Before I begin-- this post is not intended to make anyone feel bad. I'm looking to have a discussion-- I'm not looking to beat anyone over the head with this information. I know many of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck or trying to stretch $10 across a family of four, and this post is not intended to cause you guilt.
But I thought this would be a good discussion for /r/frugal simply because this sub is about the "mental approach we each take when considering our resource allocations". Lately, my mental approach has been increasingly devoted to ethical consumerism, and about how much of what we consume has a serious impact on the rest of the world. For the purposes of this post, I'm talking primarily about human rights abuses, though of course that doesn't take away from the environmental impact of our consumption. Slavery Footprint has a pretty good breakdown of the human work that goes into many of the things we consume, from chocolate to microwaves to cotton.
Most of us are at least vaguely aware that this happens, but many of us feel powerless to do anything about it, because it's so prevalent in all of the things we use, and particularly as most of us are budget-strapped-- which is why we're on /r/frugal in the first place. Not to mention that ethical consumerism doesn't really change the underlying structural issues that cause these problems in the first place-- it just makes me feel better, because it helps me reduce my direct involvement with the slave trade.
On the other hand, should I simply give up and acknowledge my relative powerlessness and continue to buy the cheapest brands possible? I disagree. I think that this is better than nothing. /r/frugal is all about being as reasonable as possible about our resource allocation. I can't give up my cheap refurbished IdeaPad that was probably made with conflict minerals, but I can make sure that I buy my chocolate from a vetted list of suppliers. I can do my best to avoid buying anything that contains palm oil. And I can continue to have these discussions with folks like you.
What do you think, /r/frugal?
January 04, 2017 at 11:21PM
