From here.
The American Family Association, the group who recently brought you the national boycott of
Kraft foods, has now issued a boycott against
Ford Motor Company. Why? "Because of the company's track record for supporting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual "marriage," says the group's founder. The AFA has even created a special
website for their cause.
It seems the ends of the political spectrum, the extremist groups, are more successful (or maybe simply more committed) at utilizing spending power to reinforce their political beliefs. I used to be strongly in favor of doing this: following your dollar. The logic goes, each dollar you spend is like a vote cast. Although I'm no economist, I know enough to use the phrases "market signals" and "supply and demand." If you know less about economics than myself, that simply means a standard company, with the goal of making money like all good companies, will generally do more of something that makes money and less of something that loses money.
So if you don't like the labor practices or environmental impact of a particular corporation, the idea is, don't give it your money, and if enough people withold money (including investors) for a particular reason, the company will change its practices.
But what if this extends beyond the actual product and involves moral issues as well? Is that crossing the line? Isn't it a little ridiculous to totally disregard the quality of the product you are purchasing because of a company's ethics? It wasn't ridiculous to the advocates of the South African boycott, and it's not ridiculous to the AFA.
But what if this leads to a future where moral values are as important as product quality? Could we have an anti-gay-marriage car company and a pro-gay-marriage car company? Maybe pro-stem-cell-research t-shirt company or a feminist brand of office supplies? It certainly would open up a whole new world of advertising, with politically charged companies sponsoring candidates and possible product placement during political speeches.
This future is purely hypothetical, mainly because this type of moral consumerism takes place only on the fringes. It takes a lot of dedication to buy only hand-sewn clothing made from organic cotton that was hand-picked for $20 an hour simply because you want to protect the environment. Or to boycott Star Wars just because you disagree with Lucas' politics.
It happens, on the fringes. But the rest of us are too unsure of our beliefs or simply to apathetic to consider the consequences of every dollar we spend. I tried it once. I thought I'd start buying everything organic, even if it was more expensive. Since I lived in a dorm and ate all of my food in a cafeteria, the organic products I had access to with my limited funds were daily health care products. So, I went to Whole Foods and bought some completely organic deodorant. That was probably the smelliest month of my entire life, and I've been wearing name-brand anti-perspirant ever since.