-Caveat Lector-
>From TheNewStatesman (UK)
> Better to shop than to vote
>
> No wonder politics is out of fashion. It's the consumer that has the
> power. By Noreena Hertz
>
> <Picture>Fewer than one in four Britons voted in the European
> elections; turnout, though higher in most EU countries than here,
> slumped across the continent. In last month's Scottish and Welsh
> elections, turnout was remarkably low for what were supposed to be
> historic events. Eleven per cent fewer people voted in the English
> council elections than in those four years ago. In the Leeds Central
> by-election this month, the 19.6 per cent turnout was the lowest since
> the Second World War. In the May 1997 general election only 71 per
> cent voted: again, the lowest number since the war. Political apathy
> reigns. Yet last month, one million people voted via the Internet and
> a freephone number to change Kellogg's Choco Krispies brand name back
> to Coco Pops. Are we more passionate today about shopping than about
> politics?
>
> We have an uneasy relationship with corporations: in the UK, public
> approval rating for big business is at a 30-year low - only a quarter
> of the UK public thinks it a "good thing" for large companies to make
> profits. Yet we demand that business delivers what we want and need,
> champions our causes, puts computers in our schools and rejuvenates
> our inner cities. Seventy per cent of us now care whether businesses
> behave ethically, and we put our money into companies that do. In the
> UK, the ethical investment industry has doubled in size over the past
> year.
>
> All company bosses want a policy on corporate social responsibility.
> The positive effect is hard to quantify but the negative consequences
> of a disaster are enormous. Nobody wants the next Brent Spar on his
> hands. So John Browne, the chairman of BP, talks about "companies
> needing to win and retain public trust" and "having to be open to
> dialogue and scrutiny"; and Sir Peter Davis, group chief executive of
> the Prudential Corporation, talks about a "vital" need for companies
> to invest in the communities in which they operate.
>
> Transparency, accountability and sustainability have become the
> slogans of the market leaders. Companies carry out environmental and
> social audits to court the consumer, and even the bluest chips woo
> organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty.
>
> So while political activism is on the wane, consumer activism
> flourishes, aided by the information revolution, the Internet
> explosion and multiplying sources of news. Consumers, not voters, make
> a difference. The turnaround on GM food happened not because of
> politicians, but because of consumer pressure. Why wait for a
> cumbersome government change of policy when Marks & Spencer will take
> products off its shelves overnight? Arco is desperately seeking a
> buyer for its acreage in Burma; it is the latest in a growing line of
> companies forced out of that country by the consumer lobby - a
> striking testament to the impact that consumers, rather than
> governments, can have on human rights and the environment.
>
> For corporations, this consumer watch is proving costly and
> burdensome. Social responsibility was once seen as a good PR tool by
> big business; now corporations are being held hostage by their own
> marketing strategies. The causes they champion must be ever greater,
> ever more substantial and ever more original. The innovative campaigns
> of the Body Shop of the eighties have become the humdrum campaigns of
> today's high-street banks. Not only do goods have to be whiter than
> white; company ethics, ideologies and initiatives have to be so, too.
>
> With consumers having ever more choice, corporations must invest more
> and more in courting public opinion. In Britain 93 per cent of
> companies now allocate some of their marketing budget to good causes.
> Shell launched a �15 million ad campaign, in March of this year,
> attesting to its social and environmental awareness. And such efforts
> must be kept up. Consumers, unlike voters, expect an immediate
> response to their concerns; and companies, unlike governments, do not
> have the luxury of a mid-term lull.
>
> Politicians, too, must stay close to their customers. In an
> over-saturated market - nine parties were running for the 87 British
> seats in the European elections - politics becomes just another
> product battling for the consumer's attention. So politicians borrow
> from business: parties identify their unique selling points; rhetoric
> is reduced to slogans; the McKinsey in-house manual becomes William
> Hague's bible; Labour's advertising budget soars - the 1998-99 budget
> for advertising was the government's biggest for seven years - and
> focus groups and market research become essential tools of office.
>
> Ideology competes with ice-cream. Politicians become salespeople,
> offering more and more: lower tax, better schools, more funding for
> the NHS. It is a double switch: politics has entered commerce;
> consumerism has entered politics. Unless politicians provide the same
> levels of service in hospitals and schools, the same quick response to
> our concerns and make the same effort to meet our needs as do Tesco
> and Sainsbury's, they will forfeit our custom. Corporations, realising
> how fickle our vote is, have to become even more conscientious,
> responsible and accountable, or face our defection.
>
> Politics has gone on sale; consumer politics is the real new politics
> we are buying, not the false new politics of devolution, coalition or
> proportional representation. A fundamental change is happening. As the
> century turns, politics as we have long known it has grown too old to
> rejuvenate. Politics is dead - long live the consumer.
>
> The writer is associate director of the Centre for International
> Business and Management at the Judge Institute of Management Studies,
> Cambridge University. Her "The Silent Takeover" will be published by
> Heinemann
<<Question: Do politicians merit warnings (like for smoking or
alcohol) and should they come with money-back guarantees should the
product/service be less than advertised? A<>E<>R >>
A<>E<>R
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