Why Boycotts Fail

photo credit: EDgAr H.

Last week, the The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology announced that they were going to boycott the state of Louisiana due to recent laws passed in the state that has opened the door for creationism to be taught in the state’s schools.

As a result of this, they will not be holding their 2011 meeting in New Orleans, instead, they will be taking it to Utah.

No matter what you think of the politics of teaching creationism in schools, one can easily see why an organization like SICB would be opposed to it and why they might want to do something about it.

But boycotting Louisiana, in particular New Orleans, isn’t going to solve the problem and is only going to hurt good people who work hard and likely agree with them politically. After all, New Orleans is a very liberal city (a bright blue dot in the deep red south) and one of just four parishes to vote against Jindal in the 2007 gubernatorial election.

However, the problem with boycotts runs deeper than that. With only a few exceptions, they are just lazy, ineffective means of protest that do more harm than good. They are misused, especially in modern history, and almost never achieve the intended goal.

The reason is pretty simple when you look at the math.

A Closer Look

Let’s take a look at this proposed boycott of Louisiana.

The current state sales tax in Louisiana is four percent. That means that, by boycotting New Orleans, exactly 4% of the revenue you are not spending in the state actually hurts the state. The other 96% hurts New Orleans, both through city taxes, much needed to aid in the Katrina recovery, and through the businesses and people they would have supported.

Then look at the percentages. The current state budget of Louisiana is just a little over 9 billion dollars. The City of New Orleans, on the other hand, has an annual budget of about 128 million. In short, the City of New Orleans is about seventy times more dependent on SICB revenue even before you consider the fact that the city was going to get the lion’s share anyway.

Essentially what this boycott does is withhold thousands of dollars from New Orleans in hopes of withholding a few pennies from the state of Louisiana. All of this at a time when the City of New Orleans is still struggling to recover from the worst natural disaster in U.S. history and is sandbagged by a tough tourism economy due to economic downturn.

Governor Jindal nor most of the legislators that passed the bill you are protesting will not feel the effects of your boycott. They are too far removed, but the small business owners, many of whom lost everything in the storm, the hotel owners and the City of New Orleans itself may very well.

What this boycott does is fire a bullet at the intended target, knowing that it has to first pass through, employees, business owners, a city government, a parish government and then, maybe it will scratch the target enough to annoy him.

It hardly seems worth it when you consider that, for this boycott to work, countless business that had nothing to do with the bill would have to close, countless jobs, including many belonging to people that never voted for Jindal of the government, will be lost. How many innocent lives will be wrecked before the goal will be achieved?

Of course, the boycott will not work. Other, larger conventions are planned for New Orleans and, though Jindal’s hand may be forced by other means, it won’t be because the SICB decided not to show in 2011.

Instead, it’s going to take a very different and much more effective form of protest to bring about any real change.

The Problem with Boycotting Government

The problem with boycotting government is simple, you can’t withhold your taxes legally. If you could, most people wouldn’t wait for a political issue to not pay up.

The only legal way to boycott a government is by withholding money from the businesses within its borders. This means that you have to hurt the citizens, who may or may not support the government’s actions, in hopes of squeezing a small percent of the revenue out of the government’s coffers, money they likely would just make up with new or higher taxes.

In my life, have never seen a government boycott actually work, though I have seen many good businesses get closed and good people lose their jobs.

But what about boycotting companies when they are the ones doing what you feel is wrong? Take, for example, the marijuana community’s proposed boycott of Kellogg’s for dropping Michael Phelps as a spokesperson.

At least, in these cases, the boycott is direct. You’re withholding money directly from the entity that you feel is in the wrong. However, the question becomes, do you really have the dedication and the market share to make it work? Do you have enough people who are working in solidarity to make even a blip on the sales charts?

The answer is probably not, especially when you’re talking about multi-national corporations. Even if your boycott did make a dent in the revenue, they could just expand operations elsewhere and make most of it back up. Cigarette companies have been doing that for years as Americans have been “boycotting” in droves.

For a boycott to actually work, you need a pretty rare set of circumstances.

1. A strong, dedicated group to maintain the boycott.
2. Direct access to the entity’s revenue stream.
3. A large enough market share to make it hurt.

All of these things came together beautifully in the Montgomery bus boycott during the mid-50s. African-Americans, fed up with segregation on the buses, boycotted riding the bus for over a year in a bid to force them to change their policies. The boycotters made up a large percentage of the riders and the effects were indeed felt, even causing deficits in the system.

However, even then, it required a legal ruling to truly end the segregation on the buses. Even though it was hands-down one of the most successful boycotts in the last 100 years, it required other forms of protest and activism to help it bring about real change.

And that is what is the worst part about boycotting, by itself, it is almost meaningless.

Protesting By Doing Nothing

For all of the talk about “hitting where it hurts” or “striking the wallet” boycotting is a really easy form of protest. All you have to do is NOT buy something. For most boycotts, all you have to do is not buy whatever it is you’re boycotting. At worst that will mean buying another brand or, in the case of the SICB, going to another city.

It’s easy, anyone can do it and, outside of the aforementioned bus boycott, there’s no real sacrifice. For the most part, you can boycott from the comfort of your recliner, no actual protesting or work needed. It’s a way to feel like you’re doing something without actually doing anything.

In short, unless you need something and there are no viable alternatives, a boycott isn’t a sacrifice. With no sacrifice, there is no weight behind the protest.

Is this to say you should give money to companies you don’t support? Of course not. If you disagree with Kellogg’s decision to drop Phelps, by all means don’t buy their products. But whipping it up as some kind of protest is pointless. Also, don’t boycott through proxies, withholding purchases to prevent someone farther up the food chain from getting their cut only hurts the people lower down.

A lot of great and worthwhile causes have been protested by boycott, but real changes in modern history have required much more. Look at all of the great protests in modern times. They involved marches, sit-ins, demonstrations, chanting and a million other forms of active protest. These protests were passive only in their non-violence, they were active in the sacrifice and effort.

If the SICB wants to bring change to Louisiana and is truly concerned about our future, they won’t withhold money from a storm-ravaged city, they will have their conference here and stay an extra day, using that to get on a bus, go to Baton Rouge and protest this bill. They’ll send lawyers to fight in court. They’ll donate money to competing candidates. They’ll do anything other than simply ignore the state and hope it all works out for the better.

If the SICB cared about Louisiana, they would be willing to get their hands dirty and fight. Not just write a letter and take their conference elsewhere.

Bottom Line

I’m issuing a challenge to all of the idle boycotters. Do something. Don’t just sit on your wallet and think that makes everything better. If you believe in something strongly enough to protest it, then doing your part means a great deal more than just not buying its products.

I also challenge you to think long and hard about who a particular boycott hurts the most, which lives will be impacted first, before the ones that you desire to strike at. After all, no protest is worth launching if it is only going to hurt the innocent.

Is there a place for boycotts? Sure. But it is a limited and narrow one and it always comes with some other form of active protest. Take, for example, the recent boycott of the New York Post over a controversial cartoon. It has been coupled with loud and attention-grabbing protests. Whether you agree or disagree with the protesters, it is clear they’re having an impact.

You’re not going to beat anyone but the weakest of foes by boycott alone. If you’re going to bring about real change, you’re going to have to do something more. It is that simple.

If you don’t believe me, then we’ll see if Kellogg’s has added Phelp’s back or if has Jindal changed his mind in a year. Unless more active measures are taken, I don’t see either thing happening any time soon.