But consumers do not have one vote each. They possess very different amounts of power. The consumer of sausage rolls at Asda is really not the same consumer as the person that purchases sea bass from Waitrose. Still less are they the same as an industrial consumer of petrol, which can influence the price of petrol in a way that all those lorry drivers in the petrol protests in 2000 couldn't, even though they had the illusion of power. Consumer activism privileges the voice of the powerful, and ignores the concerns, not only of the poor and the marginalised, but of the vast majority.
Most consumers have no power whatsoever.
If they have any power at all, it is only in relation to very specific products in relation to very specific areas. It is precisely because of this that consumer activists can use an elitist language that would not be tolerated in any other area of life. Obviously when you are on 85,000 a year, cheap food is not an issue for you. Consumer activists have a lot of power when they are trying to prevent a motorway from being built the Green Belt in Surrey, in order not to lower the price of their 650,000 houses. Try being a consumer activist trying to slow down the traffic in an inner-city housing estate and see how much news coverage you get in comparison.