In My money, your cause, what now?, Seth Godin writes about the growing conflict between corporate practices and the values of individual consumers:
“I have a valued business partner that creates products I’m ashamed of. What do I do now? Do I have an ethical obligation to change how I work in order to make my feelings clear? Do I have a marketing obligation?
What happens when consumers use the power of their money to make their feelings clear? What happens to Chick-fil-A or Bennetton when every purchase becomes a political act?”
Seth thinks the “disconnect between what we spend and what we believe” is about to change.
Well, it has changed in the past. For example, the Montgomery bus boycott was an example of citizens using their purchasing power to protest governmental policy in 1955. But the times have changed. Corporations have much more power today, and that power is increasing. With the internet, cell phones and other world-flattening technologies, citizen-consumers have more power too.
