Let’s help garment workers
Pick up the shirt or pair of pants you bought at the Gap, Zara or H&M (6 January). Can you smell the sweat from where some of their clothing ranges were made “near the guarded, grey towers of Ashulia … on the outskirts of Dhaka?” Do you smell the contaminated air that workers breathe? Look at it closely. Do you see the faces of the workers paid “the lowest minimum wage in the world”? Hold it to your ear. Can you hear the voices of “at least 1,500 workers” sacked and subject to police harassment for demonstrating to have their pay raised to 16,000 taka ($200), “well short of what the thinktank Just Jobs Network … considers a living wage”?
No, you won’t smell, see or hear anything. All that has been well washed out before the shirts and pants get into our shopping bags.
We have few options to buying clothes and shoes from these and other multinationals. We should be grateful for Michael Safi and the Guardian Weekly bringing to our attention the fight Bangladesh workers are waging to raise their paltry wages. Since we wear the garments made by workers who must pass the “lines of armed guards posted outside some gates” to get to work, we might do something more than read.
The Guardian Weekly reports numerous accounts of oppression, slaughter, and the lies we are told by people we are supposed to trust. But rarely is it so obvious that instead of just reading we can do something. Hopefully, you will let the high street retailers know that you do not want to wear clothing that is the product of extreme misery.
Howard S Davidson
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Time to rework capitalism
Pankaj Mishra’s call for an emotion-led reworking of liberal capitalism (13 January) is timely. Making the individual solely responsible for the “entrepreneurial self” is liberal rationalism’s argument against taking a shared responsibility for social inequality. It also minimises the innate human motivation for collective endeavours and promotes instead a drive toward self-interest and pleasure. Economic growth has its place, but when promoted without emotional intelligence I agree with Mishra that the result leads to “misery and despair”.
Stewart Stubbs
Wentworth Falls, NSW, Australia
• The article by Pankaj Mishra was excellent but there was one problem. He talks of the collapse of the socialist alternative in 1989. But the socialist alternative has not yet been tried. Soviet communism was a ruthless dictatorship and Cuban socialism lacked civil liberties. We are still waiting for the democratic socialist alternative.
Don Kerr
Collingwood, Ontario, Canada
Thinking about thinking
I appreciated the article about overthinking by Mark Rice-Oxley (20 January). I’d like to offer an alternative approach to the problem.
A central function of thinking is to create mental models of our universe. Collectively these become religions or scientific paradigms. It is important to remember that these are maps, not the territory; stories, not the truth.
Personally we all habitually tell ourselves stories about what is happening, stories that make our experience meaningful. Our feelings arise in response to the story more than to the actual situation. Many of these stories relate to our childhood coping strategies, responses that worked for us as children but no longer do for us as adults.
A most common example is believing one is a helpless victim of circumstances. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. One gives away one’s power, personally and politically. I want to make a difference in global politics to stop us wrecking the planet. I am not a player on that stage. Instead I tell myself the story that there is a ripple effect, that if I make a difference at a personal level it will ripple out into society.
Edward Butterworth
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Mark Rice-Oxley’s piece on “thinking” got me thinking. Humans are addicted to thinking and, thinking that their thoughts are real, actually act on them. Introspective thinking can be destructive. A messy world is the result: not exactly heaven on earth (which is possible if we can give up our addiction). Now that I’m not constantly thinking (and controlled by my thoughts), my life has improved dramatically. Eckhart Tolle claimed that his greatest achievement was being able to be thoughtless for eight minutes. A new Olympic endeavour? As the author says, we’re much more than what we think. In fact, it’s only when we stop thinking – if only for a brief moment – that we catch a glimpse of the marvellous, miraculous beings we are.
Jerry Schaefer
Long Beach, California, US
NHS is facing big problems
Your news item Operations cancelled due to lack of beds together with the comment feature No 10 can’t believe the NHS is better (20 January) paint a grim picture of public health services. In my view, this will never improve. The big problem is bed blocking caused by insufficient resources in social care centres to take patients who no longer need medical attention but who need help during recuperation.
This is never going to be resolved. The solution is to put healthcare and social care under the responsibility of central government with the duty to provide sufficient total budget to meet all the needs of ill patients. The current situation – social care being the responsibility of local government with severely limited budgets – suits central government too well; when things go wrong in the NHS they can blame it on the lack of sufficient social care resources.
Lord Kerslake estimates the NHS needs another £5bn ($6.3bn) next year. Thank goodness Theresa May is pressing ahead with an early article 50 declaration. The sooner she does that, the sooner (surely!) the NHS will get that extra money.
Alan Williams-Key
Madrid, Spain
Return to the commons
George Monbiot’s proposed restoration of the commons (30 December) is important if it could really change society by redistributing wealth. His kind of ideas are often called communitarian. Collective values are promoted like trust and solidarity. Rules, values and traditions must be developed in managing common resources, as Monbiot says. He would surely agree that a firm distinction must be made from communism, thoroughly discredited over the last hundred years for its neglect of the individual rights of those who comprise the community. His own British project The Land is Ours is too narrow in its scope. He now hopes to “create a new political, economic and social story to match the demands of the 21st century”. If we do want this, has social democracy become as outmoded as communism? Might newish parties like the Greens achieve it?
Ren Kempthorne
Nelson, New Zealand
China’s New Silk Road
Tracy McVeigh’s report China’s train to London revives Silk Road (20 January) is the most exciting news item I have read in recent times. The train, East Wind, that carries goods from China to Britain 12,000km away “faster than a ship and cheaper than a plane” fulfils a marvellous purpose. Not only will Britain benefit from this New Silk Road, but also the whole of Europe and central Asia through which the train passes.
A successful New Silk Road will open up a new era of east-west economic and trade relationships. Some experts have compared the New Silk Road to the US-led Marshall plan following the second world war. Faster trains will soon be introduced to halve the transit time.
China deserves praise for this New Silk Road, which shows that a nation can achieve economic progress in partnership with others. Such a move does not require guns and bombs.
Bill Mathew
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Briefly
• Canada’s media seem to take little interest in Canada’s history, so I was pleased to read the article about John Franklin and the finding of his ships (30 December). However, I don’t think the author is correct when she states “even today, only 10% of the Arctic has been mapped”. All the Arctic has been mapped – look in any atlas. It was the exploration of Franklin that started the mapping of those vast Arctic lands. Could the author have meant they have not been thoroughly explored?
Hilda Wagstaffe
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
• Noel Bird writes (Reply, 20 January): “We must hope that by experiencing the worst we may be inspired to seek the best”. Co-operative businesses seek to be “a better way to work”. They are owned by the working group or customers rather than by outside shareholders looking for dividends.
During the last 10 years (2007–2016) the number of co-operative businesses in the UK has grown from 4,735 to 6,797, an increase of 43%. There is hope.
Roger Sawtell
Northampton, UK
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