So some Portlanders are organizing a boycott of Moreland Farmers Pantry, a not-yet-open grocery specializing in GMO-free foods, because it has been discovered that the owners of the story are anti-marriage-equality and have said so in Facebook postings. (A secondary issue is that one of the store’s co-owners linked to a libertarian article arguing that stores should have the legal right to refuse to serve gay customers). The boycott includes publishing a list of vendors who are working with MFP, so that readers can encourage those vendors to cut off relations with the not-yet-open store.
Here’s the comment I posted on their facebook page about a half-hour ago. (Regular “Alas” readers will notice that I adapted some text from a post I wrote about Mozilla last week.)
Speaking as a Portlander who has gathered signatures, made phone calls, and knocked on doors to support marriage equality, I very much disagree with this boycott.
Do you really think trying to drive people who disagree with us out of business is a good way to persuade people who disagree with us? Is a society in which people are economically punished for speaking out on a currently live controversy, the kind of society you want?
Three reasons I think this boycott is misguided:
1. It goes against what I think of as a “free speech culture” to try and drive small stores out of business because of the owners’ statements on current political controversies. Although there’s no government censorship going on here, we can and should want more from a society than just “no one was thrown in jail.” Truly open and free speech – substantive free speech – won’t exist if people are afraid of being economically destroyed if they speak out on current issues.
2) It doesn’t actually advance the cause of marriage equality in any significant way. If anything, it hurts the cause, by giving our opponents ammunition for their “gay bullies” argument.
3) It encourages people to think of politics as a matter of maintaining personal purity through choosing the correct store to shop at, rather than making meaningful change.
(I totally acknowledge that you have a free speech right to criticize, and to boycott, the Childs. But I likewise have a right to criticize your boycott.)
The owners of the boycott page deleted my comment. I wanted to ask them why, but they’ve blocked me from leaving any other comments, so I can’t.
Local restaurant owner Nick Zukin has publicly (and intemperately) disagreed with the boycott, on similar grounds to my objection, and some folks on Facebook have suggested that his restaurant should now be boycotted in turn.
Amp: “The owners of the boycott page deleted my comment. I wanted to ask them why, but they’ve blocked me from leaving any other comments, so I can’t.”
I appreciate this post, particularly this notion you have brought up recently about a “free speech culture.”
To me, that phrase would seem to boil down to “the ability to hear and engage ideas with which you disagree.” It may not be proper in every forum. It may be fine to ban flamers and “trolls.” It is fine to try to prevent derailing and they may claim that that is what they are trying to do here (“this is not the proper forum to discuss the wisdom of the boycott; this is the forum to promote the boycott; go over there (wherever that is) if you want to talk about whether a boycott is a good tactic”). In your case, it seems that, not only did they want to engage your ideas, but they did not want them to be heard.
But valuing free speech is a pointless value to have if you refuse to hear and engage in dialogue with ideas you don’t agree with. You don’t have to do it all the time, or in every setting. But, the refusal to do it at all, or in any setting, is evidence of a close-mindedness that is problematic in a democratic society.
That is one reason I keep coming back here: I will find lots of voices I disagree with (and some that I do); I can engage thoughtfully (for the most part) with them; and disagree (for the most part) as part of a civil dialogue. Even if I convince no one of the supreme righteousness of my opinions (or the wrongness of theirs), and even if I do not change my mind and change no one else’s, the simple ability to understand (or willingness to try to understand) opposing viewpoints, and to accept that people can thoughtfully disagree with me, is something that should be encouraged in a “free speech culture.”
-Jut
Amp,
Is it ever okay to boycott a company due to the owner’s beliefs?
Is it okay to boycott, e.g. Nazi owners, or is it *never* okay?
If it’s never okay, fine. If it is sometimes okay, then you don’t disagree with the concept, you disagree with this implementation, which seems to me to be a different point than the one you’ve been making in these posts.
Also, the “will this convince anyone?” argument is tangential. Important, but tangential. Because then, again, it’s about implementation (as it implies a boycott might be okay if it were convincing) not about the fundamental concept.
I think, and may be wrong, that you are uncomfortable with these specific instances, and may well be right about that, but in trying t I figure out how to express your discomfort, you’re making arguments that aren’t consistent. I could be wrong about that, obviously, but as someone who knows you, that’s what it looks like to me? I don’t personally necessarily disagree with your stance on this specific, but to make it an absolute generalization (and maybe I’m misreading and you don’t mean to) makes me uncomfortable/doubtful.
Amp,
I think I largely agree with what Mandolin said above. I’ve been torn on this issue. If people find it acceptable to impose economic consequences on others based on their speech or beliefs, then that will sometimes have really unattractive outcomes.
But that’s true as well for the “free speech culture” that you describe above. I think the ability to impose economic consequences on people is vitally important. Let’s suppose that someone publicly argues the U.S. should put racial segregation laws formally back on the books nationwide. Lots of people think that’s a loathsome idea, and they stop going to his restaurant since they no longer want to associate with him. His business shuts down, and he tries to get a job elsewhere, but no one wants to hire him. Other advocates of segregation see this happening and find it in their interest to keep their ideas to themselves. Naturally this has a big chilling effect on the substantive public debate on whether we should bring back racial segregation laws in the U.S. Is that a bad thing? If so, what should we do to fix it? Should people feel obligated to associate and trade with advocates of racial segregation, lest their speech be chilled by economic consequences? Should we feel obliged for the good of society, to continue patronizing the Nazi-owned company that Mandolin mentions above?
Maybe I’m misreading you, so please feel free to set me right on that. I don’t think that I have any easy answers to this. And my own responses to issues like this are subjective (e.g. I stopped buying Barilla pasta based on their CEO’s statements; I didn’t have a very strong opinion on the donations made by Chick-Fil-A’s executives; I’m not sure I could explain consistently why one bothered me more than the other). But I’m just not seeing how the “free speech culture” addresses the issues that you mention above.
I think you guys may be reading a stronger statement into these two posts than is actually in the posts.
In both posts, Barry is very clear about why he thinks this particular boycott is misguided. It’s not a blanket case against all boycotts, it’s saying “in this particular case, this is doing more good than harm.” Very clearly, laying out the problems point by point.
It’s very tempting to say that something is all good or all bad. But most things aren’t. “In this case but not every case the harm outweighs the benefit” is a legitimate argument, and it’s the one I read Barry as making.
yrs–
–Ben
Ben,
You may be right about that! Amp may be making a more nuanced claim than I originally read into his last couple of posts on the topic.
The thing is, I have known numerous people who have claimed without nuance that if you and I stop visiting the Neo-Nazi diner then it destroys free speech. I am profoundly unpersuaded by such claims. Amp seems to be a more nuanced thinker than that, so I was surprised to see him making what seemed to me to be really strong claims about how we should refuse to impose a full range of consequences on speech we vigorously oppose.
The business owners are free to spend their money. I am free to spend my money. In such a situation, I wouldn’t shop there. There are other places to buy food. Other people may feel differently. It is a very minor irritant. Boycotts rarely work, and in this case I imagine that any business lost from marriage equality proponents would be more than matched by business from traditionalists.
One distinction that might be made: I do not have a personal problem with individuals making individual decisions involving their own economic activities. A boycott significantly ups the ante, though. And, in my view, organized boycotts are rarely justified.
But, Kohai, here is a question I have about this statement of yours,
No, economic freedom goes both ways. Or, at least it should. But it doesn’t. Florists are required to make arrangements for gay weddings, but gay couples are not required to patronize them.
Maybe they should be required.
Or better yet, like you suggest economic relations should be entirely free.
-Jut
Organized boycotts cause some moral problems with an information deficit.
So there are gay-hating owners where you shop now what? Well, you can move. that is a morally defensible decision. But the issue is that in practice, you’re very unlikely to do the research and ensure that the places you move business TO are, in fact, more in line with your moral beliefs.
That can cause some strange outcomes. To use a personal example, I boycotted Barilla and bought more Prince pasta instead. Kewl! But then again… I don’t actually know a damn thing about Prince and I have no idea whether they are, overall, better or worse than Barilla on my moral scale. For all I know I made the entirely incorrect decision.
I would never vote for a law to restrict them, but I think my moral discomfort with boycotts is that they often promote a single-issue view of the world which is inherently problematic.
JutGory,
I’m not sure I agree on this. Specifically, I’m not sure that the distinction between individual action and organized boycott is particularly meaningful. Maybe you can persuade me on it. Here’s my (not fully refined) thinking on it.
We make easily a thousand economic decisions per day. When you get a cup of coffee from the break room instead of Starbucks because it’s cheaper, that’s an economic decision. When you get lunch from Bob’s Burgers instead of Jack’s Pizza Shack because you get better service at Bob’s, that’s an economic decision. When you go to Frank’s Automotive instead of Jim’s Fix-It because Frank does better work, that’s an economic decision. And when someone goes to CostMart rather than WalCo because they prefer CostMart’s labor practices, that’s an economic decision too.
Sometimes Jack’s Pizza Shack loses a lot of money because a lot of people all at once prefer Bob’s Burgers because of the service. Sometimes Jim’s Fix-It has to shut down because a lot of people all at once find Frank’s Automotive to be so much more reliable. And sometimes WalCo loses revenue because a lot of people all at once prefer business CostMart’s practices. I guess I’m not seeing what makes the WalCo situation so different from the others. They’re a business and if they want money from their customers, then they need to anticipate their customers’ preferences. The marketplace tends to reward companies that are good at that. I’m not seeing why losing business due to protests over business practices is meaningfully different from losing business because their pizza tastes like cardboard.
Just a note, I don’t want to make this sound like a “markets never do wrong and economic outcomes are immune from criticism” kind of argument. That’s not my position at all. This is a “Kohai doesn’t see why boycotts are seen as bad or dangerous as compared to the other thousand or so economic choices we make per day” kind of argument.
JutGory, I’ll also note that you don’t actually ask me a question at the end of your comment. Are you asking me whether I support anti-discrimination laws?
Kohai, this kind of thing is actually why I do see a distinction between an organized boycott and simply being turned off by knowing a business owner is anti-marriage-equality, or less excited about a new Adam Baldwin film now that I know he’s anti-gay. We make so many of these decisions for such trivial reasons that there can be no individual duty to buy something; but a boycott takes things to another level, and tries to convince people that there’s a duty to not buy something.
JutGory, I assume you recall the circumstances that led to economic restrictions on the freedom not to do business with certain customers.
Amp, I agree with Mandolin: you really aren’t consistent on this. “Will create positive change” is so usefully vague that you use it to exclude particular change you don’t like (i.e. persuading the bigoted CEO of a ‘progressive’ company to relinquish leadership) while celebrating other change you do like (because let’s face it, if you complain about the Montgomery bus boycott, they’ll yank your liberal card).
Kohai, you are right. I did neglect to get to my question. When you asked whether you should feel obligated to associate and trade with people, the question is whether they should be obligated to associate and trade with you. Do you agree with free association or not?
Regarding your comments on boycotts though, yes, people make thousands of independent decisions about whether to patronize certain businesses. I typically make decisions based upon whether I like the product being sold. Now, boycotts relating to business practices are fine. The Montgomery boycott is a perfect example, as was the Denny’s “boycott” (I don’t recall if there was ever an organized boycott, or just a lot of bad publicity). People said they did not like the service they were given and decided not to patronize those businesses. With the subject of Amp’s post, it appears people want to boycott the market not because of any business practice, and not because of the quality of the product, but because they do not like the point-of-view of the owner. I believe that motivation stems from a very close-minded attitude. The Dragons of Purity are no longer solely to be found in the ranks of religious extremists.
Mythago:
I have no first-hand recollection of the circumstances, but, as I recall, the Government did not want people to allow people to freely associate with each other so it passed laws restricting free association. Then, the Government decided it did not like the laws it passed restricting the right of free association, so it passed different laws that restrictied the rights of people to associate freely with each other.
Whether you approve of the laws (as they currently stand) or not, the pattern is unmistakeable.
-Jut
What gives you the idea that their objective is persuasion? From what I can see they don’t give a damn about persuading people. It seems to me that their objective is coercion. To use the rhetoric I have seen so often, they want to “other” people with these opinions. They don’t want to persuade them or people who think like them. They want to make it dangerous to express those ideas publicly. They want to bring actual harm to people who hold them, to take away their ability to earn a living or get an education. “Free speech for me but not for thee.” The kind of people who promote boycotts like this are trying to suppress free speech and any ideas that they think are wrong.
As has often been said, at least in the conservative part of the blogosphere, there are a great many people out there to whom 1984 was not a warning, it was an instruction manual.
come on, you’ll never Balkanize the USA into separate camps with THAT attitude. Letting people be wrong without confronting them to the max? Trying to live and let live, maybe teach them to be right?
How unAmerican. ;)
RonF:
Maybe you’re mistaking the target for the exemplar. Possibly, one of their objectives is to persuade people who are watching that advocating to hurt LGB people is a poor business model.
This is the free market at work, no? Or is the problem that the free market isn’t working in the right way?
That darn free market sure does require a lot of fencing, tinkering, pumps and whistles to work right…
Grace
BTW to argue against my own point agreeing with you;
The situation does lend itself to someone opening a competing business that takes the “right” socio-political-economic stance. Boycotts are boring, opening a competing business so people can vote with their money is much more satisfying. That’s the part I miss out on as a social worker. I can’t exactly be the “more politically correct than thou” social worker. I’d have to be the Tea Party mental health professional, and those people don’t go to counseling as a rule.
This coin has two sides.
It’s OK to post on Facebook about the wonderful _____ store owners who deserve our business, right? And it’s OK to encourage everyone to “write to the city and promote the business license” or “write to the manufacturer and promote the establishment of a store,” and so on.
If so, then it should be OK to post about the horrible ____ store owners who don’t deserve our support. And it should be OK to encourage people to speak out against a business, or to ask a manufacturer to drop them.
I can see how both positive and negative comments can be misused; both can be damaging. But I think that positive comments provide a better way for us to recognize the difficulty in restricting this type of speech.
I
closetpuritan,
I can respect that opinion! I’m not sure whether I share it or not.
Basically I was trying to argue against the view that boycotts are in some sense dangerous or unethical or illegitimate. Here’s the quote from JutGory that I was responding to:
I don’t see anything inherently problematic about collective action. I can think of a ton of circumstances where it produces bad effects and a ton of circumstances where it produces good ones. But I don’t see a reason to regard boycotts as particularly suspect or illegitimate. That’s really all I was going for!
I have mixed opinions on the resignation of Eich at Mozilla and the boycott of Moreland Farmers Pantry.
I’ve been chewing over this issue, trying to settle my mind about it. My initial reaction was to label this boycott a mean-spirited waste of time. Reading this thread and talking about it offline, I’ve moderated my position somewhat. It is difficult to nail down a principle that explains why I dislike this boycott and like so many others. Someone I greatly respect made the case that, whatever the merits of this particular campaign, grand cultural change–the kind that establishes a taken-for-granted norm that X type of discrimination is just not okay–requires this kind of community outrage at hold-outs. Still, there are a few things that bug me here.
First, I just don’t like the idea that we should boycott a small business based solely on the owners’ bigoted Facebook posts. Do ignorant social media missives seriously justify trying to prevent someone from opening a business? (If the owners had, e.g., made homophobic remarks to customers, it would be a completely different story.) This gives the whole thing a witch-hunt vibe to me.
Second, it’s not that this is so awful–it’s that I think we can do better. I kinda think our side should take the high road on issues like this (small business owners who privately hold anti-gay views). I don’t mean that we should all shop there. Let’s not shop there. Call it a boycott, whatever. But let’s not make a point of ferreting out people we disagree with, so we can publicly punish them, presumably to send a message to everybody else. Circle the wagons when somebody makes a shocking public remark or actually discriminates against somebody. Don’t create problems where none exist–there are plenty of actual problems. The momentum is our our side, and we didn’t get this far with this type of tactic. If it wasn’t necessary before, it’s definitely not necessary now.
What is there to be gained by targeting low-profile people like this? It seems like its just going to harm, frighten, and possibly radicalize the anti-SSM crowd, while doing nothing for SSM and LGBT equality.
JutGory,
I don’t want to get drawn into a tangent regarding anti-discrimination laws, so I’m going to be brief.
Despite my notorious free-market bias, my reading both of history and current events makes me hesitant to proclaim that we should do without anti-discrimination laws, and leave it all up to the market. I don’t advocate repealing anti-discrimination laws. If I were president and a bill arrived on my desk that would repeal anti-discrimination laws, I wouldn’t sign it.
I also don’t advocate extending anti-discrimination laws to customers. I acknowledge this does result in a world in which some anti-lgbt business owners will be compelled to do business with lgbt people, but lgbt customers will not be compelled to do business with anti-lgbt business owners. I am at peace with this.
I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that. Suppose neo-Nazis ran the tastiest, most reasonably priced restaurant in town. Their vanilla shakes (they only serve vanilla, of course) are the best you’ve ever had, and 50 cents cheaper than their next best competitor. I still wouldn’t eat there because I think neo-Nazis are utterly loathsome. I don’t care how good the food is. Would you eat there?
I have familiarized myself with the arguments in favor of neo-Naziism. I am well aware of what they believe. I think they’re wrong. Do I have a duty to eat there in the name of broad-mindedness?
And while you didn’t address this to me:
This is a deeply embarrassing accounting of events on your part. It’s unworthy of respect.
Kohai:
Deeply embarrassing? Maybe. Unworthy of respect? Possibly. Untrue? No.
The government passed Jim Crow LAWS to prevent prevent free association. Then, they passed Civil Rights Acts (again) to MANDATE association. It reminds me of this blurb from The Simpsons:
We are happy when government laws save us from other government laws. THAT is what is embarrassing.
And, we keep letting them do it. And, when it comes to anti-discrimination laws, proper or not, I see a valid distinction for common carriers and public accomodations. So, even if they are “improper,” I can live with that cognitive dissonance.
(Parenthetically, coming from one of those “ultra-liberal” states, I find federal laws on most things to be generally superfluous, so that may fuel my federalist leanings with respect to the lack of necessity for federal solutions to most problems. Having sued both the governement and private businesses under state and federal law, I have little problem with anti-discrimination laws on that point, but don’t get me started on federal judges; give me the state courts any time. Damn you, Article III and your life-time tenure rule.) :P
By the way, g&w, good point. Food for thought. Referrals are referrals. However, as you may know, a happy client tells 5 people; an unhappy client tells EVERYBODY.
-Jut
Thanks for bringing Barilla to my attention. They (and Hobby Lobby) just won me as a customer.
For me a recent revelation is that lots of things about a functioning society are about normal case norms, but we talk about everything as if it they can only be justified when they can cover every conceivable edge case.
I think that having a strong norm in favor of free speech is good for a strong civilization. It is important because we are often wrong and won’t find out unless challenged. It is important because people feel better when they feel they can talk about things. It is important because we shouldn’t feel we know enough to know what thoughts to suppress at the mere speech level. The fact that there are edge cases about falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater doesn’t change that for me.
This norm helps people with minority views because their views are much more likely to be suppressed than people with majority views.
Having a strong norm against economically discriminating against people with respect to their religion/race/general political beliefs is one of the things which makes having a successful pluralistic society possible because it allows us to all be more prosperous even if we have fairly strong disagreements which in other societies would have caused impoverishing strife. The existence of edge cases where people want to overthrow the pluralistic government (neo-Nazis for example) isn’t an argument against the beneficial norm.
So this kind of boycott works against 2 sets of norms that I find really important for the functioning of pluralistic societies. Since I really think having a functioning pluralistic society is important, I’m not interested in weakening these 2 norms unless the cause is life or society threatening. As a gay man, I’m pretty happy with the direction the gay marriage debate is going, so I don’t think it is close call as to whether or not we should be undermining pluralistic norms in order to advance the gay marriage debate for our side.
Grace, my point of view is that a) Amp is right, this IS a poor way of persuading people, b) the people doing this are intelligent enough to know that, and thus c) their object is not to persuade.
This has nothing to do with a business model. At no point has Mozilla’s business model been to discriminate or advocate against homosexuals. They don’t care who buys their product or how it’s used, and as far as anyone can tell they don’t give a damn who they employ to make it. No, this is all about “othering” an individual they disagree with and bringing as much harm to him as possible in order to force ideas and speech into silence.
RonF:
Except, now we know they DO give a damn who they employ to make it. People who make certain political donations are not welcome there, and, potentially, people who hold views they do not like.
-Jut
Consumers can refuse to do business with a company for any reason or no reason. To pair the refusal with a public denouncement of the personal views of someone associated with the business – the owner or the CEO – smacks of sanctimony. There is no moral high ground in refusing to do business with a food market in a town with an assortment of alternative markets, or in refusing to use a free web browser when there are alternative free browsers. Let’s see how strongly people feel about these deep moral issues by observing what they do when there is some sacrifice involved. In the Mozilla/Eich case, this could involve, for example, refusing to use any product that incorporates JavaScript. Haven’t seen much action there.
But another point that seems to be overlooked – except by gin-and-whiskey above – is that basing consumer decisions on the beliefs of an individual is simplistic. In most businesses, there are a lot of people whose wealth is affected by your buying decisions. What do THEY do with their wealth? They may, collectively, give great support to causes that you love or causes that you abhor. If you want to make consumer decisions in this fashion, you would need to know what collective good or harm is done to your cause by the whole collection of employees. Why isolate the owner, whose opinions and donations might be dwarfed by those of her employees. (Surely this is so in the Eich’s case; he contributed a paltry $1,000.) But this is impractical. Boycott the market because you don’t like the owner’s politics, and you may put a lot of people who think (and vote and donate) just like you out of work. You don’t know, and can’t know.
In the interest of logical consistency, I would argue that consumer decisions should not be made on the basis of what employees (or owners) believe. Consumer decisions should be based on the company’s behavior – not only the kind of products it makes or sells, but also – if you are so inclined – on the company’s policies and practices. If the company treats its employees badly, or fouls the environment, or promotes an abhorrent social policy (as a company), then don’t do business with them.
I’ve been reading this with interest, and I’m not quite sure where I stand on the Mozilla issue. I haven’t been buying Eden products lately, because their CEO’s comments related to his lawsuit about the birth control coverage mandate just pissed me off so much. I probably would be boycotting Hobby Lobby if I had ever shopped there to begin with — there isn’t one near me, so I buy all my crafting stuff at Michael’s anyway. Finding alternatives to EdenSoy was a bit tougher. But in both of those cases, the company itself was suing over an issue where I strongly disagreed with their stance. The CEO personally making a donation is different.
Hell, do you think I worry about the political views of the musicians whose music I buy or listen to? If you judged my political views by the people who make the kind of music I like you would be seriously misled.
I had my wife buy me a Carl Yazstremski Red Sox jersey for Christmas (yeah, I’m old school, like you didn’t already know). Think I care what his political views (or those of John Henry) are?
Although the argument could be made in the latter case that the Red Sox are not a baseball club, they are a cult and therefore that was a case of religious expression.
[ off-topic ]
If you are in the Chicago area Friday night a musician’s collective called Vox3 will be presenting Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor along with works by Joseph Michael Haydn, Bruckner and Schubert. I am not a member but I am singing as a guest in the choral ensemble. Except for the Bruckner motets we will be accompanied by the Lakeview Orchestra. If you like classical music I believe you’ll enjoy this. Hit the link for details.
[ /off-topic ]
People who make certain political donations are not welcome there
Goodness, and I thought it was progressives who were supposed to be prone to drama, exaggeration and overreaction. Is there a shred of evidence that Mozilla is, in fact, screening rank-and-file employees (or even senior managers) by political donations? There is a bit of a difference between ‘the person who leads and sets policy for an entire organization’ and ‘everybody else who works here’, last time I paid attention to corporate structures, but perhaps that changed when I wasn’t looking.
I think it is always okay to decide not to shop at Goebbels’s Gears and Geegaws because you don’t like Goebbels’ politics.
But I don’t think an organized boycott is ever the right response to someone’s beliefs. I do think an organized boycott makes sense if you’re trying to make a change of policy of some sort.
I’d say the same even if the store owner is a Nazi, assuming his Nazism isn’t expressed violently. An organized boycott against someone’s ability to earn a living, in modern capitalism, is a credible attempt to make them homeless and hungry. Doing that to anyone because we don’t like their political opinions is wrong, no matter how noxious those opinions are.
Something can be wrong, or have bad effects, but still be the right thing to do once we apply a cost/benefit analysis. If boycotting the Moreland Farmer’s Pantry was a surefire route to full lgbt equality across the country, for instance, then there’d be a much better argument for the boycott. But since it’s unlikely to have any positive effects – and in fact, will almost certainly do harm to the cause of marriage equality – the case for boycotting MFP can’t even be supported with a cost/benefit analysis.
I am making an “absolute generalization.” But to be clear (not for your sake, I’m sure you understand, but for the sake of other folks who may be reading), the generalization I’m making is not “boycotts are always wrong.” Rather, it’s “boycotts for the purpose of economically punishing people for holding political views we disagree with are always wrong.”
No, I would not eat there.
But I also would not join or organize a boycott against the restaurant, if the purpose of the boycott was nothing more than punishing the restaurant owners for their noxious views.
Amp,
Given that you are willing to distinguish between types of boycotts, why are you (apparently) unwilling to distinguish between types of employees?
The distinction between owner/head of a business and an employee seems greater than the distinction for the reasons between an Amp-approved boycott and an Amp-disapproved one.
After all, this:
An organized boycott against someone’s ability to earn a living, in modern capitalism, is a credible attempt to make them homeless and hungry.
is really more like this:
An organized boycott against a business owner’s ability to earn a living, in modern capitalism, is a credible attempt to make them stop being a business owner and return to being an employee, or to refrain from such statements during the tenure of their business ownership.
What’s weird about this conversation to me, is that while I wouldn’t go to a neonazi business (as a visible jew, I’d be worried for my physical safety) I shop at businesses with anti-semitic ownership all the time. Of course I do! Anti-semitism is widespread enough that it’s hard to avoid.
I don’t feel like this is a particularly bad or harmful thing? And it is strange for me to imagine that anyone could avoid shopping at any business owned or operated by a racist or otherwise bigoted person?
If someone threatens physical violence to me (by openly displaying Nazi flags, say) then sure, I’m not going to go there. But there’s a huge difference between that and whatever personal prejudices someone might have. And the idea that we can avoid any economic interaction with prejudiced people seems naive at best, willfully ignorant at worst.
(Of course, there is also a difference between simply not shopping somewhere and organizing a boycott. Boycotts involve telling other people that, if they spend money at that business / on that product, they are doing wrong.)
yrs–
–Ben