Ethical consumerism is the idea that we, as working class consumers, can solve existing inequalities simply by choosing to not buy certain things or by opting for “ethical” products.
Why doesn’t this work in practice? Why isn’t solving inequality as easy as “just don’t buy iPhones and Nike”? Do we simpletons really have any power to reform capitalism just by putting our dollars in the right pockets or simply by hoarding our money?
The way I see it is that even if you boycott big corporations, it’s never the rich who lose; they just reduce the profit for their employees and increase their work-load so that they (the rich) can stay afloat.
The problem is that the vast majority of consumers want iPhones and Nikes. A small minority who boycott those brands will have very little impact on their bottom line.
There are a few barriers that we common folk face. Do you know the supply chain for most of the products you buy? I certainly don’t. Aside from food products, I rarely even look at the label to see the country of origin for most items I purchase. Theoretically that information is available to me but from a practical point of view, I’m not checking each individual company to make sure their employees are treated well, they’re practicing sound environmental production, or the owners have political beliefs I can live with. At the end of the day I’m looking for good product for the amount of money I pay for it.
The few times I’ve boycotted items it doesn’t seem to have done a whole lot of good. At sometimes I don’t care to participate in the boycott. I kept on eating at Chik-fil-A while a few of my friends still maintain their boycott at present.
Some people in the West think of those poor people slaving away in factory jobs in China or some other place in the world. But for those people, the factory job may be a heck of a lot better than life back on the farm in the village. And all those long hours allows them to save more money to accomplish their goal (buying a house, sending their child to school, whatever).
Most boycotts see far too few people participate to make any difference.
Most customers only consider two factors when buying something: “Is it cheap enough?” and “Is it a product I like/want/need?” Things like ethics, worker pay, fair trade, made-in-which-country, etc. don’t even enter into the decision-making equation at all.
Information problem: it’s extraordinarily complicated for consumers to understand the impact of everything they buy on the environment and on workers, so even if you’re trying to consume ethically, you could easily end up misfiring. A lot of companies will bend over backwards to make it appear that they are environment- and worker-friendly, and sometimes this manifests as real improvements. But often, it is just changing a facade (eg, greenwashing.)
Free-rider problem: Me buying beef from Taco Bell raised on land cleared in the Amazon yesterday isn’t causing deforestation. That land was already cleared, and my personal contribution is going to be, what, 1/1000 of an acre? Y’all should definitely consume ethically, that’d be great, but I’m going to keep looking for the best value for my money.
It’s competing sales campaigns (and, yes, convincing people to join a cause is a sales campaign). A corporation will spend twenty million dollars convincing you to buy their product and an organization will spend two hundred thousand dollars convincing you to not buy that product. It’s clear who’s going to convince more people.
Corporate ownership and supply chains are so intertwined that it is generally impossible or prohibitively expensive in practice to only buy ethically sourced goods and services if you wish to participate in the modern world.
Our choices may not change corporations but we soothe our souls. MrsRico and I still boycott Nestle because of their horrendous infant death issues; IMHO supposed “pro-lifers” who buy or sell Nestle products are hypocrites or fools. We absolutely cannot support Nestle in good conscience. We avoid the criminal conspiracy called Facebook. I don’t shop Amazon. Are some atrocious players unavoidable? Yes, but we mostly have other options. We feel no need to further empower the most noxious and toxic.
“Ethical consumerism”/boycotts have worked, though not all that often.
This article cites the Montgomery bus boycott along with boycotts of South African products and refusal to visit/participate in events there, as having success.
What is pretty much guaranteed to have no discernible effect is announcing that one is boycotting Amazon, or urging people to not watch NFL games or refuse to take spring break vacations in Florida. Those are basically futile feel-good gestures.
Because in the spiders web of global capitalism, ethical consumerism (something I have practiced as best I can manage for about fifty years now) is essentially an individual spiritual exercise with virtually no effect upon commerce.
Why is this? Because despite what consumers are told, giant-scale producers make all the decisions. As a consumer you get to choose between, say, three brands of toothpaste, each offering fifteen products, all of them either gel or cream, with slightly different arrangements of the same ingredients, packaged the same way, and flavored with mint (or ‘bubble gum’ for the kiddies). They differ only in their sales pitch. Want something locally sourced? Not tested on animals? Not packaged in plastic? Even, not flavored with mint? We’re so sorry that our forty-five toothpaste choices don’t please you (you weirdo kook!)
Making ethical choices while shopping makes shopping ten times more work, and is almost always more expensive. Who can make that work?
So, it’s basically a leisure-time activity for the well-heeled woke.
The only entities capable of taking on the stranglehold global capitalism has on us, are government agencies. Governments have the power to do things like require country of origin labeling, complete lists of contents, etc. And some of this is done, thanks to strong consumer movements. But they could also require minimal, compostable packaging. They could regulate factory farms to make them far more humane. They could do a ton of stuff there is not the political will in this country to do.
But that is the only solution I can see to these issues.
Despite, or rather because of the “stranglehold of global capitalism” every one of those toothpaste requirements has been met by multiple companies.
It took me a couple minutes of web searching to find “cruelty-free” toothpastes, unflavored toothpastes, non-plastic packaged toothpastes (though I’m not sure putting the product in a glass jar with a metal lid is so great for the environment), non-fluoride-containing toothpastes (fluoride is harmful to the little kiddies, doncha know) and so on. Locally sourced is no problem either. Even Colgate buys American mint leaves from farmers in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest.
You’ll pay more for specialty products for the most part, but it’s not going to break you if you desire Holistic Toothpaste. And Amazon will happily ship the stuff for free to Prime members, not all of whom are part of the 1%.
*A classic example of the Great Corporate Capitalist Spider catering to the “woke” consumer is the proliferation of non-GMO products. It doesn’t matter how silly this gets (non-GMO salt, really?), as long as there are people convinced GMOs are harmful to health or unethical, corporations big and small will happily sell non-GMO stuff to them.
**today at a big box store I saw a selection of fruit trees, all helpfully labeled non-GMO. Never mind that there are no fruit trees available for gardeners that are genetically modified varieties, if you wanna be really safe and sure you’ll buy their trees.
I don’t want to sound condescending, but do you know how business and economics work? I ask because the answer seems relatively self-evident to me - people ultimately vote with their dollars. For all the hand-wringing about the “unethical business practices” of any number of companies, those companies are able to generate a larger market share through lower costs and better marketing.
And this isn’t to imply that people are inherently unethical or amoral. Most people don’t have a lot of surplus cash. They typically need to go with the low-cost option.
It’s about the motivation. If the bus boycott had been predicated on protecting the environment, ensuring the buses were produced with ethically sourced steel, or supporting a local bus company instead of Big Bus it might be ethical consumerism. I realize there’s a human rights component to ethical consumerism but that doesn’t mean the Montgomery Bus Boycott falls under that umbrella.
Obviously I buy my Holistic Toothpaste (band name?) online.
I mean you can also order chocolate covered ants, civil war cannons, and electric nose-pickers online too. I’m just trying to say the reason ethical consumerism is a bust is because our government has a problem with mandating ethics at the corporate level. More enlightened governments don’t have such qualms.
That’s really the crux of the issue, as I see it. In most cases, the “ethical” choices are also the more boutique, expensive choices.
Case in point-chocolate. Most people eat stuff like Hersheys, Cadbury, etc… which are typically not fair trade chocolate. To get that, you have to go to the more expensive, boutique producers and pay more.
Same thing for meat- grocery store USDA Choice meat is inexpensive, but if you want the ethically raised stuff, you have to go to Whole Foods and pay through the nose.
I do think that if things get to be prominent enough in the social consciousness, companies change of their own accord- look at McDonalds’ switch away from styrofoam containers back in the day. There wasn’t a boycott- just a recognition that people weren’t wild about those things in general, so they pre-emptively switched to paper.
And the cynic in me wonders how often “cruelty-free” and “ethical” are as much marketing points and certifications meant to generate cash for others as they are actual signifiers of anything. I mean, that’s a great racket to get into, if you can be the certifying authority and charge people money to put your stamp on things.