[ceejayoz]

Those daily decisions are usually far removed from their externalities. Yes, people will choose the $5 shirt over the $10, but it's hardly a sign that people in our society endorse the child slave labor that's happening behind the scenes. Government regulation happens a lot when individual small decisions eventually lead to things society as a whole doesn't like.

[noarchy]

>Those daily decisions are usually far removed from their externalities. Yes, people will choose the $5 shirt over the $10, but it's hardly a sign that people in our society endorse the child slave labor that's happening behind the scenes. Government regulation happens a lot when individual small decisions eventually lead to things society as a whole doesn't like.

If people knowingly help that child labour scene to flourish, by what metric do we decide that "society" doesn't, in fact, like it, despite its actions? Election results? Pulling a lever or filling in a ballot every X years, by comparison, doesn't involve anything remotely close to that level of engagement and activity. Even writing the occasional letter to a legislator is a paltry amount of effort, by comparison.

I'm not intending to be glib here, I'm quite familiar with the arguments that equate society with representative government. I'm just interested in how representative such systems really are of said socieity.

[ceejayoz]

> If people knowingly help that child labour scene to flourish, by what metric do we decide that "society" doesn't, in fact, like it, despite its actions?

Completely false premise. They're not "knowingly" helping the child labor scene - they're just picking the cheap shirt. Walmart doesn't put up a sign "this stuff made with child slave labor!" - they might not even know themselves.

[noarchy]

>Completely false premise. They're not "knowingly" helping the child labor scene - they're just picking the cheap shirt. Walmart doesn't put up a sign "this stuff made with child slave labor!" - they might not even know themselves.

If Walmart did put up such a sign, it might have a shaming effect. Obviously they don't and we shouldn't expect it. People who are aware of what's going on can go in and out while plugging their ears, doing the equivalent of singing, "naah-naah" to the origins of their products.

Meanwhile, government, which I'm to understand is to be equated with society, seems to take no issue with trade with countries where such conditions prevail. Every once in a while, a politician (like Trump) will decry how China (as an example) does business, but there seems to be little action on that front.