Chocolate, Child Labor, and Capitalism

Chocolate is one of the most popular confections in the world. It’s a staple in most pantries and can be bought nearly anywhere for dirt-cheap prices. Every October, children in the United States eat a ton of it during a special holiday called Halloween. As they indulge themselves, most do not think about where their treats originated. They don’t think about how children around their own ages, or younger, worked for long hours (usually without pay) to harvest the cocoa in their chocolate. Most of this cocoa comes from countries in West Africa, such as Cote d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast). Many of their parents don’t know about this, either – or, perhaps, they just don’t care. Once again, there is a direct relationship between American consumption and the exploitation of the resources of a third world country. This exploitation can also be known as the externalization of a company’s costs – a process that a company known as Nestlé excels at.

                Nestlé is a prime example of a company externalizing its costs. An externalized cost is what happens when a business maximizes its profits by pushing negative effects or, more generally, things they don’t want or need to directly involve themselves in, elsewhere. “Elsewhere” usually represents less-developed countries who lack the resources to truly externalize their own costs. Externalized costs and capitalism go hand in hand. In this case, Nestlé’s “externalized cost” is the production and harvesting of cocoa, and its “elsewhere” is Cote d'Ivoire. Since child laborers are technically illegal over there (even if the law isn’t as strictly enforced as it should be), they are “off the books” and aren’t paid much money for their work – if they are lucky enough to receive anything. Harvesting cocoa isn’t easy, and if done improperly (for example, if done by children), can result in gruesome injuries. A lot of this dangerous labor is forced and without pay, making many children literal slaves of the cocoa industry.

The aforementioned massive corporation has recently come under scrutiny for its involvement with child labor. In the States, Nestlé once manufactured many well-known products that contain cocoa, like Butterfingers and Raisinets. It recently sold its U.S. candy business to Ferrero (an Italian company), but still acquires its cocoa from the same places, as Nestlé uses cocoa for some of its non-candy products like Nesquik. Additionally, the company is international, so it still produces types of chocolate in other countries. Nestlé obtains all its cocoa from foreign nations, as cacao trees can’t grow in Switzerland, its “home” country. Most of this cocoa comes from Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana because it is sold cheaply over there. This is most likely due to the fact that the people – and, more specifically, children - harvesting the cocoa are paid meager wages (if they are paid at all). Cote d'Ivoire is still recovering from a series of devastating civil wars and conflicts, so any laws it creates that benefit laborers and give rights to children will not be effectively enforced – meaning that its people will continue to be exploited. In 2012, Nestlé’s code only insisted that its primary suppliers couldn’t use child labor – ignoring the rest of the cocoa supply chain. The supply chain had many more steps in it – and some of these involved child laborers.

                A group of former child slaves from Cote d’Ivoire are currently trying to sue the United States branch of Nestlé for its involvement in the above matter. In fact, they’ve been trying to sue Nestlé since 2005, but have been running into numerous legal hurdles – the primary one being that, since the cost of cocoa production is extremely externalized, the location of the allegations is very much located outside of the United States. The case has been hopping around different courts and judges since then but was recently approved to be continued by the Supreme Court – much to the chagrin of Nestlé.

                It’s worth mentioning that Nestlé has acknowledged the child labor and child slavery issues in the cocoa business in the Ivory Coast. The company even has a so-called “cocoa plan”, part of which can be seen above, in which it details steps it will take to reduce the number of children in the workforce and increase the number of children going to school. One of the ways that Nestlé is attempting to do this is by improving the incomes of adult farmers – removing the necessity of child labors. Another attempt involves increasing the availability of schools in Cote d'Ivoire – indirectly giving children access to better jobs in the future. However, free labor is better than cheap labor – many of the people who used children as forced laborers will most likely continue to use them. As seen in the image below, Nestlé’s current plan for “dealing” with child labor has many different parts and is somewhat obscure. Nestlé needs to take more direct, concrete steps towards eliminating the child slavery and child labor -as well as the need for both - that are present throughout its supply chain to prove that its cocoa plan isn’t just for show.

                 The victims of externalized costs are located throughout the chain of production and supply chain. They can be those that gather the raw materials, those that process the raw materials, or even the ones who work in the factory to create the final products. As mentioned earlier, child workers in Africa are frequently wounded by the tools they must work with (chainsaws and machetes). The people who work in the factories (usually on dangerous machines for long hours and with little pay) also suffer serious injuries, and through legal loopholes, receive little compensation for them. On a “local” scale, their personal lives are ruined by this work – their injuries prevent them from reaching their full personal potential and fulfilling any dreams they might have had. On a “societal” scale, these people are held back from being able to make meaningful contributions to society. When people are locked into low-paying (or payless) jobs, they can’t get decent educations and they can’t easily move on to greener pastures in the workforce – meaning that they are doomed to carry out the same kind of job repeatedly. Some laborers might speak about their experiences to try to prevent history from repeating itself, but many can’t, or are too afraid to. It is necessary to stop it at its source – externalized costs, and the capitalist society that depends on them.