On the important French Fry Question

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>John Thornton wrote:
>
>>On another note, what the hell are you people doing
>>patronizing McD's? I suppose you shop at WalMart too?
>
>Hmm, so where's it stop? The computer I'm typing on was made a giant 
>multinational and assembled in Mexico. There's a stereo next to me 
>made by Sony in China. The coffee I'm drinking came from Kenya, a 
>country filled with poor and hungry people, and the beans were grown 
>and picked under god knows what exploitative conditions. You don't 
>really believe that individual consumption choices can clean an 
>unclean world, do you?
>
>Doug

By John's criteria, only the rich who can afford _not_ to eat fast 
food, shop at Wal-Mart, etc. can live morally correct lives.  What 
the masses buy is cheap mass products of sweatshop labor; what the 
truly rich buy, in contrast, is expensive products of relatively 
well-paid artisanal labor.  Haute couture & formal dining at 
fashionable restaurants (or better yet, _your own personal cook_, 
well compensated year-around to provide meals _at home_, to your 
taste & convenience) are good examples of the latter.  Morally 
correct consumption is a luxury that only those who don't & can't 
count their own money can afford.

Yoshie