modernity tumbling by - Dear Coke Talk: On ethical consumption.

July 14, 2010

This person understands neither ethics nor the simple economics and math involved here, and that makes me sad. That it has such a long list of “liked this” accolades is tragic, since it isn’t anything more than a cynically hyperbolic shock piece targeted at the very same people it purports to be sticking it to, viz: the guilty conscience of the modern-day hippie. The conscience that says “I know I’m buying all these ‘eco-friendly’ ‘fair-trade’ ‘conflict-free’ whale diamonds, but… its so expensive, and it’s crimping my lifestyle and sense of self worth that I cannot afford more, so does it really matter?”

Then, after a superficial review you might make the discovery that—gasp!—companies will try to screw you on ‘green’ the same way they’ll try to screw you on anything else. Maybe you’ll also discover that the safe whale diamonds are only marginally better than their cheaper non-safe counterpart; maybe, in the case of something like conflict diamonds or your new smartphone, no different at all once its in your hands. And so your pent up frustration and guilt explodes, and you get nonsense like this.

Breathe deeply. Calm down. When you’re done venting, consider the following.

Marginal effects drive capitalism. Large swaths of economics are played out at the margins. It’s where businesses succeed or fail, it’s where consumer preferences matter in well-established markets, it’s where good government policy can make a huge positive impact at a low net cost. The aggregate behavior of marginal preferences is enormous. Widget X that consumes 4% less electricity may save you only a few pennies, but 10,000,000 such widgets? Now you’ve got something. Fish populations the world over are perpetually on the brink of collapse: it may not matter whether *you* eat one irresponsibly harvested fish, but if 300,000,000 people eat irresponsibly harvested fishes, well…

Aggregation. Think about it.

On ethics, I’m glad to see that the Ethics 101 revelation has been made: avoiding immoral acts that you would have avoided anyway doesn’t make you a good person. Likewise, you can’t claim to be a saint if your options are sure punishment for choosing to be unethical and sure reward for choosing ethically, and lo, you choose to be ethical. That’s just “doing what you’re supposed to”; it’s like “not going to jail” and “not beating your children”.

So what’s the conclusion, then? Is ethics meaningless? Should we all simply behave as we see fit? Let me reassure you that ethics is neither meaningless nor particularly burdensome. I’m not going to recapitulate the corpus of work on this here, but it’s out there and it is surprisingly intuitive.

At its root, ethics seeks to describe our customs and habits; we tend to deploy the word with an eye to our ideals—what we’d like our personal customs and habits to be, as compared to how we are tempted to behave. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that all consumption is ethical consumption—which is similar to the author’s claim—but with the added valence that once you understand demand aggregation and where your money goes, small changes really can matter. You are what you consume, and on any level of aggregation you choose—local, state, national, planetary—we are what we collectively consume. Your choices matter: are you putting your money into local businesses that support families in your area? Are you paying a little extra for your coffee because it was grown in a sustainable fashion—where everyone involved in its production, from the soil to the picker, got paid a little more? Did you replace your incandescents with fluorescents or LEDs? Small changes, small choices. You’re probably a little poorer. You probably didn’t have to help that charity out. You probably didn’t have to subsidize the next generation of LED lights. But you did, and that is an ethical choice, in both meanings: it’s a choice you deliberately made—knowing there were negative consequences—and with an eye to pushing the real closer to your ideal.

If you want to throw your hands in the air, say “fuck ethical consumption, it’s all a game”, then fine. But that too promotes a certain ethos. An ethos of not caring. An ethos of more, now! An ethos of “I can’t do anything about it, so I may as well”. It’s like the Dark Side, but without any benefits: you’ve given in to your hate and fear and all you get is a few more cheap consumer items.

None of this excuses smugness. I am almost as intolerant of the unthinking “holier-than-thou”-ism that the author is referring to—almost. You don’t need to spout meaningless catchphrases like “voting with your dollars” just to show that you give a damn. Pushy evangelism in all forms is abhorrent. But not caring is worse. Thinking that the choices you make are free from consequence is inexcusable, and when coupled to economic ignorance and a joyous cynicism, it’s just sad.

It’s worth pointing out that I’m not advocating some kind of weird ascetic-monastic-communal-green-hippie lifestyle. That works for some people, but not me. There’s a continuum of desires out there, and I eat fast food from time to time and buy electronics made in china with conflict minerals from time to time as well. But I don’t pretend it doesn’t matter, and I choose to support companies with the best track record. I’m advocating engagement, independence, and enlightenment; nothing more. Seriously: don’t let either the companies or the shrill cynics fool you; program yourself.

12:21pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZtfxbymMzg3

(Notes: 350)