You Are Voting for Company Values with Your Spending
Efficiency is very important, because it is by being efficient that we get richer: through doing more with less (or the same). Hence it is important that we do not promote waste.
None-the-less when you buy anything you are actually voting for the values of the company, (or co-operative, farmer, stallholder, or state-enterprise) that is selling the item to you.
Thus if you always buy the cheapest, you are telling the company that it is only price that matters. And leaving it to other people to tell them things like: how well to pay their unskilled workers; how much to spend on the environment; whether to contribute to good causes; whether to use unethical marketing practices; and how much to minimise tax. (With globalization most of these can often just be ignored).
If you always buy the cheapest, the companies that find ways of getting round these 'external' costs will win. The others will just go bankrupt. Your spending is an enormous influence on producers, so choose your brands with care, and vote with your money for worthy corporations and coop's.
Some Chinese state enterprises, and Israeli kibbutzim, have schools, old age homes, and housing to support - and although they are moving slowly to market provision of these things, they still face markets where some employ 16 year-olds and house them in dormitories. Most large companies in the UK provide corporate pension plans for their workers - these can be a big burden, and make it near impossible to compete with companies that avoid the responsibility.
"Vote Wisely With Your Money"!
