this "voting with your dollars" thing is a bunch of bullshit. It's virtually impossible to live in modern society, engaging in commerce with any number of vendors that are invariably linked to multinational companies which are themselves highly interlinked, without money going to many companies we'd prefer it didn't, any more than it's feasible to live in a town governed by a government you vehemently disagree with, without using the roads they happen to be paving. Monsanto's practices should be regulated, those regulations enacted by a government which we elect with actual votes, not dollars; end of story.
edit: my wife and I do in fact work at a local food coop and buy about 90% organic or at least locally grown; they sell a few products linked to companies like Monsanto but these are clearly labeled with things like "GMO" - we certainly don't go near them. But we're lucky enough to live in a place that actually has a non-profit food coop and the economic freedom to have the time to work in such a place.
"This 'voting with your dollars' thing is a bunch of bullshit."
It's not all or nothing. If everyone would just subscribe to a CSA and buy the rest of their stuff from the grocery store then that alone would completely shift the face of food production in this country.
Yes, everyone subscribing to a CSA would shift the face of food production in the country, by instantly jacking up the price of food for everyone, drastically reducing the efficiency of the food supply system (local farms being for many obvious reasons far less efficient), plunging whole regions of the company into seasonal food "droughts" (as Northern families throw away bushels of beets and sweet potatoes and go to McDonalds instead), and increasing energy consumption.
I'm a CSA-eating locavore; I buy my protein from a whole-animal butcher who's on a first-name basis with the farmers who raise all his products.
It is a spectacular luxury, one I'm actually faintly guilty about.
Agreed. Yes, consumers taking down Monsanto would be a rather large task, but that doesn't mean you can't do your best to support the other players (particularly those that might better fit your ethical framework). Money does very much talk in the U.S. (note how our political system works--donors and lobbyists)--it's just a matter of having enough of it (or, in the case of Monsanto, taking it away) to make a difference.
Not everyone has access to a CSA, and that's okay, too--you can still find ways to get at least some of your food that isn't a product of Big Ag.
I think it is also difficult to remember all the victories of "voting with your money" because so many have been normalised. Hormones in meat? Dolphin-killing tuna fishing? Formula better than breast advertising? There are myriad examples where a minority voted with their dollars and shifted corporate practice.
Are you old enough to remember supermarkets with no organic/free-range products? No recycled products? No vegetarian versions of products? These are all things commonly available now that have been introduced in my lifetime as a supermarket shopper.
Yes, it sure would be better if the consumer did not have to fight evil with every purchasing decision (it leads to decision fatigue, if nothing else). It would be better if representational democracy (especially in the US) worked better at looking after collective interests. But voting with your money? It does work, and I would be surprised if the Internet has not amplified its effect even further.
The cynic in me says, however, that much of the organic/free range food in supermarkets isn't what I consider organic/free range. Thanks to the lobbying of Big Ag, labeling claims for food don't necessarily match our own definitions.
That said, I'm not suggesting we stop--we just need to become better educated.
"This 'voting with your dollars' thing is a bunch of bullshit."
At the risk of sounding overly stereotypical, the Jewish community seems to be pretty good at it, and they have built a very good community of support for themselves. Heck, I know people who still wont let anyone in their family buy German cars.
Yes, but a vote is a vote. Why people vote the way they do is irrelevant. Certainly, it's hard to get people to count business ethics as an economic factor, but clearly some do. My supermarket is full of products touting themselves as cruelty-free, or additive-free etc., and the number only seems to be growing. It's a slow process, but nowadays sustainability counts for a lot more with consumers than it used to do.
> It's virtually impossible to live in modern society
If you truly consider those "multinational companies" to be so unethical and dastardly, then don't. Live outside of modern society. Many people do. You do not.
> how is this different from a simple proposal that dissenters simply leave society ?
It isn't. If enough people leave, the old society disappears and a new one forms. If not enough people leave, then the people who left were morons and suffer for it. As simple as that.
The funny part is, everybody knows the above. It's a part of human nature. It's how new societies form and old ones disappear.
Any free trade involves an increase in value on both sides by definition. Cloudant takes the money and provides something that Monsanto values more than that money. If they didn't get that then they wouldn't be buying.
edit: my wife and I do in fact work at a local food coop and buy about 90% organic or at least locally grown; they sell a few products linked to companies like Monsanto but these are clearly labeled with things like "GMO" - we certainly don't go near them. But we're lucky enough to live in a place that actually has a non-profit food coop and the economic freedom to have the time to work in such a place.