
guards? (Did you know that jobs as private security guards - along with
any prison-related jobs - are among the fastest growing employment opportunities
in America?)
Right now, we are all prisoners of the global mall -
even if we choose not to shop there. How can we reclaim the marketplace
and turn it into a mechanism that rewards stewardship and sustainable practices;
that provides a decent, healthy life for all people; and that celebrates
the fruits of this Earth? Because here's my vision: I'd like to meet all
of you on a Saturday morning at this marketplace full of products that are
the manifestation of a sustainable economy - an economy that sustains people
and the planet. A market that celebrates relationships and inclusion.
This market is not gated: it doesn't need to be. Those
who sell there don't create "needs" or desires. In fact they can't,
because people come to this marketplace knowing what they need. And, more
importantly, the people who trade at this market know that their most profound
desires can only be fulfilled outside it in the larger world of family,
community, and Gaia.
Catherine Lerza is a writer and consultant
living in Washington, DC. She has worked for progressive social change and
environmental organizations for the last 25 years, and most recently completed
a two-year effort to organize a national conference called Defining Sustainable
Communities.
She is currently working on a project that explores our relationship to shopping and to "things" and invites readers to share ideas, resources and experiences with her (cmlerza
aol.com). She would like to dedicate this article to the spirit and life of Judy Mings, a woman who understood and lived what is truly important.
Yes! A
Journal of Positive Futures is published by Positive Futures Network,
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