Speaking of monopoly, recent occurrences in the ice cream market have some folks here in Vermont a little upset. Those good guys of corporate capitalism are thinking of selling their company to a new corporation that was formed last summer when Nestle's and Haagen-Dasz merged. If this deal goes through, Ben and Jerry stand to make a lot of money, and the ice cream with the good guys' names on it will be making profits for Nestle's, subject of a decade long boycott for its practice of forcing women in developing countries to feed their babies formula instead of breast milk. This practice continued even after the formula was proven to be less healthy than breastfeeding. What further proof does one need that the pursuit of ever greater profit leads one to deny human values.
Capitalism demands accumulation and expansion and has little room for compassion.
Even Ben and Jerry can't hold out. The proof is in the ice cream. Links between the wars the big countries fight and the economic practices they enforce need to be made. The connection between free trade and the increased imprisonment of so-called surplus populations and their use as prison labor needs to be emphasized. The connection between child and sweatshop labor and lower wages in the more developed countries has to be clarified, as does the link between the drive for profits above all else and the destruction of the earth's environment.