The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture (Culture and Economic Life)

When people encounter consumer goods--sugar, clothes, phones--they find little to no information about their origins. The goods will thus remain anonymous, and the labor that went into making them, the supply chain through which they traveled, will remain obscured. In this book, Tad Skotnicki argues that this encounter is an endemic feature of capitalist societies, and one with which consumers have struggled for centuries in the form of activist movements constructed around what he calls The Sympathetic Consumer . This book documents the uncanny similarities shared by such movements over the course of three centuries: the transatlantic abolitionist movement, US and English consumer movements around the turn of the twentieth century, and contemporary Fair Trade activism. Offering a comparative historical study of consumer activism the book shows, in vivid detail, how activists wrestled with the broader implications of commodity exchange. These activists arrived at a common understanding of the relationship between consumers, producers, and commodities, and concluded that consumers were responsible for sympathizing with invisible laborers. Ultimately, Skotnicki provides a framework to identify a capitalist culture by examining how people interpret everyday phenomena essential to it. When people encounter consumer goods-sugar, clothes, phones-they find little to no information about their origins. The goods will thus remain anonymous, and the labor that went into making them, the supply chain through which they traveled, will remain obscured. In this book, Tad Skotnicki argues that this encounter is an endemic feature of capitalist societies, and one with which consumers have struggled for centuries in the form of activist movements constructed around what he calls The Sympathetic Consumer. 0This book documents the uncanny similarities shared by such movements over the course of three centuries: the transatlantic abolitionist movement, US and English consumer movements around the turn of the twentieth century, and contemporary Fair Trade activism. Offering a comparative historical study of consumer activism the book shows, in vivid detail, how activists wrestled with the broader implications of commodity exchange. These activists arrived at a common understanding of the relationship between consumers, producers, and commodities, and concluded that consumers were responsible for sympathizing with invisible laborers. Ultimately, Skotnicki provides a framework to identify a capitalist culture by examining how people interpret everyday phenomena essential to it "When people encounter goods in the marketplace - sugar, clothes, phones, etc. - there is a slim chance they will seek information about the origins of those goods. Far more likely is that the goods will remain anonymous, and the labor that went into making them, the supply chain through which they traveled, will stay mysterious, distant, unacknowledged. In this book, Tad Skotnicki argues that this phenomenon is an endemic feature of capitalist societies"-- Quatrième de couverture "When people encounter goods in the marketplace - sugar, clothes, phones, etc. - there is a slim chance they will seek information about the origins of those goods. Far more likely is that the goods will remain anonymous, and the labor that went into making them, the supply chain through which they traveled, will stay mysterious, distant, unacknowledged. In this book, Tad Skotnicki argues that this phenomenon is an endemic feature of capitalist societies"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 1 The Rise of the Sympathetic Consumer 12 2 Abolitionist Visions 44 3 Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Visions 68 4 Practicing Sympathetic Consumption 97 5 Moral Arguments 124 6 The Sympathetic Consumer, Challenged 154 7 Whither the Sympathetic Consumer? 183 Notes 206 Bibliography 246 Index 270 A 270 B 270 C 271 D 273 E 273 F 273 G 273 H 274 I 274 J 274 K 274 L 274 M 275 N 275 O 275 P 275 Q 276 R 276 S 276 T 277 U 278 V 278 W 278 Z 278 What the struggle to make consumption ethical reveals about our world