An issue that has always irked me is the tendency of Americans to equate the ability to consume with citizenship. It is common to hear the idea “your dollar is your vote” bandied about. Constantly, pundits on the news say, “the market place has decided.” There are two major problems I have with this development. First, the consumer is not necessarily a rational being, but a citizen should be. People are moved to consume by a myriad of subconscious emotional reasons, beyond the urge to fulfill basic human needs. Marketing and advertising campaigns are designed to manipulate this fact. They play on our need to be accepted by others and promise us the keys to a nebulous happiness, none of it based solely on fact or appealing to the rational mind. To use a classic example, you know that that new SUV or convertible isn’t going to make up for your inadequacies, but, deep down, you get this feeling that somehow it will make you feel better about them. Does it?
Secondly, putting the vote to the market place also removes power from those who do not have the economic ability to consume or least lack the ability to consume with discretion. If you are on a tight budget with a couple of other mouths to feed, you probably aren’t going to buy the more expensive healthier organic food. You are probably going to buy whatever will allow you to feed the most mouths for the least amount of money, or what is quick and easy and inexpensive to make, if you are working two jobs and don’t have time to cook. The large food manufacturers can continue to make and sell food that is bad for you because they know this segment of the population will continue to buy it. The market place has voted for this food. But the choice implied by the word vote, is not one that many of these people feel they have. (I’m sure many of you will say that they do have a choice, but remember that the consumer is not rational, and consumption in this system is based on “feeling.”) In a sense, this point makes the “consumer as citizen” system an inherently classist system.
People without monetary means to consume with discretion lose their ability to participate equally in the system, to decide what should and should not be bought and sold, and who should be doing it. This is not a little thing. Our country’s production and consumption patterns have an enormous effect on economy, national and international, which, in turn, can determine a country’s accountability for human rights. (I am thinking of China here. Would they be able to get away with such blatant human rights violations if they did not have such a strong economy?) Perhaps more importantly, production and consumption has had a devastating effect on our environment. The waste and excess use of non-renewable resources, the pollution constantly released from the factories of large manufacturers, the toxin by-products that come with many day-to-day items, these not only effect our environment, but our health. But companies participating in these environmental violations can continue with indiscretion, because they know that people will continue to buy their products and give them money, money which allows them to deal with that pesky, ineffective government, to continue with these practices which harm that segment of the population which continues to support them and whose health they don’t really care about.
Ideally, as our forefathers conceived it, our citizenry would each have one vote, regardless of monetary status, to put in place a government to look out for our best interests. With the market place as our pseudo-government, one dollar equals one vote, and the market place has no interests in looking out for our best interests, only its own.
I read an interesting article last month, which I thought effectively made a good point about consumerism and classism. Entitled “Schwarzenegger: The Fake Environmental Hero,” this article essentially says that the ability to be environmentally friendly is a choice given to those with money, specifically dealing with the automobile. The eco-friendly, fuel-efficient vehicles are currently out of the price range of a large portion of the population. “Schwarzenegger has become the GOP's Al Gore but the trouble is that his "environmentalism" isn't about curbing our reckless consumption; it's about having more cool choices -- if you can afford them.” This tag line says it all. Environmentalism is a consumption choice. Consumption itself is not to be stop, because its how we choose who’s going to have the power.
There are many ways to be environmentally friendly, especially without cost, and there have been many instances when public outcry has caused the government to change policy. There have also been instances of consumers using their consumer power to band together to get companies to change their practices. Don’t worry we are not completely lost yet. I am worried, however, that the trend that I’ve talked about above is the norm and the instances of consumers consciously using their power is more of an exception to the rules. More than that I am worried that we will completely lose the idea of the citizen completely to the idea of the consumer-citizen. Everyone should be able to have an equal vote and should be able to count on our political system to look out for us. This should include our solitary brethren, living off the grid in the woods, our low-income families doing the best they can with little, as well as the more well to do among us. Our buying practices should be separated from our government, just like religion should be.
