Global inequality, particularly as it exists today, has proven to be more “process” than state of being. An era of unprecedented interconnection means that individual practices, just as much as large-scale social, political, and economic actions, shape, sustain, and reinforce power dynamics. Consumerism is one such practice, transferring economic power from the hands of those who buy goods to those that supply them. Seldom, though, do we stop to consider whose pockets we are lining in our consumption, whether buying a new television or refueling at our local gas station.
In this month’s episode of The Oxford Comment, Leif Wenar, author of Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World, and Dale Jamieson, author of Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed, explore the unseen costs of consumer demand, corporate conduct, and more, including the increasing destabilization of our global political (and environmental) system. Together, they contemplate the “revolutionary” consequences of changing the means by which we live, moving our world toward a new era of ethics, sustainability and security.
Image Credit: “War and Poverty” by Kelly Short. Public Domain via Flickr.
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