Business drives our economy, provides us with a means to run our households, and makes available goods and services for our entertainment and enjoyment. Business is responsible for a broad aspect of our modern lives. This responsibility is wide and all-encompassing. However, it is not always understood as such.

In this age of global commerce, business is further and further removed from the individuals who actually carry out the daily activities upon which business thrives. These proceedings include the person who serves your morning coffee to the people in the factory who assembled the shoes you put on before you leave your home. We, as consumers, are barely able to perceive the myriad assortment of people behind our products. Businesses, as shareholders, have the same issue.

The issue is that if you are not directly accountable to the people who are responsible for the products and services you buy and sell on a face-to-face basis, you tend not to believe that they are people at all.

The shareholder system is inherently flawed. One buys stock in a company for which they will never have to produce labour. One receives income from transactions with which they have minimal, if any, involvement. How can one person have any influence in a company that has hundreds or thousands of shareholders? If the main purpose of holding stock in a company is to receive dividends, who is accountable to the people who actually work at that company and depend upon it for their income? It seems the responsibility is spread so thin that it’s almost not there at all. Companies have CEOs, but they seem to claim that everything that they do is in the best interest of the shareholders. Again, if the role of the shareholder is to collect dividends, then all actions are geared towards profit. Profit, however, doesn’t solve labour abuse, workplace hazards, or environmental issues.

So, who is responsible for these concerns? We, as consumers, play a role. We can chose not to buy products from corporations that abuse labour or poison our environment.

So, who is responsible for these concerns? We, as consumers, play a role. We can chose not to buy products from corporations that abuse labour or poison our environment. However, to become informed on these issues and seek out alternatives may inconvenience us. Since we don’t directly know anyone being abused in their workplace or living beside a toxic waste dump, we choose not to exert the effort. We keep giving our dollars to corporations that behave poorly. Since this behaviour has increased their profit margin, they’ll keep behaving that way.

All doom and gloom, eh? No, not really. We’ve seen small businesses in our neighbourhood that strive to become part of our community and assume responsibility for their impact in society. We’ve recognized their presence and have, in turn, brought our consumer dollars to them first. They are here with us, sharing our daily lives, face-to-face. They are accountable to us not only as consumers, but as community members. This is the difference: they are not removed from us. The stakeholders in these small businesses do not live overseas and far away – they conduct their lives right alongside of us. They transcend the line between company and consumer. They are stakeholders in both their business and their community. They are not only accountable to their customers, but also to themselves.

Keri lives and consumes in Boyle Street.