29 slaves work for me

[Deleted]

I just checked my slavery footprint at:

slaveryfootprint.org

Very interesting test, and even more interesting when you refine it with the details of what you eat and what's in your closet. It appears that I must reduce my socks and underwear, as well as body wash.

[rikita]

37, according to the test - but i didn't have the time to fine tune it all...

i find these tests interesting, but i would guess they can never be accurate... i do have a lot of things, but a big part of those are either things i got used, or that i had for ages because i can't throw things away... so i would guess someone who only has ten t-shirts but bought all of them this year after throwing out the old ones, might have a higher foot print there than someone who has 30 t-shirts but had most of them for five years or more...

doesn't mean i don't know that especially the things i buy for cheap are things produced by exploiting people...

[auntieannie]

Apparently 32.

[lola]

I abandoned somewhere in the middle of how many vegetables I eat, having lost patience and feeling just a touch enslaved. I'm sure it's meant to be instructive, but I eat tomatoes "all the time" in the summer when mine are ripe, ditto eggplant and peppers, not all that much otherwise. And I buy many bananas for my family but seldom eat them. Does that count? I don't want moral responsibility for more slaves than I absolutely have to.

Maybe I'll try zipping through when I'm in a more patient mood.

[Deleted]

I figure that some of us get about 10 slave points automatically just by saying where we live.

[bixaorellana]

Oh, good ~~ someone besides me felt cranky about this test.

Rikita makes good points about how badly do we have to feel about things we've had for ages or that we bought used. Jewelry? Should we feel guilty about the gold & diamonds in heirloom rings?

And Lola's remarks about our eating habits really convey how I felt about that part of the test. Should someone who lives in a part of Mexico that practically gives mangoes away during parts of the year feel morally uneasy about eating that particular exotic fruit?

Maybe that's not fair. Maybe I was being discounted slave points simply because of where I live. However I found the test so tedious that I'll never find out.

[Deleted]

I would assume that the whole point of asking where you live is to determine how far your products are coming from.

What I would like to see is the result for somebody living in China.

[bjd]

I started to take this test but since children don't seem to count once they are over 16, I stopped at question 3.

[auntieannie]

I decided it is a test made to make us feel really bad about living. Obviously, if it is cheap to you, someone, somewhere is paying the price. But I feel that sometimes things are really expensive say here in the UK and you just know that the money doesn't go to the producer but to fatten some middlemen.

We cannot all live in small holdings each growing/rearing the food we eat and spinning wool found on the bramble to clothe ourselves, can we?

[htmb]

I looked at the survey a few days ago, so my memory may be wrong. I also did not like the survey very much. I have many family members I support through various methods, but they were not included in the survey. I also seem to recall that the survey also does not take into account the personal efforts you contribute towards making a productive society.

[bixaorellana]

What makes me fall off my high horse about how workers are exploited is the question of what the workers will do if we boycott products produced by them to the point those workers lose their jobs. And middlemen are necessary to a degree, as is the money they made to a capitalist economy.

It's how I felt about the sanctions against South Africa and the current US embargo against Cuba. Those things do not appear to affect the targeted governments, but they certainly negatively affect the residents of those countries.

I do think paying top dollar for a brand name is just stupid & blatantly enriches people who I think we can assume do not have attractive profit-sharing plans in their factories.

This is hardly to say that I support exploiting workers, but I'd like to know a truly effective way of supporting them.

Sept 19, 2012 13:08:30 GMT auntieannie said:

We cannot all live in small holdings each growing/rearing the food we eat and spinning wool found on the bramble to clothe ourselves, can we?

Good one, Annie! ;D

[Deleted]

Information is the first step to correcting some of the injustice in the world. For example, it is what is behind the Max Havelaar product label in Europe, which does indeed incite me to prefer products with that logo when possible.

[onlymark]

I wonder, if you are a slave and you filled this in, would you find you have slaves working for you as well?

[Deleted]

At least one!

[rikita]

i agree that information is important, and i often find it a shame that while "bio" products are marked more often now (though sometimes wrongly so) and we have stuff like "öko-test" in germany, it is really hard to find out if something is produced under socially conscious conditions. in part, where and how things are produced, in part also how work conditions even here are (as i know people who work in call centers for internet and mobile phone providers, it would for example interest me which providers pay their call center agents most and give them the best conditions, it would influence my decision which provider to take - but i don't know how to find out more or less easily)...

so i think this type of test serves a certain purpose also to awake a conscience in that respect, but the ones that are likely to take it are usually the ones that are already aware of the problem - and it is a bit frustrating when the good things you are trying to do aren't even asked for...