The Consumer Class

Our world is one of contrasts. While 1.7 billion people earn enough to be classified as members of the consumer class (users of items including televisions, telephones, and the Internet, along with the culture and ideals these products transmit), as many as 2.8 billion people including Pakistanis struggle to survive on less than $2 a day, and more than one billion lack reasonable access to safe drinking water. Yet providing adequate food, clean water, and basic education for the poorest could all be achieved for less than people spend annually on makeup, ice cream, and beverages.

Private consumption expenditures—the amount spent on goods and services at the household level—topped $20 trillion in 2000, up from $4.8 trillion in 1960. Some of this four-fold increase occurred because of population growth, but much of it was due to advancing prosperity in many parts of the globe. Production efficiencies of the 20th century have driven much of the consumption boom. Modern industrial workers now produce in a week what took their 18th century counterparts four years. In the semiconductor industry, production efficiencies helped drive the cost per megabit of computing power from roughly $20,000 in 1970 to about 2 cents in 2001. Global spending on advertising reached $446 billion in 2002, an almost nine-fold increase over 1950.

According to a survey on Consumer Spending and Population, by Region, in 2000 it is found that 5.2% of world population in United States and Canada has 31.5% share of world consumption expenditures. Out of 6.4% of world population in Western Europe has 28.7%, 32.9% in East Asia and Pacific has 21.4%, 8.5% in Latin America and the Caribbean has 8.5%, 7.9% in Eastern Europe and Central Asia has 3.3%, 22.4% in South Asia has 2.0%, 0.4% in Australia and New Zealand has1.5%, 4.1% in Middle East and North Africa has1.4%, and 10.9% Sub-Saharan Africa has1.2% share of world consumption expenditure.

The health status of women and children in Pakistan is awful—eight babies are born every minute, one mother dies every 20 minutes and about 15 of them suffer from morbidity every 20 minutes, about 50 percent women are suffering from malnutrition and anemia. Less than 20 percent of them are receiving help during delivery and about 25 percent of children are being born under weight. The vision of reproductive health in Pakistan is less costly than the amount spent on smoking.

Smoking contributes to around 5 million deaths worldwide each year. In 1999, tobacco-related medical expenditures and productivity losses cost the United States more than $150 billion—almost 1.5 times the revenue of the five largest multinational tobacco companies that year.

Time pressures are often linked to the need to work long hours to support consumption habits—and to upgrade, store, or otherwise maintain possessions.

In 2002, 1.12 billion households—about three quarters of the world's people—owned at least one television set—Pakistan had 4 million TV sets with only 2,823,800 registered. Some 41 million passengers vehicles rolled of the world's assembly lines in 2002, five times as many as in 1950. The global passenger car fleet now exceeds 531 million, growing by about 11 million vehicles annually. Consumers across the globe now spend an estimated $35 billion a year on bottled water and consumes 33 million liters (35 million quarts) a year in Pakistan.

In 1999, some 2.8 billion people—two in every five humans on the planet—lived on less than $2 a day (Pakistan falls within this category with Per Capita Income as $492). In 2000, one in five people (2 in 5 people in Pakistan) in the developing world—did not have reasonable access to safe drinking water. 2.4 billion people worldwide—two out of every five (and in Pakistan, 3.5 in every 5)—live without basic sanitation. Providing adequate food, clean water, and basic education for the world's poorest could all be achieved for less than people spend annually on makeup, ice cream, and pet beverages.

When the annual expenditure on luxury items in the world are compared with funding needed to meet selected basic needs we see that Annual Expenditure on products like makeup, perfumes, ice cream and beverages.

Consumer goods and services are often sold on the premise that they make life easier and more fulfilling. But too often, beneath the surface of these claims, lay hidden costs. Automobiles are often advertised as bringing freedom to their owners, yet in reality, the average adult urbanite now spends 50 minutes a day behind the wheel. As consumers upgrade, store, or maintain possessions, they are also likely to experience time pressures linked to the need to work long hours to support consumption habits.

If a person is very poor, there is no doubt that greater income can improve his or her life. But once the basics are secured, well being does not necessarily correlate with wealth. Most governments make ongoing growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) a leading priority, under the assumption that wealth secured is well-being delivered. Yet undue emphasis on generating wealth, particularly by encouraging heavy consumption, may be yielding disappointing returns. Overall quality of life is suffering in some of the world's richest countries as people experience greater stress and time pressures and less satisfying social relationships, and as the natural environment shows more and more signs of distress.

By redefining prosperity to emphasize a higher quality of life—rather than the mere accumulation of goods—individuals, communities, and governments can focus on delivering what people most desire. Indeed, a new understanding of the good life can be built not around wealth, but around well being: having basic needs met, along with freedom, health, security, and satisfying social roles. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

21st Century Crime

Innovation unfortunately brings opportunities for crime. Innovative technologies will transform the future of crime and is likely to occur on two levels: (a) the continuation of traditional, age-old physical crime; and (b) the new form of electronic crime.

The types of household property that will increasingly be targeted by physical crimes are high-value, high-tech electronic and computer products. In the future, traditional physical crime will be counterbalanced, and perhaps surpassed, in scope and social impact by the theft from consumers and businesses of intangible property, in particular electronic services, knowledge, and even identities. These types of thefts will increasingly be committed via computer-based telecommunications vehicles. It is the theft of intangible products and services, through traditional physical means, and more significantly, by way of computer-aided vehicles, that represents the most dramatic change in the complexion of property crime of the future.

Whole new information markets are being opened up as playing fields for computer criminals. Much of the Internet economy revolves around advertising. And using databases of personal information targets much of this advertising. This information is extremely valuable, and could be stolen, and a black market of information created.

Many Pakistanis in urban cities now use ATM cards and credit cards for a large percentage of their purchasing. As we move further from a paper-money society, to a purely electronic economy, new types of crime will emerge. What types exactly will depend on what new forms of security tomorrow's criminals will need to break. Will people be synthesizing voice authorizations? Or even learning to imitate a victim's typing style? All we can be sure of, is that criminals of tomorrow, like those of last century and those of today, will keep on innovating.

Meanwhile, other possible malicious uses of computers have become available. One of the most worrying is the likelihood of terrorists moving online, and engaging in what is called cyber terrorism. The methods of producing terror, destruction, mayhem, and fear will be much more destructive online than conventional methods in the real world.

The terrorists will remotely access the processing control systems of a cereal manufacturer, for example, change the levels of iron supplement, and sicken and kill the children of a nation enjoying their food. They will be able to perform similar remote alterations at a processor of infant formula. The terrorist does not have to be at the factory to execute these acts. He will be able to place a number of computerized bombs around a city, all simultaneously transmitting unique numeric patterns, each bomb receiving each other's pattern. The future terrorist will not have to be strapped to any of these bombs; no suicidal bombings; the encrypted patterns cannot be predicted and matched through alternate transmission; and the number of bombs prevents disarming them all simultaneously. The bombs will detonate.

A cyber terrorist will disrupt the banks, the international financial transactions, and the stock exchanges. Unlikely would be immediate arrest. The terrorist, the perpetrator is sitting in another continent while a nation's economic systems grind to a halt. Destabilization will be achieved.

Advanced telecommunications technology will allow offenders to reach a greater number of victims. There are also fears that the ongoing organization, sophistication, and globalization of crime may pose a greater threat to financial markets, economic stability, and even the national security of target countries.

An important predictor of the types of products and services that will be targeted for theft is the extent to which a product is desired. Products attractive to both consumers and criminals are sometimes called hot products. The characteristics of goods will make them highly vulnerable to theft. These are summarized in the acronym CRAVED (implying products which are Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, and Disposable). Based on this threat assessment, some examples of hot products that may be targeted by offenders in the future include portable digital virtual disk (DVD) players, the wearable personal computer, automobile digital stereo systems, laptop computers, and handheld personal computers.

The Internet will provide computer-literate offenders with new opportunities to commit crimes directly related to networked systems. E-mail abuse, viruses, and hacking are expected to grow in prominence in the future. Companies are likely to face Internet attack from both within (by employees) as well as externally (by hackers). The facilities will be vulnerable to electronic vandalism, and theft and the potential for loss of or damage to such data can be immense.

There is a growing fear that well-organized criminals will launder their ill-gotten gains through e-commerce transactions, sending electronic cash to cyber-accounts located all over the world. With vast wealth at their disposal, criminal organizations will be able to buy almost any kind of technological resource or expertise.

Copyright fraud is expected to greatly increase in the future. In particular, the illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted materials from the Internet, such as music, movies, and games, etc., will be an area of immense growth. This is accompanied by more traditional forms of piracy, such as illegal copying of software, videos, and computer games. Traditional and Internet-based forms of product piracy are problematic because both are so widespread, hard to detect, and difficult to police.

Technology offers us a chance to beat crime - but it will take innovation, understanding and education. It is today's research and development that will produce the crime-resistant products of the future. We must take every opportunity we can to use science and technology to reduce crime and improve the quality of our lives.

The weakest link in crime control is the lack of education in law enforcement relating to computer-technology crimes. The law enforcement community in Pakistan has not yet devoted itself even to start thinking about technological-aided crimes.

Are Pakistan’s police and other criminal organizations prepared for sophisticated use of new technologies for countering more sophisticated crime of the future that heavily involves computer-related crimes, especially in crimes against modern times? Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

"We the people . . . . ."

From the lost Constitution of 1973 to its current structure, all incumbents have been cutting holes with amendments to fortify their power. No effort has ever been made to consolidate the power of people. Never has there been any attempt to include the parts that protect consumer rights. Thus and so, the Constitution of Pakistan does not guard the consumer rights of the citizens of Pakistan. Implicitly, first come the rights of the citizens, and then comes the Constitution. If a constitution contains adequate procedures to protect rights, it can be legitimate even if it was not consented to by everyone; and one that lacks adequate procedures to protect human rights is unfair even if it was consented to by a majority.

Future is on our head with the concept of globalization that is changing the focus of governance. Instead of territory, human rights are now getting significance. And consumer rights happen to be the component of larger human rights program.

Consumer means people. By barely defining consumers as customers, we bar millions of citizens who due to lacking resources can’t buy. So consumers are citizens. Moreover, everybody has to consume to survive—consumption is a natural process for human survival. Thus, everyone is a consumer by default.

Consumers are the largest economic group in any country’s economy, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. But they are also the only important group that is not effectively organized, whose views are not heard. Therefore, the Government, the highest spokesman for all people, has a special obligation to the consumer’s needs.

The consumer rights have a universal significance as they symbolize the aspirations of the poor and disadvantaged. On this basis, the United Nations, in April 1985, adopted its Guidelines for Consumer Protection. They include: 1) the protection of consumers from hazards to their health and safety; 2) the promotion and protection of the economic interests of consumers; 3) access of consumers to adequate information to enable them to make informed choices according to individual wishes and needs; 4) consumer education on the environmental, social and economic impacts of consumer choice; 5) availability of effective consumer redress; and 6) freedom to form consumer and other relevant groups and the opportunity to present their views in decision-making processes affecting them.

No legislator, no political scientist, no intellectual, and no so-called constitutional expert ever provided a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both translating the Constitution according to the needs of people and, where that need is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights of the people. Consequently, even the general principles defined by the UN could not be realized.

The consumer protection issues are seldom included in the agendas of utility service providers, most of which are in public sector. Consequently, the rights of poor Pakistanis are being trampled even by public sector organizations like WAPDA, Sui Gas, and PTCL, to mention a few. Little attention is given to consumer protection policies, and consumer friendly market structures, incentive regulation, tariff regimes, deregulation and competition.

Consumer issues can be chronicled even before partition under the colonial rule that established monopoly regimes, when consumers had no voice at all. Same structure was adopted after independence and it continues on and on disregarding the advent of competition, which has given rise to greater concern about consumer welfare. Hence the consumers in Pakistan today feel that they remain to be excluded from the decision-making process. They believe that they are still far off from the regulatory process that provides them no opportunity to influence or even overturn critical decisions. And so consumer perceptions and opinions about the marketplace scenario are depressing.

In Pakistan lack of choice among alternative service providers due to a single or dominant operator is making consumers vulnerable. They have no right, whatsoever, for intervention where dominant operators are protected by the government, where there is no quality of service performance requirements and where dominant operators are authorized to set tariffs without rationale and beyond reach of the majority.

An informed consumer is an empowered consumer. Regulators should make every effort to empower consumers. Specific educational mass-media campaigns are needed to educate consumers about their rights. School textbooks are another useful but neglected channel to educate consumers about their rights. Education is a powerful, albeit, long-term action to shape people’s attitudes about enforcing their rights as consumers.

Activities that regulators should consider in setting up the consumer agenda include: establishing customer services, creating mass awareness of consumer rights, enforcing those rights, creating nationwide offices to address consumer issues and offering dispute resolution systems.

India is getting a global reputation for the rapid development of its consumer movement. Today that is perhaps the only country in the world, which has exclusive courts for consumer redressal of grievances that too within 90 to 150 days. One of the greatest achievements of the Indian consumer movement is the enactment of the dynamic consumer law in 1986: COPRA. Coming 39 years after Independence, it has acknowledged the rampant consumer abuses, including those of the government owned public utilities like telephones, transport, power etc.

Pakistan does not have a cohesive national consumer policy. Neither it has a national consumer protection law. The Federal List in the Constitution does not include the issue of consumer protection. Perceptibly, the provinces also don’t have consumer protection laws. The federal capital promulgated a consumer protection law in 1995 but was never implemented. Since the State has not provided any protection mechanism that consumers could use to protect them, hence they feel very helpless. Controversial amendments or litigious issues aside, our legislators ought to think about people and at least give a national consumer protection law. (Click Asif J. Mir to view his professional profile)

Consumption

Compulsive worship at the altar of consumption has brought humanity to the edge of an environmental abyss—depleting resources, spreading dangerous pollutants, undermining ecosystems, and threatening to unhinge the planet’s climate balance.

Endless economic growth driven by unbridled consumption has been elevated to the status of a modern philosophy. Contemporary economies are capable of producing huge quantities of goods at very low cost. This leads both producers and consumers to regard more and more products as little more than commodities that can be discarded relatively quickly rather than items that embody valuable energy and materials and that should be well maintained and designed for long life spans.

From the standpoint of global justice and equality, the solution cannot be a system of consumer apartheid that upholds western binge habits but denies the poor a decent standard of living. Instead, the rich need to curb their outsized material appetites.

To support the move toward a less consumptive economy, consumers and producers need to pay close attention to the full lifecycle of products. This means they need to concern themselves not just with the characteristics of the product itself, such as how much energy its use may require, but also with the materials and production methods used to manufacture the product and the kinds and types of wastes generated in the process. In addition, both consumers and producers need to consider how effectively goods actually deliver wanted services and comforts, how long products last, and what happens to them once they reach the end of their useful life.

A range of tools is at the disposal of governments, companies, and individual consumers to make progress toward the overall goal of a less consumptive economy. To make a difference, however, these efforts need to be scaled up considerably, and political and structural barriers to change must be struck down.

Most material flows in industrial economies—including waste materials from industry, carbon dioxide and other emissions, and soil loss from farmlands—serve no useful purpose whatsoever and never actually pass through the hands of any consumer. Dealing with these hidden flows will require downsimaterial, zing some of the most destructive activities, such as mining, smelting, and logging. Improving energy and materials efficiency, boosting recycling and reuse, and lengthening the lifetime of products can accomplish this, so that there is far less needs to extract virgin raw materials. But there is also ample space for reducing the environmental impact of the goods and services delivered to consumers—including through dematerialization, clean production, and zero-waste closed-loop systems.

It is much more likely that resource consumption will be minimized and the generation of wastes and emissions avoided if manufacturers factor environmental considerations in from the very beginning when they design products, develop production technologies, and select materials.

Around the world, a growing number of governments are adopting extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that require companies to take back products at the end of their useful life. These typically ban the landfilling and incineration of most products, establish minimum reuse and recycling requirements, specify whether producers are to be individually or collectively responsible for returned products, and stipulate whether producers may charge a fee when they take back products.

The goal of EPR is to induce manufacturers to assess the full lifecycle impacts of their products. Ideally, they will then eliminate unnecessary parts, forgo unneeded packaging, and design products that can easily be disassembled, recycled, remanufactured, or reused. The EPR approach has spread beyond packaging to encompass a growing range of products and industries, including consumer electronics and electric appliances, office machinery, cars, tires, furniture, paper goods, batteries, and construction materials.

Durability, repairability, and upgradability are essential to lessen the environmental impact of consumption. For easy refurbishing and upgrading, a “modular” approach permits access to individual parts and components, which allows them to be replaced easily. By working to extend and deepen useful product life, companies can squeeze vastly better performance out of the resources embodied in products rather than selling the largest possible quantity. Although fewer goods will be produced, there will be greater opportunity and incentive for companies to maintain, repair, upgrade, recycle, reuse, and remanufacture products, and thus greater business and job potential throughout the life of a product.

Governments and communities can strike a better balance between private and public forms of consumption by expanding organized sharing of facilities and amenities. Government action is also indispensable in overcoming the immense structural impediments to lower consumption levels and to more public forms of consumption. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in transportation: low-density, sprawling settlement patterns translate into large distances separating homes, workplaces, schools, and stores—rendering public transit, biking, and walking difficult or impossible. Improved land use planning, environment-oriented norms and standards, and the creation of a reinvigorated public infrastructure that allows for greater social provision of certain goods and services will help ensure that consumers are not overly compelled to make consumption-intensive “choices.”

Another key area where government action is needed is consumer credit. The savings rate in most countries is falling, while household debt is on the rise. Credit card spending is also expanding rapidly among emerging middle-class consumers. Governments could help consumers by offering advantageous credit terms for certain efficient, high-quality, durable, and environment-friendly purchases. Governments can also design policies that offer tax rebates for the best-performing products, while taxing those that fall short of standards.

An important tool that governments can wield is procurement. By buying environmentally preferable products, government authorities can exert a powerful influence on how products are designed, how efficiently they function, how long they last, and whether they are handled responsibly at the end of their useful lives. Well-designed purchasing rules can drive technological innovation and help establish green markets.

Prominent among the measures governments can take are recalibrating tax and subsidy policies that encourage greater consumption, pursuing pro-environment procurement rules, and establishing appropriate product standards and labeling programs. (www.asifjmir.com)