Ethical Shoppers!

I just read an article in the cnn.com about the Ethical issue involved in buying Made in China.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/26/china.products/index.html

We discussed the first day in the class that the ethics is not about the numbers or making profit or loss. We also discussed about the Chinese products quality going down and people starting avoiding products made in China and stuff.

Now lot of people in America and American companies have started making a statement like “be American and buy American”. This was not only applied to automobile industry but also many other industries which are hit by the Chinese inflow of goods.

In the article above the lady tried to avoid everything which was made in china and found it impossible to do so.

In America, American products are costlier but will certainly help in saving countries economy if people buy American. Now the question arises will it be ethical on ones part not to buy American where it can be avoided because of saving money?

If you buy something which is available made in America as well as made in somewhere else which is cheaper, what would you buy?
Will it be ethical to buy the non American products even if your are American and your contribution can help reducing the lays off and the countries economy?
The trade deficit with china has been growing continuously.

In the recent article which I came across said that now a days people are trying to become ethical shoppers as many people who think it’s unethical to buy from Wal-Mart (due to their monopolistic pricing, environmental negligence and lack of concern about sweatshop labor), Kraft products since discovering that they are a subsidiary of Phillip Morris (the tobacco company), buying any clothing that I fear could have been produced under sweatshop conditions.