kyle /socailpricetracker /projectproposal

social cost: the “externalized” costs of production; those factors in the production of a good or service that are not included in the sticker value, such as environmental inputs, human degradation, and “invisible” (ie unpaid) labor. By their very nature, these costs are often qualitative rather than quantitative, hence their exclusion from the market value of the item.

social price tracker: In order to track the social cost of a good or service, we find it necessary to provide a means by which the qualitative costs of that commodity might be made intelligible. The SPT accomplishes this by constructing a framework within which the qualitative costs of a commodity might be evaluated alongside the quantitative, economic cost of that commodity. In its initial iteration this will include the development of an Iphone application that uses barcode recognition to allow the user to access brief assessment of the social costs of the commodity as well as link to other, more extensive, resources that describe and investigate the process of production. The SPT is invisioned as a open-source and open-content project that invites collaboration with consumer advocacy groups, labor organizations, international NGOs, new media artists and everyday citizens.