Are we what we consume?

As a struggling college student trying to make ends meet, I know all too well the need to buy everyday things at a low cost so as to be able to make ends meet. The basic concept of the readings is that the few gigantic, multimillion dollar corporations who have the power are also exploiting that power for they're own benefit in order to provide goods at a low cost while reaping the greatest profit. Now I can't afford to buy $40 hats because I hate the way workers are being treated in Malaysia. As much as I do hate that and think it's disgusting, I alone just don't have the means to change any of that.

Now with the biggest economic depression in decades occurring, we as consumers are all too eager to ignore this 800 pound gorilla in the room. The need to conserve money is only growing, so what can we do? Roddick tries to give suggestions on how to combat the exploitation of workers, but she gives no incentive for multimillion dollare corporations to do so. They're generating huge profits at low costs, why the hell should they mess with a perfect recipe like that? In order for Roddick's suggestions to become more than just that, they're needs to be cooperation and compromise between the consumers and the producers.

We as consumers need to demand that workers, domestic and abroad, are treated fairly or have the corporations see there revenues drop. We need to demand that the head honchos of these companies aren't making $29.7 million dollars a year in compensation like the Wal-Mart CEO. As to the incentive part, seeing a drop in revenue will cause change, but most likely just in the short-term. But what do we do about the long-term? Maybe if these corporations were told to keep records of all their employees and provide decent benefits and wages, then the government can give some tax breaks or other kind of benefits. But what is common with all of these scenarios?...money, money, money! There is no easy answer, no easy solution to this growing problem. And with the ever-increasing population, more and more people are going to be struggling to find decent jobs with decent wages. I say we stop paying CEOs and movie stars and athletes millions of dollars and share that wealth baby! Wait...that kind of sounds like Communism. Well maybe that's not the right answer, but in order to make the corporations provide better for their employees, there needs to be give and take and a proactive consumer.