Abstract
Consumers regularly make decisions for specific products or services that have a series of consequences—this includes, for example, production conditions, environmental damage, or climate impacts. Responsible consumer decisions could therefore be politically desirable, raising the question of what role responsibility plays in consumer policy. To systematically approach various facets of consumer responsibility, this chapter first deals with concepts of responsibility that can be relevant for consumer policy. On this basis, the chapter is dedicated to the concrete assumption of responsibility by the consumer, as it can ultimately lead to political action. In addition, the consumer’s responsibility is in focus in terms of how it acts as an expectation for political decisions. The chapter concludes that even responsible consumers in complex consumer societies are dependent on support and provides arguments as to why government interventions in the market are still—or perhaps increasingly—necessary.
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Notes
- 1.
Starting as ‘Skolstrejk för klimatet’, a protest action by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, it is now regularly organized by students worldwide—including in Germany. During the usual school hours on Friday mornings, students demonstrate, with participation levels varying greatly, but sha** a comprehensive discourse primarily in Europe. This discourse, based on universal dimensions of responsibility (Banzhaf 2016, p. 4), can be classified as the next step towards taking responsibility for nature and future generations. Even though “Fridays for future” is a current movement of the late 2010s, its concerns correspond to what Banzhaf describes as the demands of Rawlsian responsibility ethics (Rawls 1975), on the basis of which he concludes that “[c]ontinuous destruction of the basis of life, unchecked global warming or millennia-long radioactive waste […] cannot be justified towards future generations” (Banzhaf 2016, p. 4).
- 2.
The ‘Oslo Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption’ (as one of the follow-up conferences to the ‘Earth Summit’, which took place as a summit of the United Nations on Environment and Development in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro) formulated a definition for sustainable consumption in 1994: “goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimising the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations” (https://enb.iisd.org/consume/oslo004.html, last: 02.01.2020).
- 3.
Systematically, different aspects can be differentiated for each product and service for which the consumer can be (co)responsible: the effects 1) of production or provision 2) of sales and use and 3) of disposal that are inherent to a product, see also Luchs and Miller (2017, p. 261); these aspects can have economic, social, and environmental impacts.
- 4.
See also Young (2013) on influence and power, privileges, interest, and collective capabilities.
- 5.
In principle, it is also conceivable that there could be uniform market behavior by chance, which in turn has an effect on market events. However, in this case, it is not clear to identify to what extent this is more of a fashion or whether responsibility in a normative sense is actually guiding action.
- 6.
An overview of this research can be found in Giesler and Veresiu (2014, p. 853).
- 7.
For the options for action for political actors, see Sect. 4.
- 8.
In Germany, these are non-smoking protection laws with varying detailed regulations at the federal state level.
- 9.
The traffic watch is supported in its activities by state organizations, cf. https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Kreisverwaltungsreferat/Verkehr/Verkehrssteuerung/Nur-bei-Gruen.html (Accessed: 02.01.2020).
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Loer, K. (2023). Political Science Perspectives on Consumer Responsibility. In: Hellmann, KU., Klein, A., Baule, B. (eds) Consumer Policy from Below. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42489-3_6
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