Consumer activism

From Nemo

Consumer activism is activism undertaken on behalf of consumers, to assert consumer rights.

Objectives and tactics

Goals include making goods and Import Services or services available to consumers safer, better quality, environmentally friendly, and more readily available. The activists and consumers in the movement hope to provide security and healthy standards for employed consumers. The state should protect against profiteers, disease, unemployment, and market fluctuations. Consumer movements challenge social order and transform it through the propagation of ideologies of consumption in hopes of dramatically changing mainstream views. The ideal goal is to push consumers to question the morality of a purchased product's origins.

Consumer activist tactics can include boycotts, petitioning the government, media activism, and organizing interest groups. Notable consumer activists include Carol Foreman, Marc Kasky, Richard M. Kessel, Virginia H. Knauer, Eileen Hoats, Ralph Nader, Frances Perkins, Michael Pertschuk, Peter A. Peyser.

Notable consumer organizations include Public Citizen, Consumers Union, and Consumer Federation of America.

Periods of Consumer Movements

Sociologist Rao denotes three eras of consumer movements in the United States: the antiadulteration movement, the rise of nonprofit consumer watchdog organizations, and the legal activism era. The ideology of this social movement reflects that of other social movements in that their goal, their adversary, and their members are all publicly made available and seen. Consumer movements developed as a form of resistance against specific marketing and industrial practices. These can include the selling of dangerous vehicles, the use of deceptive advertising, and inhumane working conditions.