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>Boycotts essentially never work Is this true?
by aqme28 8y ago
>Boycotts essentially never work
Is this true?
- roywiggins 8y agoSome are, but they have to be pretty overwhelmingly organized. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boycotts-history-20180228-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boycotts-history-201802...
- berbec 8y agoNo, this is not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott
- lenticular 8y ago"Essentially" is the operative word here. The Montgomery bus boycott was a small, geographically limited boycott at just the right time for an issue that was incredibly important personally to the boycotters. The boycotters were directly being very negatively affected by the bus segregation, thus they had much more of a personal stake than an upper-middle class individual who feels a pang of guilt after taking an Uber. Go ahead, try to organize a boycott. I'll support it. I guarantee you it won't go anywhere, though.
- tivert 8y agoThe consumer collective-action economic effects of that boycott changed nothing. What did change things was the government action it triggered: > Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 4, 1956, the court ruled in Browder v. Gayle (1956) that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. As the state appealed the decision, the boycott continued. The case moved on to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling, ruling that segregation on public buses and transportation was against the law.
- dnautics 8y agoalso keep in mind that the segregation rules were unpopular with the bus companies themselves (think about the infra you need to enforce segregation), as soon as the court ruled against the local laws, the montgomery bus company was rushing to flip over to desegregated.
- BeetleB 8y ago>Is this true? For the most part. It depends on your perception of a boycott. Very, very few boycotts are adopted by a significant fraction of the customer base. I've participated in plenty of boycotts. Only one of them resulted in a change in behavior. The rest were ignored by both the company and the majority of their customers. For the most part, the value of a boycott is helping me sleep at night - not in actually solving the underlying problems.
- matt4077 8y agoCheck United Airlines stock price. Or Über. Or Exxon. Or Shell. Or Haliburton.
- lenticular 8y agoThose are companies that had enormous PR disasters and had short-term stock losses. It didn't even have anything to do with boycotts.
- matt4077 8y agoNone of them had any significant loss. United stock was up, just two days after the incident. Many people claimed to never do business again with these companies, yet there is no indication that any significant number actually did.
- rhizome 8y agoMany people claimed to never do business again with these companies, yet there is no indication that any significant number actually did. It looks like you're drawing a conclusion based on an absence of evidence of what people aren't doing anymore.