THE HUMAN COST
At checkout, it’s easy to forget that we’re at the end of a long, largely invisible chain. We pick up a five-dollar t-shirt or the latest piece of technology without pausing to consider the people whose labour made these goods possible. Much of the convenience and abundance we enjoy is built on human suffering taking place far beyond our borders. This hidden reality is rarely acknowledged in advertising, yet it’s central to understanding how far our consumption has drifted from the idea of enough.
Modern global supply chains are designed to minimise costs, not to protect people. Production has been outsourced to distant countries where wages are low and labour protections are weak. According to Walk Free’s 2023 Global Slavery Index, around 50 million people worldwide are living in conditions of modern slavery. Many of them work in industries that directly supply Australian consumers, including clothing, electronics, agriculture, and resource extraction. Australia’s Modern Slavery Act exists precisely because our economy is deeply entangled with these abuses, even if they occur offshore.
The prices we’ve come to accept are artificially low because they exclude the true cost of human labour. When a t-shirt sells for less than a takeaway meal, it’s worth asking how that’s possible. Once materials, transport, rent, marketing, and profit are accounted for, there’s almost nothing left for the worker who made it. On average, less than one per cent of the retail price of clothing sold in Australia goes to garment workers in countries like Bangladesh or Vietnam. These workers, mostly women, often work six or seven days a week for wages that don’t cover basic food or housing, let alone dignity or security.
Exploitation isn’t limited to low pay. Safety and basic human dignity are routinely sacrificed to meet the demands of fast fashion and constant novelty. The Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than a thousand garment workers, remains a stark reminder of the human cost of cheap clothing. While some safety reforms followed, many factories still operate in unsafe buildings or use toxic chemicals to meet relentless production schedules. When we expect new styles every week, the pressure travels down the chain to those with the least power to refuse.
The same pattern exists in electronics and green technologies. Our appetite for smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles drives demand for minerals such as cobalt and lithium. Much of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where investigations have documented child labour and extremely dangerous conditions. Children as young as six dig by hand for materials used in our batteries. There’s a bitter irony in trying to solve environmental problems through technologies built on the exploitation of the world’s poorest people.
Australians often see ourselves as fair-minded, believing in a fair go. Yet our consumption habits suggest otherwise. The system isn’t transparent, and that’s by design. Many brands don’t know, or claim not to know, exactly where their materials come from because supply chains involve layers of subcontractors. This opacity allows exploitation to persist out of sight. We see the polished product, not the exhaustion, injury, or fear behind it.
Global inequality is both a cause and a consequence of this system. While global trade has lifted some out of poverty, its benefits remain concentrated in wealthy nations. We rely on the labour and resources of the global south to sustain lifestyles of excess, while many of the people doing the work can’t meet their basic needs. This creates a deeply unequal and unstable world, one divided into winners and losers.
Closer to home, the same logic is reshaping work in Australia. To keep prices low and deliveries fast, companies increasingly rely on casualised labour and algorithmic management. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers are monitored constantly, pushed to meet unrealistic targets, and denied job security. The pressure to consume more doesn’t just harm distant workers; it degrades working conditions throughout the entire chain.
The psychological toll of this system is profound. Repetitive, insecure work performed under constant pressure erodes a sense of purpose and hope. People are treated as replaceable parts rather than human beings with inherent worth. This sits uneasily alongside our professed commitment to human rights. We can’t claim to value dignity while funding its erosion through our everyday purchases.
At the heart of the problem is our fixation on cheapness. Every demand for a lower price pushes pressure downwards until it reaches the person least able to absorb it. When we choose disposable goods over durable, ethically made alternatives, we’re making moral choices, whether we acknowledge them or not.
Choosing enough means stepping away from this race to the bottom. It means paying prices that reflect living wages, safe conditions, and environmental responsibility. Ethical certifications and fair-trade schemes are imperfect, but they signal a growing awareness that the human cost of consumption matters. Still, labels alone aren’t enough. What’s needed is a shift from passive consumption to active responsibility.
If we accept that we already have enough, we can buy less and choose better. Fewer purchases mean less demand for exploited labour and less pressure on workers and ecosystems. This approach benefits others, but it also benefits us. It reduces clutter, financial stress, and the need to work ever harder to fund unnecessary consumption.
There are broader consequences too. Resource exploitation contributes to environmental degradation, economic instability, and forced migration. Our demand for cheap food, for example, is tied to high rates of child and forced labour in agriculture globally, and to the exploitation of migrant workers within Australia. Similarly, our waste often ends up in poorer countries, where people dismantle electronics or burn plastic in unsafe conditions to recover scraps of value.
Consumer culture also deepens inequality at home. Millions of Australians live below the poverty line while others accumulate far more than they need. We’re a society that’s increasingly time-poor but stuff-rich, working longer hours for possessions that rarely deliver lasting satisfaction. Advertising reinforces this cycle, teaching even children to equate self-worth with consumption, despite clear links between materialism and poorer mental health.
The human cost of this system is immense, but it isn’t inevitable. Even modest reductions in consumption would significantly reduce demand for exploited labour and shift power away from corporations. Every dollar we spend is a vote for the world we want. Choosing enough is a deliberate act of empathy, one that recognises the human being behind every product and values their life as much as our own.
