Mother Earth News - Mother Earth News 2000

Ralph Nader has been hammering away at the traditional way of dealing with Americas political problems since 1963, when at the age of 29 he abandoned his law practice and hitchhiked to Washington, D.C. After writing Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile (Grossman) in 1965, his name became an immediate cause for hand-wringing in Washington and in the boardrooms of corporate America. Founder of many consumers rights organizations and often presidential candidate for the Green Party, Nader was good enough to spend an afternoon with us.

Matt Scanlon for MOTHER: I was reading what I assumed to be a very unofficial Ralph Nader for President Web site today when I came across a passage suggesting that you ought to be pictured in the encyclopedia next to the entry consumer advocate. Im wondering if that is a legacy that youd be comfortable with?

RN: Sure. Because thats the ultimate measure of an economys performance. Those who consider all the ways that we can measure an economy, from conception to manufacturing, indices to sales to profits, often leave out the well-being of the consumer. So whats it all for? As Adam Smith once said, The end of all production is consumption. If consumers are economically well-off, if their health and safety are protected, that is the best final measure of an economic system. It not only reflects the quantitative size of an economy, it reflects its distributive justice.

MOTHER: So consumer advocacy is a means of invigorating the capitalist process?

RN: Well, lets examine the way we predominantly measure a companys performance. Lets say you asked the pharmaceutical industry, Was last year a good year? Theyd say, Yeah. Then ask them, Why? Theyd say, Well, sales and profits are up. Thats measuring the pharmaceutical industry from the pharmaceutical sellers point of view. Now lets measure it from the health consumers point of view. The questions would be: Are the prices of medicines lower than last year and are fewer people ill? Or Are fewer diseases or more diseases prevented? Those questions reflect an entirely different point of view ours. And our perspective should be the ultimate measure of what a pharmaceutical industry is about. The same with the auto companies. If you ask them their assessment of last year, they would jump around and exclaim that sales and profits are up. From a consumer evaluation of that part of our economy, a large portion of us might ask, Can I get from point A to B faster? Cheaper? With less pollution?

MOTHER: Frankly, Detroit has us puzzled. On the one hand, the manufacturers are simply responding to our appetite for ever-larger cars and SUVs. In most companies, responsibility ends where consumer needs begin. Yet for decades theyve had the burden of a moral mandate to be responsible in their design. What do you think of the rebirth of the 15-mile-per-gallon family truckster?

RN: The SUVs represent the worst of Detroit. Its back to the 50s superhorse power mania. Only in this case its size and wasteful fuel systems. The odd part is that they are, by and large, not safe. More and more studies are saying that the tendency to tip over in an ac cident is vastly underreported, not to mention the threat they pose to smaller car drivers. Five thousand pounds of SUV hitting a Chevy Neon at window height where the traditional car frame is weakest? You can imagine the consequences. And of course in terms of fuel efficiency, SUVs are a horror. But Detroit sells them because we want them, and because they make more profit on them per vehicle.

MOTHER: Of the nearly 100 Green Party candidates who are scheduled to run in the next election cycle, your name is absent. Are your Presidential aspirations on the shelf for 2000?