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"If you read theory, you'd understand that there's nothing wrong with supporting child labor" (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/slop@hexbear.net
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What a ride.

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[–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

I personally do view morality in that light. My assessment is that OP does not and instead believes that we have a moral responsibility to not eat chocolates if we think that child labor was found in the supply chain, which ignores pretty much everything about everything else, including the device used to post the content, host it, and share it. I know for a fact that the phone in my hand used exploitation, unequal exchange, and ecosystem destruction. I wouldn't be surprised if there was both child labor and slave labor in the supply chain to produce this phone.

The same is true for the public transportation I ride. The same is true for the jobs I work and the materials I have to used. The same is true for hospitals and medicine manufactories. We can't just decide that we're going to pick a single commodity and say that you have a moral responsibility to abstain from consumption and if you don't then you're an enemy of the struggle.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Some commodities are more vulnerable to collective pressure than others; recognizing the distinctions in production among commodities is not hypocrisy. For example, boycotting chocolate is simpler than boycotting oil, and moral responsibility varies based on the circumstances that gave rise to that commodity and whether or not those circumstances can be addressed socially

    When we boycott one thing but not another, morality as a signaling mechanism takes on a tactical character; similarly, when you're laying siege, you aim for the paths of least resistance before storming the keep. Building upon one victory after another, gaining confidence and cohesion as you go

    You can't climb every wall simultaneously, so it's pointless and counterproductive to use that impossibility as an excuse to not do something, even individually, which is just the component cell of collective action

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    100% until the conclusion of the last sentence. We have fundamentally and thoroughly demonstrated that individual consumer choice has almost no impact on the externalities. Recycling is probably the most egregious example of this. What fixed the CFC problem was cap and trade regulation, not consumer choice. These problem were never caused by individual consumer choice so making individual consumers choices will never be the solution. Not purchasing candy is not a component cell of collective action. A component cell of collective action would be showing up to the meetings every week and holding the discipline agreed to within the group based on material analysis of the system you are trying to change. If we don't have groups that have meetings, then choosing not to buy chocolate is going to be about as effective as praying for the child laborers. Because that's what these private individual consumer choices ultimately are - a way to self-soothe while standing on a pile of corpses. Are we going to sit here and argue that even though that group over there may be fascists organizating to maintain a white supremacist aociety, at least they're recycling?

    Action must be grounded in theory, theory must be grounded in material analysis. Material analysis must be grounded in action. We have seen this loop for personal consumer boycotts in the Global North and the result has been no material change in the conditions of the workers. We have also seen how this form of moralizing works against organizing and recruitment because it actively destroys relationships. And of course it does, it's literally the same type of proselytizing that Abrahamic religions use to divide populations against each other. When we look towards other models of communicating morality, we see that it is entirely possible to integrate with people who are behaving immorally (up to a point) and that the outcomes in the short and long term are substantially better.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Don't let quixotic liberal marketing campaigns lead you into reactionary traps; of course what people decide (or are induced) to send their money on matters to any cohesive material analysis of the circuit of capital, disruptions of the realization phase of the circuit requires boycotts as an available tool, consumption is not merely personal, it's also structural and leveraging that structure requires convincing quite alot of people to INDIVIDUALLY withhold money from a firm

    So again, unless you have a magic psychic beacon, the convincing part requires a moral narrative as a component of the necessary organizing. Because the logistics of boycott organizing still requires individual initiative, integrity, and discipline to work

    Not purchasing candy is not a component cell of collective action. A component cell of collective action would be showing up to the meetings every week and holding the discipline agreed to within the group based on material analysis of the system you are trying to change

    If the component cell of collective action requires showing up to meetings every week to convince people not to purchase candy, then I hate to break it to you, but yes not purchasing candy in that instance does become a component cell of collective action

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I think you and I are on the same page here, for the most part anyway. The problem I am trying to illuminate is not that boycotts require not purchasing, but rather that not purchasing is not the effective part of a boycott. The effective part of a boycott is the organizing, the not buying is a result of the boycott not a cause. You cannot create a boycott by not buying. You can only create a boycott by organizing. And as you say, once you are organizing to create a boycott, your personal choices suddenly start to matter - not because of their economic impact but because of their propagandistic impact.

    This is critical to understand. The effect of even 10k people not buying is totally unnoticeable. 10k people stop buying specific things every day whether through death, illness, preference, or economic hardship. But the effect of 10k people all connected to the same movement, or all physically located in a single place, or all doing it deliberately at the same time? That's noticeable. Again, not in the bottom line, but in the expression of power and the tabling of a threat of future impact to the bottom line. That's what moves capitalists.

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