With all the recent analyzing and proselytizing of ethical consumption surrounding the goods sold by a potential Dollar General opening in Oakhurst, I got to wondering: why do we spend so much time obsessing about how “green”, “sustainable”, and “equitable” our consumer choices are, while wasting so little breath on our own production choices (aka our jobs)?

An extreme example, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

You do your fair share of purchasing fair-trade clothing, local food, and cloth diapers, but your paychecks are signed by BP.  The counter-example could be that your low-paying – but quite ethical and environmentally friendly – job requires you to purchase everything at lowest possible cost.

With so many of the world’s affluent class working “white collar” jobs, we’re now often more degrees away from what our companies actually produce than we are to Kevin Bacon, making it relatively easy to ignore how “green” and “ethical” our jobs are.  So instead we  self-identify based on the stuff we purchase.

However, if certain segments of the population choose to evaluate themselves based on their impact on the world (including your impact on other people), isn’t your participation in production just as important as your consumer choices?

Is this just a product of “consumer culture”?