In short, traditional vegan consumerism is ineffective because it fails to go after the industry's reputation. What does this mean for veganism? Veganism is generally seen as a tool to change economics - supply and demand - rather than reputations, and we are expressly told to “be nice.” The result is that the stigmatization of industry that’s required for effective boycotts is undermined. Social change demands that we turn the tables on violence with tactics such as the Liberation Pledge. Of all the boycotts that achieved national media attention, 25% achieved some change, often by focusing on these factors. focus on achieving sustained media as a mechanism to create a “reputation crisis.”.focus on impacting a brand's reputation rather than economic effects.For another, some boycotts do seem to have an impact.īrayden King at Northwestern sets out some of the key features of effective boycotts: There may be ethical reasons we undertake consumer action, such as veganism, that are independent of its immediate impacts. For one, the fact that consumer action is not effective as a strategy for social change does not imply that we should give up on it on an individual level. One study found 60% of self-identified vegetarians had eaten meat within the past day!ĭoes that mean consumer action - such as veganism - is pointless? Not necessarily. We know, for example, that the vast majority of vegans give up their commitments - sometimes with astonishing speed. Even ideologically supportive people usually don’t sustain their commitments over the long term. Third, boycotts generally aren't sustainable. In a world of multinational empires that span dozens of countries and millions upon millions of consumers, even the most ambitious boycotts rarely even register on the corporate radar. Second, boycotts are almost always too small. While we would like to believe that our failure to purchase oil, slave labor goods, or a cheeseburger will send a resounding message to corporate abusers, in fact the long-term impacts of our choices are small, as suppliers can simply shift to another buyer (often with no difference in price). And what they’ve found is that there are at least three factors that make boycotts nearly useless for proponents of social change.įirst, there is always another buyer. Welch, Orley Ashenfelter at Princeton, and Daniel Diermeier at the University of Chicago have challenged the effectiveness of boycott using careful analysis. This is especially true of animal rights, where virtually every campaign ends with some form of the “stop buying x” message.īut what if “consumer power” is just an illusion? In everything from saving orangutans to fighting slave labor, we have been told that our power lies in our pocketbooks. As George Monbiot has written, the boycott and other forms of economic action have been the principal tool of many social justice campaigns over the past 50 years. an end to apartheid in South Africa.Īnd those words should be troubling for those of us who find ourselves in movements dominated by consumer action. These are the recent words of Ivo Welch, a well-known scholar at UCLA who has studied the effect of boycotts on pushing for social change, e.g. “Boycotts almost surely will never work.” The Reverend Billy admonishes us to stop shopping to save species like the Golden Toad.
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