Lively debate in the editorial board. Juan Ruiz invites readers to use a calculator to answer a demagogic question: how many slaves work for you? It is an application that promotes responsible consumption to end slavery in the manufacture of clothing in impoverished countries. Some voices suggest that it is a way to exonerate administrations that are not capable of eradicating this type of practice by expelling countries that break the law from free trade. Others suggest that companies should comply with the law and avoid profiting from it instead of cleaning up their image with sweetening campaigns. The debate is served.
Related news
Globalization, climate change or the underground economy generate this type of controversy. To what extent are they the result of corporate cynicism, state deregulation, or consumer behavior? A little of everything. What is ineffective is passing responsibilities from one to another as if they were exclusive. The companies will say that the public wants low prices and that the states are incapable of ensuring that everyone complies with the same legality, which generates unfair competition. Governments will say that they cannot close borders or intervene in third countries. And consumers who do not have to correct with their individual behavior the lack of courage of governments and companies. And the house without sweeping.
“The temptation of innocence – writes Helena Béjar in ‘The Bad Samaritan’– is a childhood disease of individualism. It consists of trying to circumvent the consequences of one’s own acts and thus enjoy the benefits of freedom without suffering any of its costs.” Something like that happens to us. To consumers, companies and governments. But things have never moved in history if someone doesn’t push them. As political scientists say, you have to give incentives to behavior. Responsible consumption is a stimulus for companies to change their labor or environmental practices. And it blushes the governments that say that nothing can be done. Some can do more than others and some have more responsibility than others. But all to some extent.