Filthy Commerce

When perfect is the enemy of good

I read two different things yesterday -- Infrastructurist's "How You Think You Save Energy Is Not How You Save Energy" and Jezebel's "Where to Shop When You're Boycotting Target" -- both of which put me in mind of the motto you see at the post title. Why? I blame the commenters. There is a strain of peculiarly self-righteous Internet Stranger who, whenever faced with the editorial proposition that making a small, consumer-oriented change can have a greater, policy-influencing impact, will self-righteously huff that really, the ideologically correct thing to do is to just not consume anything at all. In the case of the Infrastructuralist post: evidently, we're all supposed to forgo using a clothes dryer or a refrigerator, otherwise we hate the planet. Using CFLs -- which has actual, tangible benefits compared to the impact of taking two cars off the road per year -- was decried as the kind of thing mindless shoppers do instead of mustering the courage to make real change. In the case of the Jezebel post, I will admit that the logic is shaky: Hate that Target tossed money at bigots in the name of corporate strategy? Go shop at Wal-Mart! But the intent is not bad, and it does acknowledge that for most shoppers, the real issue is trying to balance their budgets against their consciences. Naturally, this consideration is drowned out in the comments by the ranks of the self-righteous Unconsumers. I realize that in some people's minds, changing society comes down to making one of two choices: embracing radical change or implementing incremental changes. But it's not really an either-or proposition. Both incremental change and radical change have their useful roles. Incremental change is handy if you have a group that shows no inclination to agitate for massive modifications on a society-wide, policy level. Radical change -- steering the ship, as you will -- is for people who want or need to feel as though they're fundamentally influencing the core causes of a specific situation. (I view it as the difference between refusing to eat table grapes in the 1970s -- something any family could do -- versus lobbying for the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which is something that requires a considerably higher degree of civic sophistication. The first is a way to send a message with your money, the second is a way to influence how money will be spent in the future. Both are useful.) When it comes to daily life, most people are not spending it stressing about their impact on the world around them. But if you can get them to adopt a tiny, mindless change -- a tote bag at the grocery store, an Energy Star appliance the next time something conks out -- they will change their impact. Isn't that a better outcome than telling them that what they're doing is wrong because it's just not enough?

You readers, the visionaries

So remember how, three years ago, we all did the monthly "Reduce, reuse, recycle" challenge on this blog and made all sorts of incremental-yet-effective changes? There's this site called 50 Ways to Help the Planet that pretty much treads the same ground we did. 

QSR magazine posited last year that "Shoppers No Longer Care About Green," because of economic hardship, and GreenBiz claimed that green products would only fly if they offered a better value than a more conventional alternative.

I'm curious: during the downturn (which landed with a thud like, immediately after we stopped the monthly challenges), how many of your green habits did you keep? And did you add any more?

Clearly, Oscar Wilde never comparison-shopped

"The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." -- Oscar Wilde

Over on the Dollars and Sense blog, I've got a collection of links that will, presumably, help you become a better-informed shopper and make it easier for you to gauge the real and hidden costs behind every consumer good. This is a follow-up to the Morning Edition segment on Monday, "Capitalism Overload and 'The Value of Nothing'," with The Value of Nothing author Raj Patel.

While I was researching so-called "ethical shopper" links, I noticed something of a consumer-ethics monoculture: nearly all of these directories take the stance that animal testing is bad, corporate social responsibility is good, sweatshops are bad, eco-friendly manufacture and farming is good. Which is all well and good if you subscribe to those principles, but what if your priorities are different? Where are your resources?

From a political perspective, it is not terribly surprising that liberals have staked a claim on "ethical consumption," as one of the philosophical underpinnings is that companies do not have the right to pursue profit at all costs, and this spells "government regulation." It's also not surprising that so many of the guide contents focus on lifestyle purchases made with discretionary income -- it's a lot easier to feel good about purchasing a bed made by real American artisans (and I love my bed) and shrug, "Well, I have to buy gas." (Also, for the truly cynical among us: You can see how green a class of consumables has to be by how big their lobby is in Washington, no?)

I do wonder why it's so hard to find non-secular ethical shopping guides. For example, where is the Christian buying guide that emphasizes companies practicing responsible stewardship?

And from a practical perspective: the first real challenge to determining the "real" costs of everything is that cost will never reflect value, because value is variable and subjective. I can sit here in my office job and deplore the terrible conditions of a sweatshop, but there's probably some worker in Poland (where the sweater I'm wearing came from) who is like, "Dude, it was this or life as an exported sex slave."

The second real challenge is making the premise "Knowing the full impact of your consumption is the right thing to do" a majority value among consumers. Anyone who's got any ideas on how to sell this? Spill them below.

Tell us that it's human nature

Thriller was the first album I can remember coveting. In fifth grade, it was the shibboleth; the cool kids had a copy, while children like me did not. It was my introduction to the hard lessons of consumerism most middle-schoolers learn: insecure people will judge you as a person based on your consumer choices, and it's hard to stand against consumerism when going along promises to make your life easier.

In more recent years, Thriller presented a different consumer dilemma, an ethical one. Would I buy a copy and thereby give money to someone who may have wrecked the lives of who-knows-how-many children? Does consumption equal consent of someone's private actions?

And then the question I ended up asking myself: Why was it so easy for me to go finger-waggling at Wal-Mart -- a company that, arguably, does improve some people's lives and is actually in a position to be an environmental game-changer -- and so difficult for me to dismiss the King of Pop out of hand? I split the proverbial baby in my answer, reasoning that there was a clear case against Wal-Mart. The Jackson thing is less clear. The trial was a farce, and it said more about the icky nature of celebrity "reporting" in this country than it did about whether or not American justice applies equally to all. (Read Stephen King's excellent coverage here and here.)

I did end up buying a copy of Thriller from the iTunes Music Store last year. I still feel a little guilty at how how quickly my toes tap the minute "Wanna Be Startin' Something" comes up on iTunes shuffle, as if I'm enjoying it at someone else's expense. I sometimes rationalize by thinking, Well, he made this album well before the problems started.

I am no closer to figuring out where to draw the line between my disapproval of someone's private life and whether that should rightly or wrongly affect their career in the public marketplace of consumption. But I am more sympathetic to people who don't even want to think about the question at all.