Shopping for social justice fully justified

A year after the Seattle demonstrations, some of the corporate media reassured their viewers that those events were an aberration. Demonstrators may have briefly halted meetings on international trade, but with another holiday season in full swing, U.S. citizens are back to their real business, shopping. The media’s celebration of American shoppers may, however, be premature. Shopping itself can assume a moral and political dimension.

A decade ago, Juliet Schor pointed out in “The Overworked American” that shopping dominates both space and time. Americans can visit more than four billion square feet of shopping centers (16 square feet for every resident). Shopping is the most common weekday out-of-the-house activity, but thanks to phones, credit cards and the Internet, it can now be carried on everywhere and at all hours.

Should any of us forget these opportunities, we can count on being reminded. Our media, schools and public thoroughfares are increasingly bedecked with commercial symbols. One historian has pointed out that consumerism has become the “ism” that trumped all others. Even for many progressives, the urge to supplant consumer society has been replaced by the quest to assure that all citizens have an opportunity to participate in it.

Nonetheless, consumption does not inevitably displace all other social causes. Widespread public outrage greeting the revelations that popular clothing lines had been produced by child labor or in sweatshop conditions have led to a variety of “clean clothes” campaigns. Both as individuals and as groups, consumers have demanded more information about not only the actual product they are buying but the conditions under which these products are produced. Is child labor employed? Do employers pay a living wage and do they abide by reasonable health and environmental standards?

Ethical consumerism has included demands that clothing manufacturers disclose the locations of and attest to working conditions in their plants. They have been asked to open those plants to inspection by outside monitors, and corporations and consumer activists have debated who and under what conditions such monitoring might be conducted.

The ethical consumer movement has become increasingly political. Consumption is both an individual and a collective activity. Our public schools, universities, and governments at all levels purchase goods and services. From Maine to California students have demanded that colleges and universities not contract with firms that reject fair labor standards. These struggles are ideological as well as economic. When the colors and insignia of a respected private college or state university are associated with the “swoosh,” Nike receives more than an immediate financial reward. It is granted the moral imprimatur of the institution itself.

Citizens also recognize that public choices regarding the goods and services purchased for road construction and maintenance, municipal airports, police, and firefighters have implications that go beyond immediate cost. Public purchases of sweatshop goods may in some instances be cheaper, but such choices encourage business leaders to export jobs to nations and contractors that strive to succeed with low wages and lax safety standards. In the end, labor everywhere suffers when such competition is encouraged.

In June 1997, Bangor became a national leader by passing the nation’s first resolution declaring that clothes made under sweatshop conditions, here or abroad, don’t belong in city stores. The city has since implemented its own principles through a subsequent ordinance that asks its suppliers whether their products are made under safe conditions, for a fair wage, and without child labor or other sweatshop conditions. Building on their initial success, a broad-based coalition of consumers and many local merchants, including the Bangor-based Peace through Interamerican Community Action (PICA), now plan to push the state legislature to enact an analogous measure.

Some corporate defenders claim that ethical consumerism amounts to a new form of protectionism. Requiring workers in Nicaragua or India to be paid a “living wage” in effect closes our markets to them and denies them jobs.

Neither of these claims will withstand close scrutiny. Most ethical consumption standards seek to extend to all workers the right to organize and bargain collectively for wages commensurate with their productivity. Workers everywhere benefit from open access to their plants and the right to choose whether to unionize. When employees are fairly treated they are both more innovative and productive.

Shopping by itself will of course never guarantee a just and productive world. Consumer choices are only one lever to redress injustice, and there are many product lines where there currently are no ethical alternatives. Nonetheless, consumers already make a political difference with items as diverse as shoes, coffee, shirts, and produce.

They can also join with other consumers to broaden the politics of consumption by demanding that producers and retailers offer us ethical options in other product areas. Finally, they can insist that governments spend our tax dollars in ways that honor our social values.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net.