Ethical Consumerism

In today's Times Magazine insert (UK) it featured a list of ethical gifts. They also ran an article on "Mrs. Bono" Ali Hewson's "Conscious Consumerism."   It inspired a comment here because I've heard a bit about these ways of coopting consumerism and they all seem rather atractive to me, but I wonder just what is meant by ethics?  It often seems kind of assumed and/or simple like Google's "don't be evil" motto, but it's kinda hard to not be evil to some regard these days. 

At the American Academy of Religion conference this past month I heard a great paper on political consumerism.  The author argued that capitalism is a kind of habitus that is too dominant in shaping the way in which people conceptualize their social and economic relations.  He then drew a distinction between consumerism and political consumerism, or what I am calling ehre ethical consumerism because of today's Times.  I racked my brains all week after the conference because I didn't ask the question I am asking here, but here it is nonetheless.  How can we maintain the difference between consumerism and political consumerism in the purchase of bananas?  or a bright red aids benefit ipod?  Must we always be complicit? 

The ethical items on the Times ethical Christmas list in the time were things like a red ipod which means when you buy it proceeds go to fight aids.  Does it matter the environmental impact of making the ipod? or all the other ipods?  I means, what is this ethics of complicity.  You do one good thing at the expense of others.  There is no such thing as don't be evil in the store today.  You try to do good and buy an ethical ipod for what?  Why not just give to the aids charity and skip out on the capitalist exchange?  As an ipod owner it's because they are a killer bit of kit that are great for long plane trips and storing extra files when traveling between computers.  If I will inevitably buy an ipod why not offset the impact with some good?   

In many ways I am attracted to the idea that some good is better than no good.  At least, this is the tactic I take in the store.  Tactic is a good word here.  It's one developed by Michel de Certeau in his The Practice of Everyday Life which is a must read in social theory today.  Even if we disagree with the distinction he makes between the strategies of the powerful against the counter tactics of the dis-empowered, he provides an interesting way of thinking about social change from the ground up.  But what it ultimately means is that I continue to spend extra time at the banana rack because each day my way of negotiating my complicity in consumerism is a little different.  Sometimes I want to keep Tesco from getting any more than the 1 out of 9 pounds spent in England.  Other times I want to help the farmer in Nicaragua, and sometimes I'm just really paranoid about pesticides.  I wish I could do better, but each choice is a balance of good and evil it seems to me.  Maybe I'm just thinking too much, but it seems that part of the battle is just realizing that the purchases we make aren't just about price for volume. 

We can make little differences. This seems to me to be the implication of the idea of political or ethical consumerism.  But ethical consumerism itself can blind us from the need for greater change.  We mustn't start to believe that somehow purchasing a red ipod verses a black or white one this Christmas makes us good.  Or that when we purchase Fair Trade bananas we're somehow not still contributing to a company with oppressive practices.  In other words we need to ask what exactly is "ethical" about our consumerism and recognize how much more needs to be done.  But until then, it seems these movements are actually shifting public consciences in a "good" direction? Time will tell.