After reading Mike's update about Wal-Mart, I got to thinking about a speaker Ruth and I heard yesterday... no names, of course :)

It was all about how youth could take action to create global change, and focused a lot on how people in, say, Canada, could help to create change in war-torn countries or (and this was the focus) countries with less-than-reputable child labour practices. But the solutions she proposed were all very "supply-side," i.e. how can we change the situation in countryX by acting in country X--building schools, helping find new sources of revenue so that people don't need to put themselves into such horrible situations, etc. What she completely left out was the fact that poor labour practices wouldn't exist if we didn't want them...

The demand side of the equation is just as important--if we start paying that extra 5 cents for a t-shirt or what-have-you made in a better-regulated workplace, demand for sweatshop/child-labour-made goods shrinks, and demand for more "ethical" goods increases... Definitely something to keep in mind when you're thinking about heading to Wal-Mart.