Daily Kos

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  •  Tip jar (4.00 / 7)

    ...or flame jar, whichever :-)

    Remember: if it's close, they'll steal it.

    by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 06:30:20 AM PDT

    •  Important Diary (none / 0)

      There have been some battles against Wal-Mart in working class communities (hell, where else does Wal-Mart locate?) but what is important about this diary is the reminder that Wal-Mart shoppers should not be alienated. Does that mean boycotts never make sense? No, but the boycott must come from the people being asked to boycott. The Black community of Montgomery, Alabama depended on the bus system to get to work and would never have responded to a call to boycott from outside their community. It was precisely when their own conciousness was ready for action that the call for a boycott resonated. A lot of the "boycotts" I hear calls for these days are not serious boycotts, they are really exercises in self-congratulation that will have no appreciable impact on the targetted company. We do have power as consumers but it is not limitless and it requires strategic focus and effective organization if it is to be exercised with any effect.

      Wal-Mart is pernicious and while they are the leading edge of what they do, they are being followed by their competitors. Really confronting them requires:

      1. Organizing the workers at Wal-Mart and
      2. Organizing the workers (in China and elsewhere) who produce what Wal-Mart sells.

      Only when such organizing campaigns are seriously under way will calls for boycotts have any prospect for success (and still they will face considerable resistance from folks who depend on Wal-Marts low prices). In such situations boycotts should be viewed not as an expresion of generalized distaste for the practices of a company, but as a TACTIC designed to bring pressure to achieve a specific goal. Wal-Mart isn't going to change its practices to satisfy folks who would never shop there anyway, so boycotts are ONLY effective when they actually speak to the people who PRESENTLY shop at Wal-Mart and might be expected to do so again after a boycott has achieved its goals.

      Discretionary consumer behavior should not be confused with effective political action. Choose not to shop somewhere because you don't like them if you want, but don't kid yourself into thinking that act uis about anything other than salving your own conscience unless it is part of a seriousl collective organizing effort.

      Sick of candidate diaries? Kasama!
      "Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories" -- Amilcar Cabral

      by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:03:54 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      •  The thing about goods made in China (none / 0)

        ...is that's everywhere.

        And, that's another issue entirely. I worked in consumer electronics for a number of years. Do you know how many electronic devices are not made in China or other similarly-repressive places? Not a lot.

        I always thought it would be an interesting experiment: get two DVD players. Identical in every way. Both name-brands. One, with a big MADE IN CHINA sign, for sixty bucks. Right next to it--again, identical--with a big MADE IN USA sign for eighty bucks. Play it up further if you want: "Made in the repressive Commie regime of China by indentured servants making peanuts" vs "made in the good ol' USA by your neighbors--suppport the American worker!"  I wonder how much we would've sold of each. My educated guess? The cheaper made in China one by a good 75-90%. I don't think it would be close.

        And you wonder why I snort at boycotts of Walmart. I've worked in retail too long :-)

        Remember: if it's close, they'll steal it.

        by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:49:39 AM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  As long as its an individual consumer act (none / 0)

          you are absolutely correct.

          What I object to is the notion that people are incapable of making ethical choices that involve an element of sacrifice. People can and will when they have reason to believe that their actions are effective and when they are genuine acts of solidarity, that is to say when they are attached to a larger collective or community project. The problem is that most boycotts today are in fact acts of "limousine liberalism" (or "Subaru socialism") that are completely disconnected from efforts to ORGANIZE the power of poor and working class people.

          There is little question that we are well-trained to be amoral consumers. But this is not an expression of human nature so much as an expression of the atomization and amorality of consumer capitalism and most of us feel, consciously or unconsciously, a little yucky about it. The project is not to wag our fingers at people to make them into moral consumers, but rather to concretely build class and community consciousness so that we no longer find our personal validation through buying things but rather from our relations with each other as human beings.

          Sick of candidate diaries? Kasama!
          "Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories" -- Amilcar Cabral

          by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:05:24 AM PDT

          [ Parent ]

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