Common values

Common values are what characterize a faction and most nonprofit groups, and some ideology (actually one of the more limited influences on the behaviour of a political party, and very limited on a ruling party). Very often there is tension between these values, and the economic choices people make day to day, but moral purchasing is about trying to bring these closer together so that each buying choice is a moral choice.

There is also tension with political choice - and groupthink pushing them to make politically motivated decisions in a certain way, often just by tradition and not by values, e.g. "Daddy voted that way so I have to as well."

The only common values widely enough held to be able to characterize types of countries are those inherent in international law. This is controversial. Most political scientists would say that nations have only common interests and do not have "values" in any sane sense like people do.

Getting people to declare common values is easy. Getting them to act on them consistently is quite difficult. This must be left up to the factions that define reputation and can consistently evaluate performance to some values. See political spectrum for more detailed analysis of this question.

Essential projects tend to be those that have common values (but also common interests such as a wikitext standard) with Consumerium - other than that, there may be nothing more we can say. The Consumerium Governance Organization will have to make day to day decisions about where to trust in other projects' or groups' common values.