The Vision Pioneers Blog

by Josef Garvi

Recently, somebody asked me for advice on how to improve the productivity of run-down cocoa plantations on the Gold Coast. My contact displayed a lot of good intentions, laudable and politically correct in our times: fair trade, biological farming, enhanced agricultural output. His concern was how to make sustainable cultivation systems that would solve a global supply problem and benefit the Africans in the process. The group he represented was foreseeing a sharp rise in cocoa demand on the world markets in the coming years. Yet if production levels did not follow suit, this would set off a price hike, making chocolate delicacies less accessible to common people in the rich world. Whilst the systems for upscaling production were at hand, the main problem faced by this group was how to build the necessary motivation amongst the people in Ghana.

This motivational concern highlights a question that is so easily taken for granted: is such a business ultimately in the best interest of the Ghanaian people themselves? Or is it simply projecting the wishes of a «developed» world looking for the necessary input to sustain its high-consumption lifestyle?

Cocoa, like most widely exploited crops in sub-Saharan Africa, is not originally native. In the early 20th century, large cocoa plantations were set up on the Gold Coast by the British as a means to cash in on their colony, and an export crop it has remained ever since. As with most Third World exports, its price on world markets has been unstable, and its cultivation for a long time unprofitable. When Ghanaians grow such crops, be it biologically and under fairer trade agreements, they are subject to the whims of the world economy and forced to import that other, life-sustaining commodity: food, which price is volatile as well. They are not trading from a surplus, but using their best lands that could otherwise provide for the fundamental needs of their people. Thus they are ensuring that richer people throughout the world can buy a luxury at a decent price - not that their own children and brothers eat well.

Ever since the Portuguese fathomed the immensity of the riches of the Congo, and the Arabs set up their trading cities along Africa’s East coast, the outside world’s view of Africa can be summed up in a single, enthralling word: resources. Be it human beings, precious minerals or agricultural output, focus has been on what those outside can obtain from her.

Today, the world’s approach towards Africa may be less brutal, but the fact that a politer tone is being used has not erased its fundamental aim. It is still about what the world can obtain from the continent, not about what is best for the Africans themselves. In the eyes of the world, Africa’s primordial duty remains to supply the outside world with resources, instead of ensuring that her own children may enjoy the benefits of their birthright.

As Henning Melber put it: «The plundering continues».

by Miriam Garvi

Listening to Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the IKEA company and the source of «the IKEA way», I am reminded of how dramatically lifestyles have changed over the last twenty years.

Thanks to IKEA, furniture has transitioned from investment and durable goods, to  consumer goods with a very short life span. IKEA has been leading the revolution that is making consumption available for ordinary people all over the world, unleashing a tidal wave of new demand and opening up markets that no one knew existed. A global corporation’s dream come true?

Despite its frugal taste, IKEA has joined those embracing trendy design for the masses. Playing on social status and fears of rejection, fashion has astonishing effects on people’s appetite for consumption. Twenty years ago, a new sofa would be purchased to replace a piece well-worn. Today, it will be replaced when this season’s color goes out of fashion.

Why worry about quality when tomorrow will make your purchase outdated?

So it seems corporations need no longer care about the real substance of what they are offering. With a little knowledge of human psychology they can keep feeding the consuming appetite, awakening cravings that we never even knew existed.

Welcome to the ever-accelerating treadmill of insatiable consumption.

by Miriam Garvi

Since his speech in Davos last January, Bill Gates has been receiving accolades for launching his version of capitalism, which he has labeled «creative capital».

Creative capital à la Bill Gates (“Microsoft”) is a wonderland vision where global corporations satisfy their hunger for new markets by introducing technology to the poor, making everyone prosperous in the process. According to Gates, this will generate both profit and recognition, whilst making astonishing headway in the fight against world poverty. An improved variant of corporate social responsibility that we simply cannot do without.

And since the speech, creative capital has been center-stage.

But beyond the shimmering rhetoric, however, what does his suggestion really mean? Are we to understand that for the first time in history, the profit maximizing agendas of global corporations find themselves in harmony with the needs of the poorest of the poor? That products and services will now be created that can really help people out of their miseries?

Inspired by professor C.K. Prahalad’s fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, Gate’s version of creative capital envisions to reach untapped markets with technological salvation, making the rest of the world dependent on the know-how of those controlling the innovation.

This is not an eradication of poverty through profits, but a strategy for creating the capacity to consume where there would appear to be none. It would seem that our global society welcomes the poor as consumers, as long as they are not empowered.

by Miriam Garvi

The other day I was surprised to read that fructose makes you fat. Only fruit doesn’t. However, fruit juices, soft drinks and jams are sweetened with so much more fructose than what is found in a natural package (meaning fruit). Even the dietary amateur can see how tempting yet detrimental it would be to put too much of the good stuff into our processed foods in order to «improve» on nature.

We live in a world where we are overwhelmed by images drawing us into consumption. The politician’s favored term is growth, and for that to happen, there must be a steady stream of more people willing to buy more goods. In its 2008 mid-year update of the World Economic Situation and Prospects, the U.N. expresses its concern over slowing global growth rates, and, as a response, urges richer countries such as Japan and Norway to boost consumer spending.

I recently learned that saccharine, the first artificial sweetener, was discovered by accident during a chemical experiment in the late 19th century. I wonder who felt the need to consume artificial sugar before such substances were marketed as ultra sweetening but non fattening - in other words, have all the benefits without the downsides.

But what kind of fulfillment is there when market demand is created in order for the industry to diffuse its products?

The consumption society looks to awaken an insatiable appetite for more, playing on our more primitive impulses. The instant gratification that is offered in a consumption world is no long-term satisfaction. Nor is such a way of life sustainable if we were to extend our level of consumption to the rest of the world population.

There’s a thought.