What is selective consumerism?

Selective consumerism is the ability of consumers to use their purchases as a vote - hopefully, to positively affect the world. Selective consumerism is buying change. It's about saying, "I want the future to be better than today."

Countless corporations, only some of which are based in the United States, have one motive: appeasing shareholders. Typically, shareholders care about one thing: ROI, or Return on Investment. Therefore, corporations myopically search out profit, perpetually losing sight of cost/benefit for the world outside the corporation. For example, if a corporation can legally but profitably pollute the environment via a loophole in the law, even though the corporation knows the pollution is harmful, most often it will. Since the corporation is technically not doing anything wrong and reaping profits, layers of insulation obscure any moral questions.

This is not leadership. This, ultimately, only benefits consumers in the short run, if it keeps costs down. Nonetheless, ultimately, the consumer, as citizen, will pay for the clean up of this pollution - as the profitable corporation seeks new loopholes to increase profit.

Technology, including the Internet, provides consumers more choices, and the ability to vote with their choices. Do you want to buy a product that destroys people's lives, simply because it's cheap? Or, perhaps you would prefer to vote for products that are profitable, but that also make the world a better place at the same time?

I'll be doing a series of articles that focus on the hybrid car as an extreme example of selective consumerism. It's my personal favorite because it’s a big ticket item that truly has the potential to change the world.