Social Responsibility

If Wal*Mart is selling milk for $3.00 per gallon and your local farm is selling milk for $5.00 per gallon, which milk do you purchase?  The less expensive milk would make the most sense, if all other things are equal.  Now, take some other factors into consideration.  Wal*Mart's cows are living in conditions shown by picture 1.  The local farm however, has free-range cows, represented in picture 2.

<------- PICTURE 1

             PICTURE 2  ------->





Does that make you feel differently about the extra $2.00 you would need to spend?
I am a very big supporter of businesses that are ethical, and socially responsible.  Social Responsibility to me, is the biggest piece of becoming a successful business owner.  I have been [broadly] planning out the business that I want to eventually own around commitment to fairness, ethics, and giving back to the community.  As an animal lover, the above question is very easy for me to answer.  Of course I would pay the extra money to get the free-range cow milk, and I truly believe that educated consumers tend to feel the same way.  I think that as consumers it is our responsibility to be educated about the products we're buying, and the businesses we are buying them from in order to make good decisions about which companies/products to support; and paying attention to marketing can help us make those decisions.  Many companies like Walgreens, and Yoplait (as we discussed in class) use their socially responsible actions to market their companies.  My hopes are that as consumers become more educated about social responsibility, they will learn to support more socially responsible companies even if it means paying a few dollars more for similar products.

Do you think paying a little bit extra to consume products and services from socially responsible companies is worth it?  Why do you think Wal*Mart has been so successful when they have been criticized about so many socially irresponsible aspects of their company (paying women lower wages, sweatshops over seas, child labor over seas, poor animal conditions, etc)?