[responses to: Michael Yates, Dennis Claxton, Wojtek S, Doug Henwood, Chuck Grimes]
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On May 9, 2011, at 12:40 AM, MICHAEL YATES wrote:
> Ravi, Erika says that tons of huge industries like meatpacking get a pass, while a "guy" who is all for the animals, etc. gets investigated.
> So I think it is reasonable for me to say that she sees Ells as a little guy (and not as the large business that his company in fact is) who gets investigated. But this isn't true, as Mark has pointed out. And if Ells really wants a sustainable farming, how can he not make sure that he has sustainable employees, that is, workers who can sustain themselves on Chipotle wages? And I wonder how a company that will be employing 100,000 workers across the country--a big operation---can be sure that the animals whose meat it gets are treated humanely? Boulder, CO grows a good many "enlightened capitalists." They all seem to be very rich, live in gigantic houses, and appear to be not overly committed to the well-being of their employees.
Agreed, on all of the above.
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On May 9, 2011, at 12:32 AM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> At 09:17 PM 5/8/2011, // ravi wrote:
>
>> Intuitively and emotionally I tend to agree with you on the Credo vs Verizon thing, but to be honest I don't see the larger difference.
>
> The larger difference is just that, larger. More people involved in something that affects not only what they serve for dinner that night, but also makes them connected with a movement outside their own house that has to do with effective political pressure.
Ah yes, okay. But wouldn’t the Credo switchers defend themselves by waving their MoveOn membership, their DailyKos “diary”, and attendance at the Jon Stewart rally? I am only being half-facetious :-).
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On May 9, 2011, at 9:04 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> [WS:] I agree, but it also begs the question "why?" Credo is just a
> business with a charitable arm, just as any other business. Verizon
> and other telecom have charitable arms as well. This is fundamentally
> a neo-liberal model of philanthropy instead of state action.
>
> What would make difference, though, is political action groups aimed
> to influence government operating for-profit businesses to finance
> their political activity. For example, Credo using all their profits
> to fund a PAC advocating, say, progressive taxation.
>
> The bottom line is that consumer choice politics makes no sense
> because it is based on a fundamentally faulty neo-liberal behavioral
> model, falsely claiming that institutions reflect people's
> preferences and market place choices based on these preferences. In
> fact, the reverse is true, consumer preferences and choices reflect
> the priorities set by institutions, so it makes sense to change the
> latter not the former.
>
This makes sense. But aren’t you being a bit uncharacteristically absolutist? Individuals have forced changes in the behaviour of corporations through their consumption choices, haven’t they? Isn’t a lot of the green stuff in response to the fear of customer boycott? Or is that merely greenwashing...
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On May 9, 2011, at 11:27 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On May 9, 2011, at 12:17 AM, // ravi wrote:
>
>> A boycott is a collection of individual choices of one product (where indispensable) over another...
>
> It's also a response to a call by workers or other exploited humans. It's not merely "a collection of individual choices." You sound like those bourgeois theorists who define a corporation as a "nexus of contracts" and not an institution larger than any set of individuals.
>
I don’t mean that a boycott cannot be more than a collection of individual choices… in fact, I muttered something about holistic effects and such? (which may not be what you mean, but at least it absolves me to some extent I think). I am really not trying to be clever here… animals (to return to animal welfare, which in the past you have politely declined to get into a discussion about; which I am quite fine with) do not have a voice, so the call from animal welfare/rights activists is a proxy for their voices, and the boycott of say fur is a response to that call, isn’t it?
Dennis clarified it a bit for me by pointing out (see above) that a boycott as a response to labour exploitation or malpractices is *implemented* (as I read it; not to put word’s in Dennis’s mouth) a set of individual actions, but with a connection to a larger outside movement.
Are you saying the same sort of thing? Wojtek on the other hand seems to be saying that all boycotts of products are misguided because they rest on the same sort of free market premise(s) that we need to overturn (again I am putting words in mouths here, so forgive the summarising).
> Over the last few years, I've pretty much converted to buying only "humane" meats, and not the crap in the supermarket. But I wish there were half the lobby for exploited farm workers that there is for animals.
This is my worry stated earlier… that the torture of animals somehow seems to have this libertarian and broader appeal that makes it self-evident. Whereas when it comes to workers the old line of personal responsibility and so on takes over.
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On May 9, 2011, at 2:31 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote:
> Besides not studying cultural anthropology or Marx, Diamond has little grasp of history, basic economics, and simple human understanding. Consider the European conquest of the `New' World.
This Diamond thread and the sort of argument he offers reminded me of a recent blog post by Paul Krugman quoting Hume:
"I have long entertained a suspicion, with regard to the decisions of philosophers upon all subjects, and found in myself a greater inclination to dispute, than assent to their conclusions. There is one mistake, to which they seem liable, almost without exception; they confine too much their principles, and make no account of that vast variety, which nature has so much affected in all her operations. When a philosopher has once laid hold of a favourite principle, which perhaps accounts for many natural effects, he extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phænomenon, though by the most violent and absurd reasoning.”
—ravi