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	Citzen Consumer - What Is Ethical Consumption? by Dara O’Rourke Boston Review   Calls for ethical consumption have existed since the early days of capitalism. The patriots who organized and participated in the original Tea Party boycotted British goods and encouraged coordinated consumer action. In the 1890s consumers leagues—which would in 1899 coalesce as the National Consumers League—issued “white lists” to help consumers identify companies that treated their workers fairly. A continent away Gandhi’s Swadeshi movement called for Indians to buy Indian-made rather than British products.   Ethical consumption today covers a wide range of issues and agendas. Fair trade and organics are the two most prominent areas of concern, but ethical consumers also care about sweat-free, locally made, union-made, and environmentally friendly products; artisan production; collaborative consumption—sharing instead of buying; slow food; farmers’ markets; do-it-yourself manufacturing; non-genetically modified (GMO) food; humane animal treatment; and voluntary simplicity.   Some of these approaches have rightly been criticized. Jo Littler, author of Radical Consumption, summarizes the complaint against ethical consumption as a panacea for middle-class guilt . . . an individualistic form of politics, a means through which neoliberal governments encourage consumers to become ‘responsibilised’ amidst the atrophying of wider social safety nets.   But ethical consumption can also be an arena of political action and contestation, a place for politics to occur where they normally do not or where traditional politics have failed.   Ethical consumption initiatives ask consumers to take a stand on big issues such as global trade relations, poverty in developing countries, local economic self-sufficiency, environmental sustainability, workers’ rights, and animal rights. Ethical consumption may mean buying different products—greener, healthier, more socially responsible—and it may mean lifestyle changes, such as consuming less, producing one’s own goods, and sharing goods. These can be status-oriented, eco-chic consumer choices, or part of larger efforts to transform consumer cultures for the benefit of workers and the environment.   Health promotion is often a component within the broader rubric of ethical consumption, as personal health is connected to environmental issues and is an entry point for consumers into larger debates about consumption. NGOs increasingly focus on personal health as a means to achieve community and eventually planetary health. Organics are just one example.   Many consumers think of organic certification as an indication that a product will be healthier because it does not contain synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. This may be true, but organic certification has more to do with farming practices, ecological impacts, and worker exposures than with consumer health.   By almost any measure, the last five years have seen a staggering growth in ethical consumption.   U.S. sales of organic food and beverages rose from $12.6 billion in 2005 to $21.4 billion in 2009, growing more than 10 percent per year while conventional food and beverage sales were flat. Sales of ethical personal-care products grew from $5.3 billion in 2005 to $8.1 billion in 2009. In 1992 935,450 acres of U.S. farmland were planted with organics, rising to 4,815,959 acres in 2008. As of 2010 there were 6,132 farmers’ markets operating in the United States; in 1994 there were 1,755. In Europe sales of fair trade–certified products grew from €220 million in 2000 to €3.4 billion in 2010. Sales of local food, which travels less than 150 miles from source to table, rose from $4 billion in 2002 to $7 billion in 2011.   Overall sales of ethical products are expected to reach $57 billion by the end of 2011, sustainable apparel will hit $11 billion, and green cleaners $600 million. The U.S. market for LOHAS (lifestyle of health and sustainability) products is estimated at more than $200 billion.   Major corporations have watched this growth closely and jumped into the green, natural, sustainable, socially responsible space. Toyota Prius sales rose from 3,000 cars in 1997 to 28,000 in 2002 to more than 400,000 in 2010. Whole Foods sales grew from $90 million across ten stores in 1991 to $9 billion across 300 stores in 2010. Clorox Green Works went from zero to $100 million in sales in 2008 alone, Burt’s Bees from $190 million in 2006 to $310 million in 2008, and Kashi cereal from $25 million in 2000 to $600 million in 2009.   New-product introductions are growing even faster than sales. In 2010 there were 72 percent more introductions of green packaged foods than in the previous year and 78 percent more introductions of green beverages.   Demand for ethical products is spawning entirely new brands, such as Product (RED), and business models. The apparel industry has been shrinking in many developing countries since the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in 2005, yet in just its first year of operation, 2010, one new sweatshop-free company went from zero sales to distribution at 350 universities.   Alta Gracia, which was built on years of organizing by the anti-sweatshop community, focuses on ethics and transparency. As John M. Kline, an international business expert at Georgetown University, describes it, Alta Gracia seeks to “help workers escape poverty rather than just avoid exploitation.” All of the company’s apparel—which is targeted at the collegiate logo market—is produced in a single factory in the Dominican Republic.   The company pays its workers a living wage—more than three times the legal minimum—has encouraged the formation of a union, and meets the highest health and safety standards in the country. The factory is also regularly monitored by the Workers Rights Consortium, a leading labor rights organization. Alta Gracia interacts directly with consumers, who have a chance to monitor the company’s work. For example, students in the United States can Skype with workers in the factory, interview them live about their conditions, and learn about the effects of these jobs and wages on the community of Villa Altagracia. This takes Alta Gracia beyond even fair trade initiatives in connecting consumers and producers. Visit the related web page
	90,000 "mass incidents" a year in China over land disputes by Reuters & agencies   Nov 2011   South Chinese villagers wielding clubs and stones attacked an industrial park, incensed by reports that an official had sold land without compensating them, media reports said in the latest flare-up over commercial development.   The riot broke out in Zhongshan in Guangdong province, where rice paddy land has given way to factories that make many of China"s exports.   Authorities said the violence was quelled by police who took away suspected organisers. The Zhongshan police said the dispute over the land had festered since August.   Caixin Magazine, a Chinese business journal, reported that the dispute was sparked by complaints that officials had illicitly sold off land without paying residents proper compensation.   Villagers had begun patrols to "prevent employees of the developer concerned from going to work".   In China, most rural land is officially under village collective ownership, but in reality government officials control its development, leading to frequent disputes over land control, compensation with widespread charges of cronyism and corruption between officals and business interests.   Local protests are common in China. In September, thousands of villagers in Lufeng, another part of Guangdong province, rioted and ransacked government offices, protesting against land requisitions by corrupt officials.   Earlier this year, Zhou Ruijin, a former deputy editor-in-chief of the official party newspaper, the People"s Daily, said there had been more than 90,000 "mass incidents" -- a term for protests and demonstrations -- every year from 2007 to 2009.   A recent poll found disputes over land acquisitions had reached a new peak amid rampant development and were a leading cause of rural clashes across China.   Deep inequalities remain in China with hundreds of millions of predominantly rural peasants living on less than $2-5 a day.   September 25, 2011 (NYT)   Protestors in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have besieged government buildings, attacked police and overturned riot squad vehicles during protests against the seizure of farmland.   The protests continued on Friday, with farmers gathered in front of a government building banging gongs and holding signs saying "give us back our farmland" and "let us continue farming", Reuters reported.   The violence was the latest outbreak of civil unrest fuelled by popular discontent over land grabs that leave peasants with little or no compensation.   Such "mass incidents", as the government calls them, have been increasing in recent years, providing party leaders with worrisome proof that official malfeasance combined with a dysfunctional judiciary often has combustible results.   According to a recent study by scholars at Nankai University in Tianjin, there were 90,000 such episodes in 2009, a figure that includes melees and mass petition campaigns by people seeking justice. Government censors often try to make sure such events stay off the internet and out of newspapers.   Earlier this month, hundreds of residents protesting against environmental contamination by a solar panel factory in Zhejiang province stormed the factory and destroyed equipment and vehicles. Weeks earlier, 12,000 people peacefully gathered in the city of Dalian to demand the closure of a chemical factory.   In Lufeng, the protests were the most dramatic manifestation of a long-running battle over land. According to a local website, the Lufeng city government has sold more than 300 hectares of property for industrial parks and high-priced housing. The proffered compensation, villagers say, has been barely enough to buy a new bed.   Municipal governments, which own all land in China, largely depend on sales of property leases to prop up their budgets. The latest seized plots were sold to a development company for 1 billion yuan ($A160 million), according to The South China Morning Post.   News and images of the demonstrations were quickly deleted by censors. One showed demonstrators carrying a banner that read "give back my ancestors farmland".   Mi Yushan, Ningxia Province   "The wealth gap is certainly unfair! The price of chemical fertiliser is increasing but the price at which we can sell grain has dropped.   We farmers have few fields. We have just enough food so that we don"t get hungry - but we have little money left over. We have to work as temporary labourers in the town to earn money.   Someone from Hebei province tried to buy our land a few years ago, and the government just closed their eyes so we had to buy it back ourselves."   Yao Min, Guizhou Province   "Both our children have left the village to work in the cities. The central government leaders just care about themselves - not about the masses, not about the people.   The local officials only pay attention to the one child policy, so that they can collect fines from those who have more than one child.   If families don"t have enough money to pay, they take things from their houses. If we become sick this will be a disaster for the family."   Wang Ran, Guizhou Province   "The agricultural tax is high. Government officials say they are going to reduce the rural taxes, but they haven"t and we don"t know when they will.   If they did reduce our taxes, that would really change our lives. We are so poor because there is no development here.   The government does give aid but for some reason there is hardly any allocated to this area. I have no way to buy fertilizer. We need economic help."
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