My mother used to go to great lengths to be an ethical shopper. Some of this happened organically, because she had very little money to spend, and would buy second-hand whenever she could, and the money would stay right in her little town, no problem.
But some things need to be purchased new, and she decided that she would not buy anything made in China. She did not want to materially support the human rights abuses so rampant in Chinese factories. So, she simply stopped.
This wasn’t merely inconvenient; it forced really broad changes in how she shopped and lived, because she didn’t have the luxury of just spending more money (and more time) on goods that were ethically produced.
So, she ended up wearing clothes she didn’t like, just because they weren’t made in China, and having to budget very severely so as to be able to afford domestically made goods for the house. She even had to give up the satisfaction of buying some presents that she knew her beloved grandchildren would love, and settling for something that wasn’t as perfect, because the perfect ones were made in China. It was a sacrifice.
It’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I am pretty maxed out just keeping my kids in clothes and supplies, and most times, I don’t even look at the label. We do buy used goods whenever we can; but for the most part, I’m looking for something in my budget that isn’t overtly offensive in appearance, and that keeps me busy enough.
I do have a few rules, though; I swore off shopping at Temu or Shein (or other retailers that are so cheap, they cannot possibly be paying their workers actual wages), and I swore off buying anything that says Nestle on it, because they’re so openly evil toward the poor in developing nations. Sure, it’s kind of random, but it’s what I’m doing right now.
My approach is not actually that much different from my mother’s, although she was stricter with herself. We both have a very clear idea of what we’re trying to achieve…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
What your mother was doing (… mostly and which you continue to do… mostly*) is align your behaviors with your values to the best of your (plural) limited abilities. There’s no way to be perfectly well informed about what multi-nationals and tyrants are doing, never mind how they spend billions to mislead us or (more cost effectively) help us mislead ourselves. But people like you and your mother try to be careful and intentional. And when it comes to values like compassion (by which I mean a “shared sense of suffering and recognition), I think you try to be “faithful.”
The word “faith” is slippery (like every other word) with all kinds of devilish connotations and denotations. Christian discourse has (to my possibly faulty understanding) alway been too caught up in “faith” as either a “belief” in Christian teachings about “salvation,” forgiveness”, etc and “loyal devotion” to imitating the example of Jesus in during his incarnation (I almost wrote “carnal ministry”). Worse, this discourse seems to oppose “faith” to “works” which could mean either our actions or the result of our actions. But to the extant that I desire to vaporize Christianity, I would reject (and CONDEMN with all due anathema!!) the notion that devotion to imitating Jesus can be legitimately divorced from our “works”. (Therefore “faith” and “works” would not be opposed or contrasted in MY glorious papacy… that is, if they ever gave ME the Holy White smoke…)
*and what I continue to try to do… mostly
According to my sons, I boycott everything. But my life right now is easy. I don’t have any little kids, or any other big stressors. But when life was stressful you could’ve told me Jeff Bezos was kicking puppies and there was no way I could spare the energy to boycott Amazon. These days, I don’t quite boycott Amazon, but I hardly buy anything from them, because, you know, they suck, and they kill small business. Temu’s products are made in the same problematic factories as Amazon’s, but they ship merchandise differently to avoid tariffs. The pricing disparity will probably lessen under tariff happy Trump. In other words, Temu is likely toast.
The reason I boycott things is that I have all this time and energy and my reaction to certain things, like Chinese slave labor, is visceral. I rarely consider whether boycotting will have an impact, I just know there are some things I do not want to be a part of.
That said, I do think boycotts have more of an impact than large corporations are willing to let on; careful readings of their quarterly earnings will reveal their impact. Corporations will do tricks like burn cash on hand to increase EPS. And their lapdogs in the financial press will highlight the increased dividends but bury that revenue and volume are down. I follow the financial markets fairly closely and in my opinion, these somewhat recent boycotts have actually been quite effective:
*Proctor and Gamble so pissed off large swaths of its shaving audience that it’s been forced to branch out into shaving brands beyond Gillette. Gillette ads are now heartwarming Dad pieces.
*Pepsico, under their Frito-Lay brand, hired a vile influencer in Spain. Frito Lay brand suffered a 4 percent drop in volume. That is huge, and due partly, I suspect, to inflation, but Frito-Lay’s volume suffered more than Pepsi’s other junk food brands, and ties with the odious influencer were severed.
*Target will no longer sell Juniors sized XSmall (aka preteen boy) tuck swimwear after their same store sales and foot traffic cratered.
*After Bud Light’s Vice President of marketing insulted the brand’s main demographic, sales tanked.
This is very interesting stuff – would you consider running a blog or sub stack about it?
Love this. (and it is important!!! If someone with your values isn’t already running a blog or Substack I endorse Claire’s comment.)