Ethical shopping / CONSUMERISM
21st century consumers
How should we think about the consumer? As a god-like figure, before whom markets and politicians bow? A weak and malleable creature – a mere pawn in corporate games played in invisible boardrooms? A political trendsetter with the power to save the planet? In reality, despite huge efforts to constrain, control and manipulate them, consumers themselves can and do act in ways that are unpredictable, inconsistent and contrary…
The Communicator
The goods we consume – clothes, cars, jewellery, holidays, meals, gifts – can be seen as a way of communicating things about ourselves: our social status, our values, our emotions. People consume things not simply because they need them to survive, nor because they are greedy mindless zombies in delirious thrall to modern advertising, but as a way of providing information and telling stories about themselves to others.
The Explorer
Cities and the countryside have become dominated by cathedrals of consumption: theme parks, shopping malls, casinos, tourist attractions, sporting venues and museums. Consumers are invited to explore new products and experiences with which to create meaning in their lives. Different quests go on – for bargains, for difference, for spiritual fulfilment. The internet is now turning homes into temples of consumption in their own right.
The Citizen
There is a powerful tension between the concepts of citizen and consumer. Currently, political culture is poised between giving primacy to voting or shopping. Since the late 20th century, consumerist values have spread and mutated throughout society. They have turned politics into a spectator sport and politicians into competing brands. They have eroded welfare systems and promoted the achievement of freedom, happiness, good health and education through individual choice exercised through the market. Can the concept of ‘the citizen’ form the basis of a movement that mounts a serious challenge to consumer capitalism?
The Chooser
Choice is a core value at the heart of consumer capitalism. The underlying rationale is ‘the more choice the better’ for consumers, the economy and society. But it has its limitations. Choice without information is not real choice, yet how can consumers get all the facts they need? Choice is also not absolute. ‘I choose to drive to the supermarket in my car’ can close off other options such as: ‘I choose to buy all my food from locally owned shops I can walk to’. Much so-called ‘consumer choice’ boils down to relative trivialities, compared to matters of life and death, political and civil rights, or the future of the planet. Surely choice should not just be a matter of which product to select, but also of whether and how to consume.
The Rebel
Rebellion against mainstream consumerism has always been an important part of youth counter-culture: the long-haired lovebead-draped hippies of the 1960s; the punks sporting safety-pins and razorblade-jewellery in the 1970s; ripped, bleached, tie-dyed jeans in the 1980s; the corporation-bashing subvertisers of the 1990s. But consumer capitalism has always had an extraordinary capacity to take what directly threatens it and convert it into a marketing opportunity. Perhaps the truest rebel-consumers are those who have embraced anti-consumption – whether through boycotts, local bartering systems (eg LETS schemes), or ‘Buy Nothing Days’. Is ‘buy less’ becoming the final frontier of the consumer-rebel, a challenge to the core assumptions on which the global economy is based?
The Activist
A long tradition of individual and collective consumer activism across the world has taken many forms: campaigns, legal cases, education, whistle-blowing, direct action. The Irish gave the ‘boycott’ its name, but Americans practised it much earlier against the British in the struggle for independence, as did the people of the Indian sub-continent following Gandhi’s lead. The 20th century co-operative movement enabled some consumers to take control of production. In the US, consumer advocate Ralph Nader rallied activists to fight against corporate greed. Today a new wave is bringing together different existing strands of activism and trying to restructure consumption completely, on more ethical and ecological grounds, exposing and rejecting exploitative conditions, unfair trading relationships, pollution and waste.
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
New Internationalist (NI) workers' co-operative exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all; and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice.
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