T2-lec 6-25feb2013child full lec
Canada and the Developing World -A comparative framework
Thesis on children/youth:
Increasing global corporatization has integrated children/ youth in the Core and
Peripheral countries into a global commodity chain.
• Most children/youth in the Core help extract a major share of surpluses
(corporate profits) through their consumption within a stable political
economy. Thus, a majority of the children/youth in the affluent Canada
(Core) have been transformed into conspicuous consumers or service sector
commodities, while a minority of them (1 in 10 (circa 2010)) live in poverty
• In contrast, through poorly paid or unpaid household labour
children/youth in the Peripheries are exploited through surplus
extraction for profit for and consumption in the Core. In the Periphery,
those children/youth who are from the rich and middle classes, become
comprador consumers. But most of the peripheral countries’ children are
absolutely poor and must work for their livelihood. Thus they become
labour commodities
Comparative arguments using WST:
1. Global corporatization has integrated children/ youth in the Core and
Peripheral countries into a global commodity chain.
2. Most children/youth in the Core help extract a major share of surpluses
(corporate profits) through their consumption within a stable political
economy. Thus, a majority of the children/youth in the affluent Canada
(Core) have been transformed into conspicuous consumers or service sector
commodities, while a minority of them (1 in 10 (circa 2010)) live in poverty
3. In contrast, through poorly paid or unpaid household labour
children/youth in the Peripheries are exploited through surplus
extraction for profit for and consumption in the Core. In the Periphery,
those children/youth who are from the rich and middle classes become
comprador consumers. But most of the DWs’ children are absolutely poor
and must work for their livelihood. Thus they become labour commodities
WST concepts that explain the reasons for the increase in child poverty in the Core
and in the Peripheries:
Neoliberalism:
• Declining role of the State
• Deregulation results in Financial Meltdown (2008)
• Global Commodity Chain (GCC)
Neoliberalism & its result: GCC in Core:
Declining role of the State
Financial Deregulation
Dismantling of Social Welfare
Privatization of child care
Youth integration into GCC
• Weakening of social policy towards children
•
State is unable to compensate the impact on
child poverty generated by the shocks
• Declining funding for youth programs & educ.
• Youth unemployment
1. Global corporatization has integrated children/ youth in the Core and
Peripheral countries into a global commodity chain.
CHILD LABOR/SLAVERY: NIKE, APPLE, GAP, MICROSOFT -- CHINA, INDIA, PAK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57v_v6oSGZI 2010 4min
Single division of labor: core accumulates capital as periphery supplies
labour
WST & Global Commodity Chain (GCC):
Commodity Chain Research HD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs65dIcRKXE
Core: Capital rich
MNCs’ corporate Head Office:
R&D
Product design
Customization
Market distribution
Products
Retail
Ads
•
Inequitable Impacts of global Commodity Chains on workers in
Canada (Core): Wilma A. Dunaway,
Wealth & Capital Concentration
Economic Costs
In Commodity Production, lower wages for
the workers
Low Remuneration for Non-Wage Labor
(e.g. household work)
Educational &
cultural costs
Critical individual costs
Conspicuous Consumption
Devaluation of Arts & Humanities
Commodification of Youth, child, women as
Ads, Logo
Health
Civic freedoms
Discrimination: gender & Age
Human rights
Law & Order (prejudice against the poor)
Vertically integrated Model: MNCs’ GCC
Foreign subsidiary or Subcontracting local company
Manufacturing factories or Sweatshops
Extract raw materials from resource rich areas
Extract surplus from labour
Household labour of the poor (low/no wage or
slavery): Men, Women, Youth & Children
Inequitable Impacts of global Commodity Chains on Children/youth workers:
in the Periphery: Wilma A. Dunaway,
Economic costs:
• Negative impact of loss of education years on a country’s development
• Country loses skill development in its future population
Health costs
• Children in hazardous work: Life span, health and welfare irrecoverably
affected
Social costs
• Cycle of Poverty – destitution becomes endemic
Canada: Core country’s children/youth:
Most are higher or middle income classes (80% all children in Canada):
• Children at school
• Youth at school/work
• Consumers: Conspicuous Consumption
Canada: Child/youth are transformed into:
• Conspicuous consumers (endless consumption)
• Service sector commodities
Conspicuous consumers
Rich Kids for Romney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fit79MQwyeY 50sec 2012
• Creation of artificial wants
• Persuaded to consume endlessly
• Ads & Peer pressure lure the young
Core’s Child/ Youth conspicuous consumption:
manufactured and manipulated by:
• Adult-led army of advertisers
• Marketing consultants
• Youth researchers
Core: youth work is:
• Low-end service work
• Low in status, value and skill
• Not “real” work
• Corporations view youth work as hobby
Consumerism - Commodification Link:
• Circularity in youth employment
Service sector employers:
• Hire young workers because ‘youth’
sells product
• Youth/child often is the real product being sold
e.g.: Ads of child/youth in jeans or t-shirts, sneakers or snowboards, soft drinks or
CDs
• Youth as consumers
e.g.: Retail and food service companies:
Exploit the sexuality of young workers (esp. women) to attract
customers and increase sales
• Staff stores by hiring youth as workers with the right “look”
• Hire by screening for an appearance, attitude and demeanor based on
age, gender, race and class
The company hires “brand representatives”:
• Not cashiers or clerks
• Exhibiting the “A&F Look” (to experience Abercrombie & Fitch
stores)
• Selling an experience for customer to experience again and again
through the Brand
Commodification of Youth
Youth workers:
• wear brand name perfumes as directed.
But, in Starbucks: no colognes and perfumes – only the “romance of coffee” aroma
• Faces freshly scrubbed with Body Shop Blue Corn Mask
•
• Apartments furnished with Ikea self-assembled bookcases and coffee tables
Circularity in youth employment:
• MNCs created mass consumerism (in post-WW II era)
• Commodification of youth in mass advertising
Demand for youth as service sector workers
Canadian youth want stable economy: why? (Jobs & MNCs’ profits
will remain stable)
Globally Integrated conspicuous consumption
• Kinko’s, Starbucks and Blockbuster clerks buy their uniforms of khakis and
white or blue shirts at the Gap
• “Hi! Welcome to the Gap!” greeting cheer is fueled by Starbucks double
espressos
• Résumés that got them the jobs were designed at Kinko’s on friendly Macs,
in 12-point Helvetica on MS Word. . (Naomi Klein (1999) No Logo)
Why Commodity Chains are created by global corporation? How does it work?
• NDL: International division of labour (post colonial)
• Endless accumulation: economic growth to maximize profits
• Commodification of everything;
• Global search for surplus extraction
• Repeated cycles of innovation, change, and expansion
•
•
Extraction of Raw materials (mostly from peripheries):
Rubber, leather and plastic
Extracted from places located in close
proximity
Household labour
Women
Youth
Children
Peripheral states:
Subcontracts the production process:
900 contract factories
Independent private contractors in
China, Indonesia and Vietnam
Vertically integrated model
Sent to the factories or “Sweatshops” for
manufacturing
in the Periphery:
In contrast, through poorly paid or unpaid household labour children/youth
in the Peripheries are exploited through surplus extraction for profit for and
consumption in the Core. In the Periphery, those children/youth who are from
the rich and middle classes become comprador consumers. But most of the
DWs’ children are absolutely poor and must work for their livelihood. Thus they
become labour commodities
Comprador consumers are the Periphery elites whose consumption patterns work
against their own country’s interest but enrich foreign corporations.
Peripheral states:
MNCs’ Subcontractors (owner class):
Upper income class (global Elite class)
• luxury goods consumer household
Rich Kids Gone Wild? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW_VDMYxhvc
4.37 min 2011
Who made our shirt child lab in china
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2KCYsmWFP8 3min 2009
Educated & skilled workers:
Middle income class (White or Blue collar)
• Children & youth at school
• Formal sector: Working men/women
• Consumer household (beyond basic goods)
Peripheral states:
Lower income and Poorer classes:
•
•
•
•
Working Men
Working Children
Working youth
Working women
Fourth World:
Indigenous population:
Social segregation & political disempowerment of the indigenous people
• Unemployed & discriminated men
• Children exploited in boarding schools
• Culturally alienated youth
• Working and abused women
Child/youth Poverty in Peripheral countries:
International Labor Organization (ILO) reports:
2010 Global total of Children (age 5-17): 1.586 billion
20 mil. more than in 2004 (1.3% increase)
In the Developing World (2010):
Working children. (age 5 - 17): 306 mil.
Child labour (5-17):
215 million
source ILO:
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_12675
2.pdf
Source for 2004: http://www.ilo.org/global/Themes/Child_Labour/lang--en/index.htm
Child labourers are defined as those:
• Under the minimum age for work, or
• Engaged in work that poses a threat to their health, safety or morals, or are
subject to conditions of forced labour.
Source:
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_
126752.pdf
Child Labour: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty 2010 (5 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1cZFgJwzYM
*Child Labour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruh0O_mj1v0 5.20min 2006
Children in hazardous work: 115 million
2004 - 2010: 20% Increase in child labour in the 15-17 years age group: (from 52 million to 62
million) http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/--dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_126685.pdf
http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm 2004
Why is child labour bad for the children?
•
Four-year-olds tied to rug looms to keep them from running away - Working at rug
looms, for example, has left children disabled with eye damage, lung disease,
stunted growth, and a susceptibility to arthritis as they grow older
• Work prevents the child from going to school
• Work long hours, often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, are exposed to
lasting physical and psychological harm
… bad for children:
•
Children work for too many hours and too many days, for too little, or no pay
•
subject often to physical abuse
•
exposed to dangerous pesticides
•
work with dangerous tools
What did World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation do?
•
financing sericulture projects dependent on child labor
( Human Rights Watch, 2004)
Children making silk thread in India
•
dip their hands into boiling water that burns &
blisters
•
breathe smoke and fumes from machinery
handle dead worms that cause infections
guide twisting threads that cut their fingers
Children harvesting sugar cane in El Salvador:
•
use machetes to cut cane for up to nine hours a day in
the hot sun
•
injures their hands and legs
•
medical care often not available
1999-2004
http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_30398.html
Child Poverty in Canada
LIC: Low income cut-off LIM: low income measure
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75f0002m/2012002/lico-sfr-eng.htm
2011 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada
Child/youth Poverty in Peripheral countries:
International Labor Organization (ILO) reports:
2010 Global total of Children (age 5-17): 1.586 billion
20 mil. more than in 2004 (1.3% increase)
In the Developing World (2010):
Working children. (age 5 - 17): 306 mil.
Child labour (5-17):
215 million
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_
126752.pdf
Source for 2004: http://www.ilo.org/global/Themes/Child_Labour/lang--en/index.htm
% Children in Poverty in OECD: Impact of State’s decline? (2000)
Poverty
Poverty
Poverty
http://www.tagg.org/rants/OECDChildPov.html
INDIA (2004):
• Conditions of ‘real’ poverty (worse than ‘monetary’ measure)
– 26% of children are education poor; (cf. 52 % of adults)
– 70% of children <13 years old are undernourished, 44% severely;
– 7% of individuals aged 7 to 59 suffered from chronic illness.
hdr.undp.org/.../presentations/2004/topic_3/Approaches%20to%20Measuring%20poverty,%20Fr
ances%20Stewart.ppt
PERU: (2004)
• Condition of poverty (better than monetary measure)
– 7 % of children are education poor.(cf. 20 % of adults
– 29 % of children < 5 years were undernourished. (10 % of adults were health poor).
hdr.undp.org/.../presentations/2004/topic_3/Approaches%20to%20Measuring%20poverty,%20Fr
ances%20Stewart.ppt