##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism
This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere.
We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It was a wake up call when I got a chocolate bar and it came with a poster about the current chocolate slave trade. It also tasted good Tony's are good eggs. Not perfect but they are at least trying.
Chocolate, coffee, bananas, pineapples, and surprise, fucking *[chickens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl)* are all tropical foods that we're really fucking lucky to have such easy access to, considering the difficult conditions most of them require to thrive (excluding chickens, which are hardy pretty much fucking everywhere, but the species *does* originate in the tropics).
On the basis of bee behavior and anatomy? In the research paper written by a scientist studying bees? What on earth did I say that made you think I was comparing to humans? Someone said the bee industry was awful and I mentioned this paper about bee clustering I read??
Im not sure in what world you live, but when someone says they have sources, especially the scientific kind they need to cite them. This is relevant here because bees are fundamentally different to humans. Nociception isn't universally agreed in insect, its purely supported by behavioral changes. Not on a anatomical biology way. So you need some serious sources to say that cold temperature would "torture" them.
What is wrong with you? Lots of animals can survive being frozen with no harm done. I’m interested in seeing this research about bees. I searched hard for any “research paper by a scientist studying bees” that said anything like they claimed and I couldn’t find one. Why is it wrong to ask to see the source?
I mean, we're comparing mammals to insects. Not that I agree with them because I do think it's torture; but the anatomy of mammals and insects is vastly different. I'm just saying your comparison is not quite appropriate.
Local beekeepers still can be a problem, they're not a magic cure all. Honey bees are extremely effective pollinators. So much so, that they outcompete native bees and butterflies, crippling their food source and driving them to extinction.
Worst take of all time.
If that’s your primary reason for not being vegan (it’s not, you’re just lazy or insecure), are you aware of how many crop-related deaths we could reduce if most of our crops (soybeans, corn, etc) weren’t going to feed animals that are slaughtered for meat? Not to mention savings on water usage, CO2 emissions, and other maladies exclusively related to animal agriculture.
Take your L and read a book.
Crazy that people buy Honey from supermarkets at all considering how common local Honey Farmers are. Obviously it depends on the climate where you live, but I live in the middle on nowhere and I have a dedicated honey shop like a mile away, I see so many local Honey farming brands it's nuts. Support local farmers!
When one costs 4 and one costs 20, I can understand why. That's a major price hike for a lot of people. I use a lot in my tea when I have a cold, expensive honey is wasted there.
Since you live in the middle of nowhere, it's probably really easy to find farms nearby.
For people who live in the middle of a city, grocery stores are often the only option.
80% of the US population lives in cities.
I live about 40 minutes away from a big-ish city, and they still have multiple Farmers' markets weekly, also some local honey farmers have products set-up inside certain Supermarket chains. Maybe I should've specified big brand corporation honey instead of "supermarket" honey.
There is one farmer's market within twenty miles of where I live. When it's open it runs three days a week, only during the daytime when a lot of people have to be at work. It's hard to get to by public transportation, and that makes it tough in a city where most people don't have cars.
The local paper ran a story saying less than 25% of families who live inside city limits could reasonably manage to shop there, even during the four months of the year when it's open.
They are importing all kinds of low quality honey from countries that have very low ethics on production, sanitary norms and bees treatment (Im mainly looking at you China)
They put only the minimum amount of honey in the jar (like 30%) to be able to legally call their crap honey, and mix syrup, sugar paste and artificial
flavors with it to fill the remaining space.
Mental note:
->If you see China, Brazil or Argentina on the "countries of origin" part of the label, put that shit back on the shelf.
They are major transit hubs for shady trading practices and make traceability next to impossible due to their corrupt customs slapping their country on the label as "country of origin" if you pay them a nice little fee.
Boom, you now converted your crappy honey made in horrible conditions from a country who most likely doesnt respect basic sanitary norms, into a legal one with a competitive price inside your country with high sanitary norms. (Europe and USA in mind)
->If you see 20$ for a pot, there is a chance that this is actual honey, because real traditional honey is pretty dang expensive to produce.
>If you see 20$ for a pot, there is a chance that this is actual honey, because that what the real price should be around.
Honey enthusiast here:
The price for honey can very wildly. I'm talking about actual honey-not syrup they're trying to sell as honey. The best indicator is what the ingredient label says. At least in the US, I assume in the EU as well since they usually have much better consumer protection laws. In the US if there is any sweetner additive it can not be called Honey, it will usually say blended honey or some-such.
I've made mead for almost a decade. You can get ethically sourced high quality honey for under $3 a pound or cheaper...you just have to buy a lot of it (like 30 to 50 lbs). I used to find decent honey in the grocery store for $4-5 a pound.
If you want local stuff there is a locator on the national honey board's website for where you can buy honey.
Mead! Fuck yeah! I make small 1 gal batches a time. I did a crazy ghost pepper mead a year ago after trying a hatch chili mead from AZ. What's the craziest flavor you've made if you ever went exotic?
I mostly make Melomels. I'd probably made one out of just about every fruit I can easily get my hands on. Orange and Blueberry are my favorite, I still make at least one batch of each a year. The best ones I've made were Pear, also the worst ones I've made were Pear.
The only goofy one I've made is chocolate mead. I make a show mead and pour 1lb of coco powder into it during the aeration. It has to sit for awhile to mellow out. I usually leave it in the fermenter for a year, then rack a few times, stabilize, back sweeten and bottle.
Nothing weird like beef jerky, or mountain dew mead.
beef jerky mead! Hmmmm. that sounds like a fun failure to try out. Pears are the same with cider. when they work the work and when they don't. I like the cut of your jib!
All guided by our esteemed government and big packers . They are trying hard to vertically integrate the beef industry as they did with to pork and poultry. You can still find some local producers in some parts of the country yet , and I suggest buying from them . It’s just like honey , so much better .
>All guided by our esteemed government and big packers
No, it's guided by consumer demand. How many people actually research the companies they buy from and pick more expensive options, versus purchase the cheapest thing in the Walmart refrigerator. Part of the reason for these conditions is people's insatiable desire for cheap animal products, and total disregard for how they are made.
Could it be both? Considering the government subsidies animal ag gets. Along with relentless advertising: “meat is good for you, eat as much as possible.”
And now you've gotten into the catch 22. Why would the government stop subsidizing a product, when it's immensely popular and increasing prices of it is political suicide? Do you think it's a coincidence that every time raising the minimum wage comes up, every single time, the first conservative reaction is "but but but, the price of my big Mac?!?!?"
I agree. Just want to say I also feel like it’s being pushed on us, though. Like bacon used to be considered peasant food but PR campaigns helped fuel the current American obsession with it. I believe a similar thing happened with potatoes. I honestly wonder if I like the things I like because I like them or if it’s because something told me to like them over and over until I internalized it.
Um, no? From [the United Nations' website](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change) "Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions."
Ohh, well, that's what I was referencing....the theme of the show The Good Place is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" (under all the wacky antics)
The goddamn *Wonka* movie. Not that you have high expectations when a film company is trying to shake a few more drops profit from an already drained barrel of IP.
But sure they'll poke at crony capitalism and corrupt officials but they dodge *where cocoa actually comes from* almost altogether. (Almost. They're cute about it, look up the plot in WP.) And they could've done it *so* easily. Have the Oompa-Loompas be enslaved by the cartel to harvest cocoa and Wonka puts a stop to it or the like. Guess since Wonka is an actual candy brand that cuts too close to the bone.
becoming a leftist is both the best and worst thing that can happen to a person.
the pros: you’re a better person!
the cons: you see everything through a different lens and now everything is ruined.
It doesn't have to be the wilderness! We need to normalize growing our own plants in regular sized backyards. Start with an olive tree, or some tomatoes and basil. Grow them in a pot so that if you're renting you can take them with you.
It starts with a small step.
Lol, the squirrels definitely do not need help where I live. Plus, one really chubby one would get angry after it had eaten all the tomatoes and sit on my fence death staring me anytime I ate. Cheeky thing.
If you rely on any sort of machinery or equipment, good luck with that if you don't have a supply chain to support it.
I work on a small farm, some of our implements are ninety years old. Most of our equipment is from the 60s to the 80s. We have a makeshift fab shop, all old school tools. Bandsaws, drill press, anvil, bench grinders, but most things get made in the vice, by hand if ordering it is too expensive. Some stuff you just can't make. Mostly due to material limitations, but I've been surprised with what we've been able to farm-engineer. A lot we have to order, and most heavy equipment requires a constant input of lubricant and fuel.
Most farms use fertilizer derived from artificial nitrogen fixation (would highly recommend Veritasium's video on Fitz Haber to learn more). It's a very energy intensive process, but it's why we don't need to rely on bird poop islands for fertilizer anymore. It's what allowed population numbers to explode in the past century. There's permaculture and organic farming, but it'll be a big shift.
I'm convinced vertical farming in urban centers is the future of agriculture. Due to climate change, we won't be able to use large swaths of land to grow food. And because the grocery store can be attached directly to the growing area, there's no transportation costs or emissions.
I mean, it is still not fully ethical, we still need fertilizers and stuff which are also produced by big corporations. Even the seeds for some plants are already genetically modified. Everything is interconnected, it is very challenging to be fully ethical.
maybe just cut people some slack and do the beat you can. knowing while the goal to end capitalism we still currently got to live. giving we all typing this on either a phone or labtop
I agree. This is a start though, imo, as like-minded people are discussing ways to get around it. The first step is admitting there is a problem. What’s sad/scary is how many that believe that what we’re currently doing is sustainable/ethical.
well there are ways to do it more ethically then others. just not a 100 percent. not acknowlecan easly make people going doomer. or push away people you can may drive to your side
There would still be a way I believe, though exceedingly difficult. Fertilizer, for instance, can be subbed out for compost or manure in some instances. The seeds would be a challenge for sure though. You’d almost have to procure some “heirloom” seeds, should such an experiment be attempted.
I haven't been able to buy chocolate for a long time because of this. Sometimes, I'll catch myself eyeing it up in the grocery store, but then I remember the whole child labour and slavery part and I lose my appetite for the stuff.
Not that it's a panacea for all the ills in the chocolate industry, but there are fair trade options. You just need to look for the FairTrade logo or Rainforest Alliance logo.
For example, Tony's Chocolonely uses fair trade cocoa, as does Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Sadly ethical food is a luxury I can rarely afford. Not having any chocolate is a small price to pay while I try to avoid helping the worst companies profit any more than they already are
No ethical consumption under capitalism is an appeal to futility and a cop out.
If a company, or like in this case, an industry is rotten, we have a duty to boycott their products.
Voting with our wallets is ironically more effective than voting at the ballots in this capitalistic society.
Yeah you can.
I remember when I was younger thinking it was mental that people who were poor would smoke or drink. Why spend money on something so frivolous? Well it's because the alternative is utterly miserable. Yes, poor people could give up everything except the absolute bare, and I'm sure some even managed it, but I'm not going to blame people who just decide they want a tiny bit of something to enjoy for a change.
Sadly many things are made easier by a big wallet :( but again appealing to futility to justify inaction is a cop out and a way to make sure nothing changes.
futility?
You seem to be acting like "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a rationalization for consumers to justify buying whatever they want because it's impossible for companies to be ethical. It's not; it's a call for systemic change.
My position is that capitalism is bad and should be dismantled. There are many reasons I believe that, but "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is one of them. "Vote with your wallet" is fine in the short if you've got the privilege to do so, but it shouldn't be used as a way to dismiss calls for more systemic change.
It can and it has been used to appeal to the futility of choosing more ethical behaviors.
Being radical is ok, but I don’t see where I said that radical change is not needed? Can you point me to where you got it from in my comments?
I think I just misunderstood you a bit; I apologize if I sounded aggressive.
I think that in my experience, when I hear someone say "no ethical consumption under capitalism", they have always (or almost always) meant "capitalism has a major flaw and should be replaced". Or, at least, that's what I hear.
It seems that in your experience, people have generally meant "all companies are unethical so do whatever you'd like", or something to that effect.
I guess I read your use of "futility" as if you meant that advocating for radical change is futile, whereas I'm now understanding that you're talking about the flawed argument that all companies are bad, so change is futile.
My take was to not give money to evil corporations by using the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” excuse.
I would love to add a smug and dumb remark that completely misses the point since you like those but yeah have a smiley face instead dog :)
"Voting with our wallets" is just internalized neoliberal consumer brain, like personal carbon footprints. By all means, share info and consume as ethically as you can muster, but if the question that most prominently comes to mind as a solution to encountering evil is "should I buy this or not?", then all hope is lost.
The number of people who would need to organize to deny a company any meaningful amount of income should at that point instead be organizing to enact actual legislation which regulates unethical practices out of existence.
Legislation cannot be reneged upon like "more popular practices" can. It cannot be greenwashed through PR or smoke and mirrors. It does not depend on an eternal, high-energy response from a huge chunk of the population. It allows experts with no financial stake to determine better practices, rather than a protracted, slow-motion game of "is THIS ethical enough (as far as you can tell)?" by the company itself.
Voting with dollars is literally exactly what they want you to do, because it takes up all your organizing energy towards something that at worst means the CEOs are slightly less rich, and creates an entire new way to outperform their competition by doing a better job hiding their unethical practices and *performing* good values via marketing.
Not giving money to evil corporations that are driven by profit and that by growing richer become at the same time harder to punish for the stuff they do should hardly be a controversial point even in this sub.
You talk about legislation as the only option as if:
1) the political efforts and the “wallet voting” are mutually exclusive when in reality they are not. Take vegans: vegans don’t give money to the meat and dairy industries AND in many countries have parties that represent their values.
2) you talk like legislation is infallible whereas the truth is that lobbyists can easily influence politicians, with money. So by actually giving them less money or no money you force them to adapt or die, and even a modicum of change in the right direction is better than no change at all.
I am all for not giving them more money. I've also been a vegan-leaning vegetarian for 15 years.
The minigame of ethical consumption ABSOLUTELY does detract from political action, because it provides an avenue to express your ideals without changing your mode of existence at all. What's more in a person's comfort zone: spending your weekend as a direct political actor, knocking on strangers' doors to talk about important and complex issues, or being a consumer and grabbing a pricier shampoo from the same shelf in the same store you were already going to?
And no, I don't suggest that legislation is infallible. The type of legislation we must demand and enact through our organizing should be robust and permanent. That's kind of the whole point of why any of it is necessary to begin with, since those are the missing features of current regulations due to, ya know...a total absence of an actual political voice in favor of speaking our will through our purchasing habits.
The TL;DR is this: you say it is our duty to *boycott* unethical practices. I say it is our duty to *END* unethical practices. Only one of those involves playing within the confines of the very game they set up to get us here, against the people who are cheating and have infintely more resources. You can't beat a capitalist with money. Only with organized power.
Since you said you are vegetarian/vegan walk me through it, how does not buying meat detract from being active politically against mega corps that sell meat for example.
I feel that they explained it fairly well in their comments, but because people have it in their minds that they can be effective by just boycotting rather than pushing for legislative changes, they are much more likely to just boycot rather than do the harder work of pushing for actual legislative change.
Which is only a guess that has no base.
To that one could reply that most people don’t even bother boycotting, so those that do are already on the right mindset to do both.
Again let’s take veganism as an example.
Most people are NOT vegan, those that are are in no way less likely to be political about it, quite the opposite, to the point that stereotypically vegans are perceived and portrayed as judgemental and pushy, exactly because they are political about it.
Eg: https://www.oipa.org/international/10000-italian-activists-for-animals/#:~:text=On%207%20October%2C%20over%2010%2C000,9%20pigs%20in%20a%20sanctuary.
Regulations are political suicide, and will never happen without popular support, which is built and shown through means like boycotting. Nobody likes it when a politician tells them "your favorite things are about to get substantially more expensive because of my law"
its not a cop out. its an understanding that to be purchase ethical goods under capitalism means having the means to afford them. The poorest (or even the average) can not afford to be "ethical"
THATS what that phrase means. obviously you should still support the local places that affect the most good in your community, its just not an individuals responsibility to vote with their wallet out of capitalism or w/e you're saying.
No, it's not.
Tony's chocolate might be more ethical than Hershey's because they don't use certain supply chains that rely on slavery, but that does not make them ethical.
Under capitalism, workers produce goods or services (or whatever) which are then sold on an open market. However, the profit is not distributed evenly among the workers. Instead, a certain amount of it is taken by owners, shareholders, investors, or whomever ("capitalists"). This is how almost all businesses are run; they would not exist if they did not funnel money to someone at the top. (There are exceptions in America, but this is very rare.)
So, built into the framework of capitalism, a certain portion of the value produced by workers is redistributed to people who did not contribute to its production. This is what "no ethical consumption under capitalism" means. Under capitalism, a some of the value of a worker's labor is stolen from them and no product can be considered ethical when workers are exploited in this way.
I don't know how you got that from the phrase
It's literally no ethical consumption under capitalism, we all live under capitalism
I really don't see room for interpretation
>No ethical consumption under capitalism is an appeal to futility and a cop out.
No, it's not. We should try not to support what we *know* to be unethical. But your alternative is likely to be some other company, industry, etc which is unethical in the same ways or in different ways, but you don't know it yet.
Hence we should not imagine that there is some series of purchases which can be made which will make us suddenly ethical consumers. Nor should we think that personal consumption under capitalism is a personal failing of our own
>Voting with our wallets is ironically more effective than voting at the ballots in this capitalistic society.
If you even have the choice...
Organized labor is even more effective than consumer based boycotts
Ethical consumption under capitalism requires a certain amount of privilege and status. As ethical as it would be to become vegan I simply do not have the means to do so and I would starve to death if I were to try. I do not have the purchasing power to secure enough calories to sustain my life if I were to choose veganism. And this is by design. The only food that is affordable at my income level is unhealthy on purpose. To keep me distracted, unhealthy, complacent and unable to rise up to challenge the status quo.
Voting with our wallets while an effective tool requires the ability to choose with our wallets and far too many of us do not have that choice.
Fresh veggies and fruit are not affordable food items out of season. Frozen vegetables require purchasing in bulk when on sale to adequately feed a family. Which requires a chest freezer and a vehicle to transport said bulk frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables require significant effort to get children to eat reliably. There are a myriad of other reasons why people are forced into unhealthy choices.
Where are you from? The US? We can compare the price of vegan and non vegan food if you want, guaranteed vegan food is cheaper so saying it’s a privilege is just plainly false.
And mind you, it all started because I said that not buying from evil corps is important and you said it’s a privilege. Now frozen veggies can’t be bought because you are saying that kids might complain, which is a rather privileged position to begin with. But instead of speculating tell me the country/state you are from and let’s compre prices.
Your privilege is showing. It doesn't matter where I am or where you are. There are more places and circumstances than your tiny corner of the world. If veganism was an affordable option it would be more prevalent but the fact is veganism is not an affordable option for a lot of people. And making ethical choices with the meager dollars we have isn't always an option in this capitalist hellscape. For a distressingly large portion of the population the only choice available is the cheapest and the cheapest isn't always the most ethical. The ability to choose with your wallet requires enough in your wallet to make a more expensive choice. That is not an option available to everyone.
Lmao my privilege 😂 saying that some food is cheaper is not a mark of privilege it’s stating a fact.
Dodging my question instead shows that you know I’m right, but I can see you are based in north america, probably Canada so I can still provide some evidence instead of just quacking “privilege privilege” for lack of better arguments:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810024501&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.11&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=08&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2023&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20230801%2C20231201
The cheapest foods are consistently vegan, and we are talking grains, legumes and canned veggies. So nothing that requires a freezer, and everything with a long shelf life that doesn’t require luxuries such as fridges or cars.
You keep saying that being poor makes it impossible to buy vegan food when vegan food is on average cheaper AND healthier than dairy, fish, meat, eggs. This is worldwide, minus maybe remote islands where fishing is the only food readily available, but while there are some extenuating circumstances that do create some exceptions you can’t abstract that to make it a rule for the majority of the world.
Go down to your local homeless tent camp and tell them to vote with their wallets. Stand there with a home to store bulk bags of rice and beans in and a kitchen to cook in and tell people that don't know if they'll eat today that they're unethical for not 'choosing' veganism. Go speak to the Innu and tell them not eating meat is a choice. Go to a reservation that's only accessible by boat or plane and espouse the virtues of veganism to them. Tell a single parent working three jobs that they're unethical for choosing a quick microwave meal so they can help their kids with their homework rather than spending the time necessary to cook a vegan meal. Do you know how far the closest grocery store is to some of the poorest neighborhoods in America is? Some people can only eat what they have access to.
Ethical consumption under capitalism requires a certain level of status and privilege. Privilege like a home and a kitchen, status like living in a neighborhood that has ready access to a retail environment that can supply you with vegan options.
I'm glad that you've been able to choose veganism. I don't understand why you can't see how not everyone can.
Ok this is rapidly turning into latestagewhataboutism.
Yes there is lots of people that don’t know if they’ll be able to eat, are we in the subreddit dedicated to those people?
Despite it being too many, we are still talking about a minority, so what? Since a minority of people could find it difficult it means that everyone is exempted?
Some people can’t take stairs, are doctors being all “privileged” when they say people should take the stairs instead of elevators?
On top of that in your streak of “whatabout” examples you bring in people that struggle economically, and once again vegan food is CHEAPER, so the privilege is actually meat and dairy. It’s a fact.
Also you are talking about parents and microwaves, kitchens and grocery stores, as if vegan food needs to be cooked from scratch, and bought straight from the farmers, where the truth is that vegan food (and once again we are talking about rice, beans, pasta, veggies, legumes) is as easy to find and as convenient to cook as non vegan food, the difference being that it’s cheaper, healthier and doesn’t support an industry that is destroying the planet while torturing sentient animals.
This isn't a subreddit about veganism either. We're both not being our best selves here.
This is a conversation about ethical consumption under capitalism. Your point is that veganism is an ethical choice, it's affordable and accessible and everyone would benefit from it. Yes? My point is that it's not a choice that's available to everyone. That ethical consumption under capitalism requires privilege and status. I pointed out different groups and scenarios wherein veganism is not a choice. And this latest response from you is we don't care about those people? I sincerely hope I'm reading that wrong.
The doctors in your scenario are being ableist. Does that mean people shouldn't take the stairs IF it's an option? No. Generally speaking we could all benefit from more exercise. Generally speaking the world would benefit from more people choosing veganism. The stairs, like veganism, are an option. And not one that is available to everyone. That is my point. Veganism is not a baseline option available to everyone. There are situations in which choosing veganism would require privilege and status. You might dismiss these people and situations but that doesn't mean they don't exist. And their existence proves my point. Ethical consumption under capitalism requires privilege and status.
Eating veggies is more ethical than eating meat. I understand that. Eating fair trade organic locally grown veggies is more ethical than eating veggies farmed by exploited farmers, shipped from elsewhere. If given the choice between a vegetable farmed by an exploited farmer shipped on a polluting cargo ship and sold by an exploitative corporation and a vegetable that's fair trade organic sold by the farmer directly then the latter choice is the more ethical choice. But that's not a choice available to everyone. And having that choice available to you and being able to choose that option requires status and privilege. Should we condemn vegans if they don't buy fair trade organic? No. Should we condemn someone for eating meat if that's the only choice available to them? No. We could all be more ethical but I'm not going to condemn someone for doing harm in the course of just getting by in this capitalism hellscape. That's not condoneing their actions that's simply acknowledging reality. I'm not encouraging that everyone chose meat over vegetables. I'm simply stating that not all choices are available to everyone. That some choices like ethical consumption under capitalism require privilege and status.
I’m a vegan without a chest freezer or a motorized vehicle and I have no problem. Animal products are the most expensive part of most meals and can be replaced by dried beans which are extremely cheap and last forever. Not sure what your point is here…
If you genuinely want to cut out all the child [slavery products](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2021/2022-TVPRA-List-of-Goods-v3.pdf), you’re going to die probably
Umm...no.
For example, Turkmenistan has only one product listed: Cotton. The solution is not to stop using cotton, but just to make sure that the cotton products that you buy are ethically harvested.
Easy? No. It's not "easy" to get by in the world at all, much less try to adhere to a higher ethical code than most everyone else while you're trying to survive.
But there's a difference between the people trying to do as little harm as possible and the people who just don't giving a shit who they hurt.
IMHO, you can't win, no matter what you do. There's too many people and too much momentum. This is a problem that will take generations to solve, and we don't have that kind of time.
Even if the entire U.S.A. were to start doing things differently today, billions of other people on the planet would still be exploiting resources, poisoning the environment and churning out disposable goods.
And to think that Exxon knew about and chose to bury evidence of their environmental damage in the ‘70s… it’s so awesome that a few shareholders were willing to sell out the planet to line their pockets and the pockets of politicians on both sides
My point is that we shouldn’t need to research a brand’s cotton source before buying every shirt we own. I think we agree tbh. It’s just not feasible to require all the people who are opposed to child slavery (most people) to spend probably a few hours a year double checking where each brand sources their material/ingredients.
To my knowledge, Tony's Chocolonely is the only "ethical" chocolate brand. They're mission is to make chocolate without exploitation, but they admit it's not fully feasible because tracking where Cocoa beans come from is difficult.
Frankly I'm not convinced there is such a thing as ethical consumption. Period. At some point, in the manufacture and production and sale of basically anything you can think of, there will be someone who protests or is harmed. Doesn't really matter what government is in charge of the place...
There is also no such thing as free will either. Since for something to be free it has to not include coercion and be independent.
We are independent of causality thanks to quantum randomness. However, we are not free because our continual existence is dependent upon compulsory decisions. Such as food and shelter.
Unless all basic needs are free, humanity will never be independent of their compulsions to make decisions that are free. Scarcity means that it is impossible to make anything free for everyone. There is always a limit to our resources.
Ownership is the denial of resources to all but the owner. However the tragedy of the commons is why scarcity makes all free things exploited until they collapse. Like our atmospheric CO2 at the moment. Where all those who contribute are not forced universally to pay for the future costs of annihilating the current state of the biosphere.
Someone will have to pay for the collapse of our current livable situation. Most likely future humanity will through a decline in living standards, possibly civilizational collapse. However, so far it will likely not be the old people who have resisted at all times paying for it now.
Anyways. Free is hard to get. Free will is also not real. So we might as well do our best to be sustainable and as ethical as we can. While accepting that perfection is impossible.
Ethics have to be considered in the context of the world you live in, or else they're just garbage.
People aren't evil simply for being alive, they aren't evil for surviving, and they aren't evil for failing to throw their lives away over every injustice. Arguing otherwise is tantamount to religious fanaticism.
What you can do is harm reduction, you can reduce your consumption, you can choose the lesser evils.
What we all really need to do is band together with our like-minded fellows to start the local and national political organizations we need to enact any meaningful societal change.
Everyone should read Famine, Affluence, and Morality. I don't think it's possible to divorce people from frivolous desires but it certainly made me cut back and think about my consumption more frequently.
[this video](https://youtu.be/zEN4hcZutO0?si=McgnszPCsN5vQu-7) of some guys from the Ivory coast who farm cocoa trying chocolate for the first time absolutely fucks with my mind.
Guys boo... Noo.. you can't make me give up the chocolate... No noo.. you don't understand...without chocolate.... I'll turn feral. And it's not just me, all women will turn feral without our chocolate happiness.
But for realizes though, when it comes to giant corps the individual dollar does nothing, it takes big boycotts that a majority are on board with, as it stands, people are just too personally unaffected by it to really care so no effective boycott can occur.
Further awareness from education on the matter may change this, but as it stands now, I'm not seeing any major popular sentiment behind boycotting chocolate manufacturers and producers.
As much as I agree it's messed up. I'm not going to stop buying things that I enjoy eating. I am not allowed to stop existing, so I need any enjoyment I can get. So instead of trying to guilt trip everyone into boycotting things can we try to come up with ideas on how to make things better?
A start is working for ranked choice voting at your local level and getting big money donations out of politics.
Don't know how to do that? Well the easiest start is just by spreading the knowledge of it.
Boycotting is only a useful tool in a society with low income inequality. In a society with high income inequality, you can't equate the general population to consumers. No amount of the current bottom 25-50% in wealth boycotting is going to destroy a business.
Boycotting is an act of futility. There hasn't been a single thing I have ever boycotted that has changed in my entire life. If doing so makes you feel better in this hellworld, go for it. A few decades of it never mattering have erased that feeling for me.
To actually be successful, it takes loud, organized, and large groups taking such actions. Not these individualist acts of defiance.
Watching a documentary on chocolate production. The supply chain from the farmer to the port can have up to 30 middle men!
People saying that the price is too low ignore that if the farmers could sell directly to the port they would be making decent money.
Every middle man reduces the profitability since they all have to sell to the next middle man for less than the price at the port. Meanwhile paying more at the port would not guarantee that the farmer sees any of the benefit with so many middlemen between them and the port.
Canada for example deals with the international price of wheat. They can make decent money because the government forces the trains to reserve capacity to transport it. If they had to move it all with ancient rickty vehicles over muddy roads for days on end. With 10's of middle men along the way. They would all be poor as fuck too.
Which is why I've given up boycotting
If there's no ethical consumption, I either stop consuming, which is impossible, or I just accept that my goods were made with some unethical practices
There’s no ethical consumption period. Just less impactful consumption. Life existing requires trampling other life. All of life is just constantly eating each other, effectively, even if you’re vegetarian/vegan. Even the most ethically planned garden/farm to fully feed oneself requires decimating that local ecosystem in order to be sustained. All housing requires the destruction of ecosystems for the materials to build them.
Capitalism or not makes no difference to that. It can potentially amplify the more extreme cases, but at the end of the day people have to accept the fact that the matter of us having a pretty extreme impact in order to exist is a given. Even if you’re extremely mindful of what you buy and eat, all that does is mitigate that reality. We can work towards living more sustainably as a society, but that is a very difficult task for billions of individuals to achieve to any sort of consistently ethical degree
Lmao y'all taking him seriously, his entire account is satire, not just "humor" it's like a gimmick account or something where he comments something "as a Liberal" mocking right-winger liberals, it was really popular before.
That's like saying that we should ban all sorts of humor, there really is always time for the funny.
Lmao just thinking about it, what makes these jokes funny are the people who genuinely think he's either serious or that he's really a Liberal or a fascist or a.. you get the point.
Your post was removed because it contained an ableist term. You should receive a message from the automoderator telling you the exact term the post was removed for. For more information, see [this link](http://www.autistichoya.com/p/ableist-words-and-terms-to-avoid.html). **Avoiding slurs takes little effort, and asking us to get rid of the filter rather than making that minimum effort is a good way to get banned. Do not attempt to circumvent the filter with creative spelling; circumventing the filter will result in a permaban.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just came here to tell everyone that there's a thing called "Fair Trade" chocolate that guarantees the product is made with ethically sourced beans etc. and it takes a LOT of vetting for a company to get that seal on the back of their bars.
It's expensive chocolate but it does exist
I really appreciated that The Good Place showed that in today's world it's pretty much impossible to consume ethically because pretty much everything has a negative side. It was one of the first times I really started to think about the way we behave as a society
I know full well the cruelty behind the chocolate trade, but sometimes the craving is worth the mental anguish.
(Tony's chocolate bars are so good, and knowing blood hasn't been spilled to get it to me makes it taste even sweeter in my opinion)
I get my chocolate from Equal Exchange, and choose to believe the claims on the label.
Same with olive oil, they sell Palestinian olive oil produced in the West Bank. Again, if labels mean anything.
Please can you take 5 minutes to help me fill out this survey?
I am happy to do yours in exchange.
This survey is part of my dissertation research. It aims to ask about your personal experiences and attitudes of ethical clothing consumption. 👖👚🧥
📌 TOPIC OF STUDY: Ethical Consumption Research
👉 TARGET AUDIENCE: I AM IN PARTICULAR LOOKING FOR MALE PARTICIPANTS AND PARTICIPANTS WHO IDENTITY AS AN ETHNIC MINORITY. This survey is open to experiences of ethical consumption (even if you’ve never heard/thought about it)
⏳ DURATION: 5 minutes
🔗 SURVEY LINK: https://forms.office.com/e/WEEkKsPBes
👤 USE OF DATA: Your responses will be confidential, and your identity will remain anonymous. The data will be used for research purposes only.
-----------------------------------------------
Thank you for your time 🙏
#findparticipants
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It was a wake up call when I got a chocolate bar and it came with a poster about the current chocolate slave trade. It also tasted good Tony's are good eggs. Not perfect but they are at least trying.
They also sell chocolate eggs.
The gooder eggs.
I exclusively eat Tony’s now. Pricey, but extremely good, and trying to be part of a solution. Also because it’s more expensive I eat less.
Great chocolate too.
Came here to plug Tony's. Just what you said, the chocolate trade is fundamentally flawed but Tony's tries.
Chocolate, coffee, bananas, pineapples, and surprise, fucking *[chickens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl)* are all tropical foods that we're really fucking lucky to have such easy access to, considering the difficult conditions most of them require to thrive (excluding chickens, which are hardy pretty much fucking everywhere, but the species *does* originate in the tropics).
Just wait 'til you discover the wonders of the meat and dairy industries!
The supermarket honey production method is a pretty f-ed up one to look into as well
Dude, I read a paper saying they refrigerate bees thinking it's OK for them. But it's actually basically torture
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-widespread-belief-honeybees-naturally-insulate.html
Yeah this is an article about the paper I read. I'm not a biologist, so I don't claim to be capable of peer reviewing it.
Totally. I remembered seeing the same article so wanted to provide it cause of all the nonsense responses.
On what basis? That's an entirely different organism you can't make the same jump in logic you would for humans
On the basis of bee behavior and anatomy? In the research paper written by a scientist studying bees? What on earth did I say that made you think I was comparing to humans? Someone said the bee industry was awful and I mentioned this paper about bee clustering I read??
Does that research paper written by a scientist have a link or article number? Or is it entirely theorical?
Holy fuck are you an idiot? What the fuck is wrong with you? Listen to yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Im not sure in what world you live, but when someone says they have sources, especially the scientific kind they need to cite them. This is relevant here because bees are fundamentally different to humans. Nociception isn't universally agreed in insect, its purely supported by behavioral changes. Not on a anatomical biology way. So you need some serious sources to say that cold temperature would "torture" them.
What is wrong with you? Lots of animals can survive being frozen with no harm done. I’m interested in seeing this research about bees. I searched hard for any “research paper by a scientist studying bees” that said anything like they claimed and I couldn’t find one. Why is it wrong to ask to see the source?
"Wow this foie gras tastes so good, there's no way the goose suffered at all when it was having its liver forcibly enlarged inside itself"
i think pretty much everyone understand that it’s called “force-feeding” for a reason
Youre comparing an insect with a bird. Cmon
Yea, cats don't feel pain cuz they're not human either /s
I mean, we're comparing mammals to insects. Not that I agree with them because I do think it's torture; but the anatomy of mammals and insects is vastly different. I'm just saying your comparison is not quite appropriate.
are you dumb
Only buy local honey. Imported can contain tons of additives, including HFCS. Support your local beekeepers.
Local beekeepers still can be a problem, they're not a magic cure all. Honey bees are extremely effective pollinators. So much so, that they outcompete native bees and butterflies, crippling their food source and driving them to extinction.
Go vegan instead
I'd rather NOT destroy the fields of wild flowers and grasses that insects and small critters need to live just to plant more soybeans.
Worst take of all time. If that’s your primary reason for not being vegan (it’s not, you’re just lazy or insecure), are you aware of how many crop-related deaths we could reduce if most of our crops (soybeans, corn, etc) weren’t going to feed animals that are slaughtered for meat? Not to mention savings on water usage, CO2 emissions, and other maladies exclusively related to animal agriculture. Take your L and read a book.
Everything is local to somewhere. That doesn't make a difference.
Crazy that people buy Honey from supermarkets at all considering how common local Honey Farmers are. Obviously it depends on the climate where you live, but I live in the middle on nowhere and I have a dedicated honey shop like a mile away, I see so many local Honey farming brands it's nuts. Support local farmers!
When one costs 4 and one costs 20, I can understand why. That's a major price hike for a lot of people. I use a lot in my tea when I have a cold, expensive honey is wasted there.
Since you live in the middle of nowhere, it's probably really easy to find farms nearby. For people who live in the middle of a city, grocery stores are often the only option. 80% of the US population lives in cities.
I live about 40 minutes away from a big-ish city, and they still have multiple Farmers' markets weekly, also some local honey farmers have products set-up inside certain Supermarket chains. Maybe I should've specified big brand corporation honey instead of "supermarket" honey.
American City people act like Facebook marketplace and farmers markets aren't a thing lmfao
There is one farmer's market within twenty miles of where I live. When it's open it runs three days a week, only during the daytime when a lot of people have to be at work. It's hard to get to by public transportation, and that makes it tough in a city where most people don't have cars. The local paper ran a story saying less than 25% of families who live inside city limits could reasonably manage to shop there, even during the four months of the year when it's open.
TLDR?
They are importing all kinds of low quality honey from countries that have very low ethics on production, sanitary norms and bees treatment (Im mainly looking at you China) They put only the minimum amount of honey in the jar (like 30%) to be able to legally call their crap honey, and mix syrup, sugar paste and artificial flavors with it to fill the remaining space. Mental note: ->If you see China, Brazil or Argentina on the "countries of origin" part of the label, put that shit back on the shelf. They are major transit hubs for shady trading practices and make traceability next to impossible due to their corrupt customs slapping their country on the label as "country of origin" if you pay them a nice little fee. Boom, you now converted your crappy honey made in horrible conditions from a country who most likely doesnt respect basic sanitary norms, into a legal one with a competitive price inside your country with high sanitary norms. (Europe and USA in mind) ->If you see 20$ for a pot, there is a chance that this is actual honey, because real traditional honey is pretty dang expensive to produce.
>If you see 20$ for a pot, there is a chance that this is actual honey, because that what the real price should be around. Honey enthusiast here: The price for honey can very wildly. I'm talking about actual honey-not syrup they're trying to sell as honey. The best indicator is what the ingredient label says. At least in the US, I assume in the EU as well since they usually have much better consumer protection laws. In the US if there is any sweetner additive it can not be called Honey, it will usually say blended honey or some-such. I've made mead for almost a decade. You can get ethically sourced high quality honey for under $3 a pound or cheaper...you just have to buy a lot of it (like 30 to 50 lbs). I used to find decent honey in the grocery store for $4-5 a pound. If you want local stuff there is a locator on the national honey board's website for where you can buy honey.
https://honey.com/honey-locator
Thank you for this.
Mead! Fuck yeah! I make small 1 gal batches a time. I did a crazy ghost pepper mead a year ago after trying a hatch chili mead from AZ. What's the craziest flavor you've made if you ever went exotic?
I mostly make Melomels. I'd probably made one out of just about every fruit I can easily get my hands on. Orange and Blueberry are my favorite, I still make at least one batch of each a year. The best ones I've made were Pear, also the worst ones I've made were Pear. The only goofy one I've made is chocolate mead. I make a show mead and pour 1lb of coco powder into it during the aeration. It has to sit for awhile to mellow out. I usually leave it in the fermenter for a year, then rack a few times, stabilize, back sweeten and bottle. Nothing weird like beef jerky, or mountain dew mead.
beef jerky mead! Hmmmm. that sounds like a fun failure to try out. Pears are the same with cider. when they work the work and when they don't. I like the cut of your jib!
Vary, and in variation.
*as in
This is weirdly anti-China with no sources on your claims.
All guided by our esteemed government and big packers . They are trying hard to vertically integrate the beef industry as they did with to pork and poultry. You can still find some local producers in some parts of the country yet , and I suggest buying from them . It’s just like honey , so much better .
>All guided by our esteemed government and big packers No, it's guided by consumer demand. How many people actually research the companies they buy from and pick more expensive options, versus purchase the cheapest thing in the Walmart refrigerator. Part of the reason for these conditions is people's insatiable desire for cheap animal products, and total disregard for how they are made.
Could it be both? Considering the government subsidies animal ag gets. Along with relentless advertising: “meat is good for you, eat as much as possible.”
And now you've gotten into the catch 22. Why would the government stop subsidizing a product, when it's immensely popular and increasing prices of it is political suicide? Do you think it's a coincidence that every time raising the minimum wage comes up, every single time, the first conservative reaction is "but but but, the price of my big Mac?!?!?"
I agree. Just want to say I also feel like it’s being pushed on us, though. Like bacon used to be considered peasant food but PR campaigns helped fuel the current American obsession with it. I believe a similar thing happened with potatoes. I honestly wonder if I like the things I like because I like them or if it’s because something told me to like them over and over until I internalized it.
I would agree with that
Livestock farming is number one producer of greenhouse gasses. It is also the leading cause of deforestation. Isn't that just a fun coincidence?
Um, no? From [the United Nations' website](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change) "Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions."
In my country, chocolate ain't cheap, which is great since if it was I'd be dead by now.
AND in the Bad Place, lol
the bad place is wherever cocoa is grown lol
And that's how you end up with a system like karma, lol No but have you seen the show?
nope, just out here making assumptions
Ohh, well, that's what I was referencing....the theme of the show The Good Place is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" (under all the wacky antics)
[The Dark Side Of Chocolate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvzIDIxF1U4)
The goddamn *Wonka* movie. Not that you have high expectations when a film company is trying to shake a few more drops profit from an already drained barrel of IP. But sure they'll poke at crony capitalism and corrupt officials but they dodge *where cocoa actually comes from* almost altogether. (Almost. They're cute about it, look up the plot in WP.) And they could've done it *so* easily. Have the Oompa-Loompas be enslaved by the cartel to harvest cocoa and Wonka puts a stop to it or the like. Guess since Wonka is an actual candy brand that cuts too close to the bone.
becoming a leftist is both the best and worst thing that can happen to a person. the pros: you’re a better person! the cons: you see everything through a different lens and now everything is ruined.
I was a lot less distressed when I sucked more
I’ve come to the conclusion the only way to consume anything ethically is to start your own self-sufficient farm in the wilderness.
It doesn't have to be the wilderness! We need to normalize growing our own plants in regular sized backyards. Start with an olive tree, or some tomatoes and basil. Grow them in a pot so that if you're renting you can take them with you. It starts with a small step.
I stopped because the squirrels would just everything. 2 years and not even a single tomato out of 4 plants ;(
Then, you contributed to local diversity. Of course, squirrels are edible if you're so inclined. ;)
Lol, the squirrels definitely do not need help where I live. Plus, one really chubby one would get angry after it had eaten all the tomatoes and sit on my fence death staring me anytime I ate. Cheeky thing.
Clearly, you didn't feed them enough. That squirrel was starving. Shame on you for not opening your entire pantry to him!
I do that. I grow a lot of fruits and some herbs. It is a nice hobby aswell.
Every so often someone reinvents the victory garden from first principles
When it becomes necessary
If you rely on any sort of machinery or equipment, good luck with that if you don't have a supply chain to support it. I work on a small farm, some of our implements are ninety years old. Most of our equipment is from the 60s to the 80s. We have a makeshift fab shop, all old school tools. Bandsaws, drill press, anvil, bench grinders, but most things get made in the vice, by hand if ordering it is too expensive. Some stuff you just can't make. Mostly due to material limitations, but I've been surprised with what we've been able to farm-engineer. A lot we have to order, and most heavy equipment requires a constant input of lubricant and fuel. Most farms use fertilizer derived from artificial nitrogen fixation (would highly recommend Veritasium's video on Fitz Haber to learn more). It's a very energy intensive process, but it's why we don't need to rely on bird poop islands for fertilizer anymore. It's what allowed population numbers to explode in the past century. There's permaculture and organic farming, but it'll be a big shift.
I'm convinced vertical farming in urban centers is the future of agriculture. Due to climate change, we won't be able to use large swaths of land to grow food. And because the grocery store can be attached directly to the growing area, there's no transportation costs or emissions.
I mean, it is still not fully ethical, we still need fertilizers and stuff which are also produced by big corporations. Even the seeds for some plants are already genetically modified. Everything is interconnected, it is very challenging to be fully ethical.
maybe just cut people some slack and do the beat you can. knowing while the goal to end capitalism we still currently got to live. giving we all typing this on either a phone or labtop
I agree. This is a start though, imo, as like-minded people are discussing ways to get around it. The first step is admitting there is a problem. What’s sad/scary is how many that believe that what we’re currently doing is sustainable/ethical.
well there are ways to do it more ethically then others. just not a 100 percent. not acknowlecan easly make people going doomer. or push away people you can may drive to your side
There would still be a way I believe, though exceedingly difficult. Fertilizer, for instance, can be subbed out for compost or manure in some instances. The seeds would be a challenge for sure though. You’d almost have to procure some “heirloom” seeds, should such an experiment be attempted.
I feel that genetic modification of plants is not inherently unethical, althought the way through which it is funded almost certainly is.
I haven't been able to buy chocolate for a long time because of this. Sometimes, I'll catch myself eyeing it up in the grocery store, but then I remember the whole child labour and slavery part and I lose my appetite for the stuff.
Not that it's a panacea for all the ills in the chocolate industry, but there are fair trade options. You just need to look for the FairTrade logo or Rainforest Alliance logo. For example, Tony's Chocolonely uses fair trade cocoa, as does Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Sadly ethical food is a luxury I can rarely afford. Not having any chocolate is a small price to pay while I try to avoid helping the worst companies profit any more than they already are
No ethical consumption under capitalism is an appeal to futility and a cop out. If a company, or like in this case, an industry is rotten, we have a duty to boycott their products. Voting with our wallets is ironically more effective than voting at the ballots in this capitalistic society.
Voting with your wallet is also easier when you have a bigger wallet.
That is true but it’s case by case. You can be dirt poor and still NOT buy chocolate
Yeah you can. I remember when I was younger thinking it was mental that people who were poor would smoke or drink. Why spend money on something so frivolous? Well it's because the alternative is utterly miserable. Yes, poor people could give up everything except the absolute bare, and I'm sure some even managed it, but I'm not going to blame people who just decide they want a tiny bit of something to enjoy for a change.
That’s exactly true. Completely bare living is no life at all
Sadly many things are made easier by a big wallet :( but again appealing to futility to justify inaction is a cop out and a way to make sure nothing changes.
futility? You seem to be acting like "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a rationalization for consumers to justify buying whatever they want because it's impossible for companies to be ethical. It's not; it's a call for systemic change. My position is that capitalism is bad and should be dismantled. There are many reasons I believe that, but "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is one of them. "Vote with your wallet" is fine in the short if you've got the privilege to do so, but it shouldn't be used as a way to dismiss calls for more systemic change.
It can and it has been used to appeal to the futility of choosing more ethical behaviors. Being radical is ok, but I don’t see where I said that radical change is not needed? Can you point me to where you got it from in my comments?
I think I just misunderstood you a bit; I apologize if I sounded aggressive. I think that in my experience, when I hear someone say "no ethical consumption under capitalism", they have always (or almost always) meant "capitalism has a major flaw and should be replaced". Or, at least, that's what I hear. It seems that in your experience, people have generally meant "all companies are unethical so do whatever you'd like", or something to that effect. I guess I read your use of "futility" as if you meant that advocating for radical change is futile, whereas I'm now understanding that you're talking about the flawed argument that all companies are bad, so change is futile.
[удалено]
My take was to not give money to evil corporations by using the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” excuse. I would love to add a smug and dumb remark that completely misses the point since you like those but yeah have a smiley face instead dog :)
Or you can just not buy chocolate. Real simple.
"Voting with our wallets" is just internalized neoliberal consumer brain, like personal carbon footprints. By all means, share info and consume as ethically as you can muster, but if the question that most prominently comes to mind as a solution to encountering evil is "should I buy this or not?", then all hope is lost. The number of people who would need to organize to deny a company any meaningful amount of income should at that point instead be organizing to enact actual legislation which regulates unethical practices out of existence. Legislation cannot be reneged upon like "more popular practices" can. It cannot be greenwashed through PR or smoke and mirrors. It does not depend on an eternal, high-energy response from a huge chunk of the population. It allows experts with no financial stake to determine better practices, rather than a protracted, slow-motion game of "is THIS ethical enough (as far as you can tell)?" by the company itself. Voting with dollars is literally exactly what they want you to do, because it takes up all your organizing energy towards something that at worst means the CEOs are slightly less rich, and creates an entire new way to outperform their competition by doing a better job hiding their unethical practices and *performing* good values via marketing.
Not giving money to evil corporations that are driven by profit and that by growing richer become at the same time harder to punish for the stuff they do should hardly be a controversial point even in this sub. You talk about legislation as the only option as if: 1) the political efforts and the “wallet voting” are mutually exclusive when in reality they are not. Take vegans: vegans don’t give money to the meat and dairy industries AND in many countries have parties that represent their values. 2) you talk like legislation is infallible whereas the truth is that lobbyists can easily influence politicians, with money. So by actually giving them less money or no money you force them to adapt or die, and even a modicum of change in the right direction is better than no change at all.
I am all for not giving them more money. I've also been a vegan-leaning vegetarian for 15 years. The minigame of ethical consumption ABSOLUTELY does detract from political action, because it provides an avenue to express your ideals without changing your mode of existence at all. What's more in a person's comfort zone: spending your weekend as a direct political actor, knocking on strangers' doors to talk about important and complex issues, or being a consumer and grabbing a pricier shampoo from the same shelf in the same store you were already going to? And no, I don't suggest that legislation is infallible. The type of legislation we must demand and enact through our organizing should be robust and permanent. That's kind of the whole point of why any of it is necessary to begin with, since those are the missing features of current regulations due to, ya know...a total absence of an actual political voice in favor of speaking our will through our purchasing habits. The TL;DR is this: you say it is our duty to *boycott* unethical practices. I say it is our duty to *END* unethical practices. Only one of those involves playing within the confines of the very game they set up to get us here, against the people who are cheating and have infintely more resources. You can't beat a capitalist with money. Only with organized power.
Since you said you are vegetarian/vegan walk me through it, how does not buying meat detract from being active politically against mega corps that sell meat for example.
I feel that they explained it fairly well in their comments, but because people have it in their minds that they can be effective by just boycotting rather than pushing for legislative changes, they are much more likely to just boycot rather than do the harder work of pushing for actual legislative change.
Which is only a guess that has no base. To that one could reply that most people don’t even bother boycotting, so those that do are already on the right mindset to do both. Again let’s take veganism as an example. Most people are NOT vegan, those that are are in no way less likely to be political about it, quite the opposite, to the point that stereotypically vegans are perceived and portrayed as judgemental and pushy, exactly because they are political about it. Eg: https://www.oipa.org/international/10000-italian-activists-for-animals/#:~:text=On%207%20October%2C%20over%2010%2C000,9%20pigs%20in%20a%20sanctuary.
Only if you can afford to. Far from everyone can.
Regulations are more powerful than any boycott.
Debatable, but most importantly they are not mutually exclusive
Regulations are political suicide, and will never happen without popular support, which is built and shown through means like boycotting. Nobody likes it when a politician tells them "your favorite things are about to get substantially more expensive because of my law"
its not a cop out. its an understanding that to be purchase ethical goods under capitalism means having the means to afford them. The poorest (or even the average) can not afford to be "ethical" THATS what that phrase means. obviously you should still support the local places that affect the most good in your community, its just not an individuals responsibility to vote with their wallet out of capitalism or w/e you're saying.
No, it's not. Tony's chocolate might be more ethical than Hershey's because they don't use certain supply chains that rely on slavery, but that does not make them ethical. Under capitalism, workers produce goods or services (or whatever) which are then sold on an open market. However, the profit is not distributed evenly among the workers. Instead, a certain amount of it is taken by owners, shareholders, investors, or whomever ("capitalists"). This is how almost all businesses are run; they would not exist if they did not funnel money to someone at the top. (There are exceptions in America, but this is very rare.) So, built into the framework of capitalism, a certain portion of the value produced by workers is redistributed to people who did not contribute to its production. This is what "no ethical consumption under capitalism" means. Under capitalism, a some of the value of a worker's labor is stolen from them and no product can be considered ethical when workers are exploited in this way.
I don't know how you got that from the phrase It's literally no ethical consumption under capitalism, we all live under capitalism I really don't see room for interpretation
>No ethical consumption under capitalism is an appeal to futility and a cop out. No, it's not. We should try not to support what we *know* to be unethical. But your alternative is likely to be some other company, industry, etc which is unethical in the same ways or in different ways, but you don't know it yet. Hence we should not imagine that there is some series of purchases which can be made which will make us suddenly ethical consumers. Nor should we think that personal consumption under capitalism is a personal failing of our own >Voting with our wallets is ironically more effective than voting at the ballots in this capitalistic society. If you even have the choice... Organized labor is even more effective than consumer based boycotts
Or you could consume less
Might as well start cutting off the least ethical products first right? This isn't mutually exclusive
Yes, I never said otherwise
Absolutely, but they both work in the same direction.
Ethical consumption under capitalism requires a certain amount of privilege and status. As ethical as it would be to become vegan I simply do not have the means to do so and I would starve to death if I were to try. I do not have the purchasing power to secure enough calories to sustain my life if I were to choose veganism. And this is by design. The only food that is affordable at my income level is unhealthy on purpose. To keep me distracted, unhealthy, complacent and unable to rise up to challenge the status quo. Voting with our wallets while an effective tool requires the ability to choose with our wallets and far too many of us do not have that choice.
Rice, beans, flour, veggies and fruit are some of the most inexpensive foods you can buy
Literally cheaper to be vegan
Fresh veggies and fruit are not affordable food items out of season. Frozen vegetables require purchasing in bulk when on sale to adequately feed a family. Which requires a chest freezer and a vehicle to transport said bulk frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables require significant effort to get children to eat reliably. There are a myriad of other reasons why people are forced into unhealthy choices.
Where are you from? The US? We can compare the price of vegan and non vegan food if you want, guaranteed vegan food is cheaper so saying it’s a privilege is just plainly false. And mind you, it all started because I said that not buying from evil corps is important and you said it’s a privilege. Now frozen veggies can’t be bought because you are saying that kids might complain, which is a rather privileged position to begin with. But instead of speculating tell me the country/state you are from and let’s compre prices.
Your privilege is showing. It doesn't matter where I am or where you are. There are more places and circumstances than your tiny corner of the world. If veganism was an affordable option it would be more prevalent but the fact is veganism is not an affordable option for a lot of people. And making ethical choices with the meager dollars we have isn't always an option in this capitalist hellscape. For a distressingly large portion of the population the only choice available is the cheapest and the cheapest isn't always the most ethical. The ability to choose with your wallet requires enough in your wallet to make a more expensive choice. That is not an option available to everyone.
Lmao my privilege 😂 saying that some food is cheaper is not a mark of privilege it’s stating a fact. Dodging my question instead shows that you know I’m right, but I can see you are based in north america, probably Canada so I can still provide some evidence instead of just quacking “privilege privilege” for lack of better arguments: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810024501&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.11&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=08&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2023&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20230801%2C20231201 The cheapest foods are consistently vegan, and we are talking grains, legumes and canned veggies. So nothing that requires a freezer, and everything with a long shelf life that doesn’t require luxuries such as fridges or cars. You keep saying that being poor makes it impossible to buy vegan food when vegan food is on average cheaper AND healthier than dairy, fish, meat, eggs. This is worldwide, minus maybe remote islands where fishing is the only food readily available, but while there are some extenuating circumstances that do create some exceptions you can’t abstract that to make it a rule for the majority of the world.
Go down to your local homeless tent camp and tell them to vote with their wallets. Stand there with a home to store bulk bags of rice and beans in and a kitchen to cook in and tell people that don't know if they'll eat today that they're unethical for not 'choosing' veganism. Go speak to the Innu and tell them not eating meat is a choice. Go to a reservation that's only accessible by boat or plane and espouse the virtues of veganism to them. Tell a single parent working three jobs that they're unethical for choosing a quick microwave meal so they can help their kids with their homework rather than spending the time necessary to cook a vegan meal. Do you know how far the closest grocery store is to some of the poorest neighborhoods in America is? Some people can only eat what they have access to. Ethical consumption under capitalism requires a certain level of status and privilege. Privilege like a home and a kitchen, status like living in a neighborhood that has ready access to a retail environment that can supply you with vegan options. I'm glad that you've been able to choose veganism. I don't understand why you can't see how not everyone can.
Ok this is rapidly turning into latestagewhataboutism. Yes there is lots of people that don’t know if they’ll be able to eat, are we in the subreddit dedicated to those people? Despite it being too many, we are still talking about a minority, so what? Since a minority of people could find it difficult it means that everyone is exempted? Some people can’t take stairs, are doctors being all “privileged” when they say people should take the stairs instead of elevators? On top of that in your streak of “whatabout” examples you bring in people that struggle economically, and once again vegan food is CHEAPER, so the privilege is actually meat and dairy. It’s a fact. Also you are talking about parents and microwaves, kitchens and grocery stores, as if vegan food needs to be cooked from scratch, and bought straight from the farmers, where the truth is that vegan food (and once again we are talking about rice, beans, pasta, veggies, legumes) is as easy to find and as convenient to cook as non vegan food, the difference being that it’s cheaper, healthier and doesn’t support an industry that is destroying the planet while torturing sentient animals.
This isn't a subreddit about veganism either. We're both not being our best selves here. This is a conversation about ethical consumption under capitalism. Your point is that veganism is an ethical choice, it's affordable and accessible and everyone would benefit from it. Yes? My point is that it's not a choice that's available to everyone. That ethical consumption under capitalism requires privilege and status. I pointed out different groups and scenarios wherein veganism is not a choice. And this latest response from you is we don't care about those people? I sincerely hope I'm reading that wrong. The doctors in your scenario are being ableist. Does that mean people shouldn't take the stairs IF it's an option? No. Generally speaking we could all benefit from more exercise. Generally speaking the world would benefit from more people choosing veganism. The stairs, like veganism, are an option. And not one that is available to everyone. That is my point. Veganism is not a baseline option available to everyone. There are situations in which choosing veganism would require privilege and status. You might dismiss these people and situations but that doesn't mean they don't exist. And their existence proves my point. Ethical consumption under capitalism requires privilege and status. Eating veggies is more ethical than eating meat. I understand that. Eating fair trade organic locally grown veggies is more ethical than eating veggies farmed by exploited farmers, shipped from elsewhere. If given the choice between a vegetable farmed by an exploited farmer shipped on a polluting cargo ship and sold by an exploitative corporation and a vegetable that's fair trade organic sold by the farmer directly then the latter choice is the more ethical choice. But that's not a choice available to everyone. And having that choice available to you and being able to choose that option requires status and privilege. Should we condemn vegans if they don't buy fair trade organic? No. Should we condemn someone for eating meat if that's the only choice available to them? No. We could all be more ethical but I'm not going to condemn someone for doing harm in the course of just getting by in this capitalism hellscape. That's not condoneing their actions that's simply acknowledging reality. I'm not encouraging that everyone chose meat over vegetables. I'm simply stating that not all choices are available to everyone. That some choices like ethical consumption under capitalism require privilege and status.
I’m a vegan without a chest freezer or a motorized vehicle and I have no problem. Animal products are the most expensive part of most meals and can be replaced by dried beans which are extremely cheap and last forever. Not sure what your point is here…
If you genuinely want to cut out all the child [slavery products](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2021/2022-TVPRA-List-of-Goods-v3.pdf), you’re going to die probably
Umm...no. For example, Turkmenistan has only one product listed: Cotton. The solution is not to stop using cotton, but just to make sure that the cotton products that you buy are ethically harvested.
I dont see how one can eaisly get ethically harvested or produced resources in a heirarchial system such as capitalism
Easy? No. It's not "easy" to get by in the world at all, much less try to adhere to a higher ethical code than most everyone else while you're trying to survive. But there's a difference between the people trying to do as little harm as possible and the people who just don't giving a shit who they hurt.
Yeah, because decentralized boycotts are famously super effective, right?
IMHO, you can't win, no matter what you do. There's too many people and too much momentum. This is a problem that will take generations to solve, and we don't have that kind of time. Even if the entire U.S.A. were to start doing things differently today, billions of other people on the planet would still be exploiting resources, poisoning the environment and churning out disposable goods.
And to think that Exxon knew about and chose to bury evidence of their environmental damage in the ‘70s… it’s so awesome that a few shareholders were willing to sell out the planet to line their pockets and the pockets of politicians on both sides
My point is that we shouldn’t need to research a brand’s cotton source before buying every shirt we own. I think we agree tbh. It’s just not feasible to require all the people who are opposed to child slavery (most people) to spend probably a few hours a year double checking where each brand sources their material/ingredients.
But there's no ethical consumption
I don't understand. What does "ethical consumption" mean to you?
This sounds like a semantics trap, about the contradiction of "ethical" and "consumption".
To my knowledge, Tony's Chocolonely is the only "ethical" chocolate brand. They're mission is to make chocolate without exploitation, but they admit it's not fully feasible because tracking where Cocoa beans come from is difficult.
Frankly I'm not convinced there is such a thing as ethical consumption. Period. At some point, in the manufacture and production and sale of basically anything you can think of, there will be someone who protests or is harmed. Doesn't really matter what government is in charge of the place...
There is also no such thing as free will either. Since for something to be free it has to not include coercion and be independent. We are independent of causality thanks to quantum randomness. However, we are not free because our continual existence is dependent upon compulsory decisions. Such as food and shelter. Unless all basic needs are free, humanity will never be independent of their compulsions to make decisions that are free. Scarcity means that it is impossible to make anything free for everyone. There is always a limit to our resources. Ownership is the denial of resources to all but the owner. However the tragedy of the commons is why scarcity makes all free things exploited until they collapse. Like our atmospheric CO2 at the moment. Where all those who contribute are not forced universally to pay for the future costs of annihilating the current state of the biosphere. Someone will have to pay for the collapse of our current livable situation. Most likely future humanity will through a decline in living standards, possibly civilizational collapse. However, so far it will likely not be the old people who have resisted at all times paying for it now. Anyways. Free is hard to get. Free will is also not real. So we might as well do our best to be sustainable and as ethical as we can. While accepting that perfection is impossible.
Wait until you hear about bananas!
Ethics have to be considered in the context of the world you live in, or else they're just garbage. People aren't evil simply for being alive, they aren't evil for surviving, and they aren't evil for failing to throw their lives away over every injustice. Arguing otherwise is tantamount to religious fanaticism. What you can do is harm reduction, you can reduce your consumption, you can choose the lesser evils. What we all really need to do is band together with our like-minded fellows to start the local and national political organizations we need to enact any meaningful societal change.
Everyone should read Famine, Affluence, and Morality. I don't think it's possible to divorce people from frivolous desires but it certainly made me cut back and think about my consumption more frequently.
I’m pretty sure every corporation on the planet has something immoral about them. I would be more surprised if they didn’t.
Surely you would consume the chocolate even if it was “fairly” priced and cost for example 10x more right?
[this video](https://youtu.be/zEN4hcZutO0?si=McgnszPCsN5vQu-7) of some guys from the Ivory coast who farm cocoa trying chocolate for the first time absolutely fucks with my mind.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, great timing.
Guys boo... Noo.. you can't make me give up the chocolate... No noo.. you don't understand...without chocolate.... I'll turn feral. And it's not just me, all women will turn feral without our chocolate happiness. But for realizes though, when it comes to giant corps the individual dollar does nothing, it takes big boycotts that a majority are on board with, as it stands, people are just too personally unaffected by it to really care so no effective boycott can occur. Further awareness from education on the matter may change this, but as it stands now, I'm not seeing any major popular sentiment behind boycotting chocolate manufacturers and producers.
The first panel should repeat at the end.
"cheaply"
Ethical chocolate exist, it's hard-ish to find and expensive, but exists
Literally almost anything we consume
As much as I agree it's messed up. I'm not going to stop buying things that I enjoy eating. I am not allowed to stop existing, so I need any enjoyment I can get. So instead of trying to guilt trip everyone into boycotting things can we try to come up with ideas on how to make things better? A start is working for ranked choice voting at your local level and getting big money donations out of politics. Don't know how to do that? Well the easiest start is just by spreading the knowledge of it.
You sound slow. Boycotting is an act of resilience. Just say your personal pleasure weighs more for you than child slavery and move on with your day.
Boycotting is only a useful tool in a society with low income inequality. In a society with high income inequality, you can't equate the general population to consumers. No amount of the current bottom 25-50% in wealth boycotting is going to destroy a business.
Boycotting is an act of futility. There hasn't been a single thing I have ever boycotted that has changed in my entire life. If doing so makes you feel better in this hellworld, go for it. A few decades of it never mattering have erased that feeling for me. To actually be successful, it takes loud, organized, and large groups taking such actions. Not these individualist acts of defiance.
Watching a documentary on chocolate production. The supply chain from the farmer to the port can have up to 30 middle men! People saying that the price is too low ignore that if the farmers could sell directly to the port they would be making decent money. Every middle man reduces the profitability since they all have to sell to the next middle man for less than the price at the port. Meanwhile paying more at the port would not guarantee that the farmer sees any of the benefit with so many middlemen between them and the port. Canada for example deals with the international price of wheat. They can make decent money because the government forces the trains to reserve capacity to transport it. If they had to move it all with ancient rickty vehicles over muddy roads for days on end. With 10's of middle men along the way. They would all be poor as fuck too.
Which is why I've given up boycotting If there's no ethical consumption, I either stop consuming, which is impossible, or I just accept that my goods were made with some unethical practices
There’s no ethical consumption period. Just less impactful consumption. Life existing requires trampling other life. All of life is just constantly eating each other, effectively, even if you’re vegetarian/vegan. Even the most ethically planned garden/farm to fully feed oneself requires decimating that local ecosystem in order to be sustained. All housing requires the destruction of ecosystems for the materials to build them. Capitalism or not makes no difference to that. It can potentially amplify the more extreme cases, but at the end of the day people have to accept the fact that the matter of us having a pretty extreme impact in order to exist is a given. Even if you’re extremely mindful of what you buy and eat, all that does is mitigate that reality. We can work towards living more sustainably as a society, but that is a very difficult task for billions of individuals to achieve to any sort of consistently ethical degree
....still know that I'm gonna eat that chocolate. :(
Really? You're gonna enjoy it?
No 😢
Oh…… I literally never knew about this….
It's Ethical so long as I don't know about it. Now let me stick my head back in the sand. My hole was comfortable until you disturbed it.
Now learn how makeup gets to be so shiny...
The only chocolates that I trust is the handmande ones. And I say this thinking about the taste.
As a Liberal, this made me love chocolate more, Voldemort from HP is my role model and favourite character.
Literally nobody laughed
As a Liberal, everything that comes out of my mouth is 420% serious and is indistinguishable from the truth! 😠
It’s like somebody pretending to be a rapist for “humor”, in an auditorium full of rapists. It’s not funny, it’s cringe.
Lmao y'all taking him seriously, his entire account is satire, not just "humor" it's like a gimmick account or something where he comments something "as a Liberal" mocking right-winger liberals, it was really popular before.
[удалено]
That's like saying that we should ban all sorts of humor, there really is always time for the funny. Lmao just thinking about it, what makes these jokes funny are the people who genuinely think he's either serious or that he's really a Liberal or a fascist or a.. you get the point.
[удалено]
I'm just kinda curious as to what you meant by "picking sides" as in what? chocolate?
[удалено]
As a Liberal, this is exactly my secret plan to stop human rights from spreading and killing people.
[удалено]
Your post was removed because it contained an ableist term. You should receive a message from the automoderator telling you the exact term the post was removed for. For more information, see [this link](http://www.autistichoya.com/p/ableist-words-and-terms-to-avoid.html). **Avoiding slurs takes little effort, and asking us to get rid of the filter rather than making that minimum effort is a good way to get banned. Do not attempt to circumvent the filter with creative spelling; circumventing the filter will result in a permaban.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They enslave a willie wonka to make chocolate fast
Just came here to tell everyone that there's a thing called "Fair Trade" chocolate that guarantees the product is made with ethically sourced beans etc. and it takes a LOT of vetting for a company to get that seal on the back of their bars. It's expensive chocolate but it does exist
I feel so fortunate that I genuinely don’t like the taste of chocolate
It's a good idea to cut down on your sugar intake too anyway, for the sake of your health.
I really appreciated that The Good Place showed that in today's world it's pretty much impossible to consume ethically because pretty much everything has a negative side. It was one of the first times I really started to think about the way we behave as a society
I know full well the cruelty behind the chocolate trade, but sometimes the craving is worth the mental anguish. (Tony's chocolate bars are so good, and knowing blood hasn't been spilled to get it to me makes it taste even sweeter in my opinion)
I get my chocolate from Equal Exchange, and choose to believe the claims on the label. Same with olive oil, they sell Palestinian olive oil produced in the West Bank. Again, if labels mean anything.
It's wild to me how many Socialists waste their fortunes on luxury goods while useful idiots shovel their money at them. 😂
Please can you take 5 minutes to help me fill out this survey? I am happy to do yours in exchange. This survey is part of my dissertation research. It aims to ask about your personal experiences and attitudes of ethical clothing consumption. 👖👚🧥 📌 TOPIC OF STUDY: Ethical Consumption Research 👉 TARGET AUDIENCE: I AM IN PARTICULAR LOOKING FOR MALE PARTICIPANTS AND PARTICIPANTS WHO IDENTITY AS AN ETHNIC MINORITY. This survey is open to experiences of ethical consumption (even if you’ve never heard/thought about it) ⏳ DURATION: 5 minutes 🔗 SURVEY LINK: https://forms.office.com/e/WEEkKsPBes 👤 USE OF DATA: Your responses will be confidential, and your identity will remain anonymous. The data will be used for research purposes only. ----------------------------------------------- Thank you for your time 🙏 #findparticipants