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Over the past week, we’ve done a series of posts on The Seminal about Wal-Mart and the ethical conflicts posed by shopping there. At this point, I’d like to broaden the conversation to our overall consumption habits and the need for a broad-based social movement to counter the forces of consumerism.
Before I take a bite out of that giant apple, however, I’d like to start with a question for the readers:
Is it fair to compare the burgeoning consumer justice movement of the 21st century to efforts in the 19th century to free African-American slaves? Today, it’s hard to imagine that in the early 1800′s, many people of otherwise high moral principles had no problem with the institution of slavery – that they considered it a necessary component of the economy. Will people in coming centuries look back on our society today and wonder the same thing about our choices of where to shop, what to buy, and how much to consume?
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When I go shopping, I go shopping for good value at low prices. That is the free market. I don’t go in worrying about how it was made. I shouldn’t have to. That would restrict my freedom.
I’d say yes, it’s fair, to a point. Slaves, of course, had no choice about their line of “work.” The slaves in our consumer system today also have no choice, but it’s a bit different. The forces putting them in bondage are abstract things like markets and international trade, and less this one master on this one farm. It tends to make the whole discussion more abstract, and thus less potent, which may be part of the problem in getting a big movement together.
Not that it’s impossible, but something to think about.