ACORN

[eppie]

You are thinking in a messed up ideological way. I'm being a realist (pragmatist), as Pete says. If I give poison to the neighborhood children, then yes, it is unethical. If I go to my local market and buy Nike tennis shoes made in Singapore, how would I ever know what process got them to my locality?

I have the choice of a consumer. If some company is exploiting the ignorant poor, child or slave labor, or is in turn buying materials from someone else who is, then my moral responsibility stops at my buying choice and then also at the nations borders. My personal responsibility for land stops at my property, although I have a vote in what happens in my community, State, and Nation. Governments have the responsibility to protect the people and environment of their nations. Companies have a responsibility to follow the laws of their nation, and morally to deliver the product as advertised. You would have each of us take on the burden of all sins committed in this world, and ostensibly then petition our governments to right these wrongs.

Frankly, I have no idea how "ethical" the chain of materials and labor are for the products I buy. Many are made in SE Asia. I just know that I need them, and so I buy them. Did the metal come from a strip mine? Were the tailings properly handled? Did the wood come from a old growth forest or rain forest? Was the product built by prisoners or children? Are the workers crammed into tiny stalls for 14 hours a day? I don't know. Not much has changed in this regard since nations have been trading goods. Do people in your nation acknowledge their continuing role in the blood diamond trade?

If some nation does not regulate their industries to protect its people or environment, then it's that nation's government that is irresponsible or immoral.

I am not saying that you are responsible for anything. I of course understand the difficulty for a consumer to get a full idea about how 'good or bad' are the products he or she buys. I have problems with the fact that in a discussion about the right or wrong of people (or companies or government) to willingly and while knowing the consequences send chemical waste to a development country to have it sorted out there. It is the same for selling poison gas to a dictator (for which people are actually trialed), you know what the idea of the stuff is.
So sending ships full of chemical waste, or batteries or whatever to one of these countries is criminal in my view. I am not saying it is your or my fault.