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Boycott - "an act of voluntary and intentional abstention
from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an
expression of protest, usually for moral, social, political, or environmental
reasons" - Wikipedia
Typically a boycott is a public protest - sort of like a strike. There are many groups that host public boycotts such as PETA.
A boycott's effectivity generally depends on the amount of people involved and how widely 'televised' it is or how 'viral' the story went.
Needless to say, solo boycotts aren't very effective at all. One's personal choice not to eat meat for example will a very minimal effect on the profits of the meat companies like Tyson. But, one person does make some difference. We are dealing with supply and demand after all. For example, if you are a vegetarian, you'll save roughly 20 land animals per year.
I personally have been boycotting a several companies for many years now such as Nike, Apple, and Walmart.
Why Nike? Well, I used to buy and own Nike products when I was much younger. Then one day Tiger Woods was in an interview on TV and he was being asked why he was still sponsored by Nike after learning that they essentially used slave labor in third-world countries , he said something along the lines of, "Well, if not me, then someone else". This must have been in the early 2000's. From that point on I refused to buy anything made by Nike.
Very revlavent video about Nike workers in Indonesia working for slave wages:
https://youtu.be/M5uYCWVfuPQ
Walmart shares a similar story, but on top of this they pay their US workers like crap also.
These were in the prime-time news of course, so I saw it. What I didn't do was research what other companies also utilized this type of labor overseas.
Why Apple? I used to own a green iPod mini. I bought it used from a friend. I loved that thing. Then I started to learn about the founder and CEO Steve Jobs. What. A. Douche. R.I.P. Steven, but yes, you were sort of an a-hole. Besides their products being way over priced, this is why I never bought your company's products.
How many other companies have CEOs who aren't ideal citizens? Likely many. Even Bill Gates had his moments, yet I've always purchased and own Microsoft products - partly because they had such a monopoly on PC operating systems (Windows).
Most recently, I've been boycotting Facebook because of the way they reacted and dealt with the spread of 'fake news', especially during the 2016 presidential election. Like Tiger Woods and Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg's 'evils' were highly 'televised'.
So, what about the ones that aren't widely televised or talked about in the news or social media? I've come to realize I've been a bit of a hypocrite by selectively boycotting certain companies without doing proper research about other companies who might be committing the same kind of 'evils'.
Different countries have different wage laws and so companies in the US (and elsewhere I'm sure) take advantage of this. Does that make them 'evil'? This is a highly subjective moral question, but I personally wouldn't take advantage of such labor laws. But that also means my company wouldn't remain competitive.
You can also argue that providing jobs for people in these other countries is a good thing. Where would they be working if they didn't have a job working for Nike or Walmart? That's likely the best job they could find, so why is this 'evil'? In my view, while this may be true, US companies exporting jobs to save money, are supporting the outsourced companies laws. The more companies that do this, the more likely these laws won't change.
Now, after hearing all about poor working conditions at Amazon, I'm considering dropping my support for them as well.
And then there's Google... along with Facebook and Microsoft, and many other others are always dealing with anti-privacy issues. I'm definitely a Google fan boy, so I need to be careful of personal bias. I also need to start revisiting my reasons for starting my boycotts. Perhaps the companies have changed their ways.
Relevant articles/links:
https://relate.zendesk.com/articles/money-where-your-brand-boycott-is/
A boycott's effectivity generally depends on the amount of people involved and how widely 'televised' it is or how 'viral' the story went.
Needless to say, solo boycotts aren't very effective at all. One's personal choice not to eat meat for example will a very minimal effect on the profits of the meat companies like Tyson. But, one person does make some difference. We are dealing with supply and demand after all. For example, if you are a vegetarian, you'll save roughly 20 land animals per year.
I personally have been boycotting a several companies for many years now such as Nike, Apple, and Walmart.
Why Nike? Well, I used to buy and own Nike products when I was much younger. Then one day Tiger Woods was in an interview on TV and he was being asked why he was still sponsored by Nike after learning that they essentially used slave labor in third-world countries , he said something along the lines of, "Well, if not me, then someone else". This must have been in the early 2000's. From that point on I refused to buy anything made by Nike.
Very revlavent video about Nike workers in Indonesia working for slave wages:
https://youtu.be/M5uYCWVfuPQ
Walmart shares a similar story, but on top of this they pay their US workers like crap also.
These were in the prime-time news of course, so I saw it. What I didn't do was research what other companies also utilized this type of labor overseas.
Why Apple? I used to own a green iPod mini. I bought it used from a friend. I loved that thing. Then I started to learn about the founder and CEO Steve Jobs. What. A. Douche. R.I.P. Steven, but yes, you were sort of an a-hole. Besides their products being way over priced, this is why I never bought your company's products.
How many other companies have CEOs who aren't ideal citizens? Likely many. Even Bill Gates had his moments, yet I've always purchased and own Microsoft products - partly because they had such a monopoly on PC operating systems (Windows).
Most recently, I've been boycotting Facebook because of the way they reacted and dealt with the spread of 'fake news', especially during the 2016 presidential election. Like Tiger Woods and Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg's 'evils' were highly 'televised'.
So, what about the ones that aren't widely televised or talked about in the news or social media? I've come to realize I've been a bit of a hypocrite by selectively boycotting certain companies without doing proper research about other companies who might be committing the same kind of 'evils'.
Different countries have different wage laws and so companies in the US (and elsewhere I'm sure) take advantage of this. Does that make them 'evil'? This is a highly subjective moral question, but I personally wouldn't take advantage of such labor laws. But that also means my company wouldn't remain competitive.
You can also argue that providing jobs for people in these other countries is a good thing. Where would they be working if they didn't have a job working for Nike or Walmart? That's likely the best job they could find, so why is this 'evil'? In my view, while this may be true, US companies exporting jobs to save money, are supporting the outsourced companies laws. The more companies that do this, the more likely these laws won't change.
Now, after hearing all about poor working conditions at Amazon, I'm considering dropping my support for them as well.
And then there's Google... along with Facebook and Microsoft, and many other others are always dealing with anti-privacy issues. I'm definitely a Google fan boy, so I need to be careful of personal bias. I also need to start revisiting my reasons for starting my boycotts. Perhaps the companies have changed their ways.
Relevant articles/links:
https://relate.zendesk.com/articles/money-where-your-brand-boycott-is/
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