Consumers of the World ...
CONSUMING INTEREST
By PETER GOLDMAN
They are scarcely alone in wanting these things. All over the industrial world shoppers are faced with a bewildering variety of merchandise, often of great technical complexity. The quality can rarely be judged by inspection. The packag- ing may be deceptive. Advertisements only too often fasten on superficial or irrelevant charms. Retail distributors have a decreasing capacity or inclination to offer guidance. Therefore in country after country shoppers have been pool- ing resources in consumer organisations, to find out collectively what they could not discover by themselves.
The movement began in the United States more than a generation ago. In 1927 an econo- mist and an engineer wrote a book called Your Money's Worth. In compelling detail, the authors pointed out: that the US government was itself a major purchaser of consumer goods; that it used its own agencies to test the quality of these goods; and that by choosing, on the basis of these tests, the best value for money, it saved itself one hundred million dollars a year—or 30 per cent of its total relevant expenditure. If. asked the authors, the government of the US had such facilities to become a discriminating consumer, why should not similar facilities be available to the citizens of the US?
Today Consumers' Union of the US, the ulti- mate answer to this question, is still the leader of the world consumer movement—with an annual income of four million dollars, its own Peter Goldman is Director of the Consumers' Association. Leslie Adrian is on holiday. extensive laboratories, and a circulation for its test-based Consumer Reports of a million or more. But since the war, the forces that brought the American organisation into being have spread rapidly through Europe and beyond. The Inter- national Organisation of Consumers' Unions (IOCU for short) now has forty-two members and affiliates coming from twenty-six different countries.
Though each of IOCU's members is honestly dedicated to the consumer cause, they differ sig- nificantly in structure, methods and attitudes. These differences often reflect national charac- teristics and politics to an uncanny degree. Thus the crusading Americans tend to regard 'con- sumerism' as a cold war against salesmanship, the socialistic Swedes constitute less a con- sumers' organisation than a beneficent arm of the state, the two organisations behind the Iron Curtain are still mysteries wrapped in enigmas, and the French . . . well, the French do so enjoy being the Gaullists of the consumer world.
To this miniature United Nations an Afro- Asian bloc is about to be added. The fourth biennial Congress of IOCU, which was held in Israel this summer, was graced by a deputation of intellectually well-developed ladies from a score of industrially underdeveloped countries. India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Kenya already have small and struggling consumer bodies. And in the past year alone Consumers' Association in the UK has had inquiries for help and advice from would-be consumer zealots in Ceylon, Fiji, Nigeria, Zambia and (most exotic of all) Taiwan.
The immediate need in these countries is for consumer information and protection of the most basic and straightforward kind. Here, for ex- ample, is a South-East Asian consumer bulletin giving guidance on how to buy live chickens in the open market: We would advise that shopping for fowls and other poultry should always be done to- wards II a.m. or 12 noon rather than early in the morning. This is because some poultry- sellers cheat customers by force-feeding their poultry just before opening their stalls so as to make them weigh heavier; so early morning shoppers get the worst bargain. . . .
Valuable (and colourful) advice—but a far cry from the sophisticated comparative documenta- tion provided by Which? or Consunientengids or Der Test.
The emergence of new bodies in the new countries wilt therefore provide a challenge to the world consumer movement. For in its origins in 1960, IOCU was simply a coalition of comparative testing organisations. Its very title—International Organisation of Committers' Unions—suggested that each of its constituent members would approximate, however roughly, to the comparative testing model established by Consumers' Union of the US. In the years since 1960 the number of comparative testing organi- sations has certainly continued to increase—the most recent success being chalked up in Den- mark. But at the same time the number of con- sumer bodies with little or no interest in comparative testing has grown more quickly still —the most notable addition being the British Consumer Council, which is debarred by its terms of reference from comparative testing.
It is with such matters as consumer legisla- tion. informative labelling, school and adult education, local groups. complaints services, ad- vice centres and so on. that very many of IOCU's members are today primarily concerned. They do excellent work in these fields. Yet not one of them can have any say in the running of the world consumer movement, which is monopolised by the comparative-testing organi- sations. That is why the criticism was heard at the Israeli Congress that IOCU had outgrown its original form. And certainly the divergence between the form of the organisation and the character of the membership will increase as consumers in the developing countries come thronging through the door.
Like so many other political problems, this one has been referred to a committee of inquiry. The committee began its work in London this month and will reconvene in Copenhagen in a fortni2ht., time. It will have to take into account the just claims of the new organisations. But it will also have to remember that the indepen- dent comparative-testing members together con- tribute 84 per cent of the International Organisation's income. And why can they afford to do this? Because comparative testing, com- bined with publication of the results and recommendations, is the one species of informa- tion so valuable to the consumer at large that he is prepared to pay for it!
Those Irish are on to a good thing.
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