Up for a vote
(updated July 2026)
In a village of 500 people, a bakery depends on its customers.
If the villagers stop buying bread, it eventually closes. And the day they want bread again, they may have to travel twenty kilometres to find the next bakery.
Each resident therefore plays a part, in their own way, in deciding whether that business continues to exist.
They vote with their wallet.
The example is simplified, but the principle applies everywhere. For a product, a food item, or a service to keep being offered, people need to buy it.
Every purchase sends a signal.
Buying regularly from a small bakery helps it stay open. Buying an imported product encourages its distribution. Buying very cheap clothing supports the market that makes producing it at that price possible.
That does not mean fully approving everything behind it.
You can buy a smartphone without approving how its raw materials are extracted. Buy a T-shirt made in China without knowing the exact conditions in which it was produced. Choose a product simply because it is the only one available within your budget, your time, or where you live.
We are not voting in a system where every option is available at the same price.
Companies choose what they produce. Shops choose what they sell. Advertising makes some options more visible than others. Then we choose within that framework, with our desires and our constraints.
Our power is therefore limited.
But it is not zero.
A single purchase probably changes very little. A habit repeated by thousands of people does.
The problem is that we mainly think about what a purchase gives us immediately. The price, the pleasure, the convenience. The consequences are more distant, spread across so many people that they become almost invisible.
We are lost in a swamp of conflicting signals, habits, and easy, pleasant rewards.
We make choices.
All the time.
Without always realising it.
Up for a vote.