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The Trap of Green Consumerism
I often get asked whether I think fair trade is a bad idea, and my response is usually "it's much better to buy fair trade than to buy unfair trade - but if you care about farmers, ask them what they want." In general, I'm not favorably inclined toward green consumerism.
The notion that somehow we can transform the world by shopping is a debilitating one, and it's one that George Monbiot has recently done a fine job of skewering. In his latest, he references a piece in the journal Nature in which it appears that consumers who buy green goods feel that their purchases allow them to behave in ways that are environmentally far worse. The researchers call it ‘the licensing effect.'
I couldn't find the study Monbiot mentioned, but I did find a study by the same authors at the University of Toronto, in which they say, yes, people behave like assholes after they buy their recycled toilet paper, but they also behave better if merely exposed to green messages.
So what is it about ‘green' goods that turns us into jerks? It's the act of purchasing them. This isn't to argue that we shouldn't have goods produced with less cruelty, exploitation, resource-waste and culture-destruction. It's just that branding them with a feel-good label actually corrodes the benefits of sustainable manufacturing.
What's the way out of this? Easy. Fight to make sure all goods need to be produced in this way: in other words, make the label redundant.
Not only will we have better consumer goods, but we'll also be worse consumers. And that's a good thing. So much of the food movement is driven by a ‘look to the label' approach. And, again, don't get me wrong. I want to know where the food comes from, and that it's sustainable, local, produced without exploitation of labor or the environment. What I'm saying is that the label, ultimately, is one of the worst ways of doing this. Because what this latest research demonstrates is that buying green is a way of turning guilt into a commodity.
After filling up a trolley with ‘green' goods, consumers can gag the nagging voices concerned that it's unbridled consumerism itself that lies at the heart of environmental destruction. After throwing a few coins in the direction of the sirens of sustainability, people can behave worse than before, their ears plugged by having bought green goods. (In the Toronto experiment, primed with the virtue of green consumerism, people felt readier to lie, cheat and steal.)
But exposure to ‘green' products without purchasing them serves to make us more aware of one another, and more inclined to be generous. Again, the Toronto experiment showed that people who were merely exposed to green messaging gave a third more money away in a dictator game than those who weren't exposed.
In other words, there are conditions under which we can be more altruistic, more generous, and more aware. But those conditions are killed by the act of purchase, of engaging with the world and its problems as if those problems were commodities, rather than political challenges that will be solved not by shopping, but by civic engagement.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllI agree we should purchase as little as possible.
But to propose that if we buy as little as possible( the article says just buying "green" and does not mention volume) and it is all "green" we will have a worse demeanor because of it is patently absurd.
The turn in the market place to "Green" and Organic is driven by the fact that consumers are demanding those products and consumers can only discriminate for the better by having honest accurrate labels.
The article seems to propose that there should be a government mandate that all products be green therefore no need to have "debilitating labels (snark)", good luck with that, we can not even obtain a mandate for Green energy even though the necessity is dire.
Consume as little as possible and consume green,leave it at that.
As a nation that worships at the alter of GDP it will take a huge paradigm shift to slow an ever accelerating US consumer society.
actually there is a shift since the collapse, savings has gone from zero percent to five percent thus stalling the main engine of the economy.
the corporate usa government is doing its best to reignite the consumer feeding frenzy.
Agreed.
The study quoted is akin to the old joke about people going into McDonald's and order the big mac value meal with thousands of calories and sodium through the roof and then ordering a diet pop and it balances the rest of it out.
I saw a clip recently with Annie Leonard, the creator of the Story of Stuff, giving a speech at the Bioneers conference. She related how people continuously ask her what they should buy. Her reply was less. Good advice.
Better to find a solution that allows people to buy green now and still not act like jerks. People like me already act this way because buying green is not a way to salve my conscience but a way to live in concert with my conscience. And, my conscience guides all my actions, even giving money away, buying less ,tipping more, conserving energy. For instance, people like myself drive hybrids AND drive sensibly to conserve even more energy. These people are called hypermilers. Additionally, I drive less by walking or taking the bus. I am sure others do as well. The study's jerks would be analogous to people who buy hybrids and drive like maniacs, wasting more energy than they save, so to speak. These people are rightfully called jerks. So, hippies, off-gridders, etc. are not necessarily jerks; they may even be not-jerks. One could argue that they will include all not-jerks. A not-jerk is considerate of other people and things in all matters. They would be outliers in the study.
Which brings to light a basic flaw in the study. It defines jerk in reference to any act except buying green. But, not buying green is to be a jerk, too. It is equally not being considerate of other people and things. According to a neutral definition of jerk, everyone in the study is a jerk (to some degree or a saint). Probably, acting according to a newly adopted moral rule on any issue will lead to a holier-than-thou phase wherein one erroneously believes one has gained some moral license to backslide on other moral issues. The question is how do we get people to behave conscientiously regarding all issues (or at least as many as possible), not just green ones. Personally, I do not think the difficulty in doing so should be laid at the feet of green labels. This has been a difficult project for a very long time, since long before anyone ever thought of a green label, or any label for that matter. Who is to say whether or not these green jerks in Toronto are taking a step in the right direction? Perhaps, they will first go through the holier-than-thou phase of "licensed" jerkdom and progress to a phase wherein they recover their moral senses and lose their "license." Ah, time for another study!
Raj Patel postulates a "all or nothing" argument; while ideologically pure, it the position of an intransigent idealist whom expects all to follow his "example" like Cato the Younger expected of his Patrician allies / followers whom were using him for their own ends. History records well what happened to that late Roman Republic faction.
While what Patel posits is an admirable conclusion, very little, if any serious thought is given to how to get there in a meaningful and realistic manner other than consuming and purchasing as little as possible (which should be a normal matter of course).
Therefore, I add my own to the conversation:
If you have the space, money, & time, plant your own garden (even if it is just herbs growing in pots off of an apartment balcony). Try to shop at Farmer's markets or independent Coops instead of chain supermarkets, where the middleman is often cut out.
Yeah. Another way to describe the virtue of localism is it cuts out the middleman.
I certainly would like more information about the original study and how they obtained their conclusions......"yes, people behave like assholes after they buy their recycled toilet paper, but they also behave better if merely exposed to green messages." While I don't doubt that this could, indeed, be happening, it is not happening with the people I know and not happening with myself. (Although there are those who would most assuredly describe me as an "asshole," I don't believe it's the general consensus with the majority of people I know and interact with.) As far as labeling, I agree that we should not be so naive as to be persuaded to buy something simply due to the package it comes in. On the other hand, in this country, we're not allowed to be informed when we're buying genetically modified products and that's something that should most definately be included in the labeling. The way that animals are bred, raised, fed and slaughtered in this country is kept from the general population. Only those with a sense of courage and a strong stomach take a look into the diabolical and criminal aspects of animal husbandry in this country. Education and information is exactly what is needed. If knowing that information makes us angry and we begin acting like "assholes" maybe we can stop some of the corruption taking place in the food industry.
Okay. I got a little side tracked, there. As far as buying recycled or organic goods, it seems strange that that activity, on its own, would turn people into jerks. I don't know. This article seems a little disingenious to me.
"Green consumerism" has become the sine qua non of the leisure liberal class. Pompously preening in their Prius' and with unfathomable self indulgence and a never-ending sense of entitlement today's proud liberal sees him/herself as the ultimate engine of social progress through his/her's "enlightened" acts.
"Liberal" has come to mean "a superior sort of individual," while "progressive" has come to mean "an individual traveling the path to enlightenment and transcending above their inferiors." No matter how many radical theories or what ideology or superior personal spiritual beliefs you set out as window dressing, the cult of the enhanced and actualized individual will always be contradictory to and destructive of efforts to build the working class solidarity that is essential to any serious political change.
These people fight for their positions as though their personal identity depended upon them, as though their existence depended upon their political position or theory. That is because their personal identity does depend upon their political positions. They are one and the same - "be the change you want to see." People actually mean "seek the change that suits who you are as an actualized individual" since it never involves self-sacrifice or focus on the needs of others, but always on individual personal choices and self-expression. In fact, their political positions are not political positions at all, but narcissistic expressions of their personalities.
Is it a coincidence that liberalism has become dominated by the relatively well-off, and that simultaneously economics are no longer front and center for either mainstream party but are merely a minor side issue?
The Democratic party and liberal organizations have become the biggest supporters of the new aristocracy, while dominating all political discourse that is not overtly right wing and suppressing any true politics of opposition from emerging.
The rest of the people in the world suffer, in order to support the conditions that allow about 10% of our population to enjoy the luxury of living in the realm of political musing and theorizing. The lives and outlook of that 10% are seen as the standard, as the given, as the norm. It is not the norm even within any metropolitan area, unless you ignore minorities, ignore the elderly and infirm, ignore the working poor and single mothers, and ignore the millions of people working blue collar jobs.
All day long in the media, that 10% - white, upwardly mobile, educated, rolling around in new "energy efficient" cars, climbing the corporate management ladder, buying expensive homes, having full access to health care, having access to excellent public education and municipal services, taking fun and exotic vacations, buying the latest gadgetry and trinkets - is presented as being representative of "us" - who we are as a people.
"Green consumerism?"
Just another hypocritical liberal oxymoron.
“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.”
- Leo Tolstoy
Outstanding!
Yes! These kinds of individual approaches to solving the world's problems are part and parcel of bourgeois mentality. I'll just do the "right" ("green", "sustainable", whatever) sorts of things, and if the world doesn't change for the better, it'll be the fault of all of those unenlightened people who don't recycle or who eat meat or who drive the wrong cars or who don't donate money to the right charities. But I can feel good about myself because I know it's not my fault.
It's basically an elitist way of thinking that we see here on Common Dreams all too often (like the person who's always referring to the "sheeple" that s/he's obviously superior to).
Things are in really bad shape. But it's the fault of The System, people. And we have to change The System to fix it. It shouldn't surprise us that those who benefit the most from the way things are, as mcoyote says, are not going to do this; they're just going to play liberal games, like "green consumerism". The change that has to come will not be led by people like this. It will be led by the downtrodden all over the world. The haves in the world can go along with the change and help it to happen. Or fight to preserve their privileges.
I'd say it's about time to choose sides.
I do agree with what Raj Patel has alluded to.
Jus at the Green Festival at San Francisco (Nov. 13-15) I saw the same madness of consumerism that I see at any Holiday Sale at any Mall in the US.
People were buying things they really did not need.
On the other hand, if they did not buy, then the sellers would not be able to pay rent for their booth, and meet other related expense. Which means they may not come next year.
So we are caught up in a vicious circle. I don't know what the solution is though.
I find Patel's argument skew to purpose.
Granted:
--- Urban consumers little imagine farmers' needs or conditions.
--- No regime of purchasing, no matter how well advised, can obviate all need for other action, or likely come close
--- Some who buy green buy off guilt; a few likely dodge other commitment thereby.
However,
that "licensing effect" can as easily work the other way around: "Look, I write cleverly, so I can drink my Coca Cola, wear my Nikes, drive 6 cylinders 40 miles to work, and blow that AC all summer cause it keeps my head sharp."
Then there's also, "Hey, don't ride me because I loosen up and buy myself something some time. I actually go to these demonstrations. I put my a-- on the line in a lots more serious way than just buying one thing or another."
Either of these arguments might have some truth to them and remain irrelevant. The effect of the action does not change for one's sincerity, commitment, or real or imagined rank in real or imagined movements.
If you do not want someone to carry out some certain activity, one of the great ways to discourage it is to quit paying the person to do it.
Of course this is not the be-all and end-all of resistance. But why throw the screwdriver out of the toolkit because it's such a lousy hammer?
That totally idiotic University of Toronto study that inspired this totally idiotic article, must have been sponsored by a Sweatshop Association.
First of all, the participants were randomly assigned to either a green group or a conventional group, whereas people who buy fair trade/green products CHOOSE to do so. They make a conscious commitment. It's not a game - it's real life, and buying green & fair trade usually costs a little more money, and much more effort.
Secondly, what does Patel propose we should do between now, and when "unfair trade" becomes illegal? Go to your local coop to look at green and fair trade items, and then go shop at Walmart?
Lastly, if Patel won't shop for green/fair trade products, what are the chances that he'll demand political changes necessary to make fair trade/green goods the only ones available? And if he does demand the changes, what are the chances that anybody will pay attention? - After all, there will be no market for green, or fair trade.
This Prius-bashing ought to stop.
The association of a hybrid like the Prius with what we used to call the Yuppie lifestyle as discussed above is simply absurd.
I know one Prius owner who has put 150,000 miles on his in two years as a college student who uses it to deliver pizzas and to commute between his Chicago parents' home and his Ohio college town. Delivering pizzas in a Hummer would be sort of stupid, don't you think?
Another Prius owner I met recently is a middle-aged family man with teenage children whose work situation required a daily inter-city commute. With gas prices (oil speculation on the global market) as volatile as they are, the purchase of his Prius was a hedge against that volatility. He gets 50 mpg.
Another woman in my town owns a Prius for two reasons: she really likes the car and it was the right thing to do.
I live on Social Security of under $1,000 a month. I once made a living as a reporter/photographer and was published in well-known national media but then got sidetracked by life. Now I am returning to the creative hobby of landscape photography using my 50-year-old Nikkormat with its 50mm lens. I'm obsessed by rural landscapes and iconic dying barns. When my 87-year-old mother died last year she left me a 2008 Lexus she had barely driven. (I had an '85 Ford Crown Vic with over 200,000 miles on it.) I put 2,000 miles of very careful driving on that Lexus and couldn't get it over 23 mpg and thought that was absolutely outrageous. I finally put my foot down and went to a Toyota dealer last May (who was really happy to see me!) and traded that dud for a 2009 Prius. On paper I took a $10,000 hit, but if you think about it that wasn't MY money to begin with. Now I'm hypermiling at around 55mpg and I love this car. It enables me to extend my geographic range for photographing our dying Midwest.
In the movie "Dances with Wolves," when Dunbar is offered any commission he wants, he chooses the Western frontier. Asked why, he replies that he wants to see it before it is gone. Same here, just a different place.
Everyone has their own reasons for seeking "green" if that is the direction they are going at all. To belittle some for seemingly stupid or shallow reasons doesn't help. To nudge people to get greener does. Holier than thou won't work; things are much more complex as I hope I've outlined above.
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Well said Ole Man. Well said.
Actually Patel and Monibot and the Nature authors are neglecting the bigger picture. Green consumerism of the coherent and sustainable kind is a natural outcome of Green philosophy put in practice by the people. Elites are merely co-opting the economic end of the Green movement. After we achieve certain gains in spreading Green philosophy among the people, the elite establishment will shrink down and drown itself in a bathtub. Then we'll have our coherent and sustainable society.
Thanks blythespirit. Every once in a while the muse slaps me in the face. She's as volatile as oil prices...
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As Bea said, "and buying green & fair trade usually costs a little more money".
One would think and economist, like Raj Patel, would immediately recognize that people who buy such products simply cannot be as consumerist as others: They don't have as much money left! Duh!
I'm glad this piece is sparking a bit of debate. I should say, of course, that I've no moral high-ground here. I engage in Green Consumerism because, well, the alternative is nasty. Who wants to buy coffee soaked in the blood of the workers who grow it? Clearly, no one. I buy fair-trade coffee - who wouldn't. And I don't have a Prius, but I'd quite like one.
But I'm surprised that very few people are picking up on the other part of the study - that being exposed to green messages actually makes us *more* altruistic. What the study suggests is that it's the consumption that makes us assholes. Not the green messaging. The green ideas actually make us better, because we're ready to give away more and keep less.
What does this boil down to? For me, I'm ready, albeit reluctantly, to accept that the situation that I find myself in, at the start of the 21st century, makes a consumer out of me in ways that I can't help. But I'm also happy to accept that it doesn't have to be this way. And that the way out has *nothing* to do with consuming, and everything to do with the terms on which goods and services are produced.
In other words, changing the world involves not easing up on consuming less, although that's important, and something we'll have to learn to enjoy.
But if we're to have real transformation, it's going to be along an entirely different axis to that of consumption. It's going to involve not wiser shopping, but better politics so that everyone - rich and poor - gets to consume sustainably. And that should be something that we can all get behind.
Hi Raj,
Sorry about the "idiotic" part of my earlier comment, but I find your article extremely annoying, because I feel like it discredits my and other people's efforts to make this world a better place, (although you probably didn't mean to say that).
The Toronto study evaluated the behavior of random people - a relatively small number of students who took part in the experiments did so in exchange for a class credit, or a negligible amount of money. While the study might tell you something about people who have no known personal commitment to ethical shopping, what does it tell you about people who buy green & fair trade because they think that's the right thing to do? Exactly nothing.
What are the practical implications of that study? Shall we just read about green and fair trade on the internet, and then forget all about it? How is not acting on our convictions supposed to make us better people?
Here is some information on how buying fair trade impacts mainly coffee producers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_impact_studies
While the scale of that impact is nothing like you or I would like it to be, nevertheless it's a good start. Does the fact that my purchase might help some kid go to school make me feel better? You bet it does. Do I wish all kids in the world could go to school, and their parents wouldn't have to worry about basic necessities? Of course. Can I make it happen? No, but maybe I can make a difference for that one child?
I try to buy organic, and I try to buy fair trade, as much as I can. I do it, because I don't think it's OK to steal from other people, and just because I don't do it personally, but can do it by proxy like SEARS, or Walmart, does not justify doing it. Neither does the fact that everybody else seems to do it.
A lot of times I find fair trade shopping very frustrating, because fair trade products are not exactly ubiquitous -they won't come to you. You have to look for them. It takes a lot of time and effort, especially when you first start doing it, and you don't know much about it. Btw. I find Green America to be of great help: http://www.greenamericatoday.org/
And here is another good website which links you to fair trade sellers:
http://www.fairtradefederation.org/ht/d/Home/pid/175
While fair trade coffee is probably the best known fair trade product, you can buy a lot of other things that are fairly traded. Chocolate, bananas, avocados, clothing, shampoo, wine, sugar, flowers, art, toys, bed sheets, musical instruments, and lots of other stuff.
How much you need all that stuff is another question. The "green consumerism" is not the same as "green consumption". I don't need to buy 20 T-shirts a year. But if I do need a couple T-shirts once in a while, what's wrong with buying them from a fair-trade store? Consumerism, defined as buying a lot of stuff, that you don't need in the first place, because you think it will bring you happiness, without considering any impact it might have on the environment, is, in my opinion, wrong and useless. However, if you are alive, you cannot totally avoid consumption. Sorry for stating the obvious.
I'm not exactly starving, but I don't have a whole lot of money. I guess it's all relative, anyway. I have to prioritize - I'd rather buy organic food, and not have a big screen TV, than the other way around.
I do drink coffee. You might argue that it's a luxury, and I shouldn't do it - hence I engage in "green consumerism" - I buy it organic and fair trade. I guess I could live without a whole lot of things if I had to, like bed sheets, books, electricity, more than one change of clothes, etc., but here and now, it seems a little extreme.
I grow some of my food, buy at a local Farmer's Market and a Food Coop, I am a vegetarian, I live in a small house, I have a carbon and ecological footprint that's probably about 20 % the average American footprint, etc. (I do not have a Prius.) I'm not perfect, but I try to do my best. Whoever came up with that ridiculous study needs to talk to me first.
I agree that simply outlawing poison in food, as well as outlawing "unfair trade" would be the best. But I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. Political action to affect systemic changes sounds great, but it doesn't preclude personal action.