Morals of buying apples

[Prodigy54321]

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buying locally produced apples supports the local economy, providing jobs to local people etc.

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I never understood this type of thinking

well, I should say that I understand that this line of thinking is typical..probably because there are evolutionary advantages to placing more importance on people who are closer to you (genetically, in the end, but geographically as well since that is linked with genetic closeness)

but I can't find any moral justification for this type of thinking.

[Praxising]

nutritional

[GoodCallYouWin]

I choose option c :

Choose the best deal as a consumer.

[van_exel_fan]

Morals of buying (insert anything)

[george w]

don't forget the environmental effects of flying fresh fruit thousands of miles.

[DeliciousBass]

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Allow me to elaborate ( to take some extremes). You could adopt a policy where you force everyone to buy from local producers. This will benefit the people who happen to own apple orchards.

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As long as we completely ignore the effects of burning fossil fuels this statement might be true.

If we don't...then (to use extremes) forcing people to only purchase locally grown apples actually benefits everyone. Even the apple growers in Africa.

[AlexM]

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yes, lets please turn this into a political rant about the wonders of a global economy, maybe we can get some AC trolls to show up and start their rants too.

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Wow, I didn't realize the anti-ACists were starting "AC hijacks" in SMP too!

[Nielsio]

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My thoughts are that buying locally produced apples supports the local economy, providing jobs to local people etc. But buying apples from Africa supports a foreign community that would probably benefit more from the money.

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Robert Murphy - Five Most Common Myths about International Trade
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...2726&hl=nl
29m

[mr_hanky]

Wow, not sure anyone was going to be interested in this, cheers guys/gals,

I like the point above about the typical thinking that people closer to you are more important. I think +ve side is that the money is circulated very locally and so should benefit the buyer.

I live in the UK, and most of the imported apples taste better than ours. Price does not really matter to me. I am reluctant to buy those australian/african apples because I try to be eco friendly and this led onto the discussion with a friend and the disagreement about the most important reasons to buy local produce.

My thoughts are that if I dont spend my money in the local economy and some local farm struggles, they should either grow something else or do something else. In the UK there are plenty of careers and ways to make $$$. This may not be the case for the African apple growers. So for economic and taste reasons I prefer the african apples, but for the environment I prefer the UK ones.

[mr_hanky]

To those of you who put supporting local economy- Please state why this is important?