Are you an ethical consumer?

Question

Just seen a trailer for tonight's Panorama - Primark: On the Rack...an investigation into alleged unethical practices in the clothing industry.

Got me wondering - Do you boycott any particular stores, companies for ethical/political (or any other) reasons?

If so - What? Who? Why?

If not - Why not?

Answer 1

Your intentions sound good but are pointless in todays world of greed, your effort will be like plucking a grain of sand off the beach

Answer 2

Voting is useless now.

The only way to show contempt for big business and unethical trade is by your purchasing power.

Hit them in the pocket.  If every body did this we wouldn't now be in peril from corporations dictating politics, instead of the nation state.  Our own stupidity is bringing about global government.

Addenda:

Five toed sloth.

So is most peoples.  However, look what Gandhi and Martin Luther King achieved by mass boycotts.  I know these were different issues, still the principle remains the same.  Dignified silent, non violent contempt.

Answer 3

I try to be an ethical consumer, but it's not that easy.  The best way to avoid unethical clothing is simply not to buy clothes!

Answer 4

I have never eaten in Macdonald's because it is death by calories.  I buy Cafe Direct or Fairtrade when I can.  Increasingly I am cautious about buying Made in China and I would never buy from Primark or any other "pile em up and sell em cheap" outlet.  However, I recognise that not everyone can be as picky as I am so am open minded about others who do.

What I am much more exercised about is what newspapers and media programmes people use and watch as they are much more dangerous to the perceptions of the hoi poloi on what is good for society and what is bad.  No decent parent should allow media in their home which denigrates women or any other group, uses foul language, excess violence or exploits children.

Answer 5

No, because we would end up boycotting most, the banks who invest money in corrupt regimes, to designer stores as well as cheaper ones like Primark who get their clothes made overseas for virtually a pittance. To countries that produce food that we buy, that the workers gets paid a small wage, you can't find many organisations that don't have some blood on their hands.

I have banked with Barclays for years and had no idea they give loans to Mugabe vile regime, to buy land and kick out the whites, having said that, should i change to another more ethical bank, no sorry don't buy it. and there just isn't the time in all the world to research every company one does business with, think of the products you buy every day, its just so unrealistic.