The irresponsibility of consumers

A theme I've written about a few times on my main (spirituality) blog is the notion that consumers are responsible for what they choose to buy - which directly influences what businesses offer, and how they go about making that available. Others have also written and advocated on this - much earlier than I, so be clear this is not my concept - and it has led to the movements for environmental and ethical purchases, which quite a fair part of the business world has slowly responded to or even embraced, and some, set in their ways or badly caught out, have noisily resisted, as if they have the right to tell consumers on what basis they should make decisions.

The USA is particularly guilty of this, having actively resisted safety and health measures (e.g., cages on quad bikes used on farms) and thereby showing that (a) they want to dump 2nd rate materials here, and (b) they don't give a damn about people's lives and wellbeing so long as they can make a profit - a casualness about life that was shown also by their attitude on the Snowy Mountains scheme that it was "acceptable" to lose one life per mile of tunnelling . . . .

Everyday consumers risk being equally casual about the lives of workers in a number of ways, and their ineptness on such matters is one of the reasons (there are others as well, which basically boil down to the existence of evil people) we need modern slavery acts. The involvement of child slavery and conflict minerals in the manufacture of mobile phones has been known for years - through the actions of the media: the businesses involved seemed to focused on spruiking the "features" of this week's model. If consumers had been repeatedly asking the question "how much slavery or conflict minerals went into this phone?", they would have been told "we told don't know", but pressure would have built up and pushed those companies towards behaving responsibly and ethically - which they weren't then, although they've now got the message, years later than they could have, resulting in staggering amounts of avoidable human suffering and misery.

(As a side note to this, I've tried to get businesses which use mobile phones to ask this question, but they've basically not understood the power of public pressure [or have not wanted to get involved in creating problems for other businesses], and have shuffled out of that possibility - making them as equally guilty as any other consumer of aiding and abetting things like child abuse - even though they have - genuine [they are run by humans, many of whom have kids] and  - policies against that. Also, these decisions are made by human beings, so they have as much FOMO as anyone else, but I'm very much aware that the measure of your commitment to integrity / ethics / morals is what you are prepared to go without.)

I get angry also about consumers' presumption of bad faith and laziness when it comes to local government services, which comes through in the way they complain about the cost of those services. Note that I consider it legitimate to question, challenge or even complain about such services, but don't attack people and methods you know nothing about, and don't do this in a way which leads to abuse of workers - which is exactly what has happened over the last few decades (although some shake up was needed).

However,the main point I want to end on here is consumers' irresponsibility and incompetence in purchasing or ordering (or building) houses.

A couple of years ago some colleagues were talking in the kitchen about whether to build a new or buy a house, and one said they didn't want to build a new house because of "all the decisions about colours and so on". I casually mentioned not to mention the decisions about insulation and the use of sustainable materials, to which the airy reply was "oh, I leave all that to the builder" - WHICH MEANS THE BUILDER CONSTRUCTS THE CHEAPEST THING THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH, and you can GUARANTEE that sustainability and ongoing costs won't be part of it.

That evasion of proper responsibility is why we have such rubbish houses in Australia. It is also why we need acts against modern slavery, international agreements on conflict minerals (it's not only diamonds), and lobby groups on things like the environment (political parties, to some extent, respond to voter pressure and to voter inaction/lack of pressure when seeking election, although thereafter policies [sold during the aforementioned elections in a way which depends on voters] will be more significant). 

If consumers start recognising and responsibly exercising their power, we could improve this world fairly quickly.

That also requires consumers to be decent, informed and engaged people.

Anyone interested in improving the moral quality of their purchases?

PS - see also https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/06/lets-not-beat-around-bush.html 

PPS - the problems with underpayment of workers in the food industry recently, and some years ago around questionable conduct in the Purana police task force can, to some extent, be sheeted back to consumers shopping for the cheapest food/drink or "best" deal without thinking what pressure that places on businesses and employees, and to simplistic, lacking in understanding (of law and consequence) and impatient demands from media and public for an end to the violence more or less "at any cost" - much along the lines of the gunboat diplomacy expectations of their government when Australians (or citizens of other nations) get themselves into trouble overseas.