Theory of marketplace morality and impoverished consumers

Abstract

Morality related to the marketplace has been studied in interdisciplinary contexts as well as the marketing and consumer behavior domains. This research has resulted in prescriptions and proscriptions that seek to right what is perceived as wrongful marketer actions. Yet this work has had little influence on marketing theory. Thus, we seek to advance a marketplace morality theory within a consumer behavior frame, emphasizing treatment of the poor by actors who may or may not supply the goods and services necessary so that they can meet “consumption adequacy.” The article opens with a look at how this discussion has moved along a theoretical path. Implications for morality related to consumers in poverty come next, followed by blending of philosophical and consumer literatures to reveal a novel theoretical framework.

Keywords

Impoverished consumers marketing theory morality and marketplace ethics

Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922)

Introductory remarks

The marketing and consumer behavior studies have advanced an area of research that is commonly referred to as “vulnerability.” There are many scholars who have contributed to this subfield, and their work has given scholars a lens into marketplace dysfunctions. For instance, Baker (2006) and her colleagues (Baker, Hunt and Rittenburg, 2007) have shown that visually impaired consumers, as well as victims of natural disasters, desire what the authors refer to as “consumer normalcy” or treatment akin to sighted individuals and a return to previous options, respectively. Also, Viswanathan et al. (2005) consider similar dilemmas that impact functionally illiterate consumers, along with women who navigate subsistence markets and work to improve opportunities only available to more affluent consumers (Viswanathan et al., 2010). Another article by Saatcioglu and Ozanne (2013) shows how residents in a trailer park seek to differentiate themselves along moral dimensions.

A subset of these articles focuses its attention on the circumstances faced by consumers living in poverty (Piacentini and Hamilton, 2013). For example, Hill and Stamey (1990) looked at how homeless people living outside shelter systems acquired goods and services necessary to survive. Based on the premise that the homeless are still consumers, the authors revealed the extraordinary efforts they exerted to acquire the items required to stay alive, by living as a nomadic society, fighting a deviant label, and holding alternative meanings for ordinary possessions (see these ideas expressed in a different context in Hill, Cunningham, and Gramercy Gentlemen 2016). Hill (1991) also looked inside private shelter for homeless women and their children, and described routes to homelessness among these women and their dependence on the shelter, special possessions and their meanings, and fantasies about future homes. A later project by Martin and Hill (2012) takes a global view and demonstrated how psychological processes manifest at the base of the pyramid. Together, they add to the vulnerable consumer literature by showing the special place of poverty in problematic exchange relationships with markets (Venugopal and Viswanathan, 2017).

Yet, as the above quote from Wittgenstein (1922) suggests, discussion and description of marketplace morality must be firmly embedded in the basic logic of the field. Further, as is clear from his most famous work the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an attempt to show the same thing for the philosophy field, the lack of a complete exposition of what is meant by consumer behavior and its intersection with marketplaces makes it difficult to determine what fits within and outside the parameters of marketer moral obligations. Consider that all living entities must consume, but responsibilities of marketers in our research and practice are limited to human beings, even when considering the needs of other animals such as cats and dogs. For the most part, consumer behavior research finds that needs and their physical and psychological manifestations precede most consumption (see Solomon, 2014). Yet marketplaces, even with their abundance at least in developed economies, can be places of denial for the preponderance of people around the world who lack resources to access this cornucopia of goods and services (Mason et al., 2017). Botti et al. (2008) posit that all consumers face restrictions, but constraints on the poor are considerably worse.

Because of the widespread availability of various media, most people around the world are aware of possibilities that exist in various marketplaces. However, they may lack the ability to negotiate these marketspaces in ways that lead to need fulfillment, especially in contexts like poor villages in India where there is a vast disparity in their relative position power (Venugopal et al., 2015). While heterogeneity exists among consumers, research reveals that the essential distinction is relative resource availability. An example of resource differences occurs in the United States, where the top 20% own more than 80% of total wealth and the bottom 20% much less that 1% (Hill and Martin, 2014). The result can be market alienation with concomitant negative consequences for physical and mental health. Thus, inequality of access leads to more inequity defined as the inability to use limited resources in satisfactory ways compared to others within one’s purview. Consider the relative costs of fresh foods and alternative food choices in communities in which impoverished consumers reside compared to more affluent neighborhoods in the United States, revealing higher prices and lower quality for the former compared to the latter (Andreasen, 1993; Talukdar, 2008).

Understanding marketplace morality

This discussion suggests that consumption is a ubiquitous phenomenon that involves all living entities on a continuous basis. Human beings have formalized an essential portion of their consumption activities over millions of years into marketplaces for products such as goods and services that meet a variety of needs and desires. The belief that exchange activity results in mutually satisfying relationships among buyer and sellers has theoretical value, but it fails to capture real differences that exist when individual market exchanges are considered (Hill and Martin, 2014). In fact, marketers and consumers enter into exchanges for very idiosyncratic reasons (Pels and Sheth, 2017), with each seeking to gain more perceived value or resources than rendered. This conflicting goal suggests the real possibility of different levels of perceived satisfaction with exchange relationships, especially for persons who are resource constrained or restricted. The resulting lack of access for such consumers, thus, represents an uneven consumption environment that leaves significant portions of the world with unsatisfied essential needs that threaten their abilities to survive much less thrive. To advance a theoretical frame that best captures this situation, distributive justice and consumption adequacy are discussed next.

Distributive justice

The philosophical approach of John Rawls of Harvard University has had a relatively minor impact on marketing research relative to his influence elsewhere (e.g. see Gupta and Kohli, 1990; O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2005; Scott et al., 2011). Yet, marketing ethicists such as Laczniak (1999: 126) believe his take on distributive justice is “a tight and cogent argument that [seeks] the protection of the most vulnerable elements of society as a focal social objective.” For this discussion, his theory of justice is applied to distributive justice related to goods and services as available in marketplaces. Based on social contract theory, Rawls intuits that fairness across a society requires all people to have the same rights or liberties that also limit social and consumption inequities (O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2005). His simple notion is considerably more complex in its operational details, especially in the determination of who is to be provided what consumption opportunities and terms of this agreement. For example, people are allowed to differ in their accumulated possessions and economic freedoms, but differences cannot be an accident of birth or entitlement. More specificity is provided next.

Rawls (1971) presents his take on this perspective in A Theory of Justice, with only minor adjustments during the remainder of his life. He was unsatisfied with ways in which justice was portrayed traditionally, especially paradigms like utilitarianism that allow for the majority to exert power over societal minorities. His goal was to find an agreement that any member of a culture would adhere to in the form of a universal social contract. Rawls sought conditions under which rational persons would organize institutional arrangements such as market access if they came from a position of initial equality. To this end, he settled on two principles (Mackay, 2016). First, everyone must have the same extensive liberties/economic freedoms as possible within a society. Second, known as the difference principle, inequities that arise must benefit the least advantaged in a society and not be the result of differences in relative access to marketplace opportunities or their prerequisites. Of course, such language may be obtuse to consumer researchers who might wonder if it has a real-world translation. In the broadest terms, these principles suggest that consumers should have equitable (i.e. based on their efforts) access to marketplaces, with equal (i.e. the same) possibilities of attaining the most favored largess. The impact of these differences (a central, guiding principle) on those at the lowest socioeconomic station is given special consideration.

Rawls uses a simple thought experiment that considers the original position and its veil of ignorance. From a consumer perspective, a person in a society would determine the distribution of marketplace goods and services behind a “wall” that disallowed any recognition of where s/he is in the socioeconomic hierarchy (Thompson and Hart, 2006). Consequently, this person would logically select a distribution system of marketplace access that would reduce the downside risk of ending up at the base of the pyramid. Consider the potential for abject poverty since half the world’s population exists on about the equivalent of US$2.50 per day. Given the fact that 15% of the global population is of interest to most marketers because of their relative affluence (Hill and Martin, 2014), who would select a consumption environment that looked like the current mix? According to Rawls (1971), the decision is easy: A reasonable person would want a much higher probability of living decently if not well, selecting an arrangement that would guarantee some material quality of life.

Over time, a number of critics have surfaced who question underpinnings of this theory. His colleague at Harvard, Robert Nozick (1974), took exception with this perspective, especially Rawls’ redistribution of resources/economic goods and services away from the libertarian ideal toward impoverished consumers. However, from a societal viewpoint, scholars have determined that most people in the individualistic US culture have little understanding how one-sided the distribution of resources is, and they would likely select a different schema based on their model of consumption opportunities for all (Hill and Martin, 2014; Kiatpongsan and Norton, 2014). The combination of Rawlsian justice as fairness and grassroots support for some opportunities for all suggest that most citizens agree consumers should have certain resources at their disposal regardless of their societal starting places. What is among these goods and services and how they are to be distributed remain unclear. The next subsection uses research on consumption adequacy for the poor to provide possible solutions to this dilemma.

Consumption adequacy

The concept of consumption adequacy entered the consumer behavior lexicon by Hill (2002a) and has received some empirical support over time (see Jaiswal and Gupta, 2015). The principal idea is that all persons should have unimpeded, lifetime access to goods and services that meet basic needs within the context of their living environments. These items or products are organized into two categories: needs for survival such as food, clothing, housing, and health care; and needs for continuous development like education, training, and job options. They are also expanded as healthful and sufficient food consistent with cultural tastes, clothing that protects against environmental dangers and meets local expectations, safe and secure housing for every resident, preventative and remedial health care, and opportunities to advance along career paths. One important goal is their provision without regard for individual abilities, efforts, or resource levels, revealing consumption adequacy as a right rather than a responsibility. In fact, research posits the governmental provision of basic income to all citizens to ensure acquisition from marketplaces rather than alternative sources (Hill, 2005).

The rationale behind this provision has less to do with market or distributive justice and more to do with basic human dignity/self-determination (Hill, 2002b). Consumption adequacy, therefore, is about negating harmful physical and emotional consequences of various restrictions that keep consumers from meeting ordinary needs. Part of their distress is a reaction to ubiquity of media in all forms that ensure everyone, regardless of their economic resources, is aware of the cornucopia of goods and services available to affluent consumers (Hill, 2002b). The more operational issue of how to resolve these exchange imbalances, beyond the income for all idea noted above, is limited to compassionate sources that replace extended family or friends, much like US President George Herbert Walker Bush’s “thousand points of light” and community responsibility for vulnerable citizens. Of course, such people and organizations have a lengthy history of giving, but even the most heroic efforts have not succeeded in changing poverty statistics even close to its elimination over time.

Potentially the best research on consumption adequacy comes from attempts to measure or understand its consequences (Yurdakul et al., 2017). Prior to the work described above, Pradhan and Ravallion (2000) give credence to the term by using subjective measures of consumption adequacy that include questions about housing, food, and clothing as an alternative to economists’ use of income as the primary determinant of who is and who is not in poverty. While differences between what is a necessity and what is a luxury can be a vexing societal concern, they erred on the side of letting their respondents decide for them. The dividing line between these two groups of products is the poverty level. Martin and Hill (2012) and Nussbaum (2000) agree with the latter referring to necessities as “global public goods” that are nonrivalous (consumed freely and not detracting from others’ usage) and nonexcludable (available to every consumer regardless of means). The former empirically found the dividing line, showing significant differences in well-being between the haves and the have-nots. Once again, neither provides market-based solutions to inadequacy.

Evidence of a lack of consumption adequacy and Rawlsian justice also comes from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 2015) through indices germane to this intersection: human development index, coefficient of human inequality, satisfaction with standard of living, and life satisfaction index; see Table 1 for more details. For every variable, data reveal that the provision of health care, education, and market access and subjective measures of satisfaction with access/dissatisfaction based on restrictions as well as resulting quality of life fail the Rawlsian precept of special emphasis on the most impoverished consumers or consumption adequacy for all. Additionally, the veil of ignorance leads to obvious conclusions for humanity at 7.2 billion persons. Approximately 3.7 billion people live in high or very high human development conditions, leaving about 3.5 billion existing in medium or low human development. Simple probability shows that a person would have an even chance of living under inadequate conditions; what consumer would choose this distribution schema?

Table 1.

Statistical analyses.

Human development index	Coefficient of human inequality	Standard of living	Life satisfaction	Government consumption expenditures
F = 441.75*	F = 464.57*	F = 1288.08*	F = 469.73*	F = 534.19*
(L/M)t = 46.37*	(L/M)t = 31.01*	(L/M)t = 19.48*	(L/M)t = 6.10*	(L/M)t =10.02*
(M/H)t= 30.02*	(M/H)t = 22.14*	M/H)t = 29.08*	(M/H)t = 20.93*	(M/H)t =15.19*
(H/V)t = 13.24*	(H/V)t = 17.95*	(H/V)t = 35.17*	(H/V)t = 35.69*	(H/V)t =31.28*

*p < 0.001.

Theoretical machinations

In total, this article delivers a philosophical approach to theory of marketplace morality that captures the perspective of marketers as yielding goods and services to consumers without any regard for equality (similar opportunities for access) or equity (differences in access due only to personal effort rather than accidents of birth such as race, gender, and origin). (Bhattacharjee et al., 2013; Grayson and Martinec, 2014; Kristofferson et al., 2014 also provide looks at marketplace morality). Rawls presents the basis for determining relative access behind a veil of ignorance in the original position, and consumers should agree that current configurations of marketplace opportunities are unjust. While consumption adequacy is an elusive measure of entrée into the material world, it provides a benchmark for understanding differences between ability to (hopefully) survive versus thrive. Such a dividing line has the potential to address marketing morality issues, and it is consistent with the call by marketing scholars to give greater attention to people in poverty (Chakravarti, 2006). We now turn to how our theoretical machinations inform or are informed by other and overlapping areas of interest by scholars in the marketing and consumer domains.

For example, we recognize possible contributions to the materialism literature (Chaplin and John, 2005, 2007). Concerns about consumer attention and use of products in how they define themselves are of interest to marketing scholars, but they tend to concentrate on people and places where affluence is the norm. Under these circumstances, the connection between self-image/identity and access to goods and services is often viewed as problematic. Some work has looked at differences between the haves and the have-nots regarding the attachment to material items, showing significant differences between these groups. For example, one study was conducted within a large northeastern city with children who lived in homes with an average selling price of US$1,000,000, juxtaposed with children who lived in homes worth about US$30,000 (Chaplin et al., 2014). Surprisingly, poorer youths were more materialistic than wealthier kids after age 11, despite their relative inability to obtain products. Also, while their material desires declined for affluent kids as they entered late teens, no such decline occurred for poorer youths.

Martin and Hill (2012) investigated the impact of poverty on life satisfaction, looking at the effects of relatedness and autonomy on this relationship as described by self-determination theory. While their results are multifaceted, conclusions find that without consumption adequacy these factors have no ameliorating consequences, emphasizing the devastating effects of severe impoverishment on life quality. Another related study examined the ways in which comparisons between more and less affluent consumers affected life satisfaction (Hill et al., 2012). While satisfaction was lower for those who made upward comparisons to others with greater market access, what was most surprising is that these differences are greater in more impoverished nations. Thus, across three studies and venues/variables, dissimilarities exist in ways consumers living in poverty experience their material worlds relative to their affluent counterparts. More research will be needed in other contexts using this theoretical paradigm.

If it is true that impoverished persons, especially in impoverished nations, experience the negative effects of restricted access with greater undesirable consequences, then Rawlsian sense of justice, even using the minimum level of consumption adequacy, is considerably problematic in its failure to be achieved. To add to this dilemma, governments are least responsive in places where the ravages of poverty persist, exacerbating already deficit marketplaces with greater and more widespread restrictions. As noted earlier, part of the problem may be due to gaps between goals for exchange relationships among marketers and consumers (Hill and Martin, 2014; also see the seminal work by Laczniak, 1993). If the principal goal is to give up fewer resources than received, then the mismatch between impoverished consumers and those who provide goods and services is a clear roadblock to successful exchanges. Work with base of the pyramid consumers positing the financial viability of serving them has been misunderstood, concentrating too much attention on profitability rather than meeting humanitarian goals as Prahalad (2005) intended.

Finally, research by Frederick (1998, 2012) from outside the marketing domain suggests that resource accumulation is an important characteristic of organizational life and survival, with marketing as the external arm into the bioeconomy. However, he acknowledges that during the history of humankind, energy is the source of all resources, and it is used in a variety of ways over the long period discussed by Harari (2015). As humanity advanced and formed collectives that manifest in later evolution as companies, firms, and corporations, goal structures changed as well. For example, firms and workers can evolve to the point where concentration is on resource sustainability and a decided effort to reduce negative consequences on people and the local ecology. To get to this place, marketing ethicists have advocated use of stakeholder theory, whereby certain groups that are impacted by organizational functioning have a right to redress if negative consequences arise (Laczniak and Murphy, 2012). Hyper-norms also are advanced that solidify such responsibilities globally (Laczniak and Kennedy, 2011).

Frederick (2012) gives further grist to this conversation by describing marketer behaviors of economizing, economaxing, and ecologizing. The first is consonant with the accumulation of resources on both sides of the exchange equation, and it represents a conservative, cautious, and self-serving approach to marketing transactions. It also represents what many students are taught about the “invisible hand” of the market, and its failures mostly occur if the power of participants are significantly different like resource-starved, impoverished consumers versus most marketers, retailers, and so on. Economaxing is the former economizing on “steroids,” with marketers seeking one-sided gains without consideration for exchange partners. Given providers seek relationships that put them at a decided advantage, they tend to engage markets where access to favorable terms by consumers is missing. Predatory lending, pawn shops, and rent-to-own retailers are examples (Hill et al., 1998; Hill and Kozup, 2007).

The final approach is ecologizing and moves beyond current stakeholder perspectives, which are better understood within the former two options. Frederick (2012) views this adaptive and inclusive relationship builder as framed within a bioeconomic system where every entity impacted by firms’ marketing efforts are worthy of consideration. It is consistent with Rawlsian justice in that all human beings, despite their positions in life, should be given opportunities to partake in marketplaces that can potentially serve their needs. In another sense, consumption adequacy also fits well because it ensures that “predation” of entities in the system is much less likely to happen, recognizing that all losses are negatively felt across the bioeconomy. Of course, this system is not based on equality of resources but equity in their distribution above a survival level. This systemic principle recognizes that not all people contribute the same effort, even if their starting places are free of discrimination and impoverishment. Thus, special emphasis can be placed on weaker members since their demise reverberates negatively throughout the ecology.

Closing remarks

The marketing discipline has settled principally on understanding marketplace exchanges that put the consumer front and center. There are ethical and moral issues that manifest on each side of these relationships, but the concentration here on morality as it applies specifically to the treatment of impoverished consumers by marketers is important. If agreement can be reached on usefulness of the veil of ignorance as a guide to distributive justice, then most observers would not want to be left out of at least minimum provision acknowledged by consumption adequacy. Governments are more often charged with serving the common good, but political leanings in the United States and other individualistic nations suggest that there often is little motivation to recognize the inherent dignity of all human beings (Hill and Martin, 2014). While it is only a start, marketers could begin defining their markets to include those who need/desire their goods and services but do not have resources to access them. In many cases, sizes of markets should grow significantly, sparking novel ways of meeting these unmet needs including public–private partnerships. This path forward represents a moral approach to marketplace activity.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

The author thanks Lan Chaplin and Sterling Bone for comments on earlier drafts of this article, and the editors for their encouragement.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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