There are few good ethical choices under capitalism
September 17, 2025
We’re doing our best considering real life constraints. Sometimes our best isn’t the ideal solution, but neither is life or circumstances.
We stopped shopping at Walmart and Sam’s Club 20+ years ago. This is much easier here in Northern CA because I don’t know where Sam’s club OR Walmart is.
Our replacement was Target and I’m currently mostly boycotting them, and emailing investor relations to remind them why every couple of weeks, for being jerks about DEI. That’s really annoying.
We avoid Amazon as much as we can so we’ve reduced our spend there a significant amount. I still have to use it to ship food to the reservations when we can’t get it any other way, so I also use Prime Video to get my money’s worth on Prime. I’m considering whether we should just
We won’t buy from Lululemon, having been founded by a racist. Even if it’s not owned by him anymore, I haven’t bothered to look, there’s no reason to add them to our lives.
Costco’s been solid, thank goodness, and I was smug when the VAST majority of shareholders rejected the anti-DEI proposal. They do have some labor slips that need improvement but, by and large, they’re much better than many others.
I stopped using Duolingo because they went fullbore on using AI in their lessons. I won’t use Adobe’s AI either.
I have similar stances with artists who are horrible. We’ll never give the Harry Potter franchise a dime. Neil Gaiman can go to hell for his serial bad treatment of women, he’s been pulled off our shelves. As we learn we change what we consume.
Where do you shop and where have you stopped shopping?
We’re mostly getting everything from the grocery store. Then Kobo/Barnes and Noble/jetpens. Then we try to get things direct from the company (or from their favored licensed retailers– see Official Epic! the musical merch). Then after that, Amazon and I feel guilty every time, but I still do it.
Oh yes, I wish Kobo was an option for the ebooks, instead of Kindle. The current alternative option, reading on Libby really annoys me. That reminds me I should ask the library if that would ever be an option. But I have mostly changed over to Kobo.
I may be wrong, but I think if it is on Libby you should be able to read it directly on Kobo via their overdrive hookup(?). It’s actually easier for me to read library ebooks on my kobo than on my kindle– I can search/request/etc. directly on the kobo. I’m not sure if you can do this for multiple libraries though.
My big problem is that Amazon has a monopoly on some of my favorite authors because they are on kindle unlimited and somehow that means Amazon won’t let them sell ebook copies on other sites (not just other unlimited rental thingies).
Oh, I didn’t know about the overdrive hookup! I will need to look into that when I can find time and two brain cells. Unless it’s only on Kobo the reader and not Kobo the app.
Oh that stinks! I didn’t know that part about Kindle Unlimited but I guess that does make sense they’d want to keep those books exclusive to force you into the Kindle environment. Boooo do not like.
I have switched much of my grocery shopping to a regionally-owned big box + a locally-owned market + a co-op + farmer’s market – that’s really my biggest spend that was flowing out of my local economy. I miss my bougie grocery store and still go sometimes, but have dispersed a lot of that money elsewhere.
Other than food I don’t have a lot of shopping needs; I rarely hit Target because it required a 15-min drive (gasp) and I don’t like the big box experience. I’ve been largely off Amazon all year (though I may do one bulk buy soon).
Most of my clothes are boring Lands End items, and I could easily take a year off from them and they would be fine.
My bigger problem is that I’m spending money on things I don’t need. But I know it’s so important to the small retailers that I value that I really struggle; doing a no-spend would be good for me in terms of freeing up money for other priorities, but I want the local bookstore/theatre company/restaurant to survive!
That’s a great change re your grocery shopping!
A 15 min drive is totally out of my range too 😆
I’m finding my shopping ebbs and flows and is influenced heavily by the same impulse as yours. We want to support the smaller businesses, both local and not, and so we loosen the reins for those things. I’ve been buying jewelry for myself from crafters lately, normally I go years between jewelry purchases. I don’t NEED it but surely do enjoy the wearable art and care about supporting creators from marginalized backgrounds. It’s harder when I know it’s something I’ll never wear or use, though, that’s a total waste so I try to find some other way to support.