We get the opportunity to vote for an American president every four years. If you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming that you exercised your right to vote. Awesome! Good for you. But we can wield influence on more than just election day.
“Vote with your dollars” is an incredibly important phrase because it helps us understand that each one of us has the power to change things by the way we spend our money.
There’s a social movement that encourages people to support local businesses and food producers. This is often known as “Localism”. I’m all for this idea, because locally spent money really is recycled in a local community and increases the quality of life for a community.
The same type of intentional spending on “Made In USA” products would have an equally good effect on our national economy. It may take longer, because of the larger scale, but keeping our money and resources here instead of shipping them to other countries is an important first step to economic recovery.
Notice that I’m not advocating any governmental intervention. I’m making the case for individual Americans to consider how they spend their money and to vote with their dollars to keep fellow Americans employed.
This can even be taken a step further. If you support a particular political party, find out what businessmen are members of that party and support their businesses. If you like what a local business person has to say in the public forum, buy things from them. Use their services. Vote with your dollars.
Money talks. All of us have a little bit of it. Let’s use it to express our values and ideas.
Matthew Metzger lives in Wisconsin with his wife and two children and works to promote American made products through the WhyBuyMadeInUSA.com website. The website gives away one quality “Made In USA” product every week.
Photo by Randy Son of Robert.
