Help John Grant Edit His New Book “Co-Opportunity” [Part 3]

This is an extract from the draft John Grant’s new book Co-opportunity, contracted for publication with John Wiley & Sons Limited, January 2010. This extract section 3 of the book – Information and Ethical Consumerism.

“The very length and complexity of the modern food chain breeds a culture of ignorance and indifference among eaters. Shortening the food chain is one way to create more conscious consumers, but deploying technology to pierce the veil is another.” [i]

- Michael Pollan

The first two sections have broadly looked at the environment and community capital. But if we are to take seriously the idea that sustainability means redesigning society for the common good there is also the global majority to think about. 77% of the world’s population live below the average income in Brazil. 97% of households globally do not earn enough in a day (in equivalent spending power in local currency) to buy this book.

It is not conceivable that we will solve even the environmental problems while farmers are driven into penury, forests are cleared and millions driven to super slum cities. Conversely development, particular enhancing the prospects of women is known to be one of the few effective ways to slow population growth. But looking at it that way is perhaps the wrong way around – the environmental issues are fundamentally moral questions, about our actions creating suffering for others now and in future? And being party to economic systems (for instance what we buy) that perpetuate poverty and suffering is also a direct moral issue in its own right.

This section is mainly about ethics and developments, which are ‘piercing the veil’. First we will look at classic ‘representative’ model where we choose an intermediary – a political party, a union, an NGO, a Fairtrade label – to represent our interests and/or values. Ethical labels such as Fairtrade have ‘tipped’ in the last few years and are now experiencing surging growth, as they are adopted by mainstream brands such as Cadbury and Starbucks.

But the representative model is problematic. Firstly it shields us from empathetic contact with human beings at the other ends of our supply chain; appreciating them as people – for their joys and talents as well as their struggle – and getting past the complex of feelings around seeing them as victims, and us as aloof. Secondly the representative model makes us feel hopeless – what can one person do in the face on this global set of problems? Thirdly the representative model is an ethical bottleneck – and we have poor information on the realities the other side, so are not fully mobilised.

What’s been happening over the last five years or so – using network technology – is that these bottlenecks are being removed. Kiva.org for instance allows me to lend money directly to developing world entrepreneurs. Walmart recently announced that full sustainability information will be disclosed about all of its 100,000 product lines; available on an open source database so that any NGO, journalist or blogger can re-use it. Documentaries such as Hugh’s Chicken Run and Food Inc have started to show consumers what is involved in monoculture industrial agriculture. These developments not only bring the issues to light (and “sunlight is the best disinfectant”) they also bring them to the mainstream. Animal welfare had been a niche cause, but the UK chicken farming documentaries led to ¾ of all consumers to state they were now choosing ethically farmed chicken instead.

Ultimately these are seldom complicated or rarified political issues, they are mostly a question of common human decency. When people have better, fuller, more accessible information (for instance filtered through their peers) they make better decisions. It also becomes for informed consumers to campaign for raised standards or action by companies, using joycotting (do X and we will reward you) as for instance demonstrated by Carrot Mob. Of course what will happen to brands – always there to humanize and hide the ugly industrial realities – in an era of radical transparency is an open question. And it fundamentally alters the balance of power; away from banks and other corporations being in control – to an era of more flat co-operative markets.

How This Works

My publisher, Wiley, has been quite broad-minded in allowing me to share the near completed draft in this public way, for free. I’d ask you to please be respectful of that and for instance don’t circulate all or part of the manuscript. Also by Wiley’s request only one section of the book with be available for download at any one time. If you or a colleague has missed an earlier section, you can always email me at thejohngrant@btinternet.com.

Please do post thoughts, ideas, comments and insights in the comments sections of each part of the book. John will be checking into these, and using them to help me complete the manuscript. I’ll also be giving free signed books to the most helpful commenters and acknowledging all those that are helpful in the acknowledgements section of the final book.

Posts in this series:

John Grant’s Blog: Greenormal