Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism: Creating a Hierarchy of Harm

In attempting to be a conscious and thoughtful consumer in a deeply interconnected society, and more specifically, in an urban environment, the amount of thought, labor, money, and time involved in finding workarounds to ensure ethical consumption easily become overwhelming. Even going back to the age-old proverb of “do no harm,” that quickly becomes impossible. What about the bacteria you inhale and inadvertently kill? What about the tiny insects you step on as you walk?

The only solution for this dilemma seems to be to create a hierarchy of harm that allows you to choose your level of commitment and still have the greatest possible impact.

What Is Ethical Consumption?

For the purposes of this post, I am going to define “ethical consumption” as the purchase, support, and use of products that do not exploit human, animal, or environmental well-being and ultimately uphold values of sustainability. A wider definition may also include support of small, local businesses and political activism through the purchase of products.

If you are the owner of a business that makes a profit off creating or distributing unethical products and services, you have significantly more responsibility for your contribution to the problem. Still, I recognize that, under capitalism, there are many incentives away from this as a practice such that it is difficult to even survive—let alone thrive—under these conditions.

For my purposes, I’m going to focus on the individual consumer. As an individual, you have a limited impact on what you can affect in these arenas. However, the dollars you spend still impact the decisions a company makes and are therefore still worth consideration.

Direct Harm vs. Indirect Harm

It’s perhaps a simpler project to talk about the hierarchy of direct harm. For instance, as a society, we have standards around murder being ethically worse than theft and harassment being ethically worse than a speeding ticket. But, when you start talking about ethical consumption, you are almost exclusively talking about indirect harm, meaning harm that you yourself did not cause but that you are still inadvertently in support of (through financial means or otherwise).

Creating a hierarchy of indirect harm is much more complicated and needs to take the following factors into account:

·        On an individual moral level, which business practices are more harmful than others? (E.g., is poor work environment for humans worse than animal testing?)

·        On an environmental level, which practices cause the most damage in the long term? (E.g., is it worse in the long term to use plastic that doesn’t biodegrade or to drive a semitruck cross country?)

·        On an animal level, is there such a thing as moral meat production and animal testing?

·        How do the three categories above relate to each other in the hierarchy?

·        What about harmful business practices that are not transparent?

Because an individual’s own morality comes into play, I’m not going to attempt to create a generalized hierarchy that works for all people, but I do want to come up with some example of one that works for me.

My Categories of Harm: An Example

In no particular order, I find the following business practices to be in bad faith with little care for the long-term results of health of employees, animals, or the environment:

·        Unmonitored or unbalanced use of electrical or gas fuels and carbon emissions

·        Poor treatment of animals in farming (overcrowding, lack of movement, lack of fresh air, poor quality food, lack of individualized care)

·        Use of non-biodegradable materials

·        Poor wages, hours, and/or benefits for employees

·        Foreign outsourcing for the purposes of profit alone

·        Prison labor

·        Chemical mishandling

·        Unmanaged waste (e.g., throwing away usable products due to demand or profit)

Unfortunately, it’s a lot to ask of a company in today’s world to avoid every one of those categories (and I’m sure I have missed a few). But, if I were to organize them based on a hierarchy of what is most important to prioritize first, I can organize a path forward toward more ethical practices that readily points toward areas of improvement in the future if implementing them all at once is not a reasonable option.

Now we need to organize the categories above in terms of long-term effects, category, and scale.

Environmental Hierarchy of Harm

While harm to other humans and animals is atrocious, I hold the belief that harming the environment is the worst thing a business could do because of the long-term effects this will have on everyone, human and animal, due to catastrophic weather events and other dilemmas.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), transportation accounted for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, with electricity production at 27 percent, industry at 22 percent, commercial & residential at 12 percent, and agriculture at 10 percent in 2018.

With that in mind, the biggest things to look for when shopping in an environmentally conscious way are the following:

1.      Local products that don’t require transportation (even plastics begin with the transportation of materials)

2.      Companies that are offsetting carbon emissions with natural forms of energy (wind, solar, etc.)

3.      Reduction in need for livestock

Please note that the above is based on greenhouse gas emissions and their relationship to climate change only, and there are many other categories you could base this on. I invite you to expand on this.

Hierarchy of Harm for Humans, Animals, and Plants

While I have the impression that most people would separate these categories, I have found that many companies that treat their animals poorly will also treat their humans poorly and vice versa, so I think it is pertinent to talk about these causes of harm together.

This hierarchy is very based on my own morality, and there’s little escape from that, so please adapt it to fit you:

1.      Outright slaughter of humans or animals without cause and/or respect for the gravity of the act – I believe there are highly nuanced reasons to break this rule, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful and impact-conscious way.

2.      Enslavement of humans or animals – This one is tricky and nuanced because “enslavement” could go as far to include “wage slaves,” so you are going to have to draw your own line here. For myself, “enslavement” means forced labor or other uses of one’s body for the profit of someone else. For my purposes, this would include the use of animal products, especially when the animal is not cared for in proportionate amount to demand/production. This, for me, is where individualized love, care, and attention become crucial.

3.      Lack of diversity – Both monocultures and a lack of listening to marginalized voices cause dramatic environmental and humanitarian harm on a global scale that could ultimately cause starvation, pandemics, and other crises.

4.      Outsourcing labor – Because transportation and shipping account for such a high percentage of the greenhouse emissions and because foreign companies often destabilize or have little care for the impact they have on another country’s economy, this ultimately causes worldwide environmental and humanitarian harm to life.

5.      Knowledge or resource theft – An arbitrary or undemocratic claim on resources and/or community knowledge does a disservice to everyone involved and only increases the way we gatekeep knowledge and sustainability practices.

Acknowledging the Lack of Knowledge, Time, and Energy

Given the current capitalistic structure, it is unrealistic to expect every consumer to put in hours and hours of labor researching the companies they purchase products from, and some business practices are not going to be all the way above board. However, I want to provide some tips for when it is most impactful to consider your personalized hierarchy of harm:

1.      When buying something you will turn a profit on

2.      When buying in bulk

3.      When evaluating recurring purchases

4.      When travelling

5.      When buying luxury goods or other non-commodities

Additionally, for the sake of setting a baseline, I would consider a company suspect if they don’t have any readily available information about their social responsibility and sustainability practices.

I would suggest not prioritizing the consideration of your hierarchy of harm in purchasing decisions if you find yourself in the following situations:

·        In any kind of health emergency or any other circumstance where an urgent decision needs making

·        You are experiencing significant financial stress

·        Considering this at all causes you to enter a state of overwhelm

Know that none of this information is here to cause you additional stress. This is a way to help you organize the thoughts around the ethical practices you already have and provide you with guiding stars for how to choose between types of harm if it comes down to that.

That said, if you are in a position of privilege, this is a great way to start thinking about how to use it more effectively.

Conclusion

As a thought practice and open discussion, I hope this helps you cope with some of the existential dread of attempting to be a more ethical consumer without simply giving up on the practice altogether. I imagine that, at some point, we will live in a world where the consumer is no longer responsible for making these difficult decisions, but until corporations, legal entities, and governments put regulations into place and abide by them, we need to do the best we can.

So much love for the ways you offer your patience and peace to this world full of growing pains.

Photo: This is a texture shot of a scarf I am working on for my younger brother, which I made progress on while writing/editing this blog to give myself some time to think. It is made with acrylic yarn, which is probably some of the least ethical yarn on the market (vegan but foreign made using acrylic yarn, which is really just plastic), but I purchased it before I knew much of anything about the yarn industry and their business practices, and the colors are gorgeous.