I love handbags

[antigone382]

179. Yes, and that is precisely the problem.

Our entire economy is based on the the exploitation of people and resources on a global scale, for products of which 90% will be in a landfill within a year. Our "economy" thrives on despoiling the people and landbases of which the economy is made. It is an absolutely, profoundly insane premise, yet one that is embraced at the highest levels of international economic decision-making.

To explain a little better where I'm coming from: much of my inspiration comes from folks like Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, and Enei Begaye. I live in Appalachia; I see vast landscapes destroyed in the interest of powering "the economy"; people beholden to the work that is poisoning their air and water supply because it puts food on their plate and keeps the wheels of a modern, energy and resource intensive system going. I can only imagine how much worse it is in Nigeria, the Congo, the Middle East, or any other place outside the U.S. where residents are unlucky enough to have materials we think we need in the ground beneath their feet.

I don't want to be a "doomer," as humans have proven to be incredibly resilient. Nevertheless, given climate change, biodiversity decline, population growth, the increasing scarcity of cheap fossil fuel sources (and let's just throw in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because it's horrific even if it isn't necessarily a major player in ecosystems change), I believe we are reaching a significant turning point. As first-worlders, the set of people who use a vastly larger proportion of resources, we each have to make the conscious decision to profoundly change our purchasing habits, and where possible our livelihood strategies. We simply have to return to systems of consumption that are principally derived from our own local ecologies and communities. We should not have the privilege to destroy the world in the quest to preserve an unsustainable system. Put more shortly, I reject the notion that the economy can exist outside of the ecology or above the majority of the people within it.

I realize this is a bit of a derailment from the subject of a purse. It is quite possible the purse was made by well-made craftspeople out of ethically derived materials using sustainable methods, and that's why it was $38,000. Even so, I don't think an economic model where sustainable goods are only possible to the extent that they are financially out of reach of the vast majority of people on the planet is a very sustainable system to begin with.