Conscious Consumption

It is of course difficult to assign a specific quantitative value to the "goodness" or absence of "goodness" in a specific economic transaction.

As consumers, however, we may have a real opportunity to increase the overall quantum of goodness in the marketplace for goods and services if, for example, we can introduce a "bias to goodness" in our consumption decisions. This can work two ways: given equal prices between two consumption options, we can buy more of the choice that we believe has the greater "weighting" of goodness, and less of its competitor, or alternatively we can accept to pay a premium for the option that imbeds the greater quantum of goodness, or to demand a discount for the option that is less good. Of course, conscious consumption of this kind requires good information to enable us to assign sensible "goodness" weightings to our choices. More on this in a subsequent post. For now though, suffice it to say that a conscious consumption movement, reasonably informed as to the relative goodness of key consumer choices, would in the end bring to bear the full force of the marketplace on the increase of the common good. Philalethes believes this is a thought worth pursuing.