The Consumer Boycott

I’ve been inundated in my Facebook newsfeed with articles posted by friends protesting against anti-gay Chic-fil-a or the many large companies that support Romney’s conservative agenda with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions.  I’m outraged by these companies and their politics.  And yet, I’m not immediately convinced to boycott them, which troubles me. 

What troubles me is that the lists of companies I feel I can support are dwindling to the point that I’m beginning to seriously lament the fact that I have zero talent for sewing my own clothing.  Corporations are so big and so single-minded toward profit-making these days that consumers are left, not with the choice of where to buy, but with only one real choice: buy or don’t buy at all.  For example, I’m not finding it to be a real choice to not support BP after the oil spill (even though I do not buy gas from BP stations) because how much oil does BP supply to other gas companies? A lot.  And on top of it, turns out that boycotting BP stations hardly affects BP at all, but instead affects the local business owner of that specific gas station. 

The postmodern, globalized American economy feels far away from the days of the Boston Tea Party when protesting against a company was a serious political act that supported the move toward revolution.  Instead, boycotting companies these days seems to somehow only generate potential for supporting the very same company operating under a different name.  I remember trying to protest against Gap many years ago after the news of egregious factory conditions came to light only to learn that my purchases at Old Navy, Banana Republic, and so on all still supported Gap.  So many companies own multiple brands and subsidiaries that the thought of actual “purchasing power,” aside from the power vested in me by my checkbook or credit card, is extremely weak.  

I do take the route of simply consuming less and have ever since a Lenten-led experiment back in 2006 when I decided not to buy anything for 40 days…except food and drink.   I credit this meaningful exposé with the fact that I choose to buy used clothing far more often than I choose new clothing.  I seek to eat all of the food in my kitchen before expiration dates in order to not be wasteful and use substitutions rather than buying new spices that I may not use more than once.  I do my best to decipher between needs and desires, which can prove difficult when pursuing an academic career and every book urges me to write notes in the margins making me deliberate for lengthy periods of time about which books can come from the library and which must be purchased.  And then, of course, should I buy a used book or a new one?

Is the message “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”?  Well, I definitely don’t believe in that.  But seriously, does the consumer boycott still hold the revolutionary power that it held in early America?  It seems to me that it does not.  And if it doesn’t, then where exactly does our revolutionary power lie?