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Have you ever made let 'ethics' influence a car-buying decision ? (and I'm not really thinking about an obvious one, like buying British-built ). I'm asking this because when I saw the Chinese 'bodyguards' to the olympic flame, it made me think I wouldn't buy a Honda Jazz/Fit made in China. This reminded me of a old Coronation Street episode where Ken Barlow bought a VW Beetle and Albert Tatlock wouldn't get in it because it was 'Jerry' built.
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It's not influenced me, but I wondered why so many orthodox Jewish men drive Volvos.
A Jewish colleague expressed the view that they would actually like BMWs, but couldn't bring themselves to buy a German vehicle, so went for the next best thing.
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If you are British, why is it 'more ethical' to buy a British car?
Why should your compatriots be any more worthy of your business than 'Jonny Foreigner'?
I would suggest that the most 'ethical' place to buy a car from is a so-called 'sweat-shop' economy like China or India.
This is because your money will be used to help raise the standard of living of former agrarian peasants to, eventually, something approaching our own.
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If you're concerned about ethics, is it right to own a car at all these days?
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I can see where you're coming from on this. It would be nice to always to deal with nice people or nice companies or nice countries.It would be good if we could find out exactly whether a potential business contract (of any kind, in this case car purchase..) involved dealing with an unsavoury party. But ask yourself this - do you know that all the employees of the 'unethical' car maker have done anything wrong or unethical - would they 'suffer' unfairly if you boycotted them?. Do you know whether the car dealer, salesperson or dealership chain might have done something unethical? It gets difficult.
You might even think twice about your local newsagent when you buy your newspaper - is he a wife-beater behind closed doors? Has the newspaper ever printed an erroneous story that damaged an innocent person?
Not trying to brush off your concerns in any way, but proxy ethical dilemmas of the nature you describe can throw up more questions than answers sometimes.
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Lounge Lizard, whilst our workers then lose out and the plants eventually close? I doubt many former Coventry Peugeot employee's standard of living has improved since that closed three years ago.
China, India, Eastern Europe, South Africa is cheap labour - nothing more. The decision to put plants there had nothing whatsoever to do with ethics.
Edited by Sulphur Man on 05/06/2008 at 19:34
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I used to buy cars made in ethics - but Ford don't make them in Dagenham anymore...
I'll get my coat.
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I'll get my coat.
>>
I think you ought to
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 05/06/2008 at 22:07
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To my youngest daughter this would be a matter of rejecting anything with leather upholstery or anything too pretentious or comfortable; to my wife a matter of economy and respectable invisibility. Setting aside the question of whether it is ethical to have a car at all, raised above, I think this boils down to a question of personal economics. If I were richer I would certainly have better cars, to put it crudely.
I have generally resisted the temptation to go into debt for cars I fancied. I only did it once, and ended up feeling a bit of an idiot and a bit of a carphound, although of course I could stand it and it did no real harm. I do live in some fear of not being able to afford one at all.
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I'm pretty much with woodbines on this one. In theory it sounds good, but it is rarely simple.
I might, however, hesitate before buying a car made in, say, China or Turkey (see tinyurl.com/4p9z48) - but to be completely consistent in this matter is pretty difficult.
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How about some compassion for impoverished individual Chinese and Indians?
These are people who are dragging themselves out of medieval poverty through extreme hard work and enterprise. And it's a win-win situation for us in the UK, we get new Fridge-freezers for £300 off 'em!
Same applies to Eastern Europe and South Africa - individuals are a fair bit wealthier than in China & India but still A LOT poorer than us in the UK.
It's always a sad thing when British car workers loose their jobs en masse; but their loss is small compared to the gain enjoyed by the workers in poorer countries who get jobs in new car industries.
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This is because your money will be used to help raise the standard of living of the directors of major multinational corporations and their shareholders.
There, fixed that for you.
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... it made me think I wouldn't buy a Honda Jazz/Fit made in China.
Almost everything in your life will have some contribution to its make up that can be traced to China.
Test this theory by picking any item you wish, and then see how far back you need to go to find a Chinese connection.
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Lounge Lizard said: >> your money will be used to help raise the standard of living of former agrarian peasants to, eventually, something approaching our own. >>
Over a very long time, maybe. I wonder if, once the construction's done, the plant doesn't become a bit like tourist resorts in poor African countries: the money largely goes elsewhere.
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People in poor countries still have to have jobs to go to. It wouldn't do them much good to boycott products made at huge profit but sold affordably using their labour. If it could be organised, which it probably couldn't, such a boycott would just put them out of work.
I know someone though who wouldn't buy a German car, although he likes them. He isn't Jewish either, just bigoted and old-fashioned in some ways. But this sort of faffing about what are anyway globalised and international industries won't normally have much effect, because most people quite rightly can't be bothered with it. We are all compromised with the global system in all its murky, garish glory however virtuous we may imagine we are.
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Buying cars from 'sweat-shop' countries such as China and India is, actually, benefiting those countries - to the detriment of our economy. That is why India and China are on their way up while good old UK plc is descending towards 3rd world status.
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Buying cars from 'sweat-shop' countries such as China and India is actually benefiting those countries.
Ethical consumerism is not a simple matter.
No one in this thread has suggested that it it is unethical to buy products made in 'sweat-shop conditions' - though there are probably a few people who do believe this.
The example that the OP raised was the issue of buying products made in a nation which has an unusually brutal approach toward dissent.
China is a particularly interesting case because there are two big problems people tend to have with China. One is their general brutality to their citizenry, particularly ideological dissenters. The other is their treatment of Tibet.
Where a non-democratic government is brutal to its citizens, it seems to me that few of its hard pressed citizens would want us to boycott their products.
But where a government is involved in brutal treatment of a minority (or another country - as with China and Tibet), and the majority of the citizens of the country (in this case China) appear to have no problems with the treatment of the minority, then I think that it would not be unreasonable of a consumer who was sympathetic to the plight of the minority to avoid buying a car (or other product) from that country.
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On ethical grounds shouldn?t we look closer to home?
Maybe we should boycott British/American goods....
Going to war to grab resources / and control over strategic lands?
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I don't believe in letting another country's internal affairs affect my life. It's none of my business. Most of the world's troubles are caused by people not knowing their place. If another country threatened Britain that would be a different matter.
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Interesting thread.
I have an aversion to most things Japanese/Chinese, and where possible try to buy British or at least European built products - not just cars but electrical appliances, etc. Or at least from British/European companies, if not actual products, on the basis that at least the design was probably in UK/Europe even if the manufacturing wasn't.
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I buy the best product for me at the cheapest price I can find. The alternative for a sweatshop worker is often slow starvation. The third world is poor and hungry mainly due to corrupt and inefficient government. Look at Zimbabwe.
I drive japanese cars because they do what I want at a price I'm willing to pay. What the emperor did 60 years ago is irrelevant to me.
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I'm certainly having second thoughts about automatically replacing Mrs BP's Jazz with a new Jaz as it will be built in China.
OK, Chinese products can't be avoided in all cases, and there's so little money in most consumer goods now that even China is becoming an expensive place to make things.
However, all things being more or less equal, it would be great to buy a vehicle which had at least been assembled in the UK, and we'll be looking seriously at Nissan Note.
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