The exploitation of wage-slaves in developing countries as a key component of our current economic system is a very important topic, one that I'm deeply interested in, but this film doesn't do the subject matter any justice at all. The collapse of the factory in Bangladesh and the narrative about the mother who tried to unionise but was shut down by the owners, along with a brief but similar story in Cambodia are really the only parts of the film that had anything to do with the premise.
The rest of the film is just a mess. The time wasted on following around a woman who works for a "fair trade" clothing company just comes across as a long-winded advertisement, and conveniently skirts the issue that this woman is still a capitalist who is profiting off the labor of people in other countries. She throws the phrase "fair trade" around a whole lot without ever actually defining what it means in respect to her company's business practices. I guess we're supposed to feel good that the poor people in Bangladesh are being slightly less exploited by her company.
The non-sequitur in the middle of the film about GM crops and "organic" cotton is where I really started to lose respect for this film. The charlatan known as Vandana Shiva makes an appearance, spouting out her typical disinformation about the "evils" of GM technology. This woman is not by any means a scientist, and is not in any way an expert on biotechnology or agriculture. So many of her claims have been debunked a thousand times (namely the claim that GM crops have led to increased suicide rates in India) that it almost defies belief that people still listen to anything she says. All I can really say is look to actual scientific/public health organisations and they all agree that GM crops are perfectly safe. "Organic" food (and especially clothing, what a joke!) has no health benefits over conventional crops and is actually a hugely profitable capitalist enterprise in itself, despite the wholesomely smug, "we're the good guys" image that these companies use to market their overpriced crops to the worried well. Say what you want about Monsanto trying to monopolise on seeds (which isn't true by the way, there are other companies in the GM market), just realize that the patenting and marketing of seeds was around way before GM and exists in the "organic" world as well. This economic angle has nothing to do with the safety of the crops, their environmental impact, or the fact that we almost certainly will need GM crops to feed the world. The ability to design high-yielding crops to adapt to the catastrophic climate change that's on the horizon, or to remedy nutrient deficiencies in the developing world (just read about how Shiva worked tirelessly to sway public opinion against Golden Rice) makes this technology invaluable to the future of our species.
The rest of the film is just a mess. The time wasted on following around a woman who works for a "fair trade" clothing company just comes across as a long-winded advertisement, and conveniently skirts the issue that this woman is still a capitalist who is profiting off the labor of people in other countries. She throws the phrase "fair trade" around a whole lot without ever actually defining what it means in respect to her company's business practices. I guess we're supposed to feel good that the poor people in Bangladesh are being slightly less exploited by her company.
The non-sequitur in the middle of the film about GM crops and "organic" cotton is where I really started to lose respect for this film. The charlatan known as Vandana Shiva makes an appearance, spouting out her typical disinformation about the "evils" of GM technology. This woman is not by any means a scientist, and is not in any way an expert on biotechnology or agriculture. So many of her claims have been debunked a thousand times (namely the claim that GM crops have led to increased suicide rates in India) that it almost defies belief that people still listen to anything she says. All I can really say is look to actual scientific/public health organisations and they all agree that GM crops are perfectly safe. "Organic" food (and especially clothing, what a joke!) has no health benefits over conventional crops and is actually a hugely profitable capitalist enterprise in itself, despite the wholesomely smug, "we're the good guys" image that these companies use to market their overpriced crops to the worried well. Say what you want about Monsanto trying to monopolise on seeds (which isn't true by the way, there are other companies in the GM market), just realize that the patenting and marketing of seeds was around way before GM and exists in the "organic" world as well. This economic angle has nothing to do with the safety of the crops, their environmental impact, or the fact that we almost certainly will need GM crops to feed the world. The ability to design high-yielding crops to adapt to the catastrophic climate change that's on the horizon, or to remedy nutrient deficiencies in the developing world (just read about how Shiva worked tirelessly to sway public opinion against Golden Rice) makes this technology invaluable to the future of our species.