Personal Ethics in the Corporate World
by Elizabeth Doty
11/19/2007
a strategy+business exclusive
© 2007 Booz & Company Inc. All rights reserved.
strategy+business
leadingIDEAS
Personal Ethics
in the Corporate World
How to confront the moral tensions inherent in corporate life
and come out with your ethics intact.
1
by Elizabeth Doty
I
n today’s high-pressure work environment, it is not
unusual for conflicts to arise between our values as
individuals and the compromises that we must
make for our organizations. After interviewing people
who had struggled to remain true to their personal values, I explored this dilemma in “Winning the Devil’s
Bargain,” published in the Spring 2007 issue of strategy+business, and then discussed it in an s+b online seminar. The response to the seminar was so enthusiastic
that there wasn’t enough time to address all of the
audience questions. Here, I take on some of the unanswered queries.
I am an instructor in a business school; my area of
focus is sustainability and corporate social responsibility [CSR]. What do you think is important to convey
to young people or students about developing the
“bigger game”? How can they maintain a sense of
realistic idealism?
The moment when we leave business school and enter
the workforce is a crucial one. It’s a time when we tend to
squelch our own aspirations based on assumptions about
making a living or on a difficult experience. Addressing
this pattern is especially important as more companies
embrace sustainability and CSR, so the inevitable challenges of institutions don’t discourage us. That said, here
are a few points to help those about to embark.
• Figure out what your bigger game is. It is probably a combination of what you believe needs to be done
in the world and your particular strengths and preferences. In fact, I would almost say that wherever you see
barriers, those are potential bigger games. Another
ingredient of an effective bigger game is that you are
likely to be able to meet your basic needs while pursuing it. This is about the long haul; it requires us to sustain ourselves, but not to sacrifice ourselves.
• Don’t expect a predefined path. Too often people
assume that the only valid paths are those that are well
publicized. Once you find your bigger game, you will
probably have to seek out the unique settings where you
can pursue it. As one young person I interviewed said,
“I’d really prefer to work on something that is of service.
But they weren’t recruiting for that.”
• Challenge the simplistic dichotomy of “good
guys/bad guys.” Study what limits and enables organi-
zations to live up to their aspirations, and learn about
the crucial role of followers — so you don’t become disillusioned when even the most inspired organization
struggles to stay true.
• Adopt an ongoing practice for broadening your
thinking. This was the source of continued growth and
realignment for many of those I interviewed. Some
examples of such practices could include reading books
outside your area of expertise, giving yourself a “pulse
strategy+business
leadingIDEAS
Elizabeth Doty
(edoty@worklore.com) is an organizational
consultant, a 12-year veteran of the hotel
industry, a Harvard MBA, and a “recovering
reengineer.” Her firm, WorkLore, applies
systems thinking, simulation, and storytelling for clients in manufacturing, high
tech, financial services, educational testing, and real estate operations. Her Weblog
is http://devilsbargain.wordpress.com/.
2
check” every five years, or sustaining friendships with
those in other spheres.
Would starting my own business help me avoid compromising my values?
Starting a business can be a promising solution for
some of us, but we need to recognize the additional
strains it creates. It does free us to be the architect of
our own commitments and choices and theoretically
to be truer to what we value. It allows us to craft innovative offerings, and can offer us the flexibility to pursue more than just money — especially if the
company is private.
But starting a business also puts us in direct contact with the forces that probably led our prior organizations to their compromises. We must still engage
with the larger business context as we obtain financing,
hire employees, and market our products. Is our new
cause so valuable that we feel justified in promising the
investors whatever it takes to get the funding? Will our
employees now withhold some of the truth out of deference to our authority? One dedicated leader who left
the corporate world to run a small business described
to me how challenging it is to remember our deeper
beliefs in the midst of keeping a business alive.
I think the key is to remember that we are not
inherently the good guys just because we start out with
good intent. It takes a lot to evade the self-justifying tendencies that all of us confront. Knowing that, we may
be just the ones who can meet the challenge of running
a business while remaining true.
How can we as consultants help our clients make ethical decisions and not cross over to the “dark side”?
There is an important opportunity here that is not
often named. As David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz
described in “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” [s+b,
Summer 2006], the amount of attention we devote to
something affects how strongly it plays out in our
decision making. As consultants, we can envision ourselves serving as an active representation of our clients’
larger perspectives and purposes — perhaps as a counterbalance to the threats and siege mentality that can
accompany crises and obscure win-win solutions or
hidden degrees of freedom. This can be as simple as
asking questions from the perspective of a client’s larger intent.
I also think consultants can serve as part of the support system that helps leaders keep their own score and
draw meaning from efforts that perhaps no one else sees
or that won’t pay off for years to come. A colleague just
told me a story about an executive who was struggling
because his leadership efforts were not acknowledged
(although they were received and acted upon). When
my friend, who was this man’s coach, asked him why he
had gotten into the field in the first place, the executive
described an inspiring mentor named George who had
revealed his own bigger game. As they continued to
speak about his need for acknowledgment, the coach
said to him, “I imagine George would be tremendously
proud of you right now.” As simple as this confirmation
was, the leader was visibly moved by it. Perhaps we all
need a witness to sustain our efforts, and consultants
may be able to help provide that.
About a year ago, I left the nonprofit world of
social/human services for the for-profit world of corporate business. I still have difficulty in the shift. Will
strategy+business
leadingIDEAS
3
this uncomfortable feeling ease or does this internal
struggle continue?
I understand that must be challenging. I remember
spending time with a nonprofit and finding it shockingly satisfying just to be able to name what I cared
about without coming across as naive, foolish, or weak.
I’d suggest you consider several questions to clarify
your intent and enable you to “write your own contract.” What did it serve for you to enter the corporate
world? What can you accomplish there that is worth
your energy? What do you need to sustain yourself (all
of yourself, not just materially), what is nonnegotiable,
and how will you keep score on what matters to you?
You should also ask yourself whether the different
perspective that you bring has the potential to make a
contribution to that organization. What values do you
share and respect, and where does the tension lie? People
at the company may not see either. It’ll take some skill,
but you may be able to represent the differences in a
constructive, nonjudgmental way that broadens others’
sense of possibilities.
I suspect it may continue to be difficult, but if you
are truly there to serve something you value, you can
improve your situation by recognizing the challenge as
worthwhile and being generous about lining up support
for yourself.
What have we learned from WorldCom, Tyco, and
Enron?
These most recent crises, coupled with observations
from my interviews, suggest three patterns we might
learn from.
First, although we can argue about what causes certain leaders to cross the line, followers clearly play a role
in sustaining that direction. And I think our choice as
followers is primarily this: Do we want to know? Yet as
we become more and more dependent on an organization — financially and for our sense of achievement —
it becomes increasingly difficult to let ourselves see. This
is why I think it’s so important to actively maintain our
base of independence so we can be courageous when the
time comes.
Second, I hope we loosen our assumption that the
bad guys are somehow a completely different breed. In
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify
Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, Carol
Tavris and Elliot Aronson show how, through the natural process of self-justification, we all have the potential
to delude ourselves about the ways we may be causing
harm. “Whistle-blower” Sherron Watkins has said that
“there’s a little Enron in all of us.” It’s only when we recognize this that we’ll create ways to talk to one another
and sort out what we might be missing without rushing
to judge and accuse.
Finally, I want to point out that although the resulting regulations, penalties, and controls have been cumbersome, I have heard several stories in which they gave
people the support they needed to say “no.” For example, a controller who was asked to sign a forecast she did
not feel was accurate said, “No, I don’t think so. I’m not
going to go to jail for you guys.” +
Resources
Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders
(Berrett-Koehler, 2003): Concrete advice for calling (and re-calling) leaders to their highest purposes. www.amazon.com/dp/157675247X/
Elizabeth Doty, “Personal Ethics in the Corporate World,” s+b Webinar,
10/25/07: The online seminar that generated these questions, and many
others; a recording of the event and a PDF of the presentation are available. www.strategy-business.com/webinar/webinar-ethics_in_corp_world
Elizabeth Doty, “Winning the Devil’s Bargain,” s+b, Spring 2007: When
the business world compromises an individual’s values, courage and climate
can make all the difference. www.strategy-business.com/article/07101
Debra E. Meyerson, Tempered Radicals: How Everyday Leaders Inspire
Change at Work (Harvard Business School Press, 2003): A practical
description of how individuals influence a company’s culture and practices. www.amazon.com/dp/1591393256/
David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership,”
s+b, Summer 2006: Breakthroughs in brain research explain how to
make organizational transformation succeed. www.strategy-business.com/
article/06207
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me):
Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (Harcourt,
2007): A study of the pervasiveness of self-justification, denial, and rationalization in a variety of settings. www.amazon.com/dp/0151010986/
Winning the Devil’s Bargain Weblog: Elizabeth Doty’s recently launched
blog inviting discussion on these topics. http://devilsbargain.wordpress.com/
WorkLore Web site: Elizabeth Doty’s company, with additional resources
available. www.worklore.com/
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Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
DOI 10.1007/s11186-007-9058-5
A RT I C L E
The citizen-consumer hybrid: ideological tensions
and the case of Whole Foods Market
Josée Johnston
Published online: 30 December 2007
# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract Ethical consumer discourse is organized around the idea that shopping,
and particularly food shopping, is a way to create progressive social change. A key
component of this discourse is the “citizen-consumer” hybrid, found in both activist
and academic writing on ethical consumption. The hybrid concept implies a social
practice – “voting with your dollar” – that can satisfy competing ideologies of
consumerism (an idea rooted in individual self-interest) and citizenship (an ideal
rooted in collective responsibility to a social and ecological commons). While a
hopeful sign, this hybrid concept needs to be theoretically unpacked, and empirically
explored. This article has two purposes. First, it is a theory-building project that
unpacks the citizen-consumer concept, and investigates underlying ideological
tensions and contradictions. The second purpose of the paper is to relate theory to an
empirical case-study of the citizen-consumer in practice. Using the case-study of
Whole Foods Market (WFM), a corporation frequently touted as an ethical market
actor, I ask: (1) how does WFM frame the citizen-consumer hybrid, and (2) what
ideological tensions between consumer and citizen ideals are present in the framing?
Are both ideals coexisting and balanced in the citizen-consumer hybrid, or is this
construct used to disguise underlying ideological inconsistencies? Rather than
meeting the requirements of consumerism and citizenship equally, the case of WFM
suggests that the citizen-consumer hybrid provides superficial attention to citizenship
goals in order to serve three consumerist interests better: consumer choice, status
distinction, and ecological cornucopianism. I argue that a true “citizen-consumer”
hybrid is not only difficult to achieve, but may be internally inconsistent in a growthoriented corporate setting.
J. Johnston (*)
Sociology Department, University of Toronto, 725 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON M5S 2J4, Canada
e-mail: joseejohnston@gmail.com
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Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
Whole Foods Market (WFM)1– the world’s largest ‘natural’ foods empire – is
encouraging me to change the world by changing what I eat. Walking into a WFM
store, I see a reassuring slogan, “Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet,”
advertised along with its “core values” on everything from paper napkins to the store
walls. A large wall sign of a juicy, dripping steak is underscored with the text, “feel
good about where you shop” – a promise and challenge reiterated on the brownpaper shopping bags and re-usable cloth bags. Another large sign floating from the
ceiling depicts fish, and gives me the same “feel good” message along with the
added information: “Seafood flown in from our very own wharf.” I go to pay for my
groceries, which seem consistently to spill over from my prescribed list, and include
items ranging from organic dupuis lentils to hand-made coconut dusted marshmallows. At the cashier, I notice pictures of local farmers depicted on the check-out
screen, along with the assurance that I am supporting them with my shopping
choices. As I walk past the check-out, I peruse a collection of pamphlets under the
sign “Take-action!” and pick up some information on genetically engineered foods,
and a “natural primer for the carb conscious.” I feel excited about the delicious food
I have purchased, but confused about my role. Am I acting as a consumer looking
out for my own interest in artisanal cheese and slow-rise bread, or am I a citizen
supporting local agriculture and the “whole planet” through my shopping? Does
Whole Foods offer a new opportunity for shoppers to become “citizen-consumers”
who can have it all – pursue their interest in delicious food, while feeling good about
their responsibilities to other people, other species, and the environment?
Despite a broad consensus that consumers are key actors in global political
systems (Beck 2000; Miller 1995), substantial debate remains about the extent to
which these kinds of market opportunities represent new opportunities for consumers
to exercise citizenship (Micheletti et al. 2004; Zukin and Smith 2004; Soper 2004;
Slater 1997; Gabriel and Lang 2006; Scammell 2000).2 As shopping activities are
more prominently linked to social and environmental causes, academic and activist
accounts of consumer “activism” explicitly and implicitly collapse the distinction
between “consumers” and “citizens,” suggesting that “voting with your dollar” is a
1
While WFM’s aspirations are oriented towards customer concerns of health and environmental
sustainability, its growth strategies are unabashedly entrepreneurial, garnering massive growth, profits, and
an impressive record of expansion and acquisitions. In 2006, WFM boasted revenues of $5,607 million − a
19% increase from 2005. Earnings per share in 2006 were $1.41, which was a 40% increase from the
previous year. In 2007, the company reported that it employed 39,000 people, and had 195 stores in the USA,
Canada, and the UK. Even though Whole Foods Market faces competition, particularly from the large-scale
entry of WalMart into the organic sector, industry analysts consider Whole Foods Market the industry giant
of natural foods (especially after the February 2007 $565 Million dollar buyout of its major competitor, Wild
Oats) as well as a solid economic performer (e.g., WFM was named the best 2007 retail stock by The Motley
Fool stock advisors; Lomax 2007).
2
Approaches emphasizing the manipulation of consumers are most often associated with the Frankfurt
School and post-war critiques of the advertising industry (e.g., Marcuse 1964; Packard 1981, but today,
such approaches are often viewed as overly pessimistic and old-fashioned because they underestimate
consumer agency, and over-state the importance of selling (or manipulating) consumers (Micheletti
2003:70; Schudson 1991, 1984). Against Frankfurt pessimism, more optimistic accounts focus on
consumers’ abilities to manipulate the commercial environment to construct meaningful lifestyles and
identities (e.g., Fiske 1989; Abercrombie 1994; Nava 1991). Further, a voluminous business literature on
the topic emphasizes how consumer demand fuels the growth of socially responsible corporations
promoting social justice and environmental sustainability (Cairncross 1992; David 1991; Heald 1988).
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
231
highly significant, if not a preferred venue for political participation (Dickinson and
Hollander 1991; Shaw et al. 2006; Stolle et al. 2005; Arnould 2007; Barnett et al.
2005; Schudson 2007; Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Hilton 2003:1). Even cautious
accounts (Soper 2004; “’Gabriel and Lang 2005) suggest possibilities for a new era
of hybrid citizen-consumers where shopping can serve as an entry point to larger
political projects associated with citizenship.
An investigation of the citizen-consumer is a timely subject of inquiry. The hybrid
concept has gained considerable currency among consumers, and is increasingly
prominent within academic work that addresses the hybrid concept’s sociological,
economic, political, and philosophical implications (e.g., Jubas 2007; Slocum 2004;
Soper 2004, 2007). Although the academic literature depicts the citizen-consumer in
relatively buoyant terms, there is a paucity of empirical work that examines its
manifestation in “real-life” market settings and explores the ideological contradictions
that play out on the ground level of ethical shopping. At the same time, there is also a
need for social theoretic work on this topic (Gabriel and Lang 2005:39–40), that
explores the contradictions that play out on the ground level of ethical shopping. As
such, this article has two purposes: to explore theoretically and to study empirically a
specific market context that frames ethical consumption and the hybrid citizenconsumer. First, this is a theory-building project that unpacks the citizen-consumer
concept, asking how the citizen-consumer hybrid is assembled, what ideological
tensions and contradictions does it appear to engender, and how it fits within a larger
discourse of ethical consumption. The second purpose of the article is to relate theory
to an empirical case-study of the citizen-consumer using a case-study of Whole Foods
Market (WFM), a corporation frequently touted as an ethical market actor.
To be clear, my goal is not to evaluate WFM and its transformative possibilities in
their entirety, but to examine specifically the manifestation of the citizen-consumer
concept in its shopping spaces, thus revealing some of its contradictions. Although it
is important to understand how consumers engage with (and avoid) ethics while
shopping, this article brackets the question of individual consumer motivations,
which are often conflicted, complex, and multifaceted (Sassatelli 2006: 224;
Schudson 1991). The WFM case cannot be generalized to all other corporate retail
environments,3 but it remains an important case given its market prominence, and
the prominent way ethical consumer discourse is employed in its shopping spaces.
Upon close inspection of the ideals that the citizen-consumer concept is purported to
embody in this specific case study, I identify three ideological contradictions that
privilege the goals of consumerism over the goals of citizenship. As a consequence, I
argue that consumers generally and scholars of consumerism alike should be
cautious about the potential for a balanced citizen-consumer hybrid, particularly as it
manifests in a corporate market setting.
While consumer politics attracts increasing scholarly interest (e.g., Hilton 2007;
Nelson et al. 2007; Micheletti 2003; Stolle et al. 2005; Barnett et al. 2005; Miller
2001; Sassatelli 2006), studies of ethical consumers frequently focus on specific
3
While positivist analysis focuses on a case’s ability to represent a larger population, in critical theory’s
interpretive tradition, cases are used to bridge the nomethetic/ideographic divide: they provide a source of
rich descriptive data, but are also important for their ability to extend out to, and engage with, larger
theoretical issues and struggles over power (see Burawoy 1998; Steinmetz 2004).
232
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
sectors (e.g., fair-trade coffee, organic food), leaving the topic of ethical
consumption as a broader phenomena relatively under-theorized (Gabriel and Lang
2005: 39–40). This study contributes to this literature not only by helping to move
beyond the hero/victim dichotomy of the ethical consumer, but also by conceptualizing the limits and potential of the citizen-consumer hybrid through an
examination of the ideological tensions it embodies in a concrete setting. I ask
how one particularly influential corporation contributes to the balance between
citizenship and consumer ideals within ethical consumer discourse. In addition,
concentrating on the consumption end of the alternative food economy complements
recent food scholarship on the contradictions of organic food production (Guthman
2000, 2004; Allen and Kovach 2000), and addresses the neglect of consumer politics
in the sociology of food and agriculture (Goodman and DuPuis 2002:5).
The rest of this article is divided into five sections. In the first section, I specify
the analytic focus and explain why it is important to interrogate the citizen-consumer
hybrid. I also justify the discursive methodological approach employed and the
specific case study of Whole Foods Market. In the second section I describe the
history of consumer activism in order to understand the contemporary discourse of
ethical consumption. The third section presents my analytic strategy for identifying
the ideological tensions at play and for evaluating how they compete for dominance
in ethical consumer discourse. Evidence from the case study is discussed in the
fourth section to illustrate the three ideological tensions inherent in the hybrid
concept, and to show how WFM frames the hybrid in ways that privilege
consumerism over citizenship goals. I summarize my findings in the fifth section
to support my argument that the citizen-consumer hybrid is not a balanced
articulation in the case of Whole Foods Market.
Dialectics and contradictions in ethical consumer discourse
Hybrid citizen-consumers and underlying ideological tension
The unifying logic that weaves together the various strands of ethical consumer
discourse suggests that commodity choice can satisfy an individual’s desire for
personal health and happiness while generating sustainability and social harmony for
society as a whole. This logic makes plausible the concept of the hybrid citizenconsumer, able to satiate personal desires while simultaneously addressing social and
ecological injustices. This hybrid concept of a “citizen-consumer” is found in both
activist and academic writing, and implies a social practice that can satisfy
competing ideologies of consumerism (an ideal rooted in individual self-interest)
and citizenship (an ideal rooted in collective responsibility to a social and ecological
commons).4 The hybrid citizen-consumer concept potentially broadens our understanding of citizenship by troubling traditional masculine assumptions of citizenship
4
Consumerism focuses on individual choice and shopping pleasure, while citizenship generally emphasizes
the importance of civil society to channel citizens’ rights and responsibilities for the greater public good, or
commons (Stevenson 1995:110; Gabriel and Lang 1995; Soper 2007:215). I appreciate that scholars have
begun to problematize the citizen-consumer distinction, and describe these ideals and debates below.
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
233
that overlook how women’s “private” consumption roles contribute to public life,
while drawing attention to the interconnections between economic, political, and
cultural realms of social life (Jubas 2007:232; Soper 2007:206).
While hopeful, this hybrid concept needs to be theoretically unpacked and
empirically explored. More specifically, the hybrid citizen-consumer concept is held
together by an ideological tension between consumerism and citizenship –
ideologies that are frequently presented as complimentary and seamless through
the ubiquitous message of “vote with your dollar.” Discourses possess unifying
logics, as well as ideological contradictions (Ferree and Merrill 2000:455). Are both
citizenship and consumerism coexisting and living well in the citizen-consumer
hybrid? If not, what is the nature of the discord? While scholars have begun to
explore the theoretical tensions involved with this hybrid concept (see Jubas 2007;
Soper 1997), in this article I use a particular case-study to explore what cultural,
political-economic, and ecological contradictions are engendered by the hybrid
concept, and question whose interests are served in the framing process.
Central to any discussion of the implications of the citizen-consumer hybrid are
debates on consumer agency, which raise the following question: in what ways does
ethical consumer discourse represent a new realm of consumer empowerment in
global markets, and how might it simultaneously suggest a site for social
manipulation by market actors? I address this question by focusing on the concept
of citizen-consumer, taking care to avoid the pitfall of viewing consumers as either
hapless dupes or unencumbered sovereign agents in the global economy. To do so, I
draw from Miller’s (2001) work on “the dialectic” of shopping spaces, a strategy that
investigates the contradictions of consumer spaces where an undeniable search for
meaning in the shopping mall is shaped by larger institutional forces like
corporations. A dialectical focus helps us avoid naïve optimism, or determinist
pessimistic accounts of consumer-focused projects for social justice and sustainability.
A dialectical approach recognizes that meaning and agency are present in consumption
decisions, but takes seriously the structural conditions shaping consumer agency.5
Discourse analysis
To study ethical consumer discourse, I draw from the critical sociological tradition of
discourse studies, which is inspired by critical theory’s interest in power, and poststructuralism’s insights about the constitutive effects of language on social life. All
discourse analysis begins from the starting point that discourse structures the space
in which agency and subjects are constituted. Critically-oriented discourse analysis is
not simply interested in how social reality is discursively constructed, but has a
particular focus on how discursive activities create, sustain, and legitimate relationships of power and privilege (Fairclough 1992:67; Fairclough and Wodak 1997;
Phillips and Hardy 2002:25; Carroll 2004:226). From this perspective, studying
As Cook (2000) notes, “ample space exists for resistance to structurally given meaning, but this does not
alter the fact that capitalist hegemony “depends upon the continual integration of person with commodity”
(p. 111).
5
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Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
discourse is not about the pursuit of disembodied texts, but possesses real potential
for political engagement; as Fraser (1997) notes, “a conception of discourse can help
illuminate how the cultural hegemony of dominant groups in society is secured and
contested” (p. 152).
A discursive approach is well suited to an analysis of contradictions, and helps
avoid a simplistic dichotomy between consumer dupes versus consumer heroes.
Discourse can be understood as a shared way of understanding the world that is
unavoidably connected to political power; as such, discourse shapes how social agents
do and do not respond to social and ecological issues, and constructs normative
boundaries of accountability and responsibility (Dryzek 2005; Smith 1997).
Discourse analysis is thus a useful tool for detecting nuance that moves us beyond
good/bad dichotomies of ethical consumption, and instead works to theorize the
ideological tension that inevitably underlies discourse (Oliver and Johnston 1999;
Ferree and Merrill 2000; Carroll 2004: 229). To address the question of how
discourse relates to ideology and frames, I draw from Ferree and Merrill (2000)
exploration of these terms in a social movement context (p. 455); their work usefully
suggests a visual metaphor of an inverted pyramid to describe the relations of
discourse, ideology, and frames, with each respective term connoting a more
coherent ideational concept at the level of content and specificity (Ferree and Merrill
2000:455). The concept of discourse heads this inverted pyramid, and can be
understood as an inherently conflictual realm that “links concepts together in a web
of relationships” (Ferree and Merrill 2000:455). Conflict within discourse involve
the lower pyramid “layer” of ideologies, which are conceptualized as coherent
systems of related ideas that combine explanation with normative prescription
(Ferree and Merrill 2000:455–456; Oliver and Johnston 1999).6 Frames fall at the
bottom of the inverted pyramid; they draw from the supporting ideas and norms of
ideologies, but are understood as more specific cognitive structures advanced by
social actors to shape interpretation and understanding of specific issues (Oliver and
Johnston 1999). Relating this inverted pyramid to my own research goals, my focus
in this article is on ethical consumer discourse, the related ideological conflicts
between citizenship and consumerism within the hybrid concept of the citizenconsumer, and most specifically, on how these ideological conflicts are framed in the
case of WFM.
The case of Whole Foods Market (WFM)
Ethical consumer discourse is constituted through a multiplicity of framing
processes. Framing process can be understood as the “mechanism by which
6
Social movement scholars have emphasized a value-neutral interpretation of ideologies (Ferree and
Merrill 2000, 455–456) to avoid the epistemologically problematic presumption that one can identify
“true” causes of oppression. With Fegan (1996) and McLellan (1995), I suggest that a critical perspective
on ideology remains key to understanding domination and inequality in socio-cultural arenas. For clarity
of language and in keeping with the usage in social movement scholarship, I refer to “consumerism” and
“citizenship” as competing ideologies, yet acknowledge that both terms invoke normative ideals that may,
or may not be employed ideologically. My emphasis here is not on distinguishing ideology from “truth,”
but on identifying on how ideological processes can naturalize and legitimize “ideas in pursuit of
dominant interests,” which are not imposed in a crude, top-down fashion, but involve a negotiation
between individual subjects and dominant cultural constructions (Fegan 1996:184).
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
235
discourses, ideologies and frames are all connected,” and while one actor cannot
single-handedly construct a discourse, the output of multiple framing processes by
actors works to produce a discourse (Ferree and Merrill 2000:456).7 Ethical
consumer discourse is framed differently by different actors – actors that range
from church groups to consumer cooperatives to publicly traded transnational
corporations. The focus of this article is on the relatively neglected, but influential
realm of corporate discourse (Gordon 1995). I selected WFM for my case study
because this corporation’s market dominance affords it considerable impact on a
larger ethical consumer discourse – a discourse loosely organized around the
sentiment that shopping creates possibilities for consumers to “change the world” –
and the citizen-consumer hybrid concept. While both large and influential, I do not
intend to suggest that WFM is omnipotent or exists in a vacuum. To the contrary, its
articulation of ethical consumer discourse reflects an ongoing dialectical interaction
with activist organizations and a market context that continually pushes the
corporation to adapt and evolve. Most famously, WFM developed policies on the
humane treatment of animals after John Mackey was confronted with animal rights
protestors at the corporation’s annual meeting in 2003 (Singer and Mason 2006:179).
John Mackey was subsequently confronted with a damning appraisal of WFM by
New York Times journalist and University of California Berkeley professor Michael
Pollan, in the recent book The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan 2006) and in a public
debate hosted by UC Berkeley. Pollan critiqued WFM for contributing to the rapid
corporatization of an increasingly unsustainable organics industry, while Mackey
defended WFM business practices and argued that WFM is helping increase
sustainability by expanding the accessibility of organic foods. In the public debate
with Pollan, Mackey pledged to change certain WFM practices, including
maintaining a stronger commitment to providing locally-produced foods.8 Although
these interactions between the corporation and activist organizations are important to
understand the future evolution of the firm, for the sake of analytic clarity, this study
is necessarily situated in current debates, and acknowledges the likelihood of
changes of direction as the larger terrain of food politics and social movement
activism evolves and influences market opportunities.
Data collection
Inspired by Fairclough’s (1992:4) “three-dimensional approach” to the study of
social discourse, which emphasizes the importance of situating texts within a larger
social context, I focused this case study on collecting textual material and
ethnographic observations from Whole Foods Market, while situating the case
within a larger context of power and political-economy. Corporate texts were
collected through store visits to one WFM location over a 2-year period, with an
7
Of course, all of the framing processes constituting discourse can never be captured in a single study. As
Phillips and Hardy (2002) write, “[w]e can never study all aspects of discourse and we inevitably have to
select a subset of texts for the purpose of manageability” (p. 10).
8
For an overview of this debate refer to the webcast provided by the University of California-Berkeley
(http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=19147), as well as Pollan’s open letter to
Mackey http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=80), and Mackey’s open letter to Pollan (http://
www.wholefoods.com/blogs/jm/archives/2006/05/an_open_letter.html).
236
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average of two research visits per month.9 The purpose of these visits was to use
unobtrusive methods of data collection to gather ethnographic observations about the
shopping experience,10 and collect textual material to document and analyze how
WFM constructs a particular shopping experience that contributes to a larger ethical
consumer discourse at a broad level, and constitutes the citizen-consumer subject
more specifically.
Case-study data collected included the following: (1) extensive field notes from
store visits and participant observation at WFM events such as cooking classes and
health seminars;11 (2) textual material printed and promoted by the store such as
brochures, napkins, shopping bags, web-site material, and product packaging; and
(3) the business press literature on WFM, which was collected and analyzed to
understand the context of their success within a larger capitalist economy.12 The
fieldwork data were primarily collected at one particular Whole Foods location
(although other store locations were visited); the majority of the textual data (e.g.,
pamphlets, mission statements, web site content) were not location specific, but had
a general orientation to a North American market.
Consumer activists and corporate adaptation
History of consumer activism
How did we get to a point where consumers are responsible for “saving” the world
by shopping? How did the idea of “citizen-consumers” emerge? One of the earliest
forms of consumer activism is the boycott. The first recorded boycott was in Ireland
in 1878 when peasants formed a workers union and refused to harvest the oats of
Captain Boycott, demanding better wages and working conditions (Micheletti
2003:38). The boycott has subsequently been used by unions, political activists, and
individual consumers as a way to enact political preferences through anticonsumption behavior (Micheletti 2003). Although the boycott is viewed as one of
the earliest–and longest standing–forms of consumer activism, Gabriel and Lang
(2005) usefully separate the history of consumer activism into four phases: (1) the
cooperative phase originating in nineteenth-century England; (2) the value for
Discourse analysis allows for multiple qualitative methods of data collection; “texts” are not simply
printed words, but include other materials such as visual sources, spoken words, ethnographic field notes,
and artifacts that are collected to understand better a discourse and its underlying ideological conflicts
(Grant et al. 1998; Lutz and Collins 1993). Despite these multiple methods, what distinguishes discursive
approaches is that they are studied with the objective of understanding a discourse “and its role in
constituting social reality” (Phillips and Hardy 2002:10) while maintaining a constructionist epistemology
that sees language as central to the constitution of social reality.
9
10
The majority of the ethnographic fieldwork was carried out by the author, with additional field work
carried out by research assistants to corroborate observations and collect additional impressions.
11
Primary participant observation was focused on the Toronto WFM location; additional field research
was collected at the Oakville Ontario, Portland, Oregon, and New York City (Manhattan) locations.
12
Proquest and EBSCO Host engines (databases that contained mainstream and financial newspapers)
were searched generating roughly 1,500 citations, and 700 relevant articles. Also, Internet searches
acquired additional information about WFM’s marketing, consumer practices, and labor relations.
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
237
money phase that emerged with Fordism; (3) Naderism in post-war USA, and (4) the
“alternative consumption” that emerged in the 1980s.
The first, cooperative phase of activism pre-dated Fordism and mass-consumerism,
and focused on cooperatives as a means for working people to combat local monopolies
that controlled grain milling and the price of food (Gabriel and Lang 2005:41). In these
early cooperatives, people saw themselves as both producers and consumers, and the
goal was to provide a cooperative model of self-help that could serve as a working-class
alternative to the capitalist market logic of self-interest and profit maximization (ibid.)
As Matthew Hilton (2003) points out in his history of consumer movements in the UK,
cooperatives along with most pre-war consumer movements, were driven by “the
politics of necessitous consumption” (p. 29). In the early twentieth-century, for
example, the consumer movement in the UK was closely tied to the Labour
movement, with working-class consumer activists (including housewives) fighting for
affordable food for working-class families, and trying to increase public awareness of
how specific commodities engendered political consequences for working people.
Compared to this first cooperative phase of activism, the second “value for
money” phase is more accurately labeled consumer activism, since it marked the
development of activism focused more centrally and exclusively around a consumer
identity. According to Hilton (2003), what distinguishes this post-war “best-buy”
phase of consumer activism from earlier forms is the shift from concern over
necessary commodities (like food and coal) to concern over the politics and prices of
luxury items (like electric appliances). The foundations of this shift lay in the increasing separation of consumers from producers in the twentieth-century, the
growth of the middle class, unfavorable outcomes of anarchic markets – like the
appalling conditions described in Chicago meat yards in Upton Sinclair’s 1906
novel, The Jungle – and the mass consumerism of the post-war period (Hilton 2003;
Gabriel and Lang 2005). The Great Depression only confirmed public suspicions
about untrammeled market forces, and organizations emerged that were designed to
help consumers navigate through anarchic markets, and make better purchases in an
emerging era of mass consumption. In the UK and the USA alike, value for money
consumer organizations tested consumer goods and provided information, an
organizational format that ultimately manifested in the widely read magazine in
the USA, Consumer Report. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle as a communist
hoping to upset bourgeois rule, yet this second wave of consumer activism
ultimately worked to improve the functioning of the market, providing better
information to enhance consumer choices.
The third phase of consumer activism, Naderism fomented in the particular legal
context of the USA, and emphasized the potential dangers of anarchic market forces.
Naderism depicted unregulated corporate capitalism as a threat to consumers, as was
the case with the poorly designed Chevrolet Corvair that Ralph Nader exposed in his
1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed. Although value for money activism had a top–
down focus on providing information to consumers, Naderism emphasized that
organized grassroots action and legal campaigns were necessary to force the
government to intervene to protect public safety. This period of consumer activism
was inspired by Nader’s exposé of the poor safety standards in the automobile
industry, as well as his litigious approach to monitoring corporate responsibility and
his support for grassroots consumer activism. Similar to the value-for-money wave
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of activism, Naderism was focused on consumer access to free and fair information,
as well as corporate accountability, although Nader also suggested that individual
consumers were more powerful when they acted as citizens – organizing collectively
to lobby government, and mobilizing grassroots support to prevent capitalist systems
from being dominated by unscrupulous corporate actors prioritizing profit over
public safety (Gabriel and Lang 2005:46–48).13
While cooperatives, value-for-money, and anti-corporate forms of consumer
activism continue to exist today, a fourth phase of consumer activism emerged in
the 1980s that Lang and Gabriel term “alternative consumption” and Hilton (2003)
terms “ethical consumerism,” but identified in this article as ethical consumption.
Value for money and Naderist phases of consumer activism were focused on making
the market safer for individual consumers, but this fourth phase of ethical consumption
originated in concern that collective consumption patterns were unsustainable. A shift
away from redistributive class politics towards post-industrial values (e.g., environmentalism) and recognition-based identity politics (e.g., sexual orientation), along with
concerns about the social and economic impacts of globalization, helps to explain the
emergence of this phase (Hilton 2003). This phase has also been fuelled by a growing
“unease with abundance” where a life full of luxury consumer goods is seen to yield
little personal or moral satisfaction (Hilton 2003:298; Soper 2007). Environmental
awareness grew in the 1970s, particularly with the publication of Limits to Growth in
the 1970s (Meadows 1972), which identified human consumption as a threat to the
survival of the planet and the human species. In the 20 years following the publication
of that report, the environmental movement gained considerable ground: large
international environmental initiatives were organized like the Brundtland Commission, which published Our Common Future (1987); the term “sustainable development” became prominent; and popular understanding of capitalist externalities (e.g.,
environmental degradation) moved to the forefront of popular discourse (Hajer
1995:10; Seyfang 2004). As environmental awareness grew, the critique of consumer
society became divided between a radical message seeking to challenge consumer
society and reduce consumption (Gabriel and Lang 1995:6; Seyfang 2004:327), and a
second, more popular ameliorative message encouraging consumers to consume
carefully or differently – buying hybrid cars, energy efficient appliances, and organic
strawberries (Cairncross 1992; Dryzek 2005:189; Gabriel and Lang 1995:182).
The fourth wave’s anti-corporate sentiment
While ethical consumption emerged out of environmentalism, it came to express
concern over the panoply of late capitalist concerns ranging from human rights,
unfair global trade, sustainability, corporate power, and other concerns of the global
social justice (“anti-globalization”) movement. Popular authors and sociologists
alike documented the rise of activism critiquing corporate power in the global
economy on social and ecological grounds (see Starr 2000; Korten 1995; Karliner
13
Gabriel and Lang (1995) note that Naderism has not been readily reproduced in other countries,
although they see Consumers International − a global network of consumer organizations with
representation from 115 countries − as a manifestation of the Naderist stream of consumer activism that
has been buoyed by anti-globalization critiques of corporate rule in anarchic market conditions (p. 48).
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
239
1997; Klein 2000), and challenging the legitimacy of transnational corporations in
an increasingly neo-liberal and anarchic global marketplace (Bello 2002). The 1990s
saw the emergence of an anti-sweatshop movement on university campuses (Ross
1997), increased publicity for AdBusters’ anti-corporate, culture-jamming tactics
(Lasn 1999), and legal battles using charter revocation laws to challenge a
corporation’s “right” to exist (Bakan 2004:157). Corporate boycotts were launched
against multiple transnational corporations (e.g., Kraft Foods, WalMart, and Nike)
for practices such as the use of genetically engineered ingredients, and the reliance
on sweatshop labor. In addition, social activists publicized the link between
environmental deterioration and the corporate pursuit of profits (Sklair 2001:198–
247), contributing to an anti-corporate “bad mood rising” documented and
popularized by authors, such as Naomi Klein in her best-selling tome, No Logo
(2000), and films such as The Corporation (Bakan et al. 2004).
Although ethical consumption activism has taken on multiple targets, food has been
central to the struggle. Food shopping is not simply a banal, private concern, but
represents a key private/public nexus, as well as a potential entry-point to political
engagement. This understanding draws from feminist understanding of social
reproduction, which emphasize that food choices are not neutral, private matters, but
rather represent a politicized, gendered, and globalized terrain where gendered labor
and households intersect with states, capital, and civil society in varying balances
(Katz 2003:257). Agriculture has been a key target of environmental activism, given
its role as one of the largest, if not the largest, industries responsible for environmental
devastation and greenhouse gases (Shrybman 2000) as well as concern over rural
decline and the loss of the family farm. The fair-trade movement has piggy-backed on
the anti-corporate messages of some global justice activism by emphasizing that many
of the worst abuses in the global system are associated with foods that are integrated
into our everyday life through transnational commodity chains – sugar, bananas,
coffee, chocolate – magnifying consumers’ complicity in social abuses associated with
their production. The fourth wave of ethical consumer activism has used these
everyday foods as leverage points to generate reflexivity, encouraging consumers to
think critically, buy more selectively, and seek out information on the environmental
and social costs involved in their daily meals.
Corporate adaptation and response
It once seemed futile to expect organic produce in large supermarkets, but now
WalMart shoppers can choose between conventional and organic products. In part,
this change reflects how corporations have responded to the rise of ethical
consumption activism, and its effective politicization of food issues in the public
imagination.14 Many corporations, like WFM, offer consumers an opportunity to
“make a difference” by purchasing products like organic foods and shade-grown
coffee. There is a vast literature that tries to explain why companies have reformed
14
The state of our knowledge on consumer activism makes it is difficult, if not impossible, to parse out
the impact of ethical consumer activism on corporations versus the pressures from other “ethical” voices
like the media, the state, market competitors, and other members of civil society (Crane 2006: 220).
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their practices, and overall, these shifts in corporate behavior are understood as
responses to public, government, and media pressure for reform, as well as a positive
business opportunity that opens up new markets and increases efficiency (Heald 1988;
Prakash 2000; David 1991; Vogel 2005). Although much of the business literature
sees ethical consumption as a win–win opportunity (as per the “triple bottom line” that
provides for people, the planet, and profits), critical questions are being raised.
Scholars are scrutinizing corporate responses to consumer activism that range from
superficial name-changes (e.g., tobacco giant Philip Morris became “Altria” in 2004,
and part of Monsanto became “Pharmacia”), to the mandate for “corporate social
responsibility,”15 to sustainable development initiatives (Johnston 2003).16
This article extends these questions to ethical consumer discourse, examining the
manifestation of the citizen-consumer in the case of one prominent corporate actor,
Whole Foods Market. Questions are focused on the hybrid citizen-consumer, an idea that
seems to indicate the presence of moral regulation in the marketplace. The notion of
consumers “voting with their dollars” has obvious populist appeal. As buying guides
frequently remind shoppers, every shopping decision is an opportunity to cast a vote. But
do the transformative aspirations of ethical consumption activism enable transformative
outcomes, particularly when they are taken up by corporations? There is no simple “yes”
or “no” answer to this question, since there are reasons for hope (Schor 2007) as well as
cause for critical concern. Thomas Frank’s (1998) seminal work, The Conquest of
Cool, describes the extraordinary ability of corporations to transform counter-cultural
themes of rebellion and disenchantment into marketing opportunities (see also Heath
and Potter 2004; Frank and Weiland 1997). Further, a key characteristic of post-Fordist
society is not a mass market of uniform products and conformist consumers, but niche
markets where specialized goods and services allow consumers to achieve distinction
through carefully crafted identities and lifestyles (Turow 2000). From a critical
perspective, ethical consumer strategies seem more like niche marketing opportunities
allowing corporations to target privileged, conscientious consumers, than a substantive
program for health, sustainability, and social justice at a global scale.
Positive accounts of consumer activism
Although ethical consumer strategies may appear complicit with capitalist marketing
strategies and corporate co-optation, it seems myopic to dismiss summarily ethical
15
Much recent scholarship has cast considerable doubt on the ability of CSR to make tangible progress
toward global environmental and social improvement (Vogel 2005; Locke 2006), and identified instances
of corporate “greenwashing”, where companies put forward an environmentally friendly image but do
little actually to reform their operations (Athanasiou 1996; Karliner 1997; Sutton 2004).
16
There is an untapped opportunity for social movement scholars to engage with critiques of corporate
adaptation. While social movement scholars have identified the need to assess social movements’ impact
on the state, other movements, and political-culture (Guigni et al. 1999; Gamson 1975; Meyer and
Whittier 1994; Eyerman and Jamison 1998), little work has been to address the impact of social movement
activism on corporate actors – even though activists and scholars alike emphasize the power of
corporations in public life (Sklair 2001; Bakan 2004). Social movement scholars have elaborated new
ways of thinking about transnational resistance (Keck and Sikkink 1998) and have examined specific
campaigns targeting corporate globalization (Johnston and Laxer 2003; Evans et al. 2002; Carty 2002), but
to avoid fetishizing these cases of resistance in the global justice movement, there is a need to gain greater
insight into social change processes involving social movement critique and market adaptation.
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
241
consumer activism and its myriad projects for social change. A one-sided view of
consumer cooptation seems deterministic and methodologically closed to the possibilities of new forms of consumer activism (Schor 2007; Miller 2007: 225, 229), as well as
the historical intersections between counter-cultural movements and industry innovation (Turner 2006). Schor argues that the time is ripe for dialectical approaches that
transcend a simple analysis of corporate cooptation,17 and instead engage with the
dynamic interactions between consumer movements and market actors.
Certain ethical consumer products, like fair-trade commodities, generate a price
premium (Ransom 2001; Raynolds 2000) that addresses the social and ecological
externalities of these commodity chains and suggests possibilities for an expansive
“spatial dynamics of concern” (Goodman 2004). Coffee producers, for instance,
achieve a higher price through fair-trade markets than through conventional coffee
markets (Hudson and Hudson 2004; Raynolds 2002). While the entry of large
capitalist firms into organic food production may have diluted core principles
(Guthman 2004), by most accounts, organic farming techniques are less ecologically
harmful than their conventional counterparts (Allen and Kovach 2000). The slow
food movement argues that the pleasures of local, artisan foods is not a bourgeois
privilege, but an entry point into issues of equality, sustainability, and resistance to
corporate encroachment in the lifeworld (Labelle 2004; see Petrini 2001). More
generally, feminist philosopher Kate Soper (2004, 2007) argues for the possibilities
of an “alternative hedonism” where affluent citizen-consumers use personal
consumption as an entry-point to larger political projects.
Many continue to insist on either/or answers: are ethical consumers fodder for
corporate marketing campaigns capitalizing on the rise of consumer concern, or does
ethical consumption represent a new, radical form of activism where citizenconsumers satisfy both their self-interest and their responsibilities to others? A desire
for a simple answer is understandable, however a binary approach proves
intellectually and politically unsatisfying and suggests the importance of looking
to concrete cases – of consumer movements, consumer organizations, and their
corporate counterparts (my focus here) – to investigate dialectically the possibilities
and contradictions of the citizen-consumer hybrid in ethical consumer discourse.
Beyond good and bad: identifying adjudication criteria
Understanding citizens and consumers as competing ideal types
Ethical consumer discourse and the hybrid citizen-consumer concept, more
specifically, contain a unifying logic suggesting that consumers can shop to satisfy
their desires while producing an optimal social outcome. Despite this unifying logic,
I argue that ethical consumer discourse contains a marked ideological conflict
between consumerism and citizenship. The terms consumerism and citizenship are
17
For a critique of “co-optation” theory, see Thompson and Coskuner-Balli (2007). Although this critique
usefully identifies potential limitations of a monolithic understanding of market cooptation of social
movement ideals, I question the accuracy of suggesting that there is a unified body of “co-optation” theory
that represents a “conventional theoretical standpoint,” since theories of co-optation come from multiple
disciplines, and tend to emerge from the analytic margins rather than a disciplinary core.
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conceptually baggy in everyday parlance, leading to the commonplace observation
that consumers now practice citizenship through their shopping decisions.18 It is not
that consumers can never behave as citizens at the grocery store or shopping mall,
but rather, it becomes necessary to unpack exactly what is meant by these terms, and
what ideological conflicts are glossed over in the citizen-consumer hybrid. In this
section, I systematically unpack consumerism and citizenship as ideologically
competing ideal types to see better how they function in the broader discourse of
ethical consumption.
The concept of the citizen-consumer has evolved out of, and alongside
consumerism, and shares many of its basic assumptions and principles. While
“consumption” refers fairly straightforwardly to “using up” goods and services,
consumerism refers to an ideology suggesting a way of life dedicated to the
possession and use of consumer goods (Kellner 1983:74), rooted in the capitalist
necessity of selling an ever-expanding roster of commodities in a globalized
economy (Gottdiener 2000:281; Sklair 2001). Consumerism prioritizes commodity
consumption, and suggests that “the best organized societies are those that place
consumer satisfaction at the centre of all their major institutions” (Sklair 2001:5;
Stevenson 1995:110; Gabriel and Lang 1995). According to the related “consumer
sovereignty ideal,” consumers are not only the lucky beneficiaries of mass
consumerism, but actually possess the power to drive the economy by determining
what goods and services will be made available (Dickinson and Carsky 2006:29).
Mass consumerism was ushered in with Fordism – an unprecedented economic
arrangement that linked mass production with mass consumption. Fordist consumption is distinguished from the consumption patterns of earlier centuries where
commodity choice was largely restricted to wealthy elites. The democratization of
the idea of commodity choice was, and remains central to consumerism. As Gabriel
and Lang (2006) write: “[w]hat sets modern consumption apart from earlier patterns
is not merely the growth of spending power across social classes and strata, but,
more importantly, the experience of choice as a generalized social phenomenon. No
earlier social period afforded the social masses the choice of what to spend surplus
cash on after the means of subsistence had been met” (p. 12). Consumerism presents
a world where individual consumer choice is the optimal social condition. Choice is
not only central to what consumers do in the marketplace (e.g., they must choose
between literally thousands of commodities in a grocery store), but it is also central
to the meaning attached to modern consumption and a modern self who makes
autonomous choices expressing a unique identity (Taylor 1992:28), and whose sense
of freedom is intimately connected to consumer choice (Bauman 1998). Put
differently, modern consumption changed not just what people purchased, but the
ideas and meanings around consumption, with a particular focus on the construction
of identity through autonomous consumer choice (Glennie and Thrift 1992: 429).
While consumerism relates strongly to choice and self-interest, when we put
“citizenship” under the analytic microscope, we see a much different picture. The
meaning of citizenship has been a hotly debated topic since the time of Aristotle, and
one that determines the vision of public life under debate (Beiner 2006). While
18
For example, the recent RED campaign (November/December 2007) at the GAP asks the question on
store signage, “Can the shirt off my back change the world?” and then answers, “Yes, this one can.”
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
243
political philosophers have traditionally understood citizenship as membership in a
state or political community (e.g., Marshall 1992), I broaden the meaning of
citizenship beyond the state-container of formal politics to encompass citizenship’s
political-economic and political-ecological dimensions. This way of viewing
citizenship sees the citizen as part of collective struggles to reclaim and preserve
the social and ecological commons.
A commons-based conceptualization of citizenship is not an idealist construction
imposed from the top–down, but is rooted in already existing social struggles. The
idea of “reclaiming the commons” is a phrase increasingly heard in the global justice
movement (Goldman 1997, 1998:14; Johnston 2003; Klein 2001), and reflects a
general interest in reorienting economies away from an exclusive focus on
commodification and profit maximization, and towards a more equitable and
sustainable provisioning of human needs.19 Hyper-commodification on a global
scale can be understood as an enclosure of the commons, a development that
threatens self-reliance and raises questions about the long-run sustainability of
human societies (e.g., Clark and York 2005). This enclosure has lead social
movements worldwide to call for public policy interventions and organizing efforts
by citizens to “create a parallel economy of care and connection that can counter the
negative effects of the domination caused by the economy of commoditization”
(Mano 2002:99). A commons-based understanding of citizenship does not
necessarily mean that markets or individual consumption styles are eradicated.20
However, the citizen-commons ideal type suggests that markets must be re-embedded
in social structures so that basic goods, like nutritious sustainable food, do not only go
to those who can afford it, and that alternate, non-commodified modes of needs
provisioning – through needs reduction and cooperative provisioning – are equally
developed (e.g., collective kitchens, community gardens, state-sponsored school meal
programs).21 While consumerism maximizes individual self-interest though commodity choice, the citizen-commons ideal prioritizes the collective good, which means that
individual self-interest and pleasure can be trumped in the interest of improving
sustainability or access to the commons. In short, citizenship struggles to reclaim the
19
While the commons have been defined in many ways, philosopher John McMurtry (1999) usefully
describes them as “human agency in personal, collective or institutional form which protects and enables
the access of all members of a community to basic life goods” (p. 204). Life-good are distinguished from a
commodity using two criteria: (1) freedom from a price barrier (while markets can be used to distribute life
goods, they cannot be restricted to those with resources), and (2) the property of enabling vital lifecapabilities which includes not just the capacity to be physically alive, but the broad human range of
thinking, acting, and feeling (McMurtry 2001: 827, 837).
As Goldman (1998) insists, “[m]aintenance of the commons is thus one of the legs on which
commodity production stands,” a fact that is increasingly recognized by capitalists themselves: “These
‘defenders’ of the commons (many of which are in the business of expanding access to private property
and surplus-value production) argue that the sustainability of private-property regimes is actually
completely dependent upon the maintenance of non-private property of the commons.” (pp. 16, 6).
20
21
This introduces complex debates about the possibilities and limitations of working with markets that
cannot be explored here. For a discussion of the historical importance of markets in capitalism, see Wood
(1999); on the connections between markets and ecological exhaustion, see van der Pijl (2001). A more
positive assessment of markets and the environment is found in Hawken et al. (2000), but Guthman (2000)
assesses market dynamics in organic agriculture and reaches more pessimistic conclusions (pp. 305–306).
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commons are collective, needs-oriented, and emphasize responsibility to ensure the
survival and well being of others – human and non-human.
How consumer choice operates ideologically
While citizenship struggles to reclaim the commons resonate with global justice
social movements, consumerism remains a powerful cultural force – a “ubiquitous
and ephemeral” force that is “arguably the religion of the late twentieth century”
(Miles 1998:1). Yet consumerism’s ubiquity is not an automatic indictment, and to
provide greater critical precision, I ask a more specific question: how does
consumerism operate ideologically?
Ideological processes are understood as those that naturalize and legitimize ideas
in service of dominant interests. Ideas are not imposed from the top–down, but
rather, hegemony22 is created through a negotiation between individual subjects and
dominant cultural constructions shaped by political-economic power (Fegan
1996:184). Although critical theory has a long tradition of condescension towards
quotidian consumer pleasures, analysts should not underestimate the strong popular
and emotional attachments to the idea of choice associated with consumerism,
particularly since it is a rare arena of significant, tangible personal choice in modern
life (Slater 1997:27). By offering a maximum number of choices to appeal to a wide
variety of consumers, consumers can shape their self-concept and create an identity.
If one’s conscience is troubled by the global mal-distribution of wealth or ecological
deterioration, one has a choice to buy fairly traded and organically produced goods.
By harnessing the power of consumer choice, ethical consumption appears to shape
the market in a way that preserves the environment, addresses poverty, and promotes
democracy. Exercising consumer choice appears as both a viable and convenient
strategy – particularly when compared to the onerous demands of social movement
organizations or trade unionism. Consequently, ethical shopping guides commonly
emphasize how changing the world is “easy” when you focus on shopping for justice
or sustainability.23
While the idea of consumer choice has a powerful cultural resonance, its role in
ethical consumer discourse raises difficult questions. First, it is worth noting that the
idea of “voting with your dollar” is not an invention of social justice activists or
environmentalists, but is fundamentally rooted in classical market theory. Early in
the nineteenth-century, Austrian economist Frank Fetter wrote, “every buyer ...
determines in some degree the direction of industry. The market is a democracy
where every penny gives the right to vote” (quoted in Dickinson and Carsky
A neo-Gramsican use of the concept of hegemony emphasizes that elites cannot rule by force alone –
cultural leadership is required to achieve cultural consent, which reinforces class inequality and often
works to suppress critical thinking by its appearance common sense. While power is concentrated in key
capitalist agents and organizations, a neo-Gramsican approach also see power and agency at the “bottom,”
resting in the hands of civil society and social movements (e.g., Johnston 2001; Carroll 1992).
22
23
For example, in one book entitled It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living (Trask
2006), the author writes that “Adopting better habits and ways of doing things doesn't require riches,
inordinate discretionary time or overhauling your life, but these could be a few of the misperceptions that
inhibit more Americans from acting on their predilection for a healthy environment” (p.10). The back
cover furthermore lets us know that we can become green “without the fuss.”
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
245
2006:25). Similarly, the ideal of consumer sovereignty – consumers determining
what goods and services are produced through their individual and independent
consumer votes – was introduced by the economist William H. Hutt in 1934 (ibid.,
28). With the rise of neo-liberal governance in the 1980s, the idea of consumer
choice as freedom gained resonance. Milton and Rose Friedman wrote in 1980:
When you vote daily in the supermarket, you get precisely what you voted for,
and so does everyone else. The ballot box produces conformity without
unanimity; the marketplace, unanimity without conformity (Friedman and
Friedman 1980).
With the era of ethical consumption activism, the idea of voting with your dollar
was taken up to serve ends of sustainability and social justice (Dickinson and Carsky
2006). What is often overlooked with the grafting of consumer voting onto
progressive causes, however, is the knotty relationship between individual consumer
choice and self-interest. In the progressive version of “voting with your dollar,” it is
not clear what happens to self-interest–the fundamental principal of market theory
that assumes an optimal outcome is produced when individual consumers maximize
their “utility” by prioritizing self-interest (Slater 1997:28–9). How and when is selfinterest trumped by a concern for others, or for the social and ecological commons?
What kind of shopping spaces encourage the abnegation of self-interest, and what
shopping spaces create an appearance of beneficence while reinforcing the
hegemonic ideals of self-interest and unlimited consumer choice? With the ideal of
consumer choice enjoying widespread cultural hegemony, it seems particularly
challenging to create market spaces that markedly restrain consumer choice and selfinterest in the name of collective good. What is easier to sustain in a model of
consumer voting is the idea of voluntary beneficence – a model that sustains an
extremely flexible accounting of ethical consumer action in the marketplace. In this
context, suppressing one’s self-interest, and acting on concern for the larger good
through shopping decisions is depicted as just one choice among many. Consumer
considerations beyond self-interest become a laudable, but ultimately a voluntary
addition, since self-interested shopping behavior and freedom of choice remain
broadly sanctioned ideals in consumer culture.
The contemporary manifestation of “voting with your dollar,” or voluntary
consumer beneficence, emerged in the context of a neo-liberal mode of governance
that attained global prominence from the late 1970s, and that has proven an effective
way of governing political subjects through self-regulation (Johnston and Laxer
2003:40; Rose 1999).24 With neo-liberal governance, the realm of formal political
citizenship retracted as transnationalized states deferred to capital (Robinson 2001),
and democratic deficits emerged leaving everyday citizens feeling disenfranchised
from the formal political process (Bauman 1999; Putnam 2000; Nye 2001). While
24
To be clear, acceptance of neo-liberalism is not globally uniform, and important exceptions exist,
particularly in China, Malaysia, and now in the “pink tide” of left-leadership in South America. The status
of consumer organizations and state regulation is also not identical in Europe and North America. In
contrast to the bottom-up consumer organizations found in North America, Burgess (2001) describes how
state-sponsored consumer organizations in the EU work with an overarching regulatory state to re-gain the
legitimacy lost with the diminishment of Keynesian welfare state models (p. 96).
246
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formal opportunities for citizenship seemed to retract under neo-liberalism,
opportunities for a lifestyle politics of consumption rose correspondingly. Neoliberal governance actively promoted the idea of consumer choice in the market as a
worthy complement to, and even substitute for the citizenship ideal of democratic
participation. With the deregulation of the market and the devolution of welfare
states, consumer authority was valorized from both the right and the left of the
political spectrum. Tony Blair’s “third way” Labor government, for example,
emphasized not government’s role to redistribute wealth, but increasing consumer
choice in access to public services (Perris 2003; Clarke 2007). As states deferred
responsibility for environmental regulation, consumers became increasingly responsible to self-manage environmental risks through consumption decisions. The
president of Consumer International described consumer movements as “the
regulators of the market in a globalized world” while working towards “a fair and
just society” (Burgess 2001:101).
While consumers have gained increased responsibility as regulators of the neoliberal global economy, shopping choices have always had political implications, as
per the long-standing feminist insight that social reproductive work like grocery
shopping and cleaning involves both power and politics.25 Understanding the
political potential of grocery shopping and food choice leads me, along with feminist
scholars of social reproduction to question, “how hegemony is secured – or might be
frayed – in the overlapping spaces where home and work, the public and the private,
state and society converge” (Mitchell et al. 2003:19). More specifically, how is
hegemony secured or challenged through ethical consumer discourse as framed by
Whole Foods Market? To answer this question, we need to spell out more explicitly
what kind of adjudication criteria can be used to evaluate ideological struggles over
consumerism and citizenship in the Whole Foods Market case study.
Evaluating the citizen-consumer hybrid
To avoid reducing consumer politics to bourgeois piggery, or uncritically lauding
citizen-consumers as the new revolutionary agents, we can draw from social theory
to develop criteria that allow us to evaluate specific empirical instances of food
25
Academic understanding of social reproduction has advanced beyond a narrow interpretation of childrearing, and connected globalized capitalism to the ecological and social reproduction of the labor force
(Katz 2003; Micheletti et al. 2004:2; Hochschild and Ehrenreich 2003).Globalization scholarship has
traditionally focused on the realm of production, yet the importance of social reproduction as a realm of
necessity, vital for both social and ecological sustainability, has been highlighted by feminist geographers
(Katz 2003), political economists (Sousa Santos 1995; van der Pijl 2001)), and ecological philosophers
(McMurtry 2001). With neo-liberal reforms, cut-backs to the public sector and expanded markets worked
to shift the work of social reproduction out in two directions: first, to charity-based organizations and nonprofit organizations providing services for marginalized populations, and second, to private corporations
who provide services for those who can afford them, relying on the labor of marginalized transnational
workers from the Global South (Katz 2003:256; Hochschild and Ehrenreich 2003). While affluent
consumers may actively choose private commodity choices (e.g., private nannies, personal chefs), it is
important to note that privatized consumer choices lack the universality-principles of welfare states, and
the end result is the large-scale privatization of social reproduction in the twenty-first century (Mitchell et
al. 2003:17). Whole Foods Market represents a key corporate component of the privatization of social
reproduction, offering choices like prepared meals, a one-stop shopping format offering conventional
foods and organics/fair-trade, and the opportunity to “feel good about where you shop.”
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
247
politics more accurately (Johnston 2007). Juxtaposing the ideologies of citizenship
and consumerism with empirical case-studies can help avoid empty polemics by
shedding light on how ideological conflicts over consumerism and citizenship play
out in concrete cases. The complexity of on-the-ground food politics compels us to
abandon the search for ideologically “pure” agents of domination and resistance, and
instead look for points of contradiction, change, and ideological struggle.
Building on the discussion of consumerism and citizenship as ideal-types outlined
above, the criteria suggested here (summarized in Table 1) are used to discuss the
contradictions in Whole Foods Market’s framing of the citizen-consumer hybrid. I
investigate how well this framing serves norms of consumerism and citizenship in
three distinct domains of social life that have significant implications: culture,
political economy, and political ecology. These three domains are borrowed from
Katz’s (2003) analysis of the political and ideological implications of social
reproductive work (pp. 258–259). In the table below, the rows present the three
domains, and the columns of the table contrast consumerism with citizenship. The
case study provides evidence for one particularly influential instantiation of the
hybrid concept, allowing an assessment of how WFM’s framing of the concept
balances consumerism and citizenship.
At the level of culture, an ideology of consumerism emphasizes the maximization
of individual choice and variety, whereas citizenship encourages the bracketing of
self-interest and the restriction of choice in the interest of collective solutions to
achieve social justice and ecological integrity – in other words, to reclaim and
preserve the commons. At the level of political-economy, consumerism links
consumption to enhanced social status, as well as the maximization of one’s own
class status and well-being through consumption – a phenomenon observed from
Veblen (1994) to Bourdieu (1984). Consumer markets are highly valued, since
markets are seen as providing sovereign consumers with what they want and need,
and offer an acceptable and desirable means to achieve social status and upward
mobility. In contrast, an ideology of citizenship based on responsibility to a social
and ecological commons advocates greater equality in needs provisioning so that
life’s essentials, like food, do not simply go to those who can afford them. The
regulative power of the market is restricted, and community-based values – such as
solidarity with others, direct participation in the decisions and labors that affect one’s
life and a sense of pleasure gained from re-enchantment with one’s lifeworld – are
prioritized (Sousa Santos 1995:40–54; Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen 1999:5). In the
Table 1 Consumerism versus citizenship
Culture
Political economy
Political ecology
Consumerism: maximizing
individual interest
Citizenship: collective responsibilities
to a social and ecological commons
Prioritize individual choice
and variety
Consumer markets valued;
social status through
consumption
Conservation through
consumption
Limiting individual choice and variety;
collective solutions
Equitable access and empowerment
for all social classes; markets restricted
Reduce consumption; re-evaluate wants
and needs
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third realm of political ecology, consumerism supports the conservation of nature
through consumption, buying more “green” products in substitution for regular
products (e.g., environmentally friendly disposable diapers), or buying products and
services that construct a personal communion with nature (e.g., rainforest jungle
tours or rainforest themed breakfast cereal). In contrast, a commons-focused
ideology of citizenship advances disengagement with consumerism and reduced
consumption, drawing from the political-ecological insight that current consumption
levels of affluent populations are unsustainable and draw from the commons of
peripheral regions (Durning 1992; Zavestocki 2001).
To be clear, the point of this ideal-type comparison is not to present the consumer
and citizen as two different empirical subjects that exist in separate and isolated
bodies. Instead, it is intended as a heuristic tool to elucidate how consumerism and
citizenship represent two very different explanatory frameworks and normative ends –
ends that are not easily reconciled in the citizen-consumer hybrid. In the next section, I
document WFM’s framing process, analyzing how it adjudicates between these
competing ideal-types, and looking for terminal points – contradictions within ethical
consumer discourse that are glossed over discursively, but nonetheless seem
irresolvable, or at least deeply troubled, within the hybrid concept of the citizenconsumer.
Case study: How WFM frames the citizen consumer hybrid
Real Food.
Amazing Flavors.
Fantastically Fun.
–Whole Foods Market Pamphlet (WFM 2007a)
To investigate the viability of the citizen-consumer in ethical consumer discourse,
in this section I examine WFM’s framing of citizen-consumers to specify and
illustrate what kind of contradictions exist in this hybrid concept. Before proceeding,
it is worth noting that WFM depicts the corporation itself as an ethical actor, and its
shopping spaces represent an opportunity to observe the citizen-consumer concept
put into practice. WFM stores project an image of a feel-good business engaged with
the local community, protecting the environment, distributing the food of local
farmers, promoting employee well-being, and above all, servicing customers’ desire
for delicious food they can feel good about. Indeed, WFM stores boast myriad
displays about healthy living, organic agriculture, local farmers, and their place at
the heart of WFM’s corporate activities. CEO and founder John Mackey describes
WFM as building a “new business paradigm” that puts customers ahead of
shareholders, raises the living standard of the world’s population, and has a
“fundamental responsibility to create prosperity for society and the world” (CBS
2004). According to Mackey, doing business within this “new [ethical] business
paradigm” is not just a livelihood, but “a holy calling” (CBS 2004), and he insists
that the “brand of business” has gained an undeserved bad reputation globally given
that “business and capitalism are helping increase prosperity throughout the world”
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
249
(Maravillosa 2006).26 WFM’s incredible growth rests partly upon the aggressive
business acumen of Mackey, but its commercial success suggests a retail
environment that resonates with consumers.
WFM’s framing of ethical consumption clearly presents the corporation as an
ethical actor, this article, however, has a more specific focus: how the WFM
shopping experience frames shopping as an ethical activity, as per the citizenconsumer hybrid. The WFM declaration of interdependence declares its ambition to
turn customers into “advocates for whole foods” (WFM 2004a). The stores offer a
high degree of organic and natural products, and many of these products contain
messages on their packaging about the ecological contradictions of mainstream
agriculture and food production. These messages are often echoed by WFM
promotional materials appearing throughout the store (a phenomenon that I explore
in more detail below). The popular prepared food section, furthermore, offers more
ethical takes on classic take-out items like organic rotisserie chickens and homemade soups. Other promotional materials designed by WFM emphasize the absence
of products with artificial preservatives, colors, sweeteners, or flavors, the fact that
5% of after-tax profits are donated to charity, and that executive salaries are limited
to 14 times those of frontline staff. WFM also promotes itself as an ethical work
environment that is kind to “whole people,” thereby tying the shopping experience
to labor justice. In short, the WFM retail space appears constructed to distinguish
itself, its clientele, and its products from a culinary mainstream marked by fast-food
and generic mass-market foods associated with ill-health, poverty, obesity. This is
reiterated by the WFM website:
[m]any customers have shunned the burger joints and corporate cafeterias for
the tasty and more healthful fare of dishes such as enlightened fried rice, earthy
quinoa and couscous salads, and tangy sesame-crusted salmon. It's not fast
food; it’s good food that customers can pick up quickly. (WFM 2000b).
Most significantly, the WFM retail experience suggests that the citizen-consumer
goals of pleasurable and ethical shopping are accessible and never in contradiction.
WFM offers delicious and highly varied food choices, while employing the “feelgood and do-good” message on everything from food packaging to in-store signage
to paper napkins. By combining these messages with an extensive range of prepared
26
To be clear, CEO John Mackey speaks plainly to the business press about the company’s aggressive
growth strategies, which he presents as complementary with an ethical orientation: “[t]here’s this notion
that you can’t be touchy-feely and serious. ... We don’t fit the stereotypes.” (Fishman 1996:103). Indeed,
WFM is deeply competitive internally and externally. Top-down corporate hierarchies are supplemented
with self-managed “teams” where team members are voted in (or out) of full-time jobs by other team
members after a 30 day trial period. Stores, and the self-managed “teams” within stores (e.g., produce,
bakery), compete to achieve the best performance targets in service, sales, and profitability. Productivity
and company bonuses are closely tracked, and directly tied to team’s competitive performance (Fishman
1996). As CEO John Mackey explains, “peer pressure substitutes for bureaucracy” (as in Fishman 1996).
Externally, competition is also the name of the game in the WFM business paradigm. WFM has absorbed
smaller and competing stores in its path to becoming the largest natural foods chain in the world, and has
been criticized for opening stores in close proximity to established natural food stores.
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and beautifully presented foods, WFM implies that one can shop “responsibly” at the
store without sacrificing taste or convenience. This way of framing the shopping
experience to maximize consumer pleasure and alleviate the guilt of mass-market
consumerism obscures the contradictions of ethical consumption. In the 1960s, the
counter-cuisine was openly tormented by multiple contradictions (e.g., Can homemade raspberry jam be made with imported white sugar? Should food coops sell
white bread for working class customers? [Belasco 1989:79]). In sharp contrast,
WFM frames ethical consumption as a seamless shopping experience where hybrid
citizen-consumers can express ethical concerns by eating delicious prepared foods
and beautifully-displayed produce in a fun shopping environment. To interrogate this
palatable framing of ethical consumption, I employ an analytic framework that
investigates contradictions at three levels of social reproduction – culture, politicaleconomy, and political-ecology – and suggest three corresponding ideological
contradictions in WFM’s framing of ethical consumption.
Culture: maximum consumer choice with minimum citizenship responsibilities
Whole Foods thinks shopping should be fun. With this [80,000 square foot
flagship] store we’re pioneering a new lifestyle that synthesizes health and
pleasure. We don’t see a contradiction.
−Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (Matson 2005).
How does WFM present the importance and significance of choice for the citizenconsumer hybrid? In this section, I present evidence to develop my argument that the
focus on the maximization of consumer choice at WFM is in contradiction with the
requirements of citizenship to relinquish some control over consumer choice for
the sake of the commons. Although citizenship does not require eliminating consumer
choice, it does require that consumer choice is de-centered as the paramount, guiding
value.
Offering consumers as many options as possible is a key business strategy for
WFM. The company provides an astonishing variety of foods in large, well-stocked
stores; not only are most WFMs larger than most natural food stores, but some are
almost twice as large as an average grocery store.27 WFM offers consumers foods
touted as beneficial for the environment, safe for wildlife, or made under fair labor
conditions, but, significantly, it also stocks “conventional” products where special
concern for sustainability, workers’ rights, or social justice is not apparent. Product
choices are vast, despite the fact that WFM promises to stock only natural, high
quality ingredients. One research trip to Whole Foods documents 25 different
27
WFM has traditionally built stores in the 31,000 square foot range, but is planning to build 58 new
stores in the 50,000 square foot range. The flagship Austin store is 80,000 square feet; the industry
average for a grocery store is 34,000 square feet (Matson 2005).
Theor Soc (2008) 37:229–270
251
varieties of natural macaroni and cheese, 129 varieties of boxed cereal, 147 different
kinds of chips, puffs, popcorn, and nachos, and 72 different kinds of bottled water
(that takes up an entire aisle in the store). WFM also sells ready-to-freeze spring
water ice cubes in plastic, and on more recent trips I notice the new health item – the
plastic-free Sigg bottle imported from Switzerland. The produce section is similarly
impressive in its variety, and features a range of exotic items like pomellos and
mangosteens from Thailand, tamarillo and granadillia from Colombia, and ugli fruit
from Jamaica. Snippets of conversation overheard while browsing the aisles
included phrases like, I can’t believe what they have here – it’s amazing.” “I don’t
even know where to start....” The online cheese selector features an amazing volume
of choices: 32 soft cheeses, 10 blue-veined cheeses, 10 grating cheeses, 36 firm
cheeses, 74 semi-firm cheeses, and 14 fresh cheeses (WFM 2007c). What does this
abundance of choice imply for the balance between consumerism and citizenship?
WFM extols choice as integral to a cultural style where consumerism and
citizenship are seamlessly integrated, but if we follow up on the implications of
maximal choice, we see that it puts consumer and citizenship ideals out of balance.
A heavy reliance on consumerism’s key tenet of choice makes for a starkly limited
space to encourage the responsibilities and to develop the knowledge of citizenship.
It is not that consumers can never exercise the responsibilities of citizenship at
WFM, but rather, the extensive range of consumer choice is the dominant theme of
the WFM experience. How does WFM’s framing of the citizen-consumer achieve
this appearance of balance, and in what ways does WFM’s emphasis on choice
undermine the balance between consumer and citizenship ideals?
The first source of the imbalance is the fact that consumer choice renders
citizenship responsibilities voluntary, understanding citizenship broadly as a system
of individual rights and responsibilities to a civil and natural commons. Unlike
citizens, who have a range of compulsory responsibilities to multi-scaled political
collectivities (e.g., they pay taxes, obey laws, manage natural resources), consumer
beneficence is primarily individualistic and voluntary since consumers have the
option of taking their “vote” elsewhere.28 Even within the well stocked shelves of
WFM, consumers can opt out of citizenship commitments to marginalized
populations and ecologies, and prioritize individual self-interest by purchasing
cheaper, unsustainable foods that may be industrially produced, out of season,
conveniently packaged, or produced using exploited labor. At the same time that
WFM consumers purchase these products, they shop in an environment that frames
WFM consumers as ethical, healthy, and environmentally conscientious – even
though the consumer might end up at the check-out with imported Chilean
28
Not all aspects of citizenship are obligatory since many aspects of political capital and civil society
depend on voluntary citizenry efforts; however, the central economic and security/regulatory aspects of the
citizen/state nexus depend on compulsory measures that allow governments to reflect the will of the
people, and perform services essential to welfare states. While consumerism does mandate some
compulsory responsibilities – e.g., the payment of debt – (see Jubas 2007: 241–2), it is primarily defined
by individual rights, rather than by its collective obligations, particularly as it occurs in “impersonal
markets where ... consumers can make choices unburdened by guilt or social obligations” (Gabriel and
Lang 1995:173).
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raspberries, a heavily processed and packaged “organic” meal imported from
thousands of miles away,29 and a box of General Mills Cereal.30
An emphasis on consumer choice creates an ideological imbalance in a second
way. Although WFM sometimes frames consumer choice as a way to meet
obligations toward the environment, it more frequently frames consumer choice as a
way to meet obligations to the self. WFM frames consumer choice as a potent civicminded action, even if the action is oriented towards one’s individual health rather
than ecological sustainability or social justice.31 Evidence for this focus is found in
in-store pamphlets under the provocative banner, “Take Action!” These in-store
pamphlet stands typically include two or three pamphlets on topics like food
irradiation and genetic engineering, and a few conclude with the injunctive to
contact political representatives to express your concerns about the safety of GE
food and irradiation. These are important examples of framing that encourage
consumers to behave as citizens, but in general, they are exceptions to the rule. The
vast majority of the pamphlets in the “Take Action” section relate to taking action on
personal health issues, and include such titles as “A Natural Primer for the Carb
Conscious,” “Sugar Conscious,” and “Handling Seafood Safely.” Similarly, the
seminars available at the WFM store-kitchens are focused on health and culinary
topics, rather than political issues identified by food activists across North America,
like food insecurity, corporate concentration in the food system, fast-food advertising
to children, or shortening food miles. Sessions at the Portland, Oregon WFM (July
2005) are typical; they included “Cakes and Decorating,” “Gourmet Picnics,” “Sushi
101,” and “Belgian Ale Appreciation.” In general, the value of consumer choice
tends to manifest as a powerful way of meeting obligations, but these are mainly
obligations to the self rather than citizenship ideals involving collective action to
protect the ecological and social commons.
29
In debates over organic standards in the United States, various decisions have favored the entry of large
corporations into the organics sector, such as the allowance of factory-farming, food additives, and
synthetic chemicals that opened the door to synthetic processed organic foods. Organic processed foods
may be free from pesticides and be grown without fertilizers, but the energy used to construct processed
foods make them highly problematic on environmental grounds. On average, the food processing industry
in the USA uses ten calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy (Manning
2004:44). However, the political-economic motivation for retailers to promote highly processed foods is
strong, since they have more “valued added” and higher profit rates than less processed foods (e.g., eggs,
milk, flour), and are found to be featured more prominently in retail displays (Winson 2004).
30
It is worth noting that the role of WFM as an ethical corporation is similarly voluntary; it can choose to
support greater animal welfare in its operations, while it simultaneously quashes unionization efforts,
refuses to join labor campaigns organized to guarantee labor rights for strawberry pickers, and markets a
wide-range of energy-intensive processed foods. WFM’s anti-union policies and strategies are well
documented, and linked to Mackey’s libertarian political-economic philosophy. In Mackey’s own words:
“basically, labour unions don’t create value.... Fundamentally, they’re parasites. They feed on union dues”
(Lubove 2005:42). Mackey wrote and circulated a 19-page position paper entitled, “Beyond Unions” that
has been circulated to “team-members” since 1990. Numerous journalistic accounts have documented
WFM’s systematic efforts to prevent unionization. In addition, CEO John Mackey, refused to sign a
United Farm Workers union petition to guarantee the rights of strawberry pickers in 1998. According to
Mackey, “The UFW is trying to coerce us because we won’t sign their damned petition....I’m damned if
I’m going to sign....
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