Trade As One

Every year, as we approach Christmas, the consumerism that drives our culture loses all subtlety. Companies approach the end of the calendar year desperate to meet revenue expectations and they create marketing campaigns that play on our fears and insecurities, with the simple objective of driving more purchasing.

In this post, I’ll focus on a few of the effects that this consumption fest has on us. In a couple of days, I’ll suggest something of an antidote, and then late this week (or maybe early next week), I’ll write on some practical suggestions that follow as a result of that thinking. 

So what does consumerism do to us?

•      We become fearful – fearful of losing, of falling behind, of failing compared to others, of not being as successful as we should be, of missing out on experiences and privileges that we think we deserve. We live with an unnamed anxiety that gnaws at us, that makes us restless, dissatisfied, fearful people. That guy drives a better car – he must be better than me in meetings. He probably went to a better school. She always knows what to wear. I bet she is liked by more people than I am. Her children are going to be more successful than mine. They never seem overwhelmed - my life is not as together as theirs is.

•      It reduces me to being nothing more than a collection of impulses –  the satisfaction of acquisition, the thrill of winning, the temporal and sensual satiation of cravings. After a lifetime chasing these things, you will hear people say in a moment of weakness - Is this really all there is? We were not created to be simply a complex collection of temporal impulses. There is violence done to the human soul when it is reduced to that.

•      The third side-effect of the consumerist culture is that it enslaves me to devote more of my energies to buying things and less on what is important, but it makes it feel like I have no choice. We gear our finances up and defer the payments to the future. This mountain of debt enslaves us to a degree of busy-ness and frantic activity that robs us of rest, of joy, of peace and wonder, and I feel powerless to do anything about it.

•      And finally, by taking more than I should from the world, I become an instrument of its abuse. Piles of acquired nonsense get purchased, used a couple of times and then discarded. We even pay to store all this stuff somewhere other than our homes. Guess how much stuff bought in America is still in use six months later? 1%. ONE PERCENT*. Our participation in this system can cause us a deep sense of grief. I have left enormous shopping malls with a grief that almost causes me to weep at how wrong we have got it.
Check back in later this week for a more hopeful post. Although consumerism is all-pervasive, it’s antidote lies in the quiet power of gratitude and generosity.

*More details here

Last year, Manchester Christian Church in New Hampshire decided that they were sick of the wanton consumerism that has come to define the Christmas season. With the help of Advent Conspiracy, they decided to do things a bit differently. So they opened up their church early on Black Friday, and invited their community to purchase fair trade holiday gifts, and use their spending to bring restoration to some of the world’s most desperate people. We think it was a pretty cool way to subvert consumerism and promote equity (and get some cool gifts). We thought it was a cool idea, so we asked them to put together a little video describing the process. Check it out below and let us know what you think.

Trade as One from Peter Marshall on Vimeo.

I believe that faith communities are at a critical juncture at this time in recent history. Will they grasp the significance of the seismic shifts occurring in western capitalism and lead the way in aligning people’s beliefs with a vision for how God intended this world to function, or will they just ambulance chase people from the wreckage? Will they be able to lead a revolution in simpler living, more generous redistribution of global wealth and in ethical consumption and investment? Is there a way that they can show that markets can operate beyond flip flopping between the human emotions of greed and fear?

Here is how fair trade might play its part. Imagine ten years from now

• Thousands of churches and millions of individuals engaged in redirecting a small proportion of their spending away from large corporations and buying products that they need, but which are made by the poorest of the poor, the abused, the sick, the former slave.
• That for every person who attends church in America $6 per annum of revenue is derived – that would be about $600 million of purchasing that creates approximately 60,000 jobs.
• That with the fair trade premiums that flow back to the poor as a result, thousands of deep bore wells have been dug, hundreds of schools and medical clinics have been set up. Over the course of 10 years complete transformation of entire communities has taken place. 
• That all this is achieved without any philanthropic donations and no additional spending over and above what already takes place
• Imagine that this movement is so effective that mainstream retailers instead of just dabbling in fair trade are now taking out primetime TV adverts positioning themselves as fair trade vendors
• Imagine 75% of the population in America know about and occasionally purchase fair trade
• That this large number of people, motivated to change their own purchasing behavior, has spoken prophetically to the marketplace. That they have modeled a way of engaging in commerce that is not solely based on rational self interest but that instead it is modeled upon the golden rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This is as good a definition of fairness as you will get.

Is it crazy to dream like this? Maybe. But I have already seen it happen. Through church channels, Traidcraft in the UK derive about $6 per person that attends church in that country. Mainstream retailers advertise on TV as fair trade vendors. 76% of the public know what fair trade is. Imagine what will happen when American consumers actively engage their conscience in how they consume. Fair trade is only a part of the solution to the brokenness of a system that we see all around us. But it is an immediate, easy and effective way to engage.
I think we’re seeing the beginning. It is deeply encouraging to see the movement that Trade as One is witnessing, particularly in churches like Willow Creek in Chicago, Cornerstone in Livermore CA, Cornerstone in Simi Valley CA, and in churches across Texas in the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Nathan George
Founder, Trade as One