I'm afraid I can't offer a contradictory opinion on this one, as am I entirely with you. I think it's especially hypocritical (or to put perhaps more kindly, at least short-sighted) of people who depend on global income to advocate for local spending -- e.g., most of the people employed in IT. For more of my feelings on this, see here.
I think I draw the line at "eat local." This by Steve Landsburg, among other things, convinced me that local/non-local and other labor peculiarities (like child labor) are issues best dealt with by giving the developing world as much of my business as possible. Through what channels, now, that's a good question. How much of my money ends up in the product's place of origin depends hugely on the intermediary agents, and I haven't done the research necessary to make informed decisions in that regard. Pointers welcome (GoodGuide is a start.)
I'm interested to know why you prefer to buy from people you can "identify", and also what "identify" means to you. Does that mean "local"? Someone you can lay your eyes on? Someone connected to your social circle? Being able to trace a product's origins and manufacturing?
Something that benefits a person (or people) more directly than as corporate shareholders. That could be far-off fair trade artists or other workers, or local artists, or a local farmer or store or whatever.
"Good" in my head is that set, thrift stores, local food coop, farm csa. There's a "bad" set there too that I manage to avoid, and then there's the middle ground of amazon, trader joe's, stop & shop, target, whole foods...
I like stating the possibly obviousmizarchivistDecember 1 2010, 20:48:22 UTC
I'm looking at thusly: If I can buy it from Porter Sq. Books instead of Amazon, I do. If it's a matter of Etsy vs. Target? No question which way I want to go. Mind you, I don't weed out the Etsy sellers by location and only get the ones I can ride my bike to visit if I were a big stalker.
Re: I like stating the possibly obviousinahandbasketDecember 1 2010, 20:55:59 UTC
yeah, this. Similar to what catya said above, I prefer to avoid the large corporate entities and when possible divert my cash to actual people making or selling actual things.*
Re. food: I prefer to eat local for many reasons out of scope of this discussion.
*yes, I'll grant you that Amazon and Target employees are, in fact, actual people. But the profits from my purchasing something at that company go to the company, lots of overhead, and huge advertising budgets. Purchasing the same mass produced product at a small retailer puts the money more directly into their pocket. Also granted Target and Amazon employ more people than the friendly little retailer, and it could be argued that I'd be supporting ALL of those people by giving my money to a big store. My retort would be that they also tend to shaft the little people (cashiers, stockers, etc.) involved in favor of the management and executives, and I don't care to support that.
Re: I like stating the possibly obviousinahandbasketDecember 1 2010, 21:29:33 UTC
yup yup. I prefer not to have lots of stuff delivered for me as it tends to be a huge part of the carbon footprint, so when possible/convenient I'll buy locally as well, but it's a lesser concern to me.
And I do send a good chunk of money Amazon's way to be honest about it.
This is Tom Friedman's argument: that globalization in general and outsourcing in particular have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. It's totally not perfect -- even in countries that are hubs of oursourcing like India, there are still hundreds of millions of desperately poor people, and many people are left behind in the changing markets for all kinds of reasons, from HIV to geopolitics -- and most of those people aren't lifted to anything like western standards, but it ain't nothing. (His book, which is thoughtful, is called The World is Flat.I think some of the interesting questions are about the practices in those countries and how we feel about benefiting from what we'd call exploitative labor practices or disastrous environmental practices. As I pointed out to someone about the TSA the other day, just because someone chooses one of two bad options (like, say, being a subsistence farmer or a sweatshop laborer) over the other doesn't make them okay options. And how much of the profit in outsourced
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"Good" in my head is that set, thrift stores, local food coop, farm csa. There's a "bad" set there too that I manage to avoid, and then there's the middle ground of amazon, trader joe's, stop & shop, target, whole foods...
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If I can buy it from Porter Sq. Books instead of Amazon, I do. If it's a matter of Etsy vs. Target? No question which way I want to go. Mind you, I don't weed out the Etsy sellers by location and only get the ones I can ride my bike to visit if I were a big stalker.
Reply
Similar to what catya said above, I prefer to avoid the large corporate entities and when possible divert my cash to actual people making or selling actual things.*
Re. food: I prefer to eat local for many reasons out of scope of this discussion.
*yes, I'll grant you that Amazon and Target employees are, in fact, actual people. But the profits from my purchasing something at that company go to the company, lots of overhead, and huge advertising budgets. Purchasing the same mass produced product at a small retailer puts the money more directly into their pocket.
Also granted Target and Amazon employ more people than the friendly little retailer, and it could be argued that I'd be supporting ALL of those people by giving my money to a big store. My retort would be that they also tend to shaft the little people (cashiers, stockers, etc.) involved in favor of the management and executives, and I don't care to support that.
Reply
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I prefer not to have lots of stuff delivered for me as it tends to be a huge part of the carbon footprint, so when possible/convenient I'll buy locally as well, but it's a lesser concern to me.
And I do send a good chunk of money Amazon's way to be honest about it.
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