Part 2: Essay. Describe the argument that inequality constrains a consumer society.
Inequality refers to the inequity of members of a consumer society, a society that is built around consumption, the buying and selling of goods and services, to consume equally and the inequity placed onto other societies by a consumer society. Not all members of a consumer society can indulge in the choices and freedoms that are said to exist in a consumer society as they are constrained by various factors to be discussed. Moreover, a consumer society creates inequalities not only within itself but outside of its boundaries too, creating inequalities in other societies around the globe, constraining many people of good working conditions and a living wage …show more content…
Supermarkets and other eminent high street clothing brands get most of their clothing by subcontracting through a global supply chain. Garment factory workers in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and other under developed countries taking the strain of low cost clothing. War on Want, a non-governmental organisation has evidence that Tesco and Asda were using a garment factory in Dharka, Bangladesh where the workers were subject to slave wages, forced overtime, overcrowded working conditions that were unsanitary. This is another example of a constraint in a consumer society. Garment factory workers abroad pay the price of terrible pay and working conditions so that those living in consumer society can have cheap clothing. All of this could be considered a zero – sum game, one party’s gain is balanced by another party’s loss, the gaining party here is the supermarket owners and the party’s whom are losing are the migrant workers and the garment factory employees. (Dennis Wrong (1997), cited in Allen (2014), p. …show more content…
Inequality exists within a consumer society in Bauman’s terms of the ‘seduced’ and the ‘Repressed’. The later being discriminated against their inability to consume as well as the ‘seduced’ due to chronic illness, disability or age affecting their ability to earn enough money to indulge in consumerism possibly resulting in a devalued self and exclusion from those who can consume successfully. However, it should be noted that Bauman’s claim is an assertion with no physical evidence to prove his theory. Supermarkets have come to dominate consumer society in terms of where members of a consumer society shop. There is plenty evidence to back up the claims of anti-supermarket lobbies and War on Want’s claims that supermarkets use their buying power and market power in unfair ways creating inequalities for suppliers by forcing down prices which in turn creates horrendous working conditions for migrant workers picking fruit and vegetables in the UK as well as those in the garment factories in the developing world enduring poverty wages and risks to their physical and mental wellbeing. These are some of they ways inequalities constrain a consumer society. The true cost of low prices at the retailers puts huge constraints on the suppliers and it is their employees who pay through not having a living wage and sanitary working conditions and Bauman’s assertions about the ‘seduced’ and the ‘repressed’ suggests
Inequality refers to the inequity of members of a consumer society, a society that is built around consumption, the buying and selling of goods and services, to consume equally and the inequity placed onto other societies by a consumer society. Not all members of a consumer society can indulge in the choices and freedoms that are said to exist in a consumer society as they are constrained by various factors to be discussed. Moreover, a consumer society creates inequalities not only within itself but outside of its boundaries too, creating inequalities in other societies around the globe, constraining many people of good working conditions and a living wage …show more content…
Supermarkets and other eminent high street clothing brands get most of their clothing by subcontracting through a global supply chain. Garment factory workers in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and other under developed countries taking the strain of low cost clothing. War on Want, a non-governmental organisation has evidence that Tesco and Asda were using a garment factory in Dharka, Bangladesh where the workers were subject to slave wages, forced overtime, overcrowded working conditions that were unsanitary. This is another example of a constraint in a consumer society. Garment factory workers abroad pay the price of terrible pay and working conditions so that those living in consumer society can have cheap clothing. All of this could be considered a zero – sum game, one party’s gain is balanced by another party’s loss, the gaining party here is the supermarket owners and the party’s whom are losing are the migrant workers and the garment factory employees. (Dennis Wrong (1997), cited in Allen (2014), p. …show more content…
Inequality exists within a consumer society in Bauman’s terms of the ‘seduced’ and the ‘Repressed’. The later being discriminated against their inability to consume as well as the ‘seduced’ due to chronic illness, disability or age affecting their ability to earn enough money to indulge in consumerism possibly resulting in a devalued self and exclusion from those who can consume successfully. However, it should be noted that Bauman’s claim is an assertion with no physical evidence to prove his theory. Supermarkets have come to dominate consumer society in terms of where members of a consumer society shop. There is plenty evidence to back up the claims of anti-supermarket lobbies and War on Want’s claims that supermarkets use their buying power and market power in unfair ways creating inequalities for suppliers by forcing down prices which in turn creates horrendous working conditions for migrant workers picking fruit and vegetables in the UK as well as those in the garment factories in the developing world enduring poverty wages and risks to their physical and mental wellbeing. These are some of they ways inequalities constrain a consumer society. The true cost of low prices at the retailers puts huge constraints on the suppliers and it is their employees who pay through not having a living wage and sanitary working conditions and Bauman’s assertions about the ‘seduced’ and the ‘repressed’ suggests