Undercapitalized

While out and around, I saw a woman holding a sign that read: "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism." My first impulse was to chuckle to myself and wonder "What about over capitalism?" But then it occurred to me that despite having seen that aphorism on multiple occasions, I didn't actually know what was meant by it. So, when I returned home, I looked it up. As I now understand it, the saying is intended to convey the idea that in a capitalist system, some aspect of the production or supply chain for every good and service necessarily entails some sort of deliberate, unjustified, exploitation or harm to someone. Accordingly, purchasing and using any good or service that was unethically produced or transported cannot be ethical. So no consumption of anything in a capitalist system is ethical.

Personally, I think that this, like a lot of buzzwords, doesn't really engage with the reality of the situation. After all, one doesn't need to be a capitalist to take advantage of other people. One merely need to be broke enough to regard living up to one's ideal ethics as an unaffordable luxury. In that sense, I think that the knock on capitalism is a bit misguided. As I'm given to understand it, may people feel that capitalism leads to a society where people don't care for or support one another. As I experience the world, the causation is somewhat different... to the degree that people don't care for one another influences the degree to which whatever economic system is put in place results in exploitation and harm.

And, at least in the United States, what stands in the way of a just society where people feel a broad duty of care for others is a factionalism driven by feelings of poverty. People feel that they don't have enough to fulfill their entitlements and/or meet their daily needs, and so they prioritize getting what they can over advocating that others be well-treated. Or even altering their behavior to try and redress things. Wal-Mart, for instance, didn't drive small retailers out of business through illegal business practices... they used their ability to offer lower prices to lure price sensitive shoppers away. I like local retail, so I patronize them whenever possible, even though that results in higher costs... a stance that has lead to some amount of criticism. But if I'd rather not shop Amazon when I can support someone else, that extra cost is the price of admission.

Whether or not there is ethical consumption in the United States is not for me to decide. Personally, I'm disinclined to consider the ethics of my own actions solely in terms of the ethics of all previous links in the chain, given that I can't control most of them. My job, I think, is to always understand myself to be well-resourced enough to not feel the need to shift my costs onto others.