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Blaming customers for companies malfeasance must have been one of the greatest deflection tactics ever invented and it saddens me deeply when it gets parroted verbatim by the general populace.

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I think it is a fair criticism. Individual consumers surely have some culpability, whether they are buying a stolen iPhone or a stolen kidney.

I think the mistake people make is treating responsibility as if it is a limited resource and can only be applied to the consumer or the producer.

I generally agree, but I’ve seen it taken to an extreme when I found someone claiming that a park strewn with trash wasn’t the fault of those who left their trash behind, but instead the companies that use such ecologically unfriendly packaging.

While fault may not be the appropriate term it is true that those companies have an opportunity to reduce trash in a park by changing their packaging.

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