I hate The Body Shop, have a for very long time. I’ve never had a use for the dumb soaps and gels and whatever they make (although I did go through a stage when I was 14 of buying them as presents for friends, if I didn’t know what else to get them). They’re such a huge part of the idea that it’s alternative and a moral good to be healthy, and what it means to be healthy is to fit a traditional idea of beautiful that I’d happily watch as every single one of their stores burnt to the ground. So I was highly amused when I heard that The Body Shop had been bought by L’Oreal, and that Anita Roddick is personally over 100 million pounds richer.
Now The Body Shop is particularly awful, other ‘ethical’ businesses are built on something slightly more solid than making money on women’s insecurities about their bodies. But that doesn’t mean that any form of ethical businesses will make any difference to the way our worked works. If it makes you feel any better to buy ‘fair-trade’ coffee and chocolate then go ahead, it won’t harm anyone.
The thing is that consumers who want their products made in a certain way are no threat to capitalism. It doesn’t matter whether people want pink products, or products that are slightly less exploitative, if there are enough of them (and they’re prepared to pay) they become a market and that need can be met. You’re not going to challenge capitalism by buying stuff (or even by not buying stuff). L’Oreal buying the Body Shop is the natural and expected outcome of a project that was always about making money.
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You’re right that a handful of customers choosing fairtrade isn’t going to challenge capitalism – but doesn’t it at least make a difference to the individuals who are getting a fairer price for their produce? True, it would be naive to believe that I personally am changing the world by picking the fair trade-labelled box of tea off the supermarket shelf instead of the ordinary one, but I also don’t feel quite as hopeless and pessimistic as you seem to do!
Indeed, how would it not improve the world if consumer pressure ensured that 100% of food was organically grown? (I’m not saying we’re anywhere near that kind of tipping point, just pushing the argument to its logical conclusion.)
I would like to think that I could find a local printer to manufacture the goods I want to sell– without turning ultimately into Anita Roddick. If I could make back what I spent on my stuff without having to funnel money to some sweatshop in China, it would be a great start.
I think collective businesses are the ideal, but not so easy to start. We have three really good local anarchist cafe’s, as well as several co-ops, in the Portland-Metro area. There’s also a collective art gallery called “six days” that I need to check out one of these days.
Sometimes, a small island of ethics is all you can manage in a sea of cutthroat economics. If there were millions of those islands, however, wouldn’t the overall economic picture look different than it is now ?
I don’t know that the trouble is the pursuit of operating capital so much as the pursuit of mega-profit–above and beyond what you need to sustain yourself. Sustaining is a different thing than unchecked expansion, no ?
Is it capitalism that’s the big problem, or mercantilism ? I know at least some Wobblies who are careful to draw a distinction there. After all, if they can’t make back at least what they spend running cafes and all, the cafes close down.
Maybe I’m a little slow this morning, but why is buying soap kowtowing to patriarchal, capitalistic ideals about beauty? Yes, it’s a good thing to notice that the people who are selling you ‘alternative soaps’ are doing so to make money. So are the people selling regular old soap. Or, if you make your own, the people selling you the ingredients.
The Body Shop has been embroiled in scandal for many years, mostly over franchise owners who say they were screwed. There have been multiple lawsuits.
L’Oreal is at the very top of my black list. They not only stopped their moratorium against animal testing, but were very evasive and coy in letting people know, put out conflicting messages, and refused to answer consumer questions about it.
By a startling coincidence, most people in the US don’t want to end capitalism as such. Most would in fact regard this goal as crazy. If you want to end capitalism, I see exactly one practical course of action for you: try to create an miniature image of the world you want to live in. In other words, imitate the suggestions for anarchists in Temorary Autonomous Zone. In the meantime, you will almost certainly have to do business with capitalist entities. They may temporarily help you to advance your short-term goals, although I certainly wouldn’t count on it.
Some anarchists object to the Temporary Autonomous Zone because they don’t think it does enough to help end government. This puzzles me. What else, precisely, do these people imagine they can do? Start an armed revolution? Win elections for the Communist or Anarchist Party? (As Dave Barry would say, perhaps you don’t believe we have an Anarchist Party. Perhaps you are a fool.) Similarly, you say that ‘ethical’ businesses do not threaten capitalism, as if you truly believe that you have a practical way to do this.
I don’t feel hopeless and pessimistic. I work for a trade union, I see increases in people’s wages and conditions as a result of collective action on a regular basis. I just know that unless it’s part of a collective action campaign, and the people doing the boycotting are those directly effective, consumer action does nothing but make people feel better (and there’s nothing wrong with that, I don’t buy from certain places because what I know about their employment practices, it’s fine to have lines, but it won’t change anything).
Alsis – I have a t-shirt that says “it’s all capitalism’s fault” so you know where I stand. I have a longer post about what I think about ‘alternative’ businesses here.
mythago I think the body shop as a whole conflates the idea of health and beauty, and portrays health as a moral good. So the soaps, and the body butters, the make up, the bath gel, and whatever else they sell all play into this idea. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with buying there, if you need soap you need soap, my analysis very rarely involves calling people tools of the patriarcy. I’m just saying that as a supposedly ethical company there purpose is a particularly awful one.
It’s the ‘if’ that I disagree with. I don’t believe that consumer pressure would ever ensure that 100% of food was organically grown
See, now you’ve stopped talking about the end of capitalism and started talking about incremental reforms. By that standard, your general objection to more ethical businesses (“unless it’s part of a collective action campaign, and the people doing the boycotting are those directly effective, consumer action does nothing but make people feel better”) seems exaggerated.
Why think that the goal of persuing ethical businesses should be the destruction of capitalism? Capitalism has a number of major flaws, but I see little to like about the alternatives. While the laissez-faire approach clearly does not work, that doesn’t not mean a regulated capitalism with a proper rejection of Objectivism is a bad approach. I don’t think its remotely fair to condemn a socially responsive business for being a business and to measure them by their willingness to call for an end to capitalism. If they made claim to want to overturn capitalism, it could be fair to judge them on a failure to live up to those claims. But one should not confuse social progressive values and anti-capitalism and presume that committment to the first requires belief in the second. It simply does not. While anyone has the right to believe in the downfall of capitalism and condemn capitalist businesses (which is pretty much all of them) on those grounds, the mocking scorn directed at anyone who doesn’t believe that way will not prove productive. Especially when directed at those who would be allies on many issues.
Oh, no. I love the Body Shop and I don’t agree with your objections to it, so this news VERY annoying to me.
I’ve always hated the British Body Shop because they stole the name, and maybe the idea, from a store in Berkeley, who also make much better stuff. They are now called Body Time now. They were first with the name, but from what I heard Body Shop won because Body Shop Berkeley couldn’t afford to fight them in court.
I’m one of those people who tries to buy ethically. Won’t shop at wal-mart, won’t shop at Target, buy fair trade when I can get it. etc. As a single consumer I can’t change anything, but if I convince enough people, etc. Well, it does make me feel better.
I know of at least one thirty or so year old co-op going in Berkeley, the Cheese Board and they are the *best*. And most of the Berkeley businesses do the fair labor stuff at least, Peet’s has *great* benifits, not to mention the best coffee. I’m sure there are other co-ops but I’m not remembering any names at the moment.
But I have just found out there’s a .coop top level domain! That’s so cool.
I can’t stand the Body Shop either. For all the reasons mentioned, plus the fact that they are overpriced and sell all their soaps in millions of plastic containers that can’t be refilled where I live.
But I still insist on my fair trade coffee and No Sweat sneakers, and I imagine that somewhere a family is getting paid a decent living wage as a result. I chip at the mountain when and where I can.
I never liked their stuff because it’s always been mismarketed- their stuff was never that natural to start with. Somewhat, but very token, IMHO. Now that they’ve sold to L’oreal… that’s just wrong. Sorry.
I’ll never buy anything from them again.
I spent the last couple of days being totally confused because I was absolutely, 100% convinced that Roddick had sold Body Shop about 5-6 years ago. I could even swear that I remember hearing the news about it.
Is it just me or was there not a radical makeover to the way the shops were run at about that time? For example, they stopped collecting empty containers to recycle, started bullshit “beauty” campaigns using extremely mainstream images of beauty, etc. It seemed to me that they weren’t even pretending to be “alternative” or “fairtrade” anymore.
I don’t know anything about “The Body Shop”. But the name of the store in and of itself bothers me, because a body shop is where you take your car for repair after an accident.
We have a lovely little shop called “Bath Junkie”. All of their products are almost exclusively natural and non-animal tested. They also actively advocate the return and refill of their product containers. The best thing this store has going for it is that it essentially does no advertising. So, there are none of those annoying print or tv ads pushing a traditional view of beauty.