Consumer Rights
The consumer in the marketplace
Explain how consumers are exploited and how the consumer movement arose.
We are all consumers. We take part in the market as producers (working in farming, industry or services) and as consumers, when we buy the final goods and services we need. Earlier chapters showed that rules are needed to protect unorganised workers and borrowers from moneylenders. Consumers need rules too.
Why consumers are weak. A single buyer is usually in a weak position. When you complain about something you bought, the seller often pushes all the responsibility onto you: 'If you didn't like it, go elsewhere.' It is as though, after the sale, the seller owes you nothing!
How consumers get cheated. Unfair trade practices include:
- weighing less than they should;
- adding charges not mentioned before;
- selling adulterated or defective goods.
Markets are also unfair when producers are few and powerful and buyers are many, scattered and buy in small amounts, especially with big companies. They can manipulate the market and spread false information through the media. One company sold powdered baby milk for years as 'better than mother's milk', until a long struggle forced it to admit the claim was false. It took long court battles to make cigarette companies accept that smoking could cause cancer.
The consumer movement in India. People were unhappy with unfair practices, but there was no legal system to protect them. If you disliked a shop or brand, you simply stopped buying from it: the buyer was expected to be careful. The organised consumer movement began in the 1960s, sparked by food shortages, hoarding, black marketing and adulteration of food and edible oil. Until the 1970s, consumer groups mostly wrote articles and held exhibitions, and checked malpractices in ration shops and overcrowded buses. Over time, the movement shifted responsibility for good quality onto sellers.
Laws and global action.
- The pressure led the Indian government to pass the Consumer Protection Act 1986, known as COPRA. It was amended in 2019.
- In 1985, the United Nations adopted Guidelines for Consumer Protection, which became the foundation of the consumer movement worldwide.
- Consumers International is now an umbrella body for over 200 organisations from over 100 countries.
Practise this lesson
Questions that get harder as you improve, a Tutor that helps without giving the answer away, and progress you can see. Free for every learner.
No account, no email address. Opens the real product.