academic
A decade ago, we sensed that while this [alternative consumerism] had many elements – green, ethical, Third World solidarity and fair trade orientations – it as yet lacked any overall coherence. In the last decade of the twentieth century, that coherence, we believe began to emerge. [….]
The consumer as activist struggles daily to redefine the notion of progress and quality of life, to pursue happiness by consuming and to promote or create debate. Crucially, it is the consumer as activist who confronts consumption, explicitly seeking to alter its meaning and to redefine the cultural dynamic of goods by reinforcing the validity of the idea of needs [what is essential] and wants [what is desirable]. [….] in this important sense, ethical consumption maps one clear path for consumers, a route for translating consumerism into citizenship, consumer [as self interested] / citizen [as the good member of society] being one conventional ideological contrast.
Much as we would like consumers to take the ‘high’ road, evidence suggests that there are powerful forces pushing and pulling consumers in different and ‘low’ roads too. Ethical consumption, by internationalising otherwise externalised social, environmental and human costs, almost inevitably adds to the price of goods and services. Ultimately, we feel, ethical consumption has to be open about this fact.
If humanity wants a decent society, it has to be paid for. If it doesn’t or enough don’t, society and the biosphere will pay anyway. The stakes are high.
Tim Lang & Yiannis Gabriel (2005) ‘A brief history of consumer activism’ pp39-53 in Rob Harrison, Terry Newholm & Deirdre Shaw (Eds.) The Ethical Consumer, London: Sage.
publications
- Terry Newholm & Shaw, Deirdre, (2007) ‘Ethical Consumers: a review’ Journal of Consumer Behaviour 6(5).
- Deirdre Shaw, Terry Newholm & Roger Dickenson, (2006) ‘Consumption as Voting: An Exploration of Consumer Empowerment’, European Journal of Marketing 40(9/10) 1049-1067.
- Rob Harrison, Terry Newholm & Deirdre Shaw (Eds.) (2005) The Ethical Consumer, London: Sage.
- Deirdre Shaw, and Terry Newholm (2004), ‘Ethical consumer decision-making’ pp. 97-98 in David Jobber, Principles and Practice of Marketing 4th Edition, London: McGraw Hill.
- Deirdre Shaw, and Terry Newholm (2003) ‘Consumption Simplicity among Ethical Consumers’ Serge P. Shohov (Ed.) Advances in Psychology 20 175-92.
- Deirdre Shaw, and Terry Newholm (2003) ‘Ethical consumers’, in J. R. Miller, R. M. Lerner, L. B. Schiamberg, & P. M. Anderson (Eds.), Human Ecology: An Encyclopaedia of Children, Families, Communities, and Environments. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.
- Deirdre Shaw, and Terry Newholm (2002) ‘Voluntary simplicity and the ethics of consumption’, Journal of Psychology and Marketing 19(2) 167-85.
- Terry Newholm (2000) ‘Consumer exit, voice and loyalty: indicative, legitimation and regulatory role in agricultural and food ethics’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 12(2) 153-64.
- Terry Newholm (1999) ‘Relocating the ethical consumer’, 162-84 in Richard Norman (Ed.) Ethics and the Market, Aldershot: Ashgate.