The missing link between property law and labour law
| Autor | Martin Dumas |
| Páginas | 122-140 |
122 • XXVI World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
The missing link between
property law and labour law
Martin Dumas
Abstract: A rened understanding of the theoretical repercussions entailed by
the addition of a societal value to consumer goods is essential in examining the
role of market transparency in the development of consumocratic law. Consid-
ering that the foundations of the liberal order is the subject of diering positions
depending on one’s socioeconomic viewpoints, a fair understanding of the con-
solidation of this power requires that we revisit pre-consumocratic conceptions
of commodity valorisation. In contrast with the work of prominent analysts
who regarded the act of purchase as a process mainly guided by individuality,
non-responsibility, or fallacious wants – in turn by ‘alienated’ (Marx), ‘hyp-
notised’ (Baudrillard) or ‘manipulated’ (Galbraith) consumers – it is examined
that the societal value of consumer goods may embody social meanings, social
responsibilities, as well as calls for moderation in the mouvance of ethical buy-
ing, corporate social responsibility, and sustainable development.
Keywords: Consumocracy, product evaluation.
1. Introduction
Popular initiatives, behaviour and techniques now commonly
referred to as ‘fair trade’, ‘ethical purchasing’, and ‘societal labelling’
remind us that consumers are increasingly exposed to a wider range of
information pertaining not so much to market goods themselves as to
conditions linked to their production or usage. Such other-regarding
aributes of market goods, when revealed, empower them in ways that
predictably enrich their ability to be citizens (Scammel 2000; Canclini
2001; Kysar 2005). Consumers are indeed called upon to acknowledge
some part of responsibility in the persistence of a number of irritants
which the sole intervention of the state, in the operation of markets, can-
not seem to combat satisfactorily (Stigli 2005).
More precisely, informational barriers between the loci of pro-
Special Workshop: Property and Human Rights in Globalisation • 123
duction and consumption are being gradually removed, providing con-
sumers with the choice of combining, in their purchasing decisions, both
the nal aributes of goods (e.g., their price or manufacturing quality)
with their peripheral aributes (e.g., the social, environmental or ethical
conditions under which they are produced). By the means of societal
marketing1, the spheres of production and consumption may connect
through a third, informational sphere – a societal window, as it were.
This bridging device may turn a potentially oppressive state of aairs
into an object of regulation by consumers who pay aention to societal
information. It makes it possible to appreciate the value of commodities
from a wider perspective and to redene one’s perception of what is a
desirable product or service. In other words, the societal window serves
a potentially emancipatory function, in so far as widespread socio-en-
vironmental conditions of production are deemed unacceptable by sig-
nicant segments of the population. I call ‘consumocracy’2 this system
by which consumers can exert authority on corporations through the
broadening of what qualies as a desirable consumer good.3 Consum-
1
One may dene societal marketing as the marketing of goods or services whereby soci-
etal information is signaled to consumers through various means. Societal information
in turn pertains to certain conditions or eects observed or to be observed at the stage of
production, distribution, or usage of goods, in accordance with the terms of a corporate
code (Kotler and Levy 1969: 10). For an earlier vision of this marketing form, see Crane
and Desmond (2002).
2
From consummare (Lat.), to consume, and kratos (Gr.), authority. See Midgley (1996)
for an account of the early departure of the consumocratic movement, in England; and
Cashore (2002) for an analysis of how such ‘non-state, market-driven governance sys-
tems’ are gaining rule-making authority.
3
No comparative study appears to have been conducted recently on the relative depen-
dence of rms on the preservation of market shares likely to be boosted or curtailed by
consumocrats. But it has been suggested in 1979 that a minimum relative market share
is needed for the long term sustainability of a business and that such ‘critical share is
(oen) of the order of ¼ of the leader’s share’ (Abell and Hammond 1979). It is implied
for instance that a corporation should keep a minimal share of approximately 4 % when
the leading corporation controls 16% of a given market. In the United Kingdom, Asda
(Wal-Mart’s former supermarket chain) is still doing well economically, with 17.5% of
the market share (in 2009) while the leader in that region, Tesco, has a 30.4% share of the
grocery market (Longbottom 2009). By comparison, Wal-Mart stores in Germany cap-
tured only 2% of the grocery market following their entry on the territory in 1997 and
remained a marginal player there, far behind Aldi, the leading competitor with a 19 per
cent share. Wal-Mart pulled out of Germany in 2006 with a nancial loss of about one
billion dollars (Newsweek 2005). It is therefore suggested that, under certain conditions,
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