Political consumerism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Political consumerism is a blanket concept including fair trade and moral purchasing. It could be seen as more general, or as more specific.
It takes the word Consumerism which is nowerdays portrayed as a bad thing, a sort of hysteric drive to consume, where consumption is no longer motivated by physiological (hunger, thirst, avoidance of incomfort) motives but more by psychological, cultural and social influences many of them overly fuelled by advertising.
Political consumerism takes the stand that for those who are wealthy enough to have multiple choices for filling a need, be the need natural or manufactured, making decisions about what to consume is political in the sense that it assumes the consumer has knowledge of the environmental impact and social impact the production has and these factors are evaluated in addition to price and suitability for use by the consumer.
It emphasizes economic choice not quite as moral choice based on moral cognition but rather more practically as political choice based on some factionally defined criteria. If it's valid, then, factions matter more, and individual morality less, in determining individual buying criteria.
The broader regulation system encompassing the political and economic aspects of these consumers' initiatives is referred to as Consumarchy.
