No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism

Appologies for the extended hiatus. I had wanted to publish this last week, but a computer glitch erased the draft I had put my final touches on and was ready to send out.

The actions taken by the current administration over the past couple months have driven a surge in activism and protests. Multiple mass mobilizations in cities and towns across the country have taken place, and there has been quite a bit of action taken to boycott and protest various companies.

Most visible is the Tesla Takedown, which has seen weekly demonstrations at Tesla facilities across the country, as well as several high profile celebrities selling their Teslas. There’s also been less publicized, boycotts against Amazon for Jeff Bezos’ pro-trump actions including editorial decisions at The Washington Post, and against Target for going back on their DEI initiative.

With so much activity and so many new activists taking part, many people have questions about how to most effectively boycott, or questions about what other companies they could boycott. But the question I see most often is people asking for alternatives to the companies being boycotted.

For Target in particular, many have suggested Costco as an alternative as they have maintained their DEI policies, however, Costco is also involved in union busting efforts, that even include the raises they’ve given to their non-union employees. The question isn’t which of the two companies is perfect, but instead, which of the two companies is either doing more good than bad, or which companies policies are more in line with your own.

Personally, I have other options, so I don’t patronize either company, but many people don’t live places where there are other options. For decades, huge national retailers like Walmart and Target have mede it all but impossible for smaller, locally owned businesses to survive. Beyond that, even if it were possible to patronize a local business, you might be giving your money to someone who will use it to further a political cause that is the antithesis of what you stand for, so you’re still dealing with imperfect options.

A phrase that you’ll often hear from critics of capitalism is that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, which is generally mean to mean that goods produced under capitalism will always be unethical somewhere in the supply chain. Personally, I also take that as a reminder that being an ethical consumer is something that we can strive for, but will likely never actually achieve.

Max Fisher spoke of a concept called “Capitalist Realism” which describes a world where any alternative to capitalism is almost impossible to imagine due to how deeply capitalism is ingrained in our culture. In many ways, capitalism is inescapable, and survival in our society requires we all participate.

We can build a better world, but it’s not something we will see overnight, it’s going to take years of hard work, work that will be impossible to carry out if we’ve all worn ourselves down putting all of our efforts into trying to boycott companies. It’s ok if you live somewhere far from most shopping centers and rely on Amazon for a lot of your daily needs. Somewhere along the way, your choices as a consumer are going to mean you’re doing something that goes against your ethics. Don’t let worrying over things you can’t control wear you down or prevent you from taking other actions.

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The Hands Off! protests this weekend reportedly had over 5 million attendees at 1600 events. I’ve heard that there will be another day of action on April 19th, but can’t find any good links to share about it. I have however found information about a planned day of action for May Day (May 1st).