Abstract
Looking Behind the Label is a testament to the value of collaborative work that draws together scholars whose expertise is closely related—in this case, expertise on regulatory and governance structures for a range of global commodities—but distinct enough to add both depth and breadth to the analysis. Tim Bartley, Sebastian Koos, Hiram Samel, Gustavo Setrini, and Nik Summers position this book as an engagement with debates about ethical consumption and the potential for consumption to serve as a sphere for political engagement. It is a question regularly visited by contemporary scholars of consumption, who debate the possibilities for consumers to act as (local or global) citizens through purchases that support the “greater good,” be that in environmental, social justice, or animal welfare terms. But the issue of ethical consumption is rarely accompanied by in-depth study of the commodity chains that purportedly might be reshaped by committed consumers or the regulatory standards and regimes that are meant to ensure and communicate fair or sustainable production practices to those citizen-consumers, and this book does just that.
In fact, the authors of the book jettison the terminology of “ethical consumption” entirely, arguing instead for the term “conscientious consumption” in order to reflect the vague, rather than specific, commitments that often motivate consumers to make ethical purchases. And indeed, the data presented show that consumers are often motivated by self-interest when engaging in conscientious consumption, and in practice few consumers appear to be willing to pay the premiums associated with ethical products. At the same time, the authors observe that the structure of retail markets, which varies considerably from country to country, can strongly impact opportunities to engage in buycotting—purchasing goods to support a cause or value—or boycotting—avoiding ethically problematic products. These observations themselves do not seem particularly novel, but by linking a discussion of consumer motivations with careful analysis of market structures, both at the retail and especially at the more distant production ends of the commodity chain, the book offers a fresh perspective on consumption as a political or ethically driven act.
Indeed, the real analytic power of the volume is pairing the discussion of conscientious consumption with careful investigation of four distinct “global value chains”: wood products, food, apparel, and electronics. Each chapter is engrossing and informative in its own right, revealing complex histories of how industries develop, how regulatory standards originate, and which actors are involved in their development and promotion. Even more striking are the complicated interactions between “global” efforts to develop and deploy standards (standards that, of course, have local origins) and the local contexts in which land, labor, and industrial production are governed. The most general take-away from this four-industry investigation is that standards are hard to enforce and rarely can deliver what they promise. Yet while each chapter contributes to this general insight, each industry and commodity chain that the authors consider reveals how much variation exists across industries, goods, and value chains. For example, despite the apparent success of forest certification schemes, especially the most reputable FSC certification, deforestation has actually accelerated. Why? One key reason is that forest product production standards only govern the forestry industry and are unable to prevent the conversion of forests into agricultural plantations. In another example, the failure of labor standards in the apparel industry is tied to major apparel brands’ unwillingness to accept that the imposition of higher production standards increases costs, resulting in a globally mobile industry always in pursuit of cheaper product. By contrast, the electronics industry cannot move production easily, but in this case production cycles lead to poor labor conditions.
What is clear is that there must be space—economic or political— at the local level for the ethical commitments expressed through industry standards to be realized, be they environmental, social justice, or otherwise. This might mean commitment by local or national governments to the ends that standards are meant to achieve (such as forest conservation); it might mean a chain of production that allows small producers to have a market for their products (such as small-hold sugar farmers in Paraguay); or it might mean sufficient political rights for workers or indigenous populations to effectively assert their interests. Global circumstances also clearly condition the possibility for success, but again in very different ways across industries: in just one example, if the only way to compete in the personal electronics industry is through rapid obsolescence and innovation, then the production cycles that lead to labor abuses are unlikely to change.
The four commodity cases suggest that labor rights and the political rights of indigenous people are consistently compromised across the industries examined in the book, and yet these rights also seem key to addressing both environmental and social justice concerns. Allowing workers to define acceptable working conditions through genuine collective representation (in China, for example, or anywhere else the apparel industry might be tempted to “flee” to) would appear to be the only effective way to bring an “unruly” apparel industry to heel, or to communicate the (human) costs of electronics product cycles to consumers. Similarly, true empowerment of indigenous people would potentially enable them to withstand industrial development pressures from forestry and agriculture. In fact, I see this regularly in my home province of British Columbia, Canada, where the land claims of First Nations people, increasingly recognized in the courts, have very real implications for the pace and form of resource development. But given, as the authors observe, that most existing efforts to promote fair and sustainable production are grafted onto preexisting production systems structured in unequal and exploitative ways, it is hard to see how standards imposed from the outside could possibly open such political spaces for labor and indigenous populations. As the authors note, true alternatives to existing systems of product require years of work to establish the institutional structures to support them.
It is somewhat surprising, then, that the authors do not jettison the idea of conscientious consumption entirely, instead arguing that these consumer practices, as part of a larger repertoire of action, have small positive effects (though far smaller than most consumers might think and that product labels seem to promise). There is even a hint at one point that the growth of consumer markets in places like India and China might mean that the practices of North American and European consumers simply do not matter enough to shape global industry dynamics. In fact, my only real dissatisfaction with this book is that it offers very few suggestions for what kinds of action might serve as an alternative to, or step beyond, conscientious consumption. This is not necessarily a problem with the analysis: it is a very real, practical problem with the undemocratic nature of global markets and governance structures.
This is a fine, if sobering, contribution to our knowledge about consumption, market governance, and the realities of global production. Do I get to write “I loved this book” in a scholarly book review? Well there, I wrote it.