Saturday, April 16, 2005
Store Bought
I exercised the purchasing power of a $25 gift certificate (Christmas Gift – Thanks Aunt Sue!). Wanting to use my power for good, I skipped over the celebrity gossip/breasts section, walked passed the fiction (my apologies to any Toronto harley marketers – that’s just not my bag, baby) and found myself amongst some hard-covered non-fiction.
First stop was the “Marketing” section, and to no surprise it was all about sell/buy/consume/repeat. I looked through Paco Underhill’s new book and several others. What surprised me the most is how many times I saw “
Adbusters Magazine” mentioned in some of these marketing magazines! Adbuster’s circulation is under 100,000, but it really seems to be influencing the Yankee authors of these marketing books… That’s pretty cool & as Mark Coté would say: “Heh heh heh…”
Next shelf over were a bunch of Economic books. As one of the FEW people who have attended some of the econ lectures, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to browse through a few of the titles. I’m glad I did too, since I ended up buying the first book I saw: “The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability” by Paul Hawken.
As far as economists are concerned, the world’s problems boil down to one thing: The top quintile (20%) of the world’s population – currently around 1.3 billion people – metabolize 82.7% of the world’s resources, leaving the balance of 17.3% of resources for the remaining 5.4 billion people.
The book discusses how we’re not necessarily screwed, so long as we understand the problem and work towards sustainability. In short, big business can remain capitalist pigs while doing what’s right for the environment and its resources.
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