Boycotting is not enough.
There are many people who have strong feelings about why they should or should not support a company; whether it is regarding fair-trade or living wages vs unfair pay and sweatshop labour; palm oil, animal products, excess plastic packaging, or something else; there are many reasons why we choose not to buy something for moral reasons. But if you are really passionate about this cause, I don’t think it is enough just to boycott that company.
I have a conundrum that I’ve been dealing with for a long time. Here’s the thing — I really want to be a moral consumer, I don’t want to support companies who don’t provide a living wage for their workers; (I also, like most of you, enjoy keeping my money in my pocket and that leads me to make up a lot of excuses; but that’s just an aside). Here’s the problem: there are an enormous amount of people globally who work very hard and are reimbursed less than $1 a day — and that is SCALED relative to what they can buy in their own countries, it’s not their money exchanged working out to $1 USA, it’s the EQUIVALENT of having $1 a day IN THE USA. This is huge and we need to change it economically— therefore we need to increase the amount that people pay their workers across the board and to do THAT we need to increase the incentives for companies for doing so — because sadly those same companies usually pocket billions of dollars in profit each year.
But what happens if you boycott those companies in silent protest? What happens if those companies’ revenue goes down? Unfortunately, they’re probably not going to react by raising wages — in fact, they’ll probably end up putting that burden on to the most vulnerable people; those workers — they’ll lay them off, pay them less, do horrible things because they’ve gotten away with doing horrible things in the name of profit for so long. Don’t those people, those individuals getting paid the pitiful amount in vulnerable situations in severe poverty — don’t THEY need my business the most? Even if they’re only getting the tiniest percentage? It’s not as if they have the option to transition into a higher paid position or make money any other way — the system is broken! But then again, if I don’t buy the fairtrade goods instead, I’m not contributing to creating more jobs in THOSE sectors either.
So how do we solve it? It’s a great example to illuminate why boycotts can’t on their own make situations better — or would be very slow to do so. But it doesn’t get you off the hook. This is why we need to do more, and it’s all about using our voice.
In order to really effect change on a grand level as far as company ethics are concerned, we need to achieve three things on top of simply spending our money elsewhere. We need to (1) change societal focus/opinions, we need to (2) make those opinions known to the perpetrators, and we need to (3) make those opinions known to people who can change legislation to enforce them. These three things are absolutely free, and all it takes is you opening your mouth or spending five minutes to send a simple message, letter, or email.
If you’re convinced by people who suggest that individual changes aren’t enough to change a system (and imply that its not worth trying anyway) then here’s your alternative. Legislation doesn’t get changed without protest and without individual opinions becoming collective opinions. We know that corporations are the main driver of many things that are wrong in this world, we know they’re the big polluters, producers of plastic, emitters of greenhouse gas. This can make individual choices and changes seem meaningless and insignificant; but it discounts the fact that those corporations do those terrible things to PRODUCE THINGS FOR CONSUMERS. Yes most emissions come from corporations — why? because they make a profit from their product, they’re providing a service. If you don’t engage with their service their profits go down, if their profits go down their production goes down, if their production goes down, so does their pollution and negative effects — if you want to accelerate this change don’t just stop buying their products — make it known that they don’t serve you, and help others to follow suit. Be vocal, and you’ll find out that your voice matters.
Raise awareness! Tell your friends and family what convinced you to not want to buy these products anymore, make it known, make people think, share it on facebook, write a blog post, do something that can reach more minds and hearts and you can help to shift mindsets on a societal level. Sharing ideas is essential to human nature, and its the sole reason why society can progress and change. If something’s important to you — why not make it known? Please don’t attack people for NOT having the same view as you, simply share your own reasons and views gently.
Then there’s companies, they may seem like big scary unstoppable forces but they are fueled by consumers and profit, they live and breathe getting as many people as possible to buy their product at the highest price with the lowest acceptable production costs. While being conscious of using your dollar is one of the most important votes you can make to get the ball rolling on a changing consumer environments, it is the least you can do. Yes companies do their market research and are often quite meticulous; but you cannot be sure that those companies take notice of the real reasons they’re losing customers; unless you tell them why they’ve lost your business. It is as simple as sending a message on facebook direct to the company page about what bothers you about their company ethics and what would make you more likely to support their brand.
We need to be more vocal, as consumers we actually hold enormous amounts of power to drive corporations (and our fellow consumers) whichever way we want to. As a collective, if we were more conscious and expressed what we wanted more clearly, we could impact massive changes very swiftly; like I said, in the market system that exists now, big companies are mostly blind to everything except profits; and there are incentives for them to do immoral things to lower their production costs. So let’s be morally guided consumers, and be advocates for things we find important — if you’re already making the effort to boycott, why not send a message too? The more consumer opinions companies are flooded with; the more likely they are to take those messages on board and figure out a way to make everybody happy and keep their profits rolling in.
How do we moderate the incentives for doing immoral things? Although profits are driving motivators for companies, they do work within corporate law; and legislation around marketing, labeling, etc. is built on changes in the law driven by local and national opinion leading to political action. Why not write letters to relevant politicians and explain your concerns, ask THEM to advocate for their cohort of which YOU are an important part, suggest changes to laws — tell them what you want; and tell other people to express themselves too. How many people sit around complaining that politicians aren’t listening to them without actually making the effort to send a lowsy letter? These things matter. And whilst you may feel silly doing it, or you might feel like you’re the only person putting in the effort to do so, do it anyway. Be a leader, make your voice heard — this is the way we can enact real and meaningful change and move our society in a more moral direction.
