cool. will i be able to afford socially responsible products?

Well, economists say that a rational person armed with perfect information will always make the right economic decision for him or herself. I hope that part of that rationality includes caring about the social policies and impacts of companies.

I can now find out the environmental impact of my Etnies... sweet!

Great link! Thanks.

That's more or less a tautological statement. When an economist says it or anyone else does.

This is where people's "preferences" come in. More and more people are thinking this kind of thing matters.

It's only a tautology if you believe that one thing automatically leads to another. I don't believe in either a perfectly rational human being or the possibility of perfect information, nor do I believe that most buying decisions are made rationally anyway.

I agree, but in my current mental state I have little faith in people making choices that would inconvenience them or cost them even a little extra money. But maybe I have too little faith.

OK, let's split the philosophical question from the empirical one.

It's tautological precisely in that it is not causal. It's definitional.

A "rational actor" is one who makes the best decisions from themselves, given their available options and the best information available. That's the kind of working definition that "rational actor theorists" (whether economists, sociologists or political scientists) would employ.

When you say "I don't believe in either a perfectly rational human being ...nor do I believe that most buying decisions are made rationally", you almost certainly have a much more restrictive definition of "rationality" than a typical rational actor theorist would.

Now to the empirical question.

People are already starting to vote with their feet regarding "fair trade coffee" and "free range eggs" and so on. These are decisions where political ethics are tangibly affecting personal preferences.

Let's see where it goes form here. Further provision of information is a key part of this process, of course.

yeah, but amazon quite often has the same type of product listed by two different suppliers at two different prices.

I think his point was that now that he has a way of knowing which is the socially responsible product, will he be able to shop with his conscience or still need to shop with his wallet...

To be fair to commonman, I think his point is that if one utilises this information based on ethical/political considerations, one might decide to switch to more ethical (and less cheap) products because the cheap producer of mp3 players is exploiting Namibian goat-herders or something.

So, at some point, a choice has to be made about whether to shell out for the free-range fair-trade no-sweatshop unionised-labour health-care-plan-offering mp3 player.

I think that's the point anyway.

They're actually doing a great thing. It's a beautiful bit of detournement, really - taking the Amazon selection and subjecting it to user-defined social and ecological responsibility criteria. It's very fledgling, but will grow grow grow if people support the concept. Ideally, it's a concept that will be copied far and wide, adding powerful pressure to manufacturers and providing a more level playing field for small producers who make the effort to do things "the right way."
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Right.

I'm thinking back to the thread where Monastrell was arguing that restaurants shouldn't be regulated regarding food quality (as in, safety).

The libertarian argument is that food providers have an incentive to maintain quality standards, without need for costly regulation.

Now I think where the possibility exists of sudden and undetectable changes in food quality with possible implications for human health, some official regulation and legal penalty is required.

But this is a good case where a non-governmental approach to oversight is likely to be the way to go, and it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out over time.

[Edited on Aug 24, 2005 by TheFuckOffKid]