Annual Easter Chocolate Rant

Something that isn’t apparent to people who haven’t met me is that I’m something of an expert on chocolate. No, it takes 5-10 minutes before I start boring people with my intimate knowledge of chocolate.

You see, I once read a book…well, not  the whole book but a goodly portion of it. The important thing here is I know more than you and I’m not afraid to show it.

A completely irrelevant image of a woman in chocolate designed only to capture your attention for a few short moments. 

What I did learn is that chocolate is just about the most child-labour abusive industry on the planet (not counting the team of five year olds I pay to knock out these blogs).  You see, chocolate should be a luxury good, like coffee would be if we in the West didn’t have so much disposable income. The fact that even the five year olds who write my blog can regularly enjoy chocolate is because child labour and slavery are rife in the industry.

This is largely because chocolate has the wonderful tendency to grow in regions where lawlessness is the norm (I know, if only fixies could be assembled by a team of children, we could get one every week!) and children as cheap labour are common and disposable enough if you don’t actually care about the children.

So what, you ask, what is the difference between child labour and the paper round you cycled as a child? Child labour is  labour that is harmful to the child and prevents them from going to school. Whereas the paper run just made you a strang and was finished in time for you to enjoy a nice breakfast mum made you before going to school.

Of course, it’s very hard to care about some children you haven’t met from the other side of the world, especially if it means giving up your delicious chocolate. So don’t care. Not about them anyway, but yourself. You see, as an expert on chocolate, I’m more than happy to bore and condescend to anyone who isn’t as urbane and knowledgeable on the topic of chocolate as I am. And nothing shows ignorance more than enjoying the profits of child labour and slave labour.

The real face of chocolate.

If you do care, or are concerned about me annoying the poo out of you with my airs and tedious leftist values, then the good news is you can still enjoy some wonderful chocolate. Best of all you don’t necessarily have to pay any extra of expend so much as one kilojoule of energy fossicking for special child labour free chocolate (because we all know we’d fix global warming and peak oil if it didn’t require higher prices or walking to the shops). Among the list of fair trade chocolate is Cadbury, which is common as muck and available pretty much anywhere (even the service station where I fill up my Hummer).

Here is a list of fair trade chocolate.

It might seem crazy, paying someone a fair wage for a fair days labour, especially for people like Australians who already work so hard. Apart from the Christmas break, the Easter break, numerous public holidays, every weekend and sick days we get only four weeks off work each year. Some people, like my wife, get rostered days off and study leave as well but she still spends nearly one-third of nearly 50% of her year working. And then can barely afford the week-long seaside getaway and two week Vietnam/Cambodia trek each year. But from what I’ve read being a real slave is worse than being a wage slave. Slaves don’t wonder how they can express themselves better at work to satisfy their creative spirit, they worry about getting enough food on the table to feed their emaciated family. And now that heroin chic is no longer popular that whole fatigued and world weary look can’t even find a place on the modelling runways for designer jeans and underwear. What I’m saying is these people literally have no choice and no chance if you people don’t decide to buy the right brand of chocolate this Easter. So get with it people.

One Comment

  1. Daka

    Thanks, James, for the gratuitous pic and the timely reminder about child labour. I was about to commit Easter in the stupid market and your article has given me pause for thought. My 2 daughters would think child labour very uncool. Keep ranting and I’ll keep reading.

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