Entertaining dilemma to imagine a common vision of the future
In our Coop supermarket a group of members began to study some products and suppliers, sharing the information with all the members in googledoc
The same group did a survey to know what are the issues the members care more, and the most important issue was labor rights
How do we measure ¨labor right ¨ ??
We will ask the suppliers to explain us if they take care of their workers and how do they measure it…
Imagine that one company that produce cereals, with 50 workers, shows and prove it that it pay very high average salaries for all the workers (including owner and administrative workers) and it has a very low standard dispersion of salaries.
Imagine that other company that also produce cereals shows and prove it that it have all the production system totally automatic, so it only have two workers, the owner and one operator.....the operator is treated like a king.... both make a great salary....
Which one of these company achieve a better standard of ¨labor rights¨???
I do not believe that our politicians would make a wiser selection than us, the consumer peer to peer connected between us and with our suppliers....
Personally I would choose the second one, and I would try to buy from them, but I mainly would choose the one that have open accounting and the one that the owners set a maximum of profit and wages (as a public and open definition). I could easily imagine that the price of the cereal will be very low, and this company will cooperate to develop the ¨open knowledge of the cereal production¨ (and encourage ¨think global and produce local¨ and Commons-based peer production).
Can you imagine something like this ???
miguel novik Mon 29 May 2017 8:45PM
well .... this thread attempt to build a common future vision where customers are ¨connected ¨ between themselves and with suppliers, and learning about ¨what is better for the whole of them¨ and choosing where and what to produce and trade according to it (the bets for ¨ all ¨).
(for me these are the ¨peers¨ with awareness that each one affect the whole system).
It seems that nobody in this group could imagine something like this???
At least, like a way of moving to one reality even more ¨idealistic ¨ ???
.....It will be much more easy to achieve this vision if more people can see it.... :smiley: :smiley:
miguel novik Tue 30 May 2017 10:53AM
For me the most important achievement will be that we could clarify what do we really need (or want) and what do we give value to....
At the same time we will be understanding our own contribution to the whole system.... We will see that we are part of it... (we will see what we are buying ..... and why do we decide so.....all this information in the sharing data system.).
Simon Grant · Wed 24 May 2017 11:34AM
Thank you Miguel @miguelnovik for bringing this up!
What, indeed, are "labour rights"? (Being a Brit, I prefer Brit spelling :wink: )
Personally, I wouldn't assume people all mean the same thing. I would ask a selection of those people to break down what they mean by "labour rights" into any constituent parts that they can imagine. Then cross-compare.
It may be that there are different dimensions that can be separated in a commonly agreeable way. That is, we don't have to agree on the relative value, just that they are separately valuable to different people.
This is part of producing a common vocabulary to aid communication and transparency, and reduce misunderstanding and confusion. I like that kind of initiative.
Thinking of your imaginary scenario, I would prefer a third way: the owner and the operator choose to take similar modest living wages, and pass on the price reductions to their customers.