my week in objects (mostly).

The ethics of goods and pricing is so tricky and folks—myself included—often have a really visceral reaction. It’s interesting to tease apart, just briefly. I can understand balking at the price of handmade dinnerware. No doubt that for lots of folks the price would be out of their budget, and I can understand the impulse—or point of view—that questions how that money might be better spent somewhere else. But it’s also worth pausing to think about what accounts for that price and the far lower price that many of us are accustomed to paying for the items in our homes and lives. Knowing that an item has been made thoughtfully and with integrity, that workers have been paid a living wage, and given healthcare and benefits, that care has been taken to limit harmful effects on the environment, that a craft has been honed and honored, I think it becomes clearer that goods like these aren’t preposterously extravagant for the sake of extravagance alone. The price of the product necessarily has to account for the care, and cost, that’s gone into its production. When goods are produced cheaply, often that’s the result of workers being poorly paid, the environment being exploited, and customers ending up with an inferior product. I would also critique the inequity that means that some kids eat off $80 dinnerware and some kids go to bed hungry, but the truth is complicated. A small company like East Fork provides jobs in their community and contributes directly to the economy of a small American city by keeping their manufacturing local. Just this summer they actually lowered their prices as they took steps to mechanize and streamline aspects of their production. I don’t have a perfect answer here, but I do think it’s worth continuing to ponder.