No! There is no political or ecological or moral aspect to where we choose to live! I have engaged in this argument over and over again since the late 1960s. There is no political constraint on individual consumption choices UNLESS there is an organized mass struggle (as exhibited in pickets, full-page ads, leaflettings, demonstrations, etc) around the the choice at issue. Attempts to make individual consumption choices a matter subject to moral or political judgment absent such mass decisions are victious and devisive.
Wojtek wrote:
I have to agree with Carrol on that for a change. Politicization of individual consumption in the absence of a larger social movement is not only politically ineffective but quite annoying and patronizing. At best, it is a manifestation of tokenism, or creating a face saving illusion of doing something "for the cause" while in fact doing nothing.
Another point - consumer choices seldom make any difference, because the very raison d'etre of large corporations is hedging against market fluctuations. Boycotting a firm is nothing but a market fluctuation for that firm, and a rather insignificant one.
A much effective way of changing corporate practices is government regulation - but one of the most widely shared cultural norms and beliefs in the US - regardless of one's political orientation - is suspicion of government and government regulations. Consequently, any action that does not call for effective government regulation is likely to gain more public support across all political spectrum that one that call for such regulation, even if such action is merely a token with zero political or social impact.
Why the all or nothing approach? Certainly individual choice is not the root of the problem and addressing individual choice decisions is not the most effective approach to social change. That said if you believe that individual choices make no difference, as you both state, then you are effectively telling people that buying a 5000 sq ft home and 2 Hummers is no different than living in a 600 sq ft apt and driving an economy car when necessary and taking public transportation for the majority of your trips. This is a ridiculous position to take. The need to take any moralizing out of the discussion seems obvious enough. Consumption choices are not necessarily moral or amoral but they do matter socially, politically, economically, and environmentally. Pretending this isn't so is not helpful.
Imaging boycotts do not work is odd. Many fail but several have succeeded. Most are done on such a small scale the companies do not care but large boycotts can be effective. How to make them large enough to succeed is a difficult problem to solve. Perhaps if many people did not believe their individual choices do not matter it might be easier to build support and create an effective boycott? If individual choices do not matter why not cross a picket line as well? This is the expected reaction to the position you both espouse.
Telling people their individual choices do not matter is a recipe for making any attempts at change seem completely irrelevant to most people. Why you would want to do that is a mystery to me. Making it the core of a program to affect social change would be a mistake but ignoring it is a larger mistake.
John Thornton