Retirement Funds and Structural Exploitation

This story of where Jill Stein has invested her money is reasonably interesting, if just a tad bit unfair. Basically, her retirement is tied up in mutual funds that are terrible because they exploit labor and the environment. Does that make Stein a hypocrite? No, I don’t think so. It does make her unfortunately unaware of the inconsistencies between her life and her retirement money. But I have to say that we could almost all say this, if we are lucky enough to have any retirement package. When the story came out last year about TIAA-CREF investing in such lovely things as stealing lands from Brazilian farmers in order to cut down rain forests, I brought it up to other faculty members that maybe we should do something about this. But it was pretty well shot down because, as others stated, nearly any decently performing retirement fund is involved in the most profitable ventures, i.e., the industries of global exploitation. I’m not saying I agree with that decision, but I do understand it in a society where anything more than the most threadbare retirement is based upon your work life, as is most of the American welfare state. Until that ends, all the incentive is to have the most secure retirement possible by any means necessary. The upshot of this is that we might make all the consumer choices we want that make us feel good about our choices. Buy the Prius, shop at farmers’ markets, whatever. But in what is likely our greatest impact upon the shape of global capitalism–our retirement investments–most of us are complicit with some of the greatest crimes in creating a just and sustainable planet.