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"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" has slowly morphed from a statement on the ways in which consumer activism is an inadequate tool to address the central problems of liberal capitalism into the rallying cry of the do-nothing crowd. People who complain about the status quo online while also refusing to substantively address how their lifestyle contributes to that status quo. A way to shut down all nuanced discussion on the matter. It is now a binary phenomena; consumer choice has no effect and cannot make things better or worse in any way whatsoever.

i reject this lazy reading of the phrase and it's implications. You cannot buy your way out of late-capitalism but you can, and should, be selective in which parts of the capitalist order you participate in.

you don't need to buy new, resource intensive denim jeans when the thrift store down the block has racks and racks of previously owned jeans that are as good as new.

skip the strawberries in february in the northern hemisphere being shipped in from guatemala. They're going to taste bad anyways.

Perhaps don't buy chocolate candy from the company accused of using child slave labor on it's African cacao plantations.

much like voting in a liberal democracy, these choices are never going overthrow the economic order but they can make the world a little less shitty.