Procrastinating at YouTube I type in sentimental search terms in hope of dredging up long lost gems.
And I am not disappointed. The magnificent John Cooper Clarke is there – about 50 separate videos,some original, others homages to the man.
For those who have not had the pleasure, here are a few nasal rhymes from a true original:
Health Fanatic
Beasley Street
I mustn’t go down to the sea again
In Happy Shoes II I argued that if the market is left to isolated consumers and companies, the prospects for ethical consumption are bleak. The primary barrier to
establishing fair trade is reliable information about production conditions, not the
ethical standards of those in the boardrooms. When individual consumers cannot
verify ethical production and when even well-meaning companies cannot prove
that they are walking the walk, the outcome is as
if we didn’t care about ethical production at all. In the absence of reliable
information ethical companies are punished; in the presence of reliable
information even scummy companies may find it worth their while to behave
ethically.
So how do we get reliable information? One thing is for certain: as individual consumers we are
not going to collect that information ourselves. It costs a lot more than the
$20 premium our archetypal consumer is prepared to pay to verify factory
conditions in Bangladesh.
Free-market enthusiasts says that self
reporting and brand reputation will do the trick, because brands tell consumers what
the company stands for (essentially the Potter & … Continue reading
Thanks for the comments, both here and on Brad DeLong’s blog.
The message of the previous post was supposed to be that, if left to only isolated consumers and companies,
the prospects for ethical consumption are bleak. As
several people pointed out, in the real world things do look a little
brighter. But all the useful action in credence goods – whether it is the kosher certification market
or fair trade labelling organizations or trade restrictions – happens
because of groups other than the usual competitive
market actors.
Also, if there is nothing new under the sun there is definitely nothing new on this blog. I’m just trying to work out some things about consumer activism and labour standards "in my own words" after finishing reading Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization?
by Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman which, despite being a
candidate for the most boring title in the history of publishing, is a
fine and practical survey of everything from the role of activist
groups to governmental and transnational institutions like the … Continue reading
At the end of the previous post it
looked as if, so long as enough consumers are prepared to
pay a premium for ethically-produced goods, Happy Shoes should be able
to make a profit, pay its workers better than Sweatshoes, and satisfy
customers all at the same time.
But — contrary to what Potter & Heath claim — it is difficult for companies to make money by selling
"shoes made by happy workers" because "ethical production" is a credence good. When you buy shoes, you can tell if your new shoes fit well, you
can tell what they are made of, and you can tell whether you like the style. But you can’t tell what the person making them got paid.
Like the benefits of fluoridated toothpaste and organically-grown vegetables,
it’s something you basically have to take on trust.
This lack of information provides an opening for unscrupulous
vendors. To understand this market we have to think not only about Sweatshoes
offering their $100 shoes and about Happy Shoes offering their $120 pair, but
also about a third company. "Ethical Feet" comes to town
Continue reading
This is the first in a meandering, loosely-related series of posts about consumer activism. I haven’t worked things out to the end so I won’t say where I think it’s going, and the series may fizzle out but this is, after all, just a blog – and a slow-moving occasional one at that.
Here is a quotation from Andrew Potter and Joseph Heath’s book The Rebel Sell (based on a provocative 2002 This Magazine article you can find here ):
If
consumers are willing to pay more for shoes made by happy workers — or for eggs
laid by happy chickens — then there is money to be made in bringing these goods
to market. It’s a business model that has already been successfully exploited to
great effect by The Body Shop and Starbucks, among others. [p2]
True, or not?
Here is how it is supposed to work. Suppose
you want to buy a pair of shoes and you only have one choice — the
only shoes available are from Sweatshoes Inc. , which makes their shoes
in a sweatshop, pays their employees very … Continue reading
Which explanation for Google’s announcement of a $600 million data centre in Iowa is the right one? This?
Google is interested in placing data centers in
the middle of the country because it is a "busy crossroads of Internet
activity," it said in a statement.
or this?
"Last month, Gov. Culver signed a bill upgrading Iowa’s tax system
related to sales tax, use tax, and property tax for computer related
businesses," the governor’s office said. "The state legislature’s work
exempts the electricity and capital investment necessary for this kind
of a facility from sales tax, as is common in the manufacturing sector."
The first report is from trade magazine InfoWorld. Google is saving all those electrons from having to go all the way across the country – it’s probably some kind of nice green initiative. The second comes from the Register, which is the Private Eye of trade magazines.
Sorry InfoWorld, I’ll be getting my tech news from the Register.
Yesterday I read that Paul Krugman has a lot more time for opponents of free trade than he used to:
It’s no longer safe to assert, as we could a dozen
years ago, that the effects of trade on income distribution in wealthy
countries are fairly minor. There’s now a good case that they are quite
big, and getting bigger.
This doesn’t mean that I’m endorsing
protectionism. It does mean that free-traders need better answers to
the anxieties of those who are likely to end up on the losing side from
globalisation.
This from the man who wrote some of the most persuasive pro-free-trade essays of the 1990s. He describes the change as a change in the world (specifically, China being bigger than Korea) rather than a change in his position, but it made me wonder what’s going on…
Now today I see some responses from other professional economists:
Brad DeLong finds himself skeptical of Krugman’s argument.
Dani Rodrik is moderately pro-Krugman.
Tyler Cowen thinks DeLong is on the right track.
Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute disagrees with Krugman.
