Last week, one of my online friends asked if it was ethical to buy a used car from someone who was an overt racist. I told him certainly, if it was a good car at a fair price. I then pointed out that every one of us does business with dozens of racists & people with even worse character traits every day; we just don’t know it. One of the costs of living in a complex modern society is that you know zero about 99% of the people you need to interact with. How does a merchant know anything about the character of most of the people who buy things from his store? He doesn’t, and that’s OK. Here’s a personal example: There’s a very good chance that any given woman I interact with in public supports the sending of armed thugs to rape, rob and cage me and most of the people I love. If I had to stop interacting with such people I would simply have to stay home and never buy anything (NB: I say “woman” because studies show far more women than men are in favor of the government dispatching armed thug rape squads to destroy the lives of other women). If a person’s or company’s behavior offends you and you can get the same service or product from another who doesn’t, by all means go to the other. But in most cases you either don’t know or else there’s no real alternative, and you’ll harm yourself more by obsessing over this than your one-person boycott could possibly ever do to induce the offender to change their ways.
Pick Your Battles
December 8, 2017 by Maggie McNeill
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Remember you work hard for your money so if you don’t like a merchant or you know he is a racist I wouldn’t give them a cent that I make. He may not be affected by little ol me not buying from the store, but they won’t get a cent of my hard earned money I’ll go elsewhere no store has a monopoly…..
Your views on this mirror mine exactly. Denying yourself goods and services that would improve your life is self-punishment. I do not want to punish myself in my zeal to punish others.
There is also the other problem that if you stop making the thing on offer the primary concern in a small (!) trade, that you are at risk to create and participate in witch-hunts. After all, you cannot do a thorough check of the seller every time and hence may have to rely on rumor and other unreliable indicators. That would be far worse and you may even help people that you are opposed to that way.
Of course, if things are indeed very obvious and alternatives are available, you may see this differently, but even there keep in mind that trading with people keeps a communication channel open. It is always better to keep communicating with people even if you do not like them. Some common ground (the trade) is better than none.