|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Feeding the Devil to Inspire the Angels
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
Say you love a certain product or service.
And there are companies which provide this product/service ethically, but are small and have limited impact.
There are also some large companies which have a mixed track record, but appear to be moving in the right direction.
Does one support only the small company or does one also support the products/services of the large to encourage them to change? Knowing all the while one is indirectly supporting the unethical as well.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
Okay, let's flesh out the details for clarity here.
Nasty Inc. produces widgets using 50% child-labour, and 50% adult(and otherwise ethical) labour. Nice Inc. produces widgets using 100% adult(and otherwise ethical) labour.
However, Nasty's's 50% is an improvement over 10 years ago, when they were using 100% child-labour. Furthermore, they claim that they are trying to further reduce their reliance on child-labour, with the hopes that in another five years, it will be completely eliminated from their shops.
I think on a strictly utilitarian calculus, it's still best to support Nice. Because then none of your money is going to support child-labour at any point. Whereas if you buy from Nasty, you will be supporting child-labour, even if it is only for the interregnum between their semi-ethical and their ethical phase.
However...
If you think that Nasty is going to continue existing no matter what you do, it could be argued that you should support them, because then at least they are being encouraged to stop emloying kids, if only incrementally. Whereas if you buy from Nice, Nasty will continue on anyway, with even less likelihood of changing its ways.
Rejoinder: The last paragraph strikes me as a little like the consumers' version of "If I don't do it, someone else will, and they'll be even less ethical than me." In other words, "If I don't buy it, everyone else still will, so I might as well buy it and try to make it a bit better". So, I'm still gonna have to come down on the side of buying 100% ethical.
[ 31. March 2014, 00:49: Message edited by: Stetson ]
--------------------
I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
If them's the facts, what you do is write a letter (tweet, whatever) to Nasty saying you applaud their efforts, and once they surpass the standards of Nice, you'll be happy to shop there again. Switching back your custom early will only encourage them to stay with half-measures.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
|
Posted
I take the view that buying from Nice, and supporting them, will raise their profile, to the point where Nasty will have to do much better to compete with the rise of Nice.
The chances are, Nasty will always put economics before morals, whereas, hopefully, Nice will continue to put morals high on their list, without completely taking their eye off the financial implications.
In truth, a 100% moral organisation is likely to go bust. And so put others off. They probably exist, but you probably haven't heard of them. I prefer companies who can be moral but also turn a profit. That is the example to other companies that this is possible.
--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I take the view that buying from Nice, and supporting them, will raise their profile, to the point where Nasty will have to do much better to compete with the rise of Nice.
The chances are, Nasty will always put economics before morals, whereas, hopefully, Nice will continue to put morals high on their list, without completely taking their eye off the financial implications.
What if the company you always relied on and regarded as Nice turn out to be pretty Nasty after all?
e.g. the Co-op bank.
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
The best value of course! What are the warranties like and which is the cheaper.
Which is what happens in the real world outside of the ships portside bubble.
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
|
Posted
deano -
The only things that are traded strictly on price are commodities. Every company (unless they are commodity companies of course) spend huge amounts of time and effort to get away from that, to find a niche in which they can prosper.
Of course price and warranty length are important. But people are motivated to buy things for many reasons. Companies as well as individuals. They may do it because they want to or because they want to appeal to a certain kind of customer. But customers who don't give a shit usually end up buying it.
--------------------
Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
The best value of course! What are the warranties like and which is the cheaper.
Which is what happens in the real world outside of the ships portside bubble.
Not at all. For a real-world example, There was once a well-known software company with a reputation for buying out its competitors, and either closing them down completely (even though their products were superior) or else simply selling their products with no developments and minimal support. Often paying for the buyout with borrowed money and shares in the merged corporation, which they could do just because they were so big. (In the end they took over and ground up more than 400 other corporations, at least three of which were their own size or larger)
Their stuff was cheap - at least at first - but they were coming to dominate certain sectors of the industry with second-rate software and crap support staff. So a very large American company that I worked for made a decision not to buy anything from them ever again. (Not put in writing as far as I remember). It backfired because after we'd bought stuff from their rivals. Well-Known Software Company took them over and ran down the stuff we'd bought.
I had a fun afternoon once with one of their salesmen who had turned up to give us a sales pitch for whatever it was we had alerady decided not to buy from them but ended up playing pool in the pub, buying all the drinks, and slagging off his employers and telling us his plans to move on somewhere else.
Or, on a more human scale, its really common for small companies to prefer to trade with other companies they have already done business with, or who they have some non-business relationship with. Trust often trumps price.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
That would be the company whose engineer once lived next to me and told me on no account to allow them to access my computer for tech support as they would find out all the other software I had installed and generally behave very badly about it? (I can't remember the precise details. But I have followed the advice.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
