Peak stuff
Ikea has warned that in Europe we tend no
longer to want to have more possessions, preferring to spend any spare cash on
services and experiences. Services tend to be labour intensive and expensive in
Europe, and with the oncoming demographic change in our society, this is likely
to get worse.
We haven’t quite got to the same situation
in Zambia. Here, ‘Stuff’ is highly prized and endlessly repaired, and imported
goods that would be cheap by almost any standard are replaced by hand made
craft produce that require many hours of patient labour. The population is
growing and there are lots of young fit people who have no regular work.
Floor Mats are made from palm leaves that
are divided into strips. Some of them are died black and then they are very
skillfully folded into neat patterns. It takes a skilled man a day to make a
mat, which he sells for about $2 US. So his monthly income is $60 US! Bricks are made by finding
the right sort of clay which is locally abundant, and pouring it into a mould and
then firing the result in a brick oven using charcoal as a fuel.. Market
gardeners cycle into market in the morning with huge home made baskets of
vegetables on the back of the bike. There is lots of football played in the
afternoons as it begins to cool down but the kid’s balls are home made from all
sorts of stuff held together with sticky tape.
There are of course a few things that cannot
easily be made by craftsmen. Shoes are important status symbols: none for the
poor, flipflops for most, and the top layer of society ie teachers, nurses,
safari guides etc have proper shoes, which are always smart. Bicycles are used to transport goods
and people. Commonly one sees huge bundles of firewood or a whole family on one
bike. Dad rides with one child on the cross bar and wife and baby on the
luggage carrier (yes South Luangwa is very flat!). Every 2 km or so along the
roads is a cycle repair workshop, and they are always busy fixing the very
cheap bikes ($70 US) that are imported from China. Mobile phones are an
essential tool. They are all ‘pay as you go’ with vouchers costing as little as 10 cents. They do of
course break regularly, and there is another whole industry with little booths
selling airtime and spare parts and lots of young guys fixing them with
primitive tools such as screwdrivers made from bicycle spokes. Plastic bowls
for washing up and washing clothes, and metal saucepans for cooking are other
essential imports.
The zietgiest that says that people’s time
is cheap and that stuff is valuable has some unfortunate effects in the local
health clinic, which has a tiny budget of $80 a month to spend on buying tools
and equipment. This means that relatively well paid nurses (and volunteer
doctors) spend time wandering around from room to room trying to locate rare
items like a pair of scissors, or a weighing scales, or a thermometer, or a BP
machine.
So we have something in abundance that they
value and lack i.e. stuff, and they have something in abundance that we value
and lack ie human labour. This is of course a classic economic example where
trade could be of huge benefit to both parties. And to some extent this is what
the hugely labour intensive safari holiday industry does, exchanging this
labour for hard cash which Zambians use to buy more Stuff that they do really
really need.
The classic trade would of course be agricultural produce from Africa to
supply overcrowded Europe, but it is hampered by the tradition of small scale
farming, ignorance, long supply lines, and tariffs and other restrictions.
We need some way of using African labour to
meet our needs, and pay for it so that they can meet theirs. Ideas are welcome!
