Ask Kentucky bourbon manufacturers how the Canadian boycott of their product is going. Or ask California wineries. Or ask pretty much every major tourist site in the USA how pissing off Canadians has worked out for them. Or … well, the list is long. I’ll let you look it up.
It is the concerted action of millions of individuals drawing a line in the sand that kills these fuckers.
Those examples proof my point though? It was a WHOLE COUNTRY organizing a boycott where even the industry is in in it with a specific goal and easily available alternatives with very little discomfort. Its not all american products either.
So you have a big enough number of people all at once who are pissed of enough that they are willing to join and i remind you not because they morally object what the US does to other peoole but because they threatened war and imposed tarifs hurting them directly a lot very fast. I also highly doubt that this boycott started by canadians shaming each other into boycotting.
Single individuals not using a product and the “organizing” being limited by just telling others they are not living by their principles by using it lacks any real world impact. And i am not even disagreeing that we should consume as ethically as possible i am saying looking at it from a pragmatic point of view that just shaming people is doing nothing objectivly.
For a real world example where moral “boycotting” worked was the Dunnes Store Strike but again it wasn’t people shaming others into not buying south african goods it was a whole organisation (the union) directing their workers to not handle it and the punishment of the workers got others to join and put pressure on the governtment to finally stop importing goods from south africa. Without a strong union support and focus on a direct goal this wouldn’t have worked at all.
We should talk about real life examples that worked and what they had in common and from there organize stragetic boycotts where there is a goid chance of winning not picking things we personally don’t need or want to use and pretending we are morally superior to others who have on principle the same goals we do.
Ask Kentucky bourbon manufacturers how the Canadian boycott of their product is going. Or ask California wineries. Or ask pretty much every major tourist site in the USA how pissing off Canadians has worked out for them. Or … well, the list is long. I’ll let you look it up.
It is the concerted action of millions of individuals drawing a line in the sand that kills these fuckers.
Those examples proof my point though? It was a WHOLE COUNTRY organizing a boycott where even the industry is in in it with a specific goal and easily available alternatives with very little discomfort. Its not all american products either.
So you have a big enough number of people all at once who are pissed of enough that they are willing to join and i remind you not because they morally object what the US does to other peoole but because they threatened war and imposed tarifs hurting them directly a lot very fast. I also highly doubt that this boycott started by canadians shaming each other into boycotting.
Single individuals not using a product and the “organizing” being limited by just telling others they are not living by their principles by using it lacks any real world impact. And i am not even disagreeing that we should consume as ethically as possible i am saying looking at it from a pragmatic point of view that just shaming people is doing nothing objectivly.
For a real world example where moral “boycotting” worked was the Dunnes Store Strike but again it wasn’t people shaming others into not buying south african goods it was a whole organisation (the union) directing their workers to not handle it and the punishment of the workers got others to join and put pressure on the governtment to finally stop importing goods from south africa. Without a strong union support and focus on a direct goal this wouldn’t have worked at all.
We should talk about real life examples that worked and what they had in common and from there organize stragetic boycotts where there is a goid chance of winning not picking things we personally don’t need or want to use and pretending we are morally superior to others who have on principle the same goals we do.