Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
Lot's of people state this, but I don't get that way of seeing the world. As a consumer, I definitively care about the ethics and behaviour of the companies I give money to. Partly from an ethical point of view (if I give money to someone I know use them to behave unethically, I share part (admittedly a small part) of their guilt), but mostly from a practical point of view. If I support companies which treat their employees or partners badly, I make it more likely that others who pay decent wages, care about working conditions etc. will fail. That increases the risk of myself and others I care about getting worse working conditions in the future. Also, if I give my money to multinational companies who avoid taxes instead of local companies who pay tax to my country, there will be less tax money to pay for the infrastructure I use.
And, as others have mentioned here: If the authors I love can't earn a decent wage, they may stop publishing books.
I definitively won't claim that I always research the ethics of the companies I buy from. Life's too short, and most of the big companies act badly in some ways. Also, if the price difference is too big, I'll probably fall for the temptation to save money rather than buying from the most ethical company.
But if big companies misbehave, that's ultimately going to be my problem. Yours too. We share this planet, others' behaviour affects us all.
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There are a lot of reasons to care what companies do and why they do it. In addition to the ethical concerns (and I very much do care about the ethics of a company) there are practical considerations. If you understand what a company is trying to accomplish, you can decide if that is in your long term best interest or not.