[100% veg*n ] Co-Ops, Execs and trains( Was: Not Sainsbury's!)

[Guest guest]

Well the point of Railtrack giving dividends back to shareholders is simply

so that they will be attracted to the company as an investment and thus it

will end up with more money to spend. And in case people are beginning to

wonder I am not a supporter of capitalism, it is fatally flawed, but it is

the system in which I find myself and I have yet to see any better

alternative. Many of the problems within the current railway structure

though result from the lack of cohesion due to the involvement of so many

different companies, regulators and the government.

 

I don't disagree with what you say about a co-operative, but the relations

with producers of private company, and the ideas of shareholders, COULD

function in the same way. That is why I don't damn the whole system even

if it is corrupt now. There are ethical investment funds which means not

only do you make money without risking you ethics, it also means you are

helping to support the right companies, and possibly encourage more to be

ethical.

 

The original question, which has only been hazily asked, of whether we

should use supermarkets but if we don't then they will be happy enough

serving the majority of 'unethical customers' and we would all sit on the

outside while all this goes on. By visiting them to buy ethical products

we are showing that as consumers, and their customers, we want them to act

ethically and this will encourage them to be more ethical. Of course this

won't be an overnight transformation but a slow change (you mentioned the

difference between now and ten years ago). The 'unethical customers' will

end up buying ethical products, without knowing or caring, which they

wouldn't have otherwise. This can be seen in the rise of products which

are made suitable for vegetarians which once wouldn't have been.

 

>But even if this is not the reason, how many of us can honestly say

>that the job that we do is because we want to do it, and we feel so

>passionately about that we just have to do it?

 

That is my point (the supermarket executive being simply an example). Of

course people are executives because they are well paid, but as a child do

you decide that that is the career you want? How many executives always

wanted to be doing that job? If it is purely for money there are much

better decisions you could make in terms of career paths. People get

caught up in the 'system' (whatever that is) and seem to put that in front

of themselves and their own interests, a very odd thing to do yet seemingly

everyone does it.

 

Michael