Poverty is a very complicated issue for me to pick a side on. Before you start hating me, at least hear me out. Of course I see wealth beyond a certain point as being unnecessary as well. Yea, you deserve to earn off what you do, but there is a point where what you get becomes meaningless and essentially lost to the world. I mean really, how fast can you really use some things? Back to poverty though, as I said, hear me out first, then you can hate me. Yes, I do feel bad seeing people hungry, thirsty, homeless, wearing tattered clothes. At the same time, trying to combat poverty creates a perpetuating issue. When an organism has its needs met - food, water, warmth - it then seeks to reproduce. For many organisms, this is fine because they have plenty of limiters on their population growth - predators, afflictions, rate of reproduction, etc. The primary limiter on any and all species populations though is its resources to sustain the population - food and space to live. Perhaps we still have plenty of both to sustain still a larger population than 8+ billion in our world. Poverty will not go away though if we continue to fight it. Rather, it has two potential routes by continuing this way. Actually, no. It only has one route and it is that it wins. Eventually the resources of food and space will become not enough for the population and so to continue combating poverty, resources will be spread ridiculously thin so that everyone is then in poverty. Following that, by continuing to fight this item of natural order, it wins as our resources cannot be spread out enough among the ginormous populace. The only question is with this, how much of the rest of the world will we have sacrificed in this never winning battle?
Ok. So perhaps we are not at the peak of our own ability in this battle yet so we could maybe go a little longer for now before we should accept this reality. Just because the war itself is impossible to win, that does not mean we cannot win some of the battles. In that case, let us explore one man’s conquests in this war. This post contains the social activist and graphical designer known as Tibor Kalmn, co-owner of M&Co.
The above photo is a M&Co holiday gift to clients and friends. Known as Optimism, it is a described as a foul smelling perfume in honor of the war in the Persian Gulf. Another work and gift of Kalman through his firm was a lunchbox containing the typical lunch obtained by homeless (a sandwich, crackers, candybar, etc.) but most importantly containing facts about poverty and homelessness. He also included that his company would match any donations recipients made to a homeless charity. Yet another project was a book peppered with facts about poverty along with twenty dollars and a stamped envelope addressed to another charity. He has numerous other seasonal, self-promotional, activism gifts during his years. Take a moment and think about how you would react to some of these gift. I would believe them powerful to say the least.
Kalman did not just use his own company for activism though. He prompted his clients to include political and social messages in their own advertisements and regular workings. The below image is a poster for one of M&Co’s regular clients Restaurant FIorent. At the bottom, though small, it contains a message about voter registration and how this brand is providing forms for it.
Where do your works stand?
Hrm. Would you look at that. Again potatoes are involved in some significant message. Remember, P-O-T-A-T-O!
