I would like to deal with Mr. Kittridge’s claim
(“Claims won’t keep Adidas off my feet,” April 10) that “as much
as we would like to moralize the situation, there is no feasible reason to
abandon a company like Adidas for labor violations.” At the root of Mr.
Kittridge’s article is the argument that the public is powerless against the
forces of big business.
It is a deeply flawed belief in my opinion — nonetheless
one that is widely appealed to — that one is justified in committing an action
solely on the basis that if they do not do it, someone else will. Why is this
wrong? This position assumes Adidas or large corporations are static entities
“out there,” separate from the actions of the people. However, the
belief that the consumer is left powerless in the wake of large corporations
such as Adidas or Nike, who fail to address their glaring human rights
violations “because they don’t have to,” is true only insofar as one
succumbs to the role of a petty and insignificant consumer.
I grant that in the modern age the power structures of big
business are daunting to say the least. Twenty-two of the 30 Supreme Court
business cases last term were “decided unanimously, or with only one or
two dissenting votes” in favor of big business; lawyers for Public
Citizen, a consumer rights litigation group founded by Ralph Nader, have quit
simply because they were “tired of losing”; and the Chamber of
Commerce, a pro-business group, has “spent more than $21 million lobbying
the White House, Congress and regulatory agencies on legal matters,”
according to the New York Times magazine. It is no wonder an individual or a
university can seem insignificant.
However, it is only through people’s movements against these
power structures that change occurs, as they are fundamentally dependent on the
consent of the people for their perpetuation. For it is certainly not in the
interests of corporations to do things they “don’t have to” unless
there is market incentive to do so. With 70 percent of the U.S. GDP accounted
for by consumer spending, the people do have a voice. Therefore, to capitulate
in the face of Adidas’ great power is a misunderstanding of the relationship
between large producers and the consuming masses.
The ideal that change must come from some God-given public
interest group with great enough lobbying capabilities to overcome those of big
business, and not “a licensing committee at a state university” does
not apply. Instead, it must come from the bottom up, as the saying goes; just
as a house cannot stand on an unstable foundation, neither can businesses
endure the loss of their patrons.
And so, the belief that “abandoning Adidas will only
result in acquiring a new contract with an equally shady company … like
rearranging the seat assignments on a prison bus,” despite the witty
simile, is flawed. If UW demands — that is, if the students force the demand
— for our contract with Adidas to be cut and the future contract with whomever
to meet our human rights standards, reality may be so. The power structures are
not static, distant entities. They are dynamic and close and change only when
the people who support their continuation demand change.?
?
Gregory Reed
UW sophomore, physics
