this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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there is no ethical consumption under capitalism
I find that quite the platitude.
When is consumption ever "ethical"? Is hunting animals to survive ethical? Is killing plants to survive ethical? Is modification of the environment for survival ethical? Life itself is destructive because in order to survive, something else must die. In order to make life more enjoyable, even more must die and suffer. This is not limited to capitalism but any form of survival.
If we were 4 billion people on the planet without global trade, markets, businesses, advanced technology, and so on, we would still kill everything around us, go to war, enslave, rape, subjugate, and consume.
that phrase doesn't really attempt to tackle the general idea of consumption, just the one under capitalism.
It's a response to the phenomenon where seemingly no matter what you buy, no matter where you buy it, somewhere along the supply chain someone got hurt or got taken advantage of, and the environment was most likely hurt as well.
Ethical people (ignoring the definition of what that means as i'm not really feeling like writing an essay) usually want to avoid any products that cause someone or something to be harmed during production. But under capitalism that'd mean never buying technology again and having to quit society as having a smartphone is mandatory nowadays, though you'd probably starve first if your best friend isn't a 100% eco friendly farmer (and even then that farmer probably uses a combine which is made out of quite a few parts, production of at least one or two definitely involved some form of abuse)
So the slogan "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" highlights the fact it's not an individual's fault, and the invidivual is not to blame, when they buy something that unknowingly (or knowingly but out of necessity) brought harm to the people or the environment involved in making the thing.
In the olden days you could feasibly survive by being a farmer who kills maybe a couple of his stock a year for meat. You knew exactly where your patatos came from (your field), you knew exactly where your clothes came from (your best friend is the town seamstress), you knew exactly where you furniture is from (the lumberjack who gets wood for the carpenter is your brother).
But then things got more complicated, and capitalism encourages cutting ethical corners in favour of profit
I call this the Doug Fawcett Principle
good name for it indeed! The Good Place is a fantastic show
Yes, exactly why I said it's a platitude. It's thoughtless and trite. I'm saying: consumption is not ethical, no matter which system. There is no ethical consumption.
That's a cop out. It paints consumers as mere puppets or robots who are unable to make choices or decisions that could lead to a reduction of suffering.
The good ol' days, how many times have I heard that one. In the good ol' days there was often imperial rule. In the good ol' days, slave trade was the norm. In the good older days, your little town or village could be overrun by wandering horde of Mongols or even just the next village over that had a different tribe. In the good ol' days, if you were disabled you were fucked, if you had a different skin color you were fucked, if you were a woman you were figuratively and literally fucked, if you got sick any "incurable disease" you were not fucked, you were dead, if you couldn't work anymore your offspring had to tend to you and if those didn't exist or weren't willing to you were fucked, and so on.
It's nice to romanticise "simpler" days after watching "Gone With Wind", but life back then was hard af. It was backbreaking. People died at much higher rates than now with little to show for it. People still live absolutely miserable lives, but the rate thereof is much lower in the countries exploiting others.
Capitalism doesn't encourage anything. It's one of the natural products of human greed. Any other system created by humans is flawed and infected the human disease, doomed to create suffering and torment. The only question is how much. Whether capitalism generates more than other systems is debatable, but to claim that there is "ethical consumption" in any other living system is wishful thinking. It doesn't exist.
Perhaps to you the saying is a platitude, but that seems subjective. To someone who hasn't considered the impacts of their consumption habits, or the ways that different economic systems can serve to reward different patterns of human behavior, it can be a thought provoking statement.
If you view ethics as a binary, then sure. If you view ethics as a complex and nuanced spectrum, well, not so much.
What a reductionist take, especially considering the paragraph you'd written just above it.
Wow, everything is relative. Do you have any other wise things to say? It's in the eye of the beholder maybe? There is no truth? There are no absolutes? Want to whip out some tautologies or falsely attribute some quotes to Einstein?
Again with the "everything is relative". So actually, we're living in paradise right now, because relative to 5B years ago, earth would be inhospitable. But we are also living in hell because things could be so much better.
Everything is nuanced. Of course it is. Which is why the phrase "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is false. You're just confirming it yourself with your "everything is relative" and "to the esteemed members of the ivory tower with completely formed and immensely folded brains, ethics is an intricate and nuanced spectrum".
Yes, thank you for confirming that you understood nothing of what I wrote.
Wow. What an asshole.
I think the chip on your shoulder has a chip on its shoulder.
So just die I guess?
That's a pretty ridiculous take.
No, Maggot. Think before you consume.
Says the dude who's spent this whole time defending a free market economy?
You can't defend the free market and then be aghast when the free market decides plastics are profitable.
No no you said there is no ethical consumption ever possible. So I'm either going to die or give up on ethics.
I guess it's just death then. Oh well.
the other person's reply is good so i won't repeat their points,
but i also wanted to address the "romanticisation" of the "ol' days". Because i did not intend to do that, what i was trying to portray was that it was simpler in the context of the supply chain of your food and belongings. You knew exactly where all your things came from, and the process of creation and aquisition of goods was mostly contained within your village and the village nearby, with the occasional traveller looking to trade
That's a false dichotomy.......even if we agreed with your definition of all consumption being unethical, it wouldn't mean that there aren't different levels of unethical practices used to produce those consumables.
All consumption being unethical does not mean that all forms of production are equally unethical. If that's the case you wouldn't really have a problem with sending the kids back to the mines.
Can you point to a time in history where a general boycott of a dangerous or harmful product was successful without the help of government intervention?
And apparently that doesn't happen under capitalism? Then what exactly are you bitching about plastic for?
Again, your argument is based on a forced false dichotomy.
Not to mention that it seems like you are really just a libertarian angry at consumers for participating in the "free market".
You can't simultaneously believe that the free market is the best way to regulate the economy, but upset at the people for their consumption habits in a free market.