Transparent Camouflage
This illustration is a portrait of Paul Marchant, the current CEO of Primark; a company who although claim to source/treat all their workers ethically, have a history of exploitation, including the use of both international and UK sweatshops, where staff where paid £3.50 and made to work up to 12 hours a day.
While it might be common knowledge that Primark have gathered a degree of associated ethical toxicity, the perception of many of us is that ‘cheaper is better’, irrespective of the narrative of the source of our products. We don’t see the harm first hand – ‘ignorance is bliss’.
What if we recognised that as consumers we’re being exploited alongside the sweatshop workers in a different way, but by the same omnipotent force; consumer culture. While many retailers are ethical in their approach, we are still presented with stimulus that moulds us into a belief system that materialism is the most important value over our ethical consideration or our time.
Those who work in retail environments for mass cooperation’s will be familiar with having sales targets for products, and will be pressured into ‘up-selling’ by manipulation of customer perception into the belief that whatever is being sold is in the customers best interest to attain. These targets reflect the desire for economic growth of the cooperation, who despite often paying their workers minimum wage still give sales targets to staff (in the way a commissioned car sales worker might receive targets) who are told, “it’s just part of the job”, with no incentive to reach targets other than keeping the job to afford to live as part of the Western paradigm.
If we recognise that we are being exploited, then we can act accordingly. The capitalist agendas of cooperation’s are dependent on consumerism. If we simply choose to support independent retailers/coffee shops/restaurants, we are voting with our currency and boycotting the manipulation techniques of mass media. Let’s reintroduce some meaning into the slogan; ‘every little helps’ by rejecting the synthetic and contributing to the authentic.