Richard Branson bloodied by cycling crash after hitting pothole and falling "hard"

Rich_cb wrote:

I haven't claimed that at all. I've pointed out that instead of making frivolous discretionary purchases people in the UK could use some of their enormous wealth to ameliorate global suffering.

Can they do both? If I don't give away so much that I can't afford a nice coffee sometimes, is it still too hypocritical of me to criticise the unethically gained wealth of billionaires?

Quote:

Please don't try and deliberately mislead. If you want to know how much an ethical cup of coffee costs then do some research, find genuine ethical companies and look at what they charge. That should give you a ball park figure for how much ethical coffee should be costing. If a cup of coffee is a lot less than that then corners are being cut somewhere.

So again, it sounds an awful lot like you're being naive enough to assume that the cost of the beans has a noticeable impact on the cost of the cup of coffee. Do you seriously believe that is the case? Multi-billion dollar companies have to short change the farmers in order to make their product cheap enough for westerners to buy?  Cos hoooo boy, do I have some news for you if that's the case.

You seem to be deliberately trying to steer this discussion away from general principles and into semantics.

Ethical coffee beans cost more than mass market coffee beans. A company that pays its employees a living wage with good sick pay and other benefits will have higher staffing costs. Running a business in an environmentally sustainable way will often cost more than the alternative. An ethical cup of coffee will cost more than an unethical one.

As a consumer you have a responsibility to research these things.

Price isn't the only thing to judge but it is a good indicator to start with. The cheapest meat in the supermarket is very unlikely to also have the highest welfare standards etc.

Rich_cb wrote:

You seem to be deliberately trying to steer this discussion away from general principles and into semantics.

I'm desperately trying to find out what your general principles are apart from an insistence that buying more expensive things is bad while buying cheaper things is also bad, that consumers are directly responsible for everything the market does while they're also very often not, and that none of us should be criticising billionaires unless we make some ethical sacrifices, which we very often do. I mean, I have asked what the point you're trying to make is on several occasions and I really don't think we're any closer to it yet.

Quote:

Ethical coffee beans cost more than mass market coffee beans. A company that pays its employees a living wage with good sick pay and other benefits will have higher staffing costs. Running a business in an environmentally sustainable way will often cost more than the alternative. An ethical cup of coffee will cost more than an unethical one.

Again though, we're here at the point of you thinking that the cost of goods and the cost of running the business directly impacts the retail price. But what happens when the retail price is set by what the market will sustain? Then there's a complete disconnect. Bad costs as much as good, if not more. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pitta...

You're deliberately misrepresenting what I have said and, to be honest, it's getting quite tedious.

If you don't think that the cost of running the business and buying raw materials impacts the cost of the product produced then you are delusional.

It's possible for an unethical product to be priced as expensively as an ethical product but it will be more profitable as a consequence.

As a.consumer you have a responsibility to look into the products and services you use and only choose those that operate ethically. That may mean paying more.

Rich_cb wrote:

You're deliberately misrepresenting what I have said and, to be honest, it's getting quite tedious.

Is that a confident assurance? Or can't you remember?

Rich_cb wrote:

Is that a confident assurance? Or can't you remember?

That you castigating others for deliberate misrepresentation and being tedious is ironic beyond measure? That is most definitely a 100% confident assurance.

We've previously established that you don't really know what that means so ironically we can't have much confidence in that assurance.

Rich_cb wrote:

You're deliberately misrepresenting what I have said and, to be honest, it's getting quite tedious. If you don't think that the cost of running the business and buying raw materials impacts the cost of the product produced then you are delusional.

See above. The cost of the coffee that goes into a £2.50 cup is <£0.01. It's delusional to think the market rate of a high street cup of coffee is connected to that cost.

Quote:

It's possible for an unethical product to be priced as expensively as an ethical product but it will be more profitable as a consequence.

Exactly! Finally you agree with what I'm saying, yet you still seem to be deliberately misunderstanding the implication.

Again, you're deliberately misrepresenting what I've said.

You're talking about coffee beans whilst I've clearly mentioned the overall costs of running the business AND buying the raw materials.

It is possible for an unethical product to be priced similarly to an ethical product but that isn't always the case. As I e repeatedly said the onus is on the customer to do the research, price can be a useful guide however.

Rich_cb wrote:

Again, you're deliberately misrepresenting what I've said. You're talking about coffee beans whilst I've clearly mentioned the overall costs of running the business AND buying the raw materials.

I'm pretty sure that you are misrepresenting what you've said at this point. In this case, the vast majority of the ethical problem is with the cost of the raw materials. Unless your western high street coffee shop is hiding a child labourer under the counter the serious exploitation is at the <£0.01 per cup level. Any coffee chain you've ever heard of could make a huge change at that end of the supply chain and not change their prices one bit. The fact that you're now talking about the entire cost of running their business including everything that is entirely irrelevant to the customer's ethical responsibilities is entirely disingenuous.

Quote:

As I e repeatedly said the onus is on the customer to do the research, price can be a useful guide however.

It can be - but as you've just agreed it also very much cannot be.

You're the one who's become fixated on the cost of coffee beans. Ethics don't just apply to raw materials. As I've pointed out already in this discussion.

Right from the start of the discussion I've talked about ethical business practice. If you think the only part of a coffee shop that could be more/less ethical is the beans then you're hopelessly ignorant.

Staff pay, staff sick pay, holiday entitlement, parental leave etc. All major costs and all subject to significant variation between different businesses.Thats before we even consider all other materials in use. Milk, takeaway cups, cup carriers etc etc.

Your responsibility as a consumer is to consume ethically, that means looking at all aspects of a business you use and also, considering whether you actually need to consume any given product.

That's the general principle.

Rich_cb wrote:

You're the one who's become fixated on the cost of coffee beans. Ethics don't just apply to raw materials. As I've pointed out already in this discussion. Right from the start of the discussion I've talked about ethical business practice.

Right from the start of this discussion you've been talking about how staggeringly wealthy everyone in the UK is compared to the rest of the world and why we shouldn't be criticising billionaires while hoarding our own staggering wealth. Since a British coffee shop worker is already enormously wealthy compared to a Zimbabwean coffee farm worker it seems odd to complain about something as trivial as holiday entitlement, doesn't it? It certainly seems incredibly disingenuous of you to put them on the same level after everything else you've said about the enormous wealth we all have. 

It definitely sounds like you now think most of us in the UK are being oppressed by billionaire corporations and really do have some legitimate redistribution of wealth causes to complain about. Which, I'll be honest, comes as a surprise.

Quote:

Your responsibility as a consumer is to consume ethically, that means looking at all aspects of a business you use and also, considering whether you actually need to consume any given product.

And if you're unable to find out info on every aspect of every facet of every business you ever buy things from, every aspect of every facet of every other business in their supply chain, you can't complain about people who've actively decided to employ child labour as a profit maximisation strategy?

Just because people in the UK are staggeringly wealthy on a global scale doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated ethically.

Consumers have a responsibility to do research into the products they buy.

If the information about child labour was readily available but you bought the product anyway I'd suggest you weren't in a moral position to criticise many people.

If the information isn't readily available or is actively hidden then consumers can be excused their ignorance.

Rich_cb wrote:

Just because people in the UK are staggeringly wealthy on a global scale doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated ethically.

What's unethical about being paid an enormous amount of money on a global scale?

Can't the boss point to the fact that a person in Zimbabwe would give their right arm to be paid that same amount? Wouldn't they be correct?

Everybody deserves ethical treatment.

You can keep trying to build your straw men if you like but I'm getting bored.

The discussions about global inequality and ethical consumerism are separate. Trying to conflate them to score some points is not really going to work.

Rich_cb wrote:

I'm getting bored.

I knew we'd agree on something sooner or later.

Rich_cb wrote:

You cannot remove responsibility from the customer. Ultimately without the customer there is no market. If you go to a shop and buy something you have responsibility for the production of that product.

If you bought something at a Post Office any time in the last 25 years, is Horizon your fault?

Given that it's been a monopoly for much of that time I'd argue no.

Consumers only have a responsibility in a free market.

Rich_cb wrote:

Given that it's been a monopoly for much of that time I'd argue no. Consumers only have a responsibility in a free market.

So if you used it to send a parcel you could have used Fedex for instead, Horizon is your fault? Just as much as Paula Vennels, just as much as Fujitsu, just as much as the people who hid evidence and lied to the courts... That's on you?

Well - if you sent a parcel of rogues to a parliament - (presumably Rich would conceed elections are a kind of a free market* ... of politicians and parties [ or lizards, as Douglas Adams suggested ] ) and *they* presided over such a "monopoly" ... perhaps it would be?

* Of course this is a concept that people are unlikely to agree on - or even if they exist and where... Hmm, probably need more dimensions on the political hypercube.

This is descending into a bit of a straw man argument.

If you buy a product or service in a free market you should take the responsibility to check that the company is operating in a way that you are happy with as you share responsibility for its actions.

If that information is completely concealed from you, as per Horizon, then you're not responsible.

If the information is publicly available you're responsible.

Rich_cb wrote:

This is descending into a bit of a straw man argument. If you buy a product or service in a free market you should take the responsibility to check that the company is operating in a way that you are happy with as you share responsibility for its actions. If that information is completely concealed from you, as per Horizon, then you're not responsible. If the information is publicly available you're responsible.

No, it's a you man. You said "You cannot remove responsibility from the customer."

It's not my fault you said that when what you actually meant was "You can remove responsibility from the customer and companies run by billionaires often try very, very hard to do that."

Consumers bear responsibility for the production of the products that they buy.

An exception can sometimes be made in the case of fraud on the part of the product supplier.

So, to rephrase.

You cannot remove responsibility from a customer in a free market where all pertinent information is available.

Hope that's clarified it enough for you.

In reality most ethically questionable products can be uncovered with a few quick online searches.

Rich_cb wrote:

Consumers bear responsibility for the production of the products that they buy.

Cool, consumers sometimes have responsibility for buying known unethical products, but bosses always have responsibility for making unethical production decisions. Remind me again why this means it's unfair to criticise them?

I never said we shouldn't criticise bosses of unethical companies.

Please don't try and deliberately mislead.

Rich_cb wrote:

I never said we shouldn't criticise bosses of unethical companies.

"If you're not willing to take responsibility for your own actions then don't criticise others for acting in a similar fashion."

Quote:

Please don't try and deliberately mislead.

Yeah. Exactly...

I actually said earlier in the thread that we should not use the products of unethical companies and write to the company to explain why.

The quote you've produced was not related to unethical companies.

Please don't try to deliberately mislead.

Rich_cb wrote:

I actually said earlier in the thread that we should not use the products of unethical companies and write to the company to explain why. The quote you've produced was not related to unethical companies.

So it was a semantic argument and not a general principle?

In some very specific situations we should not criticise others if we don't take responsibility, but in most other situations we can?

You shouldn't criticise others for their actions if you act in a similar way.

If you run a large multinational company in a deliberately unethical way then you shouldn't criticise other evil plutocrats.

If you don't then criticise away.

In a free market consumer choice is hugely influential. Stop using an unethical product and let the company know why. If enough of us follow suit then change will occur.