Bloody Products

This is one of essays I wrote for Mr. Johnson's class last semester. It's not revised yet.

    Chocolate, coffee, cell phone. These are some representative words you can think of when thinking about 'exploitations'. I actually heard some people fighting for human right (especially of those who are socially challenged) by boycotting those products. For sure, many companies producing chocolates, coffees, and cell phones, as we all know, are exploiting labors. It is literally wrong to do so, and they, the companies, have their responsibility for it. The company needs huge amount of labors to collect cacao fruits, manufacture it, and wrap it. These jobs, requiring agile and small body, just fits for African boys. They are easy to take (probably there are more desperate things than human rights). They easily get dazzled by money because they are economically challenged. For all, it might be efficient. Still, this exploitation is certainly to be criticized. Those innocent, young laborers are to be protected. They are some who we need to take care of. It is a clear obligation for all of us, both morally and socially. Exploitions are to be criticized.

     However, it is not that 'companies are the only one to be criticized'. We can't just blame companies, not respecting their own conditions. The world we live is based on capitalism. This means money is intervened in any deal, any occurence, and any relationship. Everyone wills to buy products in cheaper price. Nonetheless, many manufactured goods these days don't usually have a specialized quality or other notable characteristic. Especially for chocolate and coffee, which the biggest part of the price is the name value (or the brand name), the most crucial part to win in the competition is the price. What shall companies do to reduce the price? They all have similar resources, capitals and all. This is where they get to choose exploitions. They extort labors from the weak. These behaviors weren't even criticized by media till recent days, till the world started to pay attention to human rights. This is called a 'structural violece'. We expect the company to make productions in a cheap price, not caring much about how they're going to make it, and then blame them for exploitions. In short, it is not only the company who has to take responsibility of the exploition. As a member of this society, and by the fact that structural violence is also one contributing factor of the exploition, we should take responsibility for this together, work for it, and get rid of it.

     Thank you:)