An idea: The Consumer Party

[NVMojo]

The premise espoused on this site is that forming a consumer party may be possible as the last power we all share is our status as "consumer". Pretty interesting ideas. I am sharing this as an item of interest. Thanks.

http://www.freewebs.com/theconsumersparty/

[starroute]

1. I despise the idea

I am not a consumer, I am a citizen.

My social reality is not dependent on either my ability to spend money or my role as raw material for the mega-corporations.

I have no intention of being anything other an individual collaborating with equal individuals on the important business of our community.

If I have been rendered so powerless in this country that my only remaining form of social action is to attempt to bribe large corporations into being marginally less evil by promising to buy their crap, then I have no place here at all.

[Hosnon]

2. Agree nt

[Senior citizen]

3. How strange!

Starroute, did you look at the site?

If you can decide whether or not you like something based solely on the name, without bothering to find out what it is about, you're not only a consumer, but you're the kind of consumer that ad execs and marketers like best.

[starroute]

9. I have looked at the site

And I still think there is something basically screwgied about the idea.

For one thing, the factor of common identity isn't there. The site invokes the labor movement as a comparison -- but steelworkers, for example, all had the common bond of being steelworkers. What kind of a bond is there in being toothpaste users? or beer drinkers? or mothers of little kids in diapers?

For another, the dynamic doesn't work the way it did with the labor unions. Labor unions were able to shut down an assembly line in order to put pressure on the company to provide better pay and working conditions. But consumers can't shot down a company. The best they can do is buy Company B's product instead of Company A's. And what then? Do you promise to come back and be loyal customers if Company A stops outsourcing or adopts more worker-friendly or environmentally-friendly policies? Or do you really think you're going to put Company A out of business with a few middle-class boycotts?

I'm sure we do need a movement to cut the corporations down to size -- and that's probably the best stuff on the site. But trying to do it as consumers isn't going to work. It's like trying to battle a pride of lions while you're in the cage with them. You need to work from outside the system to get any sort of leverage over it.

After World War II, my father joined a veterans' organization whose slogan was "Citizens first, veterans second." I'd like to see a movement with the slogan "Citiens first, consumers second" -- meaning that we will put the interests of our communities ahead of our own urges to chip a penny or two off the price. And then we need to work through our communities to set the terms on which companies will be able to do business.

[Senior citizen]

10. Starroute, the common identity isn't what we buy or don't buy,

but in the fact that we ALL descend from ancestors who hunted, gathered, fished, etc., and didn't have to BUY anything. Our common identity is that, apart from the very few who don't drive, who make their own clothes, who produce all their own food, and who aren't tied into the energy grid, we have little choice other than to purchase what we need to survive. Our common identity, in other words, is our common loss of "the commons" to private ownership.

As for the dynamic, it isn't strikes or boycotts, although hopefully we would support anything that is in our own interests, but in political power, meaning our votes. While our voting system may be totally corrupt, large numbers of voters can reform it--and everything else. Unfortunately, apart from ballot initiatives, it isn't communities who decide how business will be done, but their elected representatives, so it all comes back to our votes again.

It would be nice to work from outside the system. When you get out, please let me know where the escape hatch is so I can follow you.

:hi:

[starroute]

12. I don't think we're actually disagreeing except on the fine points

1) By common identity, I don't mean something that includes every living human being. I mean something more on the tribal level -- us steelworkers, us autoworkers, us Pullman car conductors, us workers of the world. Something that gives people the sense of being a well-defined group with shared goals and a possibility of mutual solidarity.

It's been groups like that and the movements based on them -- the labor movement, the civil rights movement -- that carried progressive initiatives along in the 20th century, and I don't see things being any different now. By that standard, "consumers" is not a viable basis for a progressive movement.

2) If the goal is to curb the power of the corporations, and the method is voting, where do consumers come into the equation? If a corporation wants to move into my neighborhood and build a meat irradiation facility, I'm not opposing them as a consumer. If WalMart is underpaying its employees so blatantly that my tax dollars have to go to subsidizing them, I'm not outraged as a consumer. So why call it a Consumer Party at all?

3) After the last couple of elections, I have no faith at all in voting. Do you really believe that voters count for much of anything with politicans compared to corporate money? I believe that some form of direct action, akin to the labor movement, is going to be necessary to get anywhere. The only question is where the point of leverage will be.

4) By working outside the system I don't mean outside the entire political complex of the nation. I mean outside the corporate/consumer relationship. As consumers, we are weak and dependent. Even as voters, we discovering that we are ignorable. There has to be some alternative that transcends ordinary calculations of economic and political advantage.

I can think of a few issues that potentially might transcend politics-as-usual and turn people against corporate hegemony in a big way. One is the environment, particularly if things go to hell in a handbasket as fast as it looks like they may. Another is the outsourcing/job loss issue. A third is the homeland security issue, if it becomes obvious that the corporations care more about profits than about security. A fourth might arise if the Bushies do manage to dismantle consumer and worker protection laws to the point where the average person starts to feel the pinch.

But ultimately, I think the issue has to be a moral one: The "profit motive" is a narrow appeal to greed, and greed is no basis on which to run a society. The laws which force corporations to act on the basis of greed are a license for immorality in those who have no shame and a barrier against moral behavior on the part of those who do have some sense of higher responsibility. As moral beings, we cannot continue to allow our culture to be dominated by soulless entities with no moral compass.

Hey, how about the "Social Responsibility Party"? It's got a kind of a 19th century ring to it, but ultimately it could take us a lot further than any attempt to play along with the flawed assumptions of the prevailing system.

[Senior citizen]

13. Agreed, but those fine points are chaotic.

1)Why organize on a tribal level when we can organize on a universal level. Tribes can't compete with multinationals (actually some have, but only with international support), whereas a truly inclusive group with a global viewpoint has a better chance.

While it is true that many movements made great progress in the past, much of that progress has recently been almost wiped out by corporate influence on government and globalization. A new paradigm is necessary in order to contend with new circumstances. If you think of "consumers" as everyone that has an interest in ending corporate rule and establishing corporate responsibility, it seems totally viable to me.

2) If the air you breathe is polluted, you are opposing it because you have to consume that air. If your tax money is subsidizing exploitive corporate policies instead of bettering your quality of life, you are opposing it because you, as a consumer, want more purchasing power and a better quality of life. If your choices as a consumer were't limited, you'd just move to where the air was better or there was no Wal-Mart--given that such places still exist to any extent.

3) I believe that the point of leverage is in numbers. If everyone wears orange to the polls, it makes them harder to rig. If everyone wears orange to a labor strike or a protest demonstration, it just makes them better targets.

4) We are only ignorable by corporate parties that care more about our money than they do about us. Consumers may seem weak and dependent at first glance, but multinational corporations know better. They cannot exist without consumers. They spend a very large portion of their budgets to woo consumers. They have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits, and, since any attack on consumers would have the effect of alienating the very consumers they're trying to woo, thereby diminishing profits, they cannot legally attack consumers.

Unlimited growth is a Ponzi scheme, a malignancy, a path to extinction. While many people care deeply about the environment, jobs, security, and moral issues, EVERYONE cares about survival. It isn't an option, it's a basic instinct. At the present time the Consumers Party can attract those who are aware enough to recognize the fascist nature of corporate governance. Once the imminent economic crash that many experts, including Michael Ruppert, are predicting, occurs, anti-corporate politics will be attractive to almost everyone, no matter where they currently are on the economic scale.

What's in a name? Well, sometimes a party might not actually be what its name suggests that it is.... For example, my dictionary defines republican as one who favors a republic, and it defines a republic as, "A state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote." I'm sure you can think of other examples.

[starroute]

15. A couple of counter-arguments

"Why organize on a tribal level when we can organize on a universal level."

Because identity is important. Everyone in the country is a consumer -- including the fundies and the millionaries and the libertarians. But you're never going to get most of them into your anti-corporate movement. So calling it "consumers" blurs out the identity. It would be like calling something the American Party or the Human Being Party. It's too much like the Democrats today, where they want to be all things to all people and as a result wind up standing for nothing.


"If the air you breathe is polluted, you are opposing it because you have to consume that air."

That's a horrifying statement! For one thing, I don't consume air. I cycle it through my body, using it gently, and then pass it on to the next participating organism. For another, being a consumer implies using a product that is manufactured or processed by a corporation. The corporation whose factories are spewing out pollution are not manufacturing the air I breathe -- they're corrupting it. And finally, if my tax money is subsidizing WalMart, I oppose that not because my purchasing power is reduced (!) but because it violates my sense of justice.

Consumers by definition are Homo economicus -- abstract beings whose only reality is an economic reality, whose only purpose in life is to get more for their money, and whose decisions are all narrowly calculated on the basis of being canny investers. I am none of those things. I am a moral being, not a consumer!


"Consumers may seem weak and dependent at first glance, but multinational corporations know better. They cannot exist without consumers."

And what if I don't want to be a consumer? What if my goal is to consume as little as possible? What if I don't want to prop the corporations up by promising to be a better host if they'll only be better parasites?

It sounds to me very much as though what you're proposing simply reinforces the existing corporate/consumer model of society by promising to reform a few of its excesses. Even that Consumer Party website, though I disagree with its choice of name, is a lot more hard-edged than that.

[Senior citizen]

16. True, identity is important. It is also divisive.

In fact there is a white supremacist evangelical movement that actually calls itself the Identity Movement. I think the Greens and the Democrats certainly do try to be all things to all people, but the Consumers Party has only one focus--it is anti-corporate.

The goal of consuming as little as possible is laudable, however you would still have to cope with the effects of corporate influence on government in legislation, deregulation, etc. Anti-corporate politics is based on getting money out of government so that legislation is based on the needs of the electorate, not the needs of the corporations. That would mean, among other things, cleaner air.

Anti-corporate politics doesn't reinforce the corporate/consumer model, it attempts to abolish it.

As you can tell from my user name, I'm no youngster. But around Thanksgiving I was listening to some young anarchist revolutionaries on a pirate radio station. They do NOT see themselves as consumers, do not wish to be consumers, and have as much revulsion for the word as you do. In fact, in order to show their disdain for consumerism, they decided to cut up SOME of their credit cards on the air.

Think about it for a minute. I certainly did. Times have certainly changed if young anarchist revolutionaries HAVE CREDIT CARDS! If they pay off their balances in full every month so as not to pay interest to corporate banks, and only use the cards to donate to worthy causes, not to purchase material things, why would they cut them up?

So while you and they might not think of yourselves as consumers, and may not wish to be consumers, and even if only ten cents a year of your disposable income goes to corporations, add that ten cents to the ten cents each of millions of other reluctant consumers, and you'll find that the corporations are still making a tidy profit. Moreover, the multinationals contend with unions and boycotts by simply shifting operations and sales around the globe.

There is an old truism in politics, that people tend to vote their pocketbooks. I certainly try to do that. By voting my economic self-interest, I am also voting for environmental issues, moral issues, human rights issues, and my conscience. If you know of a political party that is anti-corporate and that wants my vote, not my money, please tell me about it. I don't care if it is called the Doody Poo Poo Party--I'm looking for substance, not brand name.

If you think anti-corporate politics is merely about reforming a few excesses, I think you've misread the platform. It proposes to do away with "limited liability," to get corporate money out of politics, to recharter (take away permission to exist from) corporations that are not operating in a sustainable manner, or that are harming the environment, treating workers unfairly, or not paying their fair share of taxes, among many other things. That's not mere reform, it is full-fledged revolt.

[Warpy]

4. This country started to go to hell

when the term was changed from customers (with free will and an ability to choose among options) to consumer (mindless gobblers who will eat up anything that's dangled in front of them).

Just a thought.

A consumer's party is a lousy idea. I am not a consumer. I may, from time to time, be a customer. I am always a citizen.

[ima_sinnic]

7. looks like you didn't even look at the site

--the name is a little misleading; it could be called the "anti-corporation party". I agree with virtually all of it.

[NVMojo]

14. ima_sinnic, that is exactly how I took it ...anti-corp, the people who

control our government through the Bush cartel...

The concept that we are nothing but a bunch of walking wallets to tax and charge for goods and service is what they live for, the repugs/neocons. We are nothing else. We are not even votes today with their electronic machines to be in place everywhere by 2006, paid for with our own wallets ...

[InvisibleBallots]

5. I'd rather have a Labor party

Ralph Nader was the one that tried to turn the new "citizen as consumer" idea against the corporations. If they were going to redefine us from labor to consumer, we'd form consumer unions instead of labor. I can understand his reasoning, but I don't think it works in the long run.

[w4rma]

6. The left MUST remember to fight for SMALL buisnesses, also.

Small and medium sized buisnesses must replace the big ones of today that are oligopolizing and monopolizing just about every industry that hasn't been outsourced by some multinational to a buisness in another country.

[Senior citizen]

11. w4rma, there are all sorts of small businesses.

Even a sweatshop can claim to be a small business, or a small farm that exploits undocumented workers.

If we can force corporations to be ethical and responsible, I don't think it would matter much how big or small they are. Of course the multinationals, which DEPEND on exploitation and irresponsibility for their profits, would be the first to disappear.

[Hosnon]

8. Didn't check site - sorry. Turns out its pretty damn good. nt

[EndElectoral]

17. I'd rather have The Integrity Party

[imenja]

18. It worked with Sinclair Broadcasting

We were able to get them to back down from showing the full anti-Kerry documentary by using our power as consumers. It is something the right does very well. It's a good tool for the left to use as well. I believe, however, this is a good tactical idea but not a basis for a new political party.