As more businesses have their reported dealings or worldviews exposed which the owners would rather keep from the public, the same internet that allows this information to spread allows individual consumers to communicate their intentions to boycott specific companies or industries. It is not the case that whether a company has truly committed terrible deeds can be known from such hearsay, but every claim of this kind is evidence for one of two things: a company has mistreated its workers or consumers or someone has lied about the matter. Though it cannot be proven, what if the first of these two possibilities is actually correct--or simply seems to be correct in light of testimonial evidence?
It is logically possible for the leadership, workers, and customers of a business to avoid mistreating each other on every level, but how should a person handle a business with a leader who is content to exploit everyone he or she can as long as they can obtain profits for a time? So much of corporate oppression can be hidden from media attention, at least for a time, and it is consumer money that feeds every company one way or another. Companies cannot survive without consumer purchases, and consumers who hear about charges against specific companies might not be eager to buy from them until the misdeeds cease. The important issue, though, is not whether consumers are comfortable exchanging their money for company products/services, but whether this would actually be evil.
First of all, buying something permissible from a company without awareness of evidence that the organization is engaging in some evil behavior or plan cannot be immoral, for unless a person is aware of the injustice and supports this immorality or does not care, the consumer is not himself or herself doing anything morally vile. The same would be true of employees working for a company that they have not seen the real nature of, even if they are somehow partaking in the immoral corporate practices unintentionally, without knowing the full scope of what their work enables the company to carry out. A lack of knowledge (not that people can even know that deeds they see with their own sense of sight are not illusions of perception) of what a company is doing, unless someone has only not noticed it due to philosophical stupidity or negligence, exempts someone from being guilty of the business's faults. They are not guilty in this case of unintentional sin.
If the company's misdeeds are publicly acknowledged, is it then always immoral for consumers to buy from them or for employees to work there? That would depend on what exactly the work or product/service entails. If the work itself is inherently wrong, then of course all who voluntarily work there or seek out the company's services are unjust. An example would be if murder is wrong and a company allows clients to pay for the chance to kill people, or if torture is wrong and a company allows clients to do whatever they want to someone as long as they have money to offer for the opportunity. However, if something else is problematic, such as a corporate leader exploiting his or her employees as they perform tasks that are not actually immoral, then no, a consumer is not automatically expressing tolerance towards employee oppression just because they purchase bread or coffee from a specific brand. A person who needs a specific medicine to stay alive is not sinning, not by Biblical standards, if they must pay a horrendous company for that medicine, for instance.
Just as watching a film is not the same as supporting whatever worldview it endorses, buying from a company is not necessarily the same as supporting that company in any sense beyond begrudgingly or unknowingly giving a company money as the leadership clings to irrationality and injustice. There is not by necessity any deep allegiance to the worldview of the executives or any support for greed (or any other sin) being expressed. It would be the company leadership and any worker who directly contribute to any immoral deeds knowingly or eagerly who are in the wrong, not always the consumers who need or want what the company has to offer, given that the product or service is not by default something immoral.
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