Buying as political message: Advocacy consumerism is growing

The Veggie Lady, alas, was nowhere to be found.

"We always go to her first," says Cat Clifford, scanning the rows of stalls at the Ballard Farmers Market for their favorite vendor. "We like her."

"She has fiiine vegetables," adds her boyfriend, Aaron Bush.

The couple are on a hunt for carrots, and only farmers' market-quality will do. It's important that they buy their produce straight from the grower, they say, and it has to be organic.

That stand over there is selling Costco-sized portions, which would only go to waste considering it's just the two of them plus their new baby, Cecily. Can't go to that other stand, either — not organic.

Bush, 28, and Clifford, 29, are, of course, shopping. But it's a little bit more than swinging by a farmer's produce stand. To them, each small purchase — from food to clothing to that new energy-efficient refrigerator — is a carefully thought-out piece of a larger plan to express their political beliefs through the things they buy.

As traditional outlets such as voting are increasingly seen as less-relevant ways to effect change, consumer power is taking hold with young people as a viable form of political expression, says Lance Bennett, director of the University of Washington's Center for Communication and Civic Engagement.

"The idea of a 'dutiful citizen' is an older-generation idea," he says. "There's an increasing sense of people wanting to work out their own personal political vocabulary."

Young people are more involved in less-traditional modes of civic involvement, according to a 2003 study by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement based at the University of Maryland.

About 52 percent of those surveyed had declined to buy something because of conditions under which it was made, the study showed, and 44 percent had intentionally bought something for the same reasons.

Aaron Bush holds a piece of UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation, made from mostly old denim jeans. Bush and his partner are using it in their house in Ballard.

While Clifford and Bush both vote, they see conscious consumerism as a more effective way to express their beliefs about over-consumption, oil dependency, pollution, working conditions and the environment.

"I guess I see it as being in some ways more powerful than voting," Bush says. "To me, it's a more direct, active way to promote what you believe in."

The new generation of economic activists are called political consumers, ethical consumers and a host of other similar names. They seek change through boycotts — intentionally avoiding a product out of political considerations — and buy-cotts — choosing only products that meet personal political ideals.

Some join a network of buyers working toward tangible change. Others make individual choices they hope will make a difference. It's a strategy that stretches from the country's foundation to today's headlines, from the Boston Tea Party to "freedom fries."

Economic clout

There is also a growing number of organizations to help people make smart choices, such as Co-op America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conscious consumerism.

"We're using an economic strategy to create change," says spokeswoman Amanda Chehrezad. "How you spend your money is how you're going to be supporting certain types of practices."

The organization provides an online searchable database at www.responsibleshopper.org, where consumers can research companies to decide which to invest in or buy from.

For example, a search for Triscuit brings up Nabisco, which lists its parent company, Kraft; its 84 brands; and the fact that it has a nondiscrimination employment policy that includes sexual orientation. It also shows that the company conducts animal testing and spent nearly $2 billion on federal lobbying in 2000.

Chehrezad says the group's campaigning efforts were directly responsible for Proctor & Gamble's offering fair-trade coffee, which is reportedly grown under good environmental and working conditions, to such stores as Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger (QFC locally) earlier this year.

That Co-op America focused on an issue that addresses globalization underscores one of the key reasons young people are so involved in political consumerism. Those born in and after the 1970s were raised in an era of increased global awareness, Bennett says, as well as one in which the world is increasingly shaped by brand names.

Simply telling young people to vote out of a sense of civic duty, say, is a hard fit with a new brand of personal politics, he says. Hooking them through issue politics is a closer-to-home way to generate interest.

For Bush and Clifford, their political beliefs also influenced their decisions on renovation of their Ballard home. Choosing only materials they feel good about is a painstaking process of research into this fireplace or that insulation, but it's important that they choose the most efficient, healthful and sustainable products available. Even if they cost a little more.

Bush is a carpenter with well-placed investments. Clifford recently quit her job at an art gallery to concentrate on painting and the baby. Especially now, the couple spend a lot of time thinking about the effects their choices have.

It would have been easier to get those carrots at the grocery store. Just like it would be easier to get building materials from Home Depot, rather than go on quests for products that are recycled, salvaged, clean-burning or energy-efficient. Their new wood-burning fireplace puts out 1/80th the pollutants of a traditional hearth, they say, and their insulation is made of fire-retardant recycled blue jeans.

"You really have to put forth a lot of effort," Bush says. "You're basically rejecting the norm."

Drift in direction

But unless each young consumer is part of a larger network, the question becomes: How does one person's choice to buy only organic milk really make a political difference?

"At that level, it depends on how the individual thinks of it," Bennett says. "It can make a difference if consumers begin to drift in particular directions and the market responds."

One case in point is recycling. What was at first an overtly political and environmental effort has evolved into a common practice most people do and don't even think about. But it's not yet the ultimate success story, Bennett says, because people don't buy recycled products at the same rate they recycle.

A better example would be the fight for product safety, he says. About 100 years ago, it was a hotly contested issue that companies should create products that weren't harmful to the consumer. Today, nobody would think of having it any other way.

Young political consumers aren't yet effecting widespread change, says David Smith, executive director of Mobilizing America's Youth, an organization that encourages young people's activism.

The appeal of seeing direct results and instant gratification comes into play, Smith says, and young people are more likely to become involved if they can see the change their own two hands can make.

The study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement showed that young people volunteer in their communities in large numbers. And while more then 80 percent of those interviewed had never contacted a public official (compared with 63 percent of those over 25), about half have helped raise money for a charitable cause — nearly the same number as their older peers.

As young people's involvement in social issues increases, Smith reasons, more will gravitate toward traditional politics.

"If we can make the connection between the work that they're doing and how that work can be approached at the root, through government and through politics, then we can show them that government can be a place where we can fix the ills of society," he says.

And he hopes to harness and focus young people's buying power.

"That, ultimately, is the key to the power of our generation," he says. "It's a power that we possess; we just need to learn how to use it."

Lisa Heyamoto: 206-464-2149 or lheyamoto@seattletimes.com