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The trifecta that almost everyone loses
April 28, 2008
The era of cheap goods is ending—that’s the view from sources ranging from a variety of observers. I reported recently that Alexandra Harney attributes the rise in prices to the rise of labor costs in China. Now, in the Sunday Boston Globe, Prasannan Parthasarathi, an associate professor of history at Boston College, and Juliet Schor, a sociology professor at BC and a board member of newdream.org, say other factors are involved as well in the fact that, as they put it, “Seemingly overnight, $19 DVD players, trendy T-shirts for $3.99, and $49 fares on Southwest have given way to $3 loaves of bread, $5 gallons of milk, and gas on its way to $4 a gallon…We're betting the trifecta of ecological limits, the unequal distribution of wealth, and the legacy of bad policy will end the era of cheap goods.”
Evidence they point to for each part of this trifecta include continually rising carbon emissions, striking hungry workers in Vietnam, and US retailers’ rationing of rice. “The new price trends are troubling for a majority of the globe's citizens, who, unless they can translate their numbers into political power, will bear the lion's share of what looks so far to be a painful ecological adjustment,” they write.
Their call to action to mitigate the effects of rising prices? “…broad-based reforms that cushion higher prices for basic needs by putting more purchasing power into lower-income hands, expand secure access to sustainable food sources, and provide climate-friendly power and transport.”
Posted by Rick Nelson on April 28, 2008 | Comments (5)
