Originally Posted by tore

You can go through life buying albums and you don't know what label they're on so you don't know who you're supporting. Maybe you do know the label, but you don't know the people who work there and you don't know the pockets where the money end up. As a consumer, it can be hard to know what happens to all the money you spend somewhere down the line. It doesn't have to be music, maybe that brand of coffee you like don't pay their south-american workers very much or maybe that meat company's transport of animals is not as it should be.

You can't expect anyone in modern society to have a complete knowledge of how they affect the world they live in. None of us have those magical powers of observation and insight that let's us do stuff like that. A trickle of the money spent on a product goes here, another one goes there - keeping tabs on all is not just impractical, it's near impossible. As a result, you shouldn't expect everyone to have a moral dilemma every time they wanna spend money on something that could mean a penny goes to something they think is immoral.

However, you are well and truly a sad person if you think that means that having a sense of morale guiding you in a consumerist market is completely futile. Depending on who you are and what your morals are like, you can still have cases which are a little more clear cut. I believe most people in the western world would not buy whale meat for example because aside from every other uncertainty, at least they know that buying whale meat supports whaling. Similarly, even if you don't know if some of the pennies spent on Britney's latest might go to people who exploit the poor in Africa, at least you can be resonably sure that if you spend money on Varg's latest album, that's money in his pocket. He's not supported by a major label, they've stayed away since the murder.

I don't act on every inkling that my money might not support something good, but when I do know what the money goes to, I try to be an aware consumer. For example I don't buy meat from industries which burn down the amazonian rainforest. The power of being able to choose what to spend money on is the tiny bit of control we consumers have on the market.

I'm aware that my limited powers of observation keeps me from keeping tabs on where every penny I spend end up, but I don't believe that itself makes it futile to try and be an aware consumer.


That's it really, but I'll just add that undoubtedly, our moral standards are not the same. I have a lot of opinions on morale and principles I try to follow. For example, I don't believe society should reward murderers and while indeed varg has been in prison, his fame would never have been the same without the notoriety. His standing in the market and the black metal scene - the power of his legacy - doesn't come from the backing of big labels. It comes from us, the consumers.

I'm not really concerned about what conclusions you wanna draw from that. I've made up my mind about it and that's that for me. But even if I don't need people to agree, at least I think it's something people should be aware of. Like, think about it once or twice in your life.