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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Shoplifting
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No, you got the context right.
But look at what you're writing.
You have enough financial security that you can buy from "ethical" stores even if they're more expensive than other options.
You have reliable enough transportation that you can get to "ethical" stores even if they aren't within walking distance or on public transit lines.
You have the time, and energy, and information resources, to identify what stores meet your ethical code and what don't.
That's all privilege. You realize that's all privilege, right?
And if you're going to look down at people who shop at businesses whose ethics they disagree with, I say, with kindness but very sincerely, check your privilege.
(And then there's the less important point of relative privilege, and how someone desperate enough to steal food needs that food more than the store owner needs money for the food, no matter how good a person the store owner is, because to each according to their needs, right?)
I don’t imagine that Whole Foods is for poor people, but I’ve not been in there for a long time. I recall that it was higher end, and yet unethical at the same time once Amazon became the owner.
In the grocery markets, that does not seem to be the case. I’m now well outside Whole Foods regions and shop on a tight budget and see good deals at all the grocers (those I boycott and those I don’t). I’ve made somewhat a game of eating cheaply. For the past year, my daily food cost is ¾ the cost of a Big Mac. And yet I still manage to (what some would consider) over-eat.
I’m in the city. There are mom & pop grocers walking distance from my house. Apart from that I can reach all shops by bicycle about equally.
Grocers are different in this regard. I take the time to dig up dirt on tech companies but identifying bad grocers doesn’t require time and effort. The info just comes to you. I see “boycott store X” in graffiti all over town along with a dedicated URL for it. I don’t think grocers need any kind of deep probing, AFAICT. Most of my extensive ethics research is on brands that are in the shops. Every shop has Nestlé, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, etc.
This doesn’t obviate anything I said. It’s orthogonal to the issue. Your mind was boggled because customers rat out shoplifters. I unboggled it. There is not enough price variation from one grocer to another that would push poor consumers one direction or the other depending on their budgets. There are some small boutique-eske bio shops which have higher prices but that’s not where I’m drawing lines.
What you’re saying is more of what I see with online shopping. Poor people need Amazon. I boycott Amazon. OTOH, I’ve chosen a simple life and hardly buy anything non-essential anyway, unless it’s 2nd hand from the street markets.